How To Utilize Search Engine Marketing

The intended purpose of this very short article is to enlighten you about some of the possible ideas relating to Utilize Search Engine Marketing in some of the ads and items being sold on the internet market today. Always, consult with your personal mentor or someone whom you trust to advise you. Ok, I am a farmer, and I talk in farmer talk. Doctor to me is a Dr., not my health care professional, and a mentor is my teacher. Smile. ALSO, the statements in this article are my thoughts and/or opinions, based on reading, and personal experience with yeast infection. These are my personal thought and ideas.

There are various ways to go about Internet marketing. One mode of marketing that is very popular is referred to as Search Engine Marketing. With Pop Up Ads and Spam being such a nightmare to most internet surfers, getting people to your website has become increasingly the job of search engines. Search Engines play a huge role in deciding what sites will become popular and which ones will never even be seen, and so Internet Marketers must always work with them at least on some level.

Recent studies have shown that around 80% of first time visitors to a website are likely to have found it through a search engine. This revelation has prompted a surge in the demand for Search Engine Optimization firms, and a rise in the number of companies offering the service to meet the demand. Every site needs to get itself indexed as high as possible with the major search engines.

It is incredibly obvious why Search Engine Marketing is becoming such a huge business. When looking for new information online, Search Engines are the place that people will begin their search. They will search for a term and the Search Engine will return results based on the relevance of that term. The user wants to find the most relevant site to their query and the search engine is the quickest and easiest way of finding it. If they are directed to a site that doesn’t seem to answer their questions at first glance, chances are they will not stick around to dig through a large amount of information to find it. Online, as with all things, first impressions are crucially important.

So the question for webmasters is how to ensure that their website is going to be favored by the search engines. The first step is to ensure that the website is rich in meaningful content for the surfer. Search engines like websites that are full of relevant content that the users will find useful and valuable. After all, relevance is the service that the search engine provides, so it is important to them that they throw up results that provide value to their customers.

Because getting traffic to a website should be a priority of the webmaster, search engine marketing should be taken very seriously. Your work is not done merely because you have created some great web page. In fact this is the point the real work begins. To begin with you need to include relevant meta tags for the search engines to pick up on. Search engines once relied almost exclusively on meta tags, however they do so less now as a result of people stuffing their Meta Tags with keywords in an attempt to hijack traffic to their site. Now that search Engines have gotten smarter this unethical practice is not only less effective, it is often directly penalized.

Search Engine spiders are on the lookout for theme and content which is inline with Meta Tags and Meta Descriptions. However sites such as picture sites, or flash based sites are much harder for search engines to extract content from, so Meta Tags become much more important.

Optimization is the crucial next step in Search Engine Marketing. The ideal situation would be to hire an SEO firm to help you with this aspect of your search engine marketing as it can be very complicated, and the rules can change quickly. If you were planning to update or modify your site, your Search Engine Optimