The New BING On The Block
While Microsoft’s BING search engine isn’t exactly news, I thought I’d share my initial thoughts concerning it’s appearance on the scene.
Bing has brought a traffic increase to Microsoft. Exciting news for them, but don’t get excited yet! Whether you are in the business of Internet marketing or simply looking into your options for hiring an internet marketing firm, consider the following:
- Making the Switch- before everyone rushes over to BING for their marketing needs, be it Pay Per Click or not, there are a lot of facets to each engine. While Yahoo! has been at bay in the number 2 spot under Google for a long time, there are many campaigns that don’t work on Google and do work on Yahoo! Just because a site is bigger does not make it better, and while jumping on any given bandwagon may seem like a good plan, there is no rush. Should BING continue in its success, it will only further establish the engine, and thus, it will still be there later on. Still, if you’re one of the people that can’t wait to dive into a new channel and truly believes that a new engine is the way to go, there are other things to consider first.
- Duplicate Content- On a Google search, as a primary example, you will find multiple links to the same site. Between all links to the same domain, there will be home page links, interior links, and potentially file links, like .pdf files and the like. BING, however, is a different story. As of recently, the BING algorithm is designed to remove duplicate content, for the purpose of only showing the most relevant page on a given site matching the search query. This may or may not be a good thing for your site. Many sites might have many similar products or services listed on the home page or on interior pages, in which case a direct link to one product might not be optimal. For eCommerce sites, this could improve ROI since, assuming the product or service page is most relevant to the search terms, such a user would be inspired to buy the product or sign up right then and there. For some businesses, however, browsing is all part of the purchase process, so taking users directly to a product page may very well give them the impression that this is the only option they have. However, even under this circumstances, site optimization will play a role in the success of your online marketing efforts.
- Site Optimization – Another thing to consider is the layout and organization of your site. Suppose users land on interior pages but do not find what they are looking for – are they easily able to access the home page, other similar products or services, and category pages from all corners of the site? It’s often difficult to find a perfect balance between enough options and too many options – and a website can become quite cluttered with too many links and poor layout / design, so a smart plan of action is to have a professional website, designed by an experience firm that not only understands design concepts and techniques, but it familiar also with Internet marketing strategies that must be implemented on-site. Whether you BING or not, be sure you or your hired marketing firm understands how the search engine being utilized works, and optimizes the site for such engines to return the best results.
- Content- Thus far, it is rumored that BING weighs on-site content over all. This means that a site featuring picture galleries without ample description, sites lacking company’s information, and sites without rich context may be penalized for it. This doesn’t denote a negative effect on rank – just the absence of a positive one. Be sure there is rich on-site content to accompany all the beautiful pictures of your products, staff, facilities, etc. A site should read well in your language, because this is what search engines look for.
- Complaints - Despite its swift jump to #2, BING has still received many complaints about how the engine ranks sites. For example, with giving equal weight to interior and home pages on a site, it may find a lower-ranking interior page to be more relevant, and therefore return that page lower in search results, where as a search engine like Google, which displays both interior and home pages, factors in the home page rank as well when considering the position of results. Another problem that many might find with BING, although not quite an official outcry from users, is the weight it gives to interior links compared to the weight it gives to external links. In recent years, it’s always been understood that while on-site SEO is important, it should not factor into rank as much as relevance. On BING, however, it seems that proper linking structure within a site will do more for your rank and relevance than it will on Google, which is known for giving much more weight to exterior links for both rank and relevance. This might be a problem, or it might be good for those with well-optimized websites.
- Pay Per Clickon BING – As I mentioned above, BING’s algorithm is quite unique compared to Google and Yahoo, so for anyone planning to experiment with a PPC campaign on BING, approach with caution. I would not recommend ending a PPC campaign on Google or Yahoo just to replace it with one on BING. I’ve always said that exploring the options is a good way to feel things out and find what works for each business, so I would encourage delegating some budget, or even better, increasing a budget to see what BING can actually do for your company – just don’t put all of your eggs into this basket because it’s fresh and new.
All in all, I’m impressed with BING, but I can’t say I’m surprised at all. Microsoft has been around for a long time and they obviously know their way around IT. I’d say that a gradual transition is best, but even better when managed by an experienced Internet marketing firm.
Common Pay Per Click Mistakes
Google Adwords is set up to be easy to use, easy to navigate, and with the option to edit campaigns and settings offline, with their Adwords Editor, Google has made it easy to make bulk changes, while still maintaining the same level of detail that allows an account to function well. However, many newcomers to the concept of Pay-Per-Click make the mistake of thinking that PPC itself is easy.
The most common mistake a PPC beginner can make is misuse of match types. While it may be more likely that their keywords are set to the default broad match type only, a lot of times, users can be too specific with match types on certain keywords. This is due to the user not fully understanding the premise of each match type. Many users simply choose broad match to cover a wider range of searches, but for future optimization, this can cause problems, since broad match keyword data is less precise. Generally speaking, when setting up a new campaign, it is a good idea to test all three match types, unless a very tight budget is the issue.
Another issue that may prove counter-productive later on is the structuring of the campaigns and adgroups. While some may have a tendancy to throw too many keywords into a single adgroup with a non-specific ad, others may be shooting themself in the foot by abusing tools like the keyword grouper and ending up with far too many adgroups, each with only a few keywords contained within. What it comes down to is that no one managing a pay-per-click campaign should cut any corners. You can think of building a PPC campaign like building a house – if you use too much material, chances are you’re using the wrong type, and it will cost you far more to build it than it should; and if you use too little material, well, your structure will be unstable and, chances are, your repair costs will be high. Furthermore, the structure and layout for your ads will either result in a high Click Through Rate with few conversions if the ads contain too much on fluff, and maintain a low CTR if you don’t give users a reason to click your ads (ie. ads that are relavant to their searches). This is another reason why match types can make a big difference.
Another big problem in campaigns created by inexperienced managers is the misuse, or lack, of negative keywords. There is a reason for negative keywords, and it’s rare that a campaign will preform better with no negative keywords in place. The beauty of broad and phrase match types with your “positive” keywords is the ability to possibly show up for a larger variety of searches. The beauty of being able to couple this range with a “filter” of sorts (aka negative keywords) is like paying nothing extra to have a bouncer at the front door of your website. For PPC ads, you only pay the cost-per-click (at least, it is recommend that you pay-per-click, and not by impression), much like a club-goer only needs to pay to get through the door. Negative keywords basically check all search terms and if the phrase for which the user searched does not meet the “dress code”, the bouncer tells them to take a hike, and you don’t have to pay for that click.
As you can see, there is much to learn when it comes to pay-per-click, so it is usually best to leave it to an Internet marketing firm like Reciprocal Consulting.
Search Engine Optimization is Not a Science
When people ask me what I do for a living, the inevitable followup questions will generally lead to long explainations that leave the inquery unsatisfied. Basically, my first response is “Internet Marking”, which leads they that inquire to further do so with a question along the lines of:
“What does that entail?”, to which I respond, “Pay Per Click, Social Media Optimization and SEO.” To this they ask, “What is SEO?” and I tell them “Search Engine Optimization.”
Even to someone who is computer and Internet savvy, when I try to explain the specifics, they will usually just nod and smile, but everything goes right over their head. This isn’t because they aren’t intelligent or able to grasp the concept of quality link building, but more due to the fact that SEO can’t really be taught to someone in a college course or a weekend seminar, let alone within the twenty minutes on average that these conversations will tend to last.
Like many Search Engine Optimizers, I was given direction during the course of my training, and the rest was self-learned. Sure, the advice of learned others will always benifit those that learn, and instruction can provide foundation, but SEO is always changing, because the “rules by which we must play” are always changing. SEO is not so much a science, but more a type of branding.
Just as a brand is an idea communicated to the target market which associates a name, slogan or idea with your company (and hopefully results in leads, conversions and sales), SEO is the branding of search engines. We use creatively implemented tools to leave an impression on bots that crawl the web, and encourage them to tell the rest of the world about our client’s product or service when they search for related terms.
