Search engine optimization (SEO) is similar to producing a television commercial. That is, it is PREPARATORY work designed so that the website is ready to be marketed, just as the production of the TV commercial involves editing, formatting and fine tuning. Once the site is optimized, it is ready to be shown to the public (and to search engines). Marketing the site is the process of drawing attention to it and continuing to improve the presence in front of the audience, much like the broadcast of the television commercial.
Think of it this way: If you produced a TV commercial and only aired it once, you may get some business from it, but over time, people’s memories fade and no one remembers the commercial. In the same way, submitting your site to search engines (part of the marketing) and creating links from independent sources (organic marketing) should get you some initial results. But if efforts stop there, a few months later, the effect wears off. Just as you would think it silly for a business owner to complain 6 months after no one is responding to their TV commercial (which only aired once six months ago), it is equally unrealistic for a project to be expected. SEO that is marketed once. to deliver results in perpetuity. It just doesn’t work that way.
Like the TV commercial, the preparatory work to get the website up and running is usually a BIG one-time expense (with periodic adjustments as the market changes) due to the time it takes to get the job done … and the time it takes. It takes to do it. Getting the job done right depends on several variables: the market (competition and saturation), the objectives (local, regional, national exposure), the scope of the site (number of pages, amount of content), etc.
Also like a TV commercial, the marketing and promotion of the site takes comparatively less time to implement, but it must be a constant and continuous process to be effective. It’s a shame when a business owner spends the money to optimize their site and then doesn’t do the “rest of the work” in terms of marketing. The initial SEO costs are wasted in such cases.
As with any type of advertising, the business owner must set a budget for search engine marketing (SEM). They may remove snippets from your other marketing methods (brochures, radio spots, yellow pages, newspapers, etc.) to establish your position in search engines. Dollar for dollar, a properly managed SEM campaign, whether organic or pay-per-click, generally produces a better return on investment (ROI) for the business.
SEO is a prerequisite for effective SEM. It is the first part of the SEM process and involves conducting market research, defining and refining keyword phrases to maximize what SEO professionals refer to as “keyword density” and minimize the effects of “keyword dilution” . SEO involves editing links, content, and sometimes the structure of a website to prepare it for marketing. Site SEM promotion can be handled in a number of ways, using several different strategies (both organic and paid marketing) to achieve the same end: getting the site found when someone searches for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. . SEO is commonly known to have a direct impact on organic marketing efforts with SEM, but without the knowledge of many business owners (and even some web developers, the quality of a website’s SEO will often affect the price as well. of pay-per-click marketing). For example, keywords used in pay-per-click campaigns through Google AdWords are assigned a “quality score”, and sites that are well optimized will typically produce higher quality scores than poorly optimized sites. or not optimized. Generally, the lower the price. per click for an optimized keyword.
A key point to remember about search engines is that a company’s “competition” is not necessarily its “sworn business rival” on the street or across town that attracts its customers. In search engine terms, “competition” is any website, link, document, advertisement, etc. that is ranked above the company’s website, or that appears on a page or two of the company’s search engine listing for a given keyword phrase. This is why proper keyword and market research is so important to effective SEO, rather than simply relying on the words and phrases that intuitively come to mind when a business owner thinks on their own. products and services. Using the “hardwood flooring” example, it is possible that articles and businesses on carpentry, arboretums, laminate flooring, and floor polish could be “competition” in search engines.
The problem with any type of marketing is that a business can always spend more money on it. For example, if you approach a billboard company to advertise a business and are asked, “How much does it cost to advertise my business on billboards?” the answer is likely to be: “It depends on how many billboards you want to advertise and where they are located.” A similar answer would be offered in response to someone asking the question, “How much does it cost to advertise in the yellow pages?” The answer: “It depends on the city and the size of the ad you want on the page.” The cost questions assume that there is a fixed cost for advertising, which is far from the truth. Not all markets are created equal and a business could possibly spend an infinite amount of money on advertising. SEM is no different.
At some point in advertising, whether through traditional methods or over the Internet, there comes a point where increasing marginal cost in marketing produces a decreasing return on investment. As an extreme example of this point, let’s say a business achieves number one position in Google’s organic rankings for a particular keyword, “hardwood floors.” No matter how much money is spent promoting the keyword phrase “hardwood floors”, there will be no improvement in the position of that company because it cannot be better than number one. If the “hardwood floors” rank were number three and five on Yahoo! And MSN respectively, then spending more money on organic marketing can get them to number one across the board (no guarantees), but those ad dollars would apply much better to marketing other keyword phrases that are not quite as prominent yet. . In this way, ROI is part of a “best investment” consideration in terms of effective SEM.
Search engines generally look at three criteria to determine a website’s placement in rankings: text characteristics, link characteristics, and traffic characteristics (or popularity). All three included a website’s search engine merit. Website developers generally only have control over the text criteria, that is, the content of the website itself. Going further, SEO / SEM experts “write” the text content on the site and work externally to influence the linking criteria by creating and adjusting relevant content links on the Web that point to the site, such as articles, blogs, and other websites. In other words, SEO and SEM address the text and link components of a website. The traffic component of the site’s search engine merit is largely driven by text and link adjustments. Eventually, if a site is optimized and marketed properly and effectively, the popularity (traffic component) of a website will continue to deliver location results over time and allow the business owner to reduce their marketing budget. organic, or maybe you realign those marketing dollars to focus we have different sets of keyword phrases.
The company’s budget will largely determine how that company’s SEO and SEM strategies are prioritized and implemented, so it is important that the search engine optimization and marketing company has limits. If a business owner doesn’t know how much they want to spend on SEO and SEM, then it’s smart to discuss the options in a consultation and perhaps offer the business owner a “good, better, better” initial proposal style for scope. defined work. Surprisingly, most companies can achieve favorable results on a fairly modest budget if they find a competent SEO and SEM company. In other words, there are many people and companies that “practice” SEO / SEM in the market, but there are comparatively few who master it. Because of this, it is always recommended that the business owner insist on references of proven results from a portfolio of other clients, rather than simply making a decision on price alone.
