As the landscape of the internet changes so do online advertising opportunities. Search engine marketing (SEO) is the latest niche in online marketing, and it offers website owners an affordable and highly effective way to get noticed on the internet. SEO techniques speak directly towards improving a website's search engine ranking. With Google controlling over three-quarters of the search engine market share, the competition to grab a spot on Google's first page is fiercely intense.
Most people never even wonder how search engines decide what site appears first in a search, because they are more concerned with the “what” than the “how and why”. Most people using Google are focused on “what” they are looking up rather than “how and why” an entry shows up in the search list. This is one of the reasons that Google is so successful. The whole search process is transparent to the person doing the search.
Even during these troubled economic times activity on the internet is booming. One study shows people spend 10% more time browsing the internet than they do watching TV.
The internet is accessible by over half of the population of the entire world, and almost all of them will search for something and find it using one of the search engines available on the web today. There are over 21 billion sites published on the web, and every site wants to appear front and center. Couple that with the fact that over 80% of the people looking at search results will never look past the first page, and you can see why there is so much competition for a spot on that first page. Showing up first in the search list directly correlates to increased traffic flow to your website, and with that comes the potential for increased sales and new customers.
The method used to manipulate a website's search engine ranking is known as search engine marketing, and it will be a part of any comprehensive online marketing plan.
One of the first things to consider is what criteria search engines use to rank websites, and how they prioritize each site. The nutshell version of the explanation is that Google redesigned the landscape of search engines completely. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the creators of Google, decided to make a search engine with the capability of ranking a website's quality and listing it in that order. Every measure for quality is with the search engine user in mind. Since content quality is hard to measure mechanically, Google defined characteristics of a valuable website, and created its programs to look for these traits.
One way that Google measured quality was how many other sites link to your site. The logic behind this measure is that if other sites are linking to your site, then you must have something worth looking at on your web page. These links are called backlinks, and they are the corner stone of search engine optimisation. Without creating good backlinks to your website, you stand little chance of showing up on the first page of a Google search. Here are some suggestions as to how you can generate backlinks for your website.
Start at Home - Take a look at your website and see what websites you link to. Find quality websites that are relevant to your web page content, and link to them. If you are selling a product you can be smart about this and link to sites that compliment your product rather than compete with it. With over 21 million sites to choose from you will be able to find a good site to link to. Just as you want to have popuar sites link to you, you also want to link to good quality, popular sites.
Directories - Linking to directories is not particularly exciting work, but it will be well worth the time and effort that it takes to get the job done. Getting backlinks from a few good directories can go a long way towards increasing your search ranking.
Forums and Blogs - Join some online forums and blogs that are relevant to your site. Being a regular contributor to a forum or blog will keep fresh links from very active websites pointing to your web page. Always make sure that your contribution has value for anyone who takes the time to read it, because while you are posting to the forum or blog for the backlink opportunity you must remember that you are posting as an expert in your field. If your content proves valuable enough, you may even develop a following of your own.
Opinions - Read blogs, forums and bulletin boards that are related to your website. You will pick up some useful information related to your field, and you can leave a comment giving you another backlink. You can downplay your backlink by making it a smaller font, or posting it well below your comment. Again, this bears repeating, make sure that your comments add value to the forum.
Fan Club - Take a look at who is linking to your website, and then go check who is linking to your competition's website. You may get some good ideas for new places to add some new backlinks to your list. In the Yahoo search box you can use the link command (link:www.pagename.com) to see who is linking to you, and who is linking to your competition.
In the last few years social media sites have taken the internet by storm. Facebook and Myspace along with Flickr and YouTube all offer visitors server space to share information - - - for FREE. Whether the site is more media related like Flickr and YouTube or more social like Myspace or Facebook registration for these sites started with the younger demographic and has now spread all the way to grandparents. These sites are simple to use, fun, and offer a way for friends and family, to stay in touch, anywhere in the world.
Some effective ways to use social media include the following:
Content - Always create quality content. Make it fun, exciting, and keep it fresh to keep your friends coming back to get your updates. If a page goes stagnant, people will stop visiting it, and there will be no benefit to your website.
Bookmark - Allow easy tagging and bookmarking. Most social websites have a bookmark or tagging function that is easy to use and fun for anyone being tagged.
Media - Add photos and videos to your site. Add music to your site. Try to keep an aesthetically pleasing look to your site's page. Do not get too fragmented, and try not to accost your visitors' senses, but do make good use of all of the tools available to you
Blog - Start a blog. Pick a topic you love to talk about and get busy. Most internet users enjoy blogging. Invite comments. Submit your blogs to sites such as technorati.com. By sharing content you may find new sites linking to you.
Network - Make some friends along the way. These networks are, after all, social. Remember when writing or publishing anything, make sure that you would not mind reading it on the front page of the newspaper five years from now. Once you release an article or blog on the internet, it can follow you forever. If you are not sure that you should say it, then don't.
Backlinks are important, and it is imperative that you provide quality content to as many venues as you can. However, always be aware of how the reader will interpret your writing, because even more important than backlinks is your reputation.
In many ways paid advertising is much, more simple to use than organic advertising, but it is more expensive. Pay per click advertising adds an element of budgeting to your online advertising campaign budget. When you look at a Google search list, the sponsored ads on the right hand side of the page are pay per click ads. The owners of the ads do not pay to have their ad show up, but they do pay anytime someone clicks on the ad. Paid advertising gets faster results than organic advertising. Here are considerations to think about before setting up a paid ad.
Budget - Make a realistic budget, and honor it. Do not try to outbid other sponsors for a keyword or phrase
Blend - Using just paid advertising can get very expensive over time, even if you have found the perfect keyword to use with your ad. Use paid ads along with organic ads for better, long term results. Paid ads get results faster, and organic ads keep results happening longer.
Analyze - Always review the results you paid ads are generating and compare that with their cost. Then you can decide how well this method of advertising is working for your website.
Content - Again always make sure that you website is worth visiting before you spend any money to promote it. Google measures your content and factors that into sponsors winning bids.
Pairs - If you place two ads and let them run simultaneously, Google will display the better ad more often. Then you can rework the less successful ad and see if you can make it outperform the successful ad. If you keep repeating this cycle, you will eventually end up with a winning ad.
When you do a Google search the organic ads, the websites that have been optimized and are highly ranked, will show up in the search results. The most relevant site shows up first, and the websites do not pay for these listings. The websites in this list have taken the time to build backlinks, create quality content and ferret out the perfect keyword to get their website in the first page of a Google search.
Here is how your website shows up on the first page of a search.
Keywords - Take the time to choose an appropriate keyword and use it in your title, your domain name, and your meta tags.
Unique Pages - Make every page unique. The search engines build indexes to keep track of your website's pages; so make it simple for the search engine and create unique web pages.
Site Map - Build a site-map and then submit it across the search engines. Google has software that will generate a site map for free, and you can access it by typing in “sitemap”.
Old is Good - Search engines tend to regard older sites as more reliable having stood the test of time. If you are planning to get rid of an old site, don't. Simply redirect it to your new domain name, and you will get the best of both worlds.
Validate - Use sites like, validator.w3.org, to make sure web browsers and search engines show your site correctly. It will also help the search engines properly index your site.
Search engine marketing is a long haul commitment. It does not have to be expensive, but it does take some time and effort. You can build your own plan or hire someone to do it for you. Search website design Brisbane for listings of companies near you. Realize that it is not a one, time solution, but rather it is an ongoing process. It is a process that when implemented correctly can yield incredible results for your website. So get moving. The sooner you start; the sooner you will see results.