So yes, while the results of Search Engine Optimization are the sum of links pointing to a site, as well as the quality, quantity and variance of those links, the idea is not so simple in practice. To do this job right, an SEO must be an architect of the Web, constructing a functional, yet appealing structure that serves a purpose and leaves an impression on our target audience, via search engines.
To learn more about branding your company name using highly effective SEO practices, please consult an Internet Marketing Firm like Reciprocal Consulting.
Blogs Can Be Your Savior Or Your Demise
I’ve discussed before how a relatively well-ranking blog can destroy your reputation by showing up in searches for your company’s name, but consider the alternative – a network of bloggers that increases your targeted traffic by 300% in one day. I wasn’t so sure this was possible, but I experienced this first-hand.
While comparing an eCommerce or strictly informational site to a personal one may not be the most suitable example, the principles are the same. As far as Social media Optimization and SEO are concerned, quality, varied, and extensive links can build your rank for certain keywords, and your page rank overall. As usual, I have to offer my disclaimer for the use of the term “page rank” as I am not referring to the little green bar that appears in your Google toolbar, or the number assigned by various spy sites. This is the number which you will never really know the value of unless you have a very good friend who works in the right office at Google. Don’t worry about it – Search Engine Marketing is based upon the focus on generating keyword links, not a popularity contest.
However, when it comes to onsite content, and well targetted keywords in the right niche, one post or update can win over an entire blogging community, as was the case for me just a few days ago. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – it is a good idea to setup a blog for your company (or have an Internet marketing firm like Reciprocal Consulting do it for you). This is why…
I decided to embark on a project a little bit different from my usual pixel-based bead art. Don’t laugh, it’s perfectly normal for a 27-year-old man to make real-life pixel art using kid’s craft beads. Moving on, this new project of mine was a musical album, or rather a preview of an album in progress. For 6 or so months now, I’ve been posting to my own personal, self-hosted, WordPress blog. During that time, I’ve done quite a bit of SMO for the domain, and I’ve managed to rank in the top ten for most of my keywords, number one for many of them. Still, I’ve never seen more than a few dozen views in a given day. In fact, just last week, I topped out at 79 visits. I suppose I thought this was decent for a personal blog.
Leave it to a guy who blogs for Wired.com, and in one day I managed to get over 1,800 visits to my site that day. Basically, I posted the links to my free album preview on December 2nd, the day that I got my 79 views, and the next day, this guy saw it, posted about it at Midnight on the 4th, and referred to me 75% of my views that day. But that’s not the end.
For the next few days, I received anywhere between 182 and 437 visits, which climbed to over 3,600 on the fourth day. Apparently, the word was spreading.
The day after that, my servers were overloaded and I didn’t know why. My bandwidth was well under the limit. 20,714 views, in one day…that’s how. I couldn’t even post to my blog, there were so many people visiting – who puts their personal blog on a dedicated server? I didn’t, and I sure didn’t think I had to, either.
The point of all this is that many companies overlook the value of the Social Media as a tool to their advantage. Most of the time, an investment in Internet Marketing can be a calculated effort, which results in relatively expected results – not that there is nothing wrong with this. However, I believe that many businesses could benefit from investing in Social Media. An average campaign for Pay Per Click Optimization for one of our clients will drive a few thousand hits a day to their site, but receiving two weeks worth of targetted traffic in one day (without paying two weeks worth of clicks) can do wonders for your ROI. I wouldn’t by any means recommend giving up the PPC campaign, but using as many channels as possible is the best way to make the most out of marketing on the Internet.
Using Flickr! for SEO Just Got Difficult
I’ve been using Flickr! personally for the past few years in order to share my artwork through groups, individuals, and the handy RSS feed included in the basic Flickr! account membership. Although I am a member on many other Social Media sites aimed towards artists of different sorts, including deviantART, Myspace (music), and ETSY (although more of an eBay for crafts), Flickr! has thus far been the best catalyst for self-promotion of my work.
The beauty of a Flickr! account is that each photograph is basically treated by search engines as a separate web page, the main difference being the extension used. In the spirit of the structure of an search-engine-readable page, each image submitted to Flickr! contains a name and a description (which may contain links), much like a web page contains a header, title and body, which may include links. The reason for this special treatment is to make Flickr! submissions search-able in both image and web searches, as a means to encourage online sharing of photos.
Thus far, I personally have gotten a lot of attention and a bit of publicity by using Flickr! as a sort of gallery for my artwork. Likewise, many businesses have found Flickr! to be an invaluable means for Social media Optimization, or SMO. Unfortunately, as of recently, Flickr! has been cracking down and doing some searching of their own – for strictly business accounts using Flickr! for SEO.
Although only time will tell where the hard-working staff at Flickr! will draw the line between personal and business accounts, here are a few things to consider if you don’t want to find your Flickr! account deleted:
- Interact with the Community. Normally, I would say that it is better not to draw attention to an optimization based account or profile on any of these sites, since it may draw attention to the fact that you are not a personal user – however, in this particular case, it seems to me that a complete lack of interaction (via messages, comments, etc) would be a red flag to the ‘cleaning crew’ and may more likely result in account deletion than sticking out like a sore thumb (as long as that sore thumb appears to look like a natural human kindly interacting with other members).
- Use Links Sparingly. This may seem obvious, but when you split up 80 links between 80 photos, you may not immediately realize how many there are in total. While I personally do not get a lot of traffic to my personal blog through Flickr!, many businesses use it for that purpose. Be conscious of how many links you are throwing to the same URL – you should only place a few links here and there, and make sure the surrounding text is relevant but not ‘selling’ anything.
- Post More Pictures. This does not mean you should post a ton of pointless pictures, but if you were only uploading pictures of products and linking each one to a product page on an eCommerce site, this would draw attention to the ‘misuse’ of the account, and blatant violation of Flickr! user policy. The key is to post pictures of many different things, all somehow relevant, but not all blatant image adverts. The more you mix it up, the more natural and ‘random’ it will appear to both human and bot browsers of your photostream.
These are a few things that I personally will be trying out to avoid getting my account deleted, but I would think that businesses would have to exercise more caution than personal users.
For more information on effective Social Media and Search Engine Optimization services, please consult an Internet Marketing Firm like Reciprocal Consulting.
Trademarking SEO and How Things Have Changed Since Then
If I was to tell you that Jefferson Starship had a lot to do with the origins of SEO, you probably wouldn’t believe me. Well, according to Bob Heyman and Rick Bruner, authors of the book Net Results: Marketing That Works, this is their proof that in 1995, they coined the term “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO, as we say for short.
The main issue for me isn’t when or why they coined the term, the issue is Jason Gambert’s claim to have done so in a 2007 email. First of all, anyone claiming to have coined the term “SEO” anytime after 2000 is obviously out of the loop, since it’s been thrown around for over the past decade, at least. Out of the loop and out of his mind, if you ask me. Gambert has taken this claim to the US Patent and Trademark Office, where he undoubtedly was met with irritation, disappointment and resentment by many who believe otherwise.
Apparently, Gambert has filed this same (or similar) claim multiple times, tweaking the wording each time, often to non-sensical lengths. Something along the lines of “…and hereto, where as within a lack of void, without the necessary means to a necessary means to, aside from…” I imagine. Anyone who has seen a patent claim or document knows what I’m talking about. Essentially, he filed this claim so many times, the USPTO decided to let it through, pending no objections with proof otherwise.
Okay, so let’s just get a whole bunch of people together to slam their hands down on a desk, shout “OBJECTION!” and throw down some emails, web sites, books, newspapers, etc, from 2006 and earlier, the term SEO contained within. Unfortunately, it costs a good deal to object, or to get involved in this mess. While this will not stop many people who are outraged, the principle behind it is rather disheartening. If Gambert is simply attempting to get additional traffic to his website, then his strategy is genius…evil genius. If you disagree with his claims, the best thing you can do is NOT to link to his website in a story, article, blog post etc. If you are curious about this man, his website is www[dot]jasongambert[dot]com.
While the main issue isn’t the why, the fact that Jefferson Starship is involved, makes it mentionable. Long story short - 1995, a marketing firm, a band, a bunch of fan sites, unsatisfactory search results, a lot of keyword stuffing, problem solved…Jefferson Starship.
Obviously, keyword stuffing is no longer effective, and furthermore, considered extremely black hat in today’s iMarketing world. There are many ways to optimize your site for search engines, but the best practice is to find an Internet Marketing Firm with genuine practices, which involves relevant linking, quality links, and a knowledgeable staff – an Internet Marketing Firm Like Reciprocal Consulting is a good place to start. You’ll probably have a lot of questions, so don’t hesitate to ask.
Four Easy and Free Ways to Build Links
Linking is the key to any natural search-oriented campaign. While Pay Per Click increases the visibility of your website through strategic keyword building, natural search is a combination of on page and off page optimization. The main difference between the two, as to how you achieve a desired visibility status, is the importance of your site. A site of lesser importance, as determined by Google’s complex algorithm, can obtain the first position in searches utilizing a PPC campaign. While it is possible for the same site to appear within the top 3 for natural searches, it is less likely, and therefore natural search depends more on page rank for a site’s position. The similarity between the two is the keyword relevance to the search.
While it would be nice for your website to appear number one for every search, this is not practical. Via a PPC campaign, this mis-targeted traffic would cost you thousands, maybe more, as the majority of clicks would not take the user to a site relevant to that for which they searched. It would make no sense for a law firm website to show up in the top spot for a “heavy equipment training” search query. The purpose of search engines is to return relevant results, not just high ranking sites. The rank is factored in only to represent the importance and usability of the site itself, generally determined by relevant links. Here are four steps for building relevant links to your site, for free:
Social Media Optimization - this may not be the most efficient approach, as far as time is concerned, but the use of Social Media can prove very effective for the initial campaign. Simply, it puts your website on the map. The main quality to look for in a Social Media Site is the ability to add direct links with custom anchor text. This is possible through your profile, various groups, or occasionally, through message systems which allow users to contact each other, via their profile pages. It should be note, however, that many SM profile sites utilize no follow links, which will not benefit keyword relevance of links. Much like relevant pages on a website linking to each other, if only for ease-of-use, consider the network of pages linked to each other on a site such as MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog. It is important to exercise self control with such links, as irrelevant links may be read as spam or abuse of the site. Be sure to read the terms of use for such sites, as violation of such terms can result in the deletion of your account.
Forums – actively participating in forum discussions can increase the online visibility of your company greatly. Choosing a username on said forum that represents your company’s name or primary keyword will increase the relevance of posts, and posting within categories related to your business, its name or its purpose, will increase its importance. Much like social media sites, many forums will have no follow links, so use caution. The best way to utilize a forum is to set up your own. This gives you full control over comments, link properties, posts, and categories. Additionally, relevant traffic generally increases on forums as it allows others to participate in discussions and talk about their own interests in relation to your site.
Free Article and PR Sites – articles and press releases are a great way to build relevant links to your site, and its sub domains, as well as increasing your online availability through referred traffic. Additionally, you have full control over the surrounding text, and many free article sites allow you to include multiple links within the content. An article site might also feature a well-written, highly viewed article on the front page, and if nothing else, feature the submission in a category section related to your article or press release, which will have a URL containing very relevant text.
Blogging – much like article sites, setting up a blog is another good way to build links with more relevance and rank behind them. The only difference is, you can also optimize the blog itself, utilizing your social media profiles, and the articles/pr you’ve written. You may also include links to your blog from your site and forum posts. Cross linking relevant content on your blog and your site, as well as all other areas of the web you maintain, can be quite the task, but well worth the effort and time. Additionally, blogging allows for minimal effort in organizing, coding and optimizing content. Since posts are automatically sorted by date, category and tags, this is an easy way to quickly add content with little hassle; plus, adding images makes your blog more vivid, wont clutter the screen as much, and when ALT tags are properly used, will return links to your blog via image searches. Also, if said images are hosted on your site’s domain, this will add to the relevance of the blog to your site and the use of such images within your blog. You may be hosted on a Blog Site if you wish, but it is generally preferable to be self-hosted, as it implies that your site is more important.
These are only the basics of free link building, and as effective as these may be, there is only so much you can achieve with this method – it really depends on your niche. If you are fighting over less common, less desired, or more unique keywords, these tactics may be enough to put your site on the charts, even at the top spot in searches for those keywords. However, more competitive keywords require more variation, dedication, time, and resources.
When it comes down, most businesses don’t have the time or man-power within the company to embark on a campaign of such magnitude. Consider an experienced, well established, Internet Marketing Firm like Reciprocal Consulting to aid you in this endeavor.
Maintaining Social Media Profiles
While Social Media Optimization may take a backseat to Search Engine Optimization, it requires an equal level of persistance to achieve your desired results. Just like SEO, SMO is an ongoing process, one which will not show immediate results. One of the biggest misconceptions concerning both SEO and SMO is that there is a definitive goal in mind. Sure, we aim to raise page ranks, and we certainly work towards getting sites to the top of search results for their niche and corresponsing keywords, but it doesn’t end when those goals are achieved, it must continue to be successful. Here’s why:
- Web crawlers gather a lot of information. This includes times, dates, and other facts about your site that are relevant to your sites statistics, not just inlinks and on-site content.
- Dates apply to rankings. The longer your site goes without new links pointing towards your site, the less relevant your site becomes to the current date and time.
- Rank is measured not just by the volume of links. A bunch of links from a few of the same sites will not do much good, as this points to only a few sites that consider your site relevant. Continually getting links means a greater chance of getting more links from a greater number of different sites.
Now, how does this apply to your Social Media profiles? Optimizing these profiles is the same process as optimizing your site, with one catch: You are optimizing more than one site.
I find that often times, clients of our Internet Marketing Firm are generally less interested in SMO than they are in SEO because it seems like a waste of time and money to them, but consider this: Inlinks from higher ranking sites will do more for your site than inlinks from lower ranking sites, correct? Therefore, properly maintaining and linking to a Social Media profile that links to your page, which raises it’s own page rank is helping your site by raising it’s page rank!
For more information on improving your website rank and importance, or for any other Internet Marketing inqueries, please don’t hesitate to contact one of us from Reciprocal Consulting.
Why Social Media Optimization?
There are many ways to optimize your website through SEO and PPC, but even if your website is showing up at the top of search results, there are at least nine more ranking spots that could be pointing to you. So why bother joining the world of Social Media Optimization when you have the number one spot in search results?
- An added online presence through SMO says more about your dedication to the internet community, which in turn shows that you care more about reaching your customers.
- Depending on which SMO sites you utilize, you can reach potential customers outside of direct search results. If someone is searching Google for your niche they will be sure to find you. However, if they belong to a forum, online community or message board dedicated to that niche, they may not bother searching Google and, furthermore, anyone who finds you on those sites is guaranteed to show interest in your business and will subsequently be more likely to become a customer.
- When coupled with SEO, SMO can push your profiles, posts and contributions to various SMO communities to search results beneath your website. This is an additional protection that falls under Reputation Management, but it is just one way to protect your name.
- Having a presence on multiple SMO sites can generate more links to your website, which adds a layer of security to your top spot on searches.
Basically, Social Media Optimization is an extension of SEO that reaches a large number of more accurately targeted potential customers.
There are many things to consider before setting up an SMO campaign. Everything from which sites you utilize to what your avatar on your various profiles will be, these things all have an impact on your image. Also, choosing keywords wisely can become the difference between an excellent campaign and an ineffective one.
If you’d like to set up a Social Media Optimization campaign for your business, Reciprocal Consulting can help.
SEO Misconceptions: What Impostors Say
There is only one guarantee an Internet Marketing Firm can make when it comes to Search Engine Optimization–you are not the only one aiming for those top spots. Any other guarantee you receive is more than likely the empty promise of an SEO Impostor. More specifically, these will probably be the words of someone who will take your money and disappear…
As a group of professionals with varied levels of experience and knowledge in the field, the team at Reciprocal Consulting can all agree on one policy when it comes to our relationships with our clients–honesty. From square one of a given SEO campaign, we aim to communicate our capabilities, our goals and our plan, all within the scope of reason. If we can’t make your website number one on natural search results, we wont tell you that we can, because that is not how a strong client-relationship is built–that’s not how Reciprocal Consulting became a reputable Internet Marketing Firm.
How does one go about finding the right firm for their SEO needs? Simply, by avoiding all the wrong ones. Here are a few warning signs to look out for:
One-Time Payment
This is the first and foremost sign of a clear fraud. An effective SEO campaign will require a constant effort and source of income. While this does not necessarily entail a large budget, it will require consistent communication between the firm and the client. Think about it; no marketing firm can predict exactly how much a campaign will cost from the beginning. This is a clear scam where the so-called firm will accept your one-time payment and vanish.
Guaranteed Number One In Results
While a guarantee that cannot be fulfilled may not necessarily be a scam, it certainly is not the sign of a well-informed or well-grounded internet marketing firm. Anyone who has so much as attempted to optimize a website for natural searches will tell you that a certain “spot” on the results cannot be guaranteed and the reason why is simple: there is no one secret formula. Each campaign has to be tailored to the client to fit their specific budget and their goals. Additionally, depending on the client’s specific niche and the competition for the keywords associated with that niche, it may take weeks, months, and even years before the client’s website shows up on the search results at all.
Increase Your Traffic Exponentially
Believe it or not, this promise could be true–which is exactly why you may not want it!
All traffic has one pro and one con. The advantage is that each visit is one more person who sees your site; the disadvantage is that each visit to your site is one more visit you are paying for! Let’s not forget that bandwidth is not free, so the key here is to make each visit count. This is the difference between Targeted Traffic and Spammy Traffic. The last thing you need is a large number of people coming to your site with no interest in buying your product, no desire to sign up for your newsletter and no need of your service. The idea behind increasing traffic is to attract relevant page views. SEO Fakes can indeed increase your traffic but chances are, the majority of these page views will not convert to potential customers and by the time potential customers “stumble” upon your website, your bandwidth has been exceeded.
They key to a successful SEO campaign is not an industry secret, it is purely based on relevance. The more relevant your keywords are to your niche, the more likely it will be potential clients who follow links to your site. Furthermore, search results are based on the relevance of each search term to your site.
Simply put, just because Nintendo Wii was the number one search on Ebay yesterday does not mean that linking WordPress blogs about the product to your website will increase your sales (unless, of course, you are an authorized Wii seller).
Market Your Business on the Internet
For years, traditional media advertisements dominated the scene. Television commercials, product placement, billboards, newspapers and magazines are just a few examples of means to tell the world about your business. No one can deny that things have changed drastically since the internet was born, so it’s no surprise that our world is so ingrained with the tendencies which developed with expansion of the World Wide Web.
Ten years ago, many companies did not see the purpose of establishing an internet marketing campaign. From their perspective, the internet was not inhabited by their largest target market, much less did these businesses expect it to become the social network it is today. Having been charged with an exponential growth, the internet of now and the future is and will likely always be the easiest way to reach people all over the world.
The most important part of setting up a marketing campaign on the internet is having the knowledge and experience to do so. Any Joe Schmo can get an Email address or sign up for a Myspace account, but based purely on the sheer volume of content on the web today, it will be near impossible just to get seen, let alone have any impact on your target audience. The fact is, the internet is a complex network which requires up-to-the-minute, tested, and proven methods to utilize its vast resources. Knowing which tools to use and when can be the difference between a successful campaign and a waste of time and money.
Another noteworthy fact to mention is the amount of time and effort that will be poured into an effective campaign. The path to making your mark is a climb to the top, which is where you want the name of your business to be on search results and on important web pages. Due to time restrictions and financial budgets, many companies will let an outside firm, like Reciprocal Consulting, handle their internet marketing efforts.