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Natural Search Engine Optimization or Pay-Per-Click

Written by: Jeff Casmer

Article Overview: The internet is literally like having the world at ones fingertips. Not only does it provide families a cheap way to stay in touch (e-mail and instant messaging), it allows students to cram for finals and write last minute papers in the middle of the night, long after the library has closed, but the internet is suddenly a way for the smallest business to break into a global market.

Natural Search Engine Optimization or Pay-Per-Click

The internet is literally like having the world at ones fingertips. Not only does it provide families a cheap way to stay in touch (e-mail and instant messaging), it allows students to cram for finals and write last minute papers in the middle of the night, long after the library has closed, but the internet is suddenly a way for the smallest business to break into a global market.

Let's pretend that you are the owner of a small novelty store in a small rural town in the Midwest. Most of your merchandise is handmade trinkets and crafts created by the residents of the small town (on commission so the up front cost of most of your merchandise is minimal). Although business is slow during the winter months during the tourist season you turn a tidy profit. One day as a Chicago tourist purchases a photo of the late afternoon sun glinting off a herd of sleeping cattle she mentions that she wishes you had a website so she could purchase quaint Christmas gifts for her family. As she leaves the story, her wrapped photograph tucked under her arm, you stare at your computer.

The internet could be a cheap way to increase your profit margin. You already have your physical business, a website would simply be an addition. You look at all the pretty knickknacks arranged throughout the store. If you expanded your business to include a website you could sell mid-western trinkets all over the world. It wouldn't take that much time. You have a friend that would design and teach you how to manage a website for free. You could answer questions during the slow times when you're not doing anything anyway. It would be a win-win situation.

In theory you're correct. A website could be a lucrative addition to your business.

It is possible to design website, register a domain name, and submit it to a website. But what happens next. Just like the physical shop the website will not do any business if there isn't any traffic. No one will visit your online store if they don't know about it.

The chances are good that your regular customers will probably check out your website, the ones that made items you have featured will probably tell their friends and families about it, but the chances are good that they won't buy anything, why should they pay for shipping and handling when they can drive a couple of miles and purchase it directly from you. Your tourist customers might buy from your online store but only if they know about it and since you probably waited until the slow season to create your website it will be months before you can tell them.

You could look into natural search engine optimization services or a natural search engine optimization specialist to help with your search engine rankings. You might even want to consider something called pay-per-click.

Pay-per-click is a search engine that bases its rankings on something that is called a bid position. A website owner bids for an elevated position in the ranking when a certain keyword is typed into the search bar. The higher the bid, the higher the ranking.

Businesses that use pay-per-click prefer it to natural search engine optimization services because it's an easy efficient way to improve a sites ranking and increase its traffic. Pay-per-click also lets webmaster maintain control over the search engine campaign.

People who for go pay-per-click to engine natural optimization search say that the cost of pay-per-click is too high.

Newer is not Always Better When it Involves Search Engine Optimization

We live in a world where everybody wants the latest and greatest, somewhere along the way we have come to the conclusion that the newer something is the better. If we are buying a CD it has to be the latest release from the new one hit wonder, we don't care if the song writer couldn't tell melody from harmony or that the singer is incapable of carrying a tune, all that matters is that it's new. Each fall hundreds of people scramble to get to car dealerships, frantic to drive the next years models, barely capable of waiting for them to be unloaded off the truck, it doesn't matter if we are six months behind on car payments on last years model which is in perfect running condition, we're blinded by all the bells and whistles that the new cars have to offer. People will stand in a long line, overnight, in an electrical storm to simply to spend an unhealthy amount of money on the latest electronic gadget just because it is brand new, we don't care that in just a few months it will be a fraction of the cost, we have to have it now.

Even internet service suffers from the right now syndrome. For years we were content with dialup service. Sure it was slow but it was that or nothing. Heck we hardly noticed that it took hours to download a simple, days to upload a couple of pictures, download a video... that was practically unheard off. We didn't know any better. Now that the world has found out about all the new options for internet service we have to have that. It doesn't matter that it is double the monthly cost or we have to default on are student loans in order to purchase the necessary equipment. If it is cordless, faster, and designed with the latest technology we have to have it...right now.

We don't care if the old stuff is made with better materials, last longer, and is cheaper. In our minds old equals junk.

Search engine optimization is one spot where we should force ourselves to shed our weird inhibitions about old stuff. When it comes to search engine optimization, age rules over youth.

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to the search engines. The more attractive a web site appears (search engines are attracted, not to beauty, but to repetitious algorithms) the higher it ranks in the search engines search result. A low ranking could potentially be the kiss of death to an internet based business because studies have shown the internet users seldom look past the second page of hits.

Search engines use web crawlers to determine a websites ranking.

Older websites and the webmasters who manage them have had more time to develop and maintain their algorithms. They are already itemized and ranked by the search engines, in some cases it can take three months for a web crawler to get around to spidering a brand new website that has been submitted to the search engine, old sites are already appearing and gaining customer recognition. If an older site has been around long enough to have earned a loyal customer base, even if a shuffle in the rankings causes the aged web site to be bumped from prime ranking position, loyal customers will still look for it.

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Article Tags: afternoon sun, cattle, chicago tourist, christmas gifts, crafts, e mail, fingertips, global market, herd, instant messaging, knickknacks, late afternoon, midwest, novelty store, photograph, physical business, profit margin, tidy profit, tourist season, trinkets



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What Do You Want To Be Taught? - Hi, My name is Jeff Foster, I will be moderating this new section. I want to get your opinion on topics you would like to discuss & be taught on. I see a great need for small business owners to learn how to perform basic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which would include the basics about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What do you want to be taught on? Jeff
Re: Search Engine Optimization - If you are interested to get more information about Search Engine Optimization you can visit Search Engine Watch site gives you a great way to keep up with what’s going on in the search engine world. This site provides a ton of information about a very wide range of subjects related not only to search engine optimization, but also the flip side of the coin; subjects related to searching online.
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) could be compared to a big popularity contest: A High School Computer Geek and a High School Football Captain who are trying to promote a party. The computer geek tells everyone in school & even hands out 100's of flyers about his party Friday night...what happens? his friends end up showing up and a few new people...even the new people leave right away because it is not what they are looking for. The High School Football Captain ends up just telling a few good buddies, and within hours the entire school not only knows about it, but everyone wants to come, and everyone does come & stay. One defenition of "optimize is "To make as perfect or effective as possibe." How effective are your article marketing campaigns? Could you be distributing content (that is what search engines index) more effectively? In a perfect world, who would you want promoting your website, web pages, and web content? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is determining this perfect & effective way to do this. Jeff
Re: How do I engage seo works to be done for my site? - I read "Search Engine Optimization" for dummies. Gave me a real good foundation on which to build my sites. Really helped a lot.
Re: How to Promote Your Business Online - Apart from using Search Engine Optimization or SEO for promoting websites, I also find Pay per Clicks (PPC) to be a very good way to do. Why? For me it doesn't open only one oppurtunity for you, in fact it opens 2! You can generate your awaited traffic even w/o saying stop, ready and go and gain a maximized profit too.


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