Tweet

Search engine Optimisation, will it work for me

Written by: Sefton Oliff

Article Overview: So you want more customers? This if the most common reason people approach Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) companies like Future First. In this article we look at the different options available to website owners and highlight the benefits that each can bring.

Search engine Optimisation, will it work for me

We know that over 60% of all internet users gather information about the product/service they are looking for before they purchase (source: GFK NOP DEC 05), I know this to be only to true myself as a friend of mine gave me an example of exactly how this can work. He was looking for what he referred to as a “rescue club” presumably to help him rescue his golf game. His first step was to go into a well known golf stockist and try out all the different clubs available, once he had found the club that was right for him he left the store without making a purchase and began scouring the internet for his chosen club at the best price. Read more
As it turned out the cheapest option was a US based on-line golf store. He was able to buy the club and arrange for it to be sent by Fed ex to the UK, he estimated that having taking into account shipping costs he saved himself over 55% on the cheapest shop price he could find. Now whilst this particular story may not spell the end of all the UK, s golf stores it is a very good example of how people use the web to save both time & more importantly money.

So how do you make sure that your website appears at the top of the search engines when people are looking for your services/products? Most of the leading search engines offer 2 distinct ways of achieving this, natural (sometimes referred to as organic) & Paid for (sometimes referred to as pay-per-click). Organic listings always appear in the main search results and with most engines appear in the middle of the page, and are selected & ranked by the search engine using a combination varied algorithms, analysis of your website & links to other websites. Paid for listings is exactly what they say and tend to appear wrapped around the organic search listings either to the side or sometimes on top. These listings are written by you & will only appear against specific words that you have paid to have listed.
The benefit of paid for listings is that you only ever pay if someone actually visits your site, money is then deducted from an account that you have already deposited money into. Whilst this is a great business model and has brought unprecedented success for the likes of Google it does have its drawbacks. Firstly you may have to bid quite a high price to be at the top of your paid links if you’re in an industry where your competitors also use paid listings. We know this ourselves, after finding out that it would cost us over £5.00 for the phrase “London SEO Company”. The other and possibly more worrying aspect of pay-per-click advertising is the fact that the equivalent organic listing will get us to as much as 80% more visits than it’s paid for counterpart, a fact that the search engines tend not to push. The main reason for this tends to be that the public have become aware that paid for listing are exactly what they say they are, listings that have been paid for and more often than not are not the best source of or match for there search criteria, the other reason is the high number of smaller search engines that use pay-per-click as a way of driving traffic from the likes of Google & MSN to there own search engine site.

So which is right for your company, organic or pay-per-click? Well the answer may actually be a combination of both, after all whichever method you choose the secret of a successful listing is to be as high up as possible, you also need to ensure that your website contains content that is relevant to the search criteria entered.

Related Articles
  Why optimise your website?
  What is search engine optimisation
  What is Search Engine Optimisation?
  Internet Marketing And Why You Need It
  The Power Of Search Engine Optimisation

Article Tags: pay per click, search engine, search engines, search engines, search engines



Related Forum Posts
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: Is Google Search getting better or worse? - I can definitely see what you are saying GT. However, as affiliate marketers, we might be slightly biased. Search engines are kind of our bread and butter. Just the same, as a search engine user I want to make sure that I have a search engine that is going to give me results that work. Somehow it seems the long-tail keywords I search for are way off now. I understand that keyword density shouldn't be the defining feature of search engines. They want to provide results that are relevant to your search, but keyword density is definitely part of that. If I am searching for a three word term and only two of those words actually show up in any of the pages, I feel annoyed. Not what I was looking for. Google's theories to discourage black hat users are important, but sometimes they end up penalizing sites that just don't have many links, even though they happen to be the ones I am looking for. Unfortunatley, there is no way for Google to know how authoratitive a site if it doesn't have any links on it. Some sites might have exactly the info I am looking for but I won't ever find them just because they didn't know anything about SEO. Wouldn't have happened in the old days, but then again those rankings would have gone to black hat spammers instead. Impossible to know what the right solution is I guess. Search engines work on agorithms and can't really know what is a good result for us or not.
Re: The Future of SEO (Video) - Well it do have. Moving towards to video promotion, yes its future of SEO promotion and it also work in present times. Videos are also getting leads in Search engine rankings.
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
Re: How should i promote a new website? - You could promote your website by increasing traffic. But how do you increase traffic? Some pros uses pay per clicks to get traffic and added revenue. Others would update regularly and post useful tips that are related to what your site is promoting. Others would join blogging networks such as MySpace and even Twitter. On the other hand people use SEO or Search Engine Optimisation. You can also try interacting with sites relevant to yours through commenting appropriately at their posts and even joining discussions. Some would send their sites to directories. If you want you can also Meta tag your keywords. Try offline promotion too. You can use brochures, flyers or even advertise it on newspapers.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Tips to Take Control of Credit Card Debt

ROSI Return on SUNK Investment

The Golden Rule of Communications

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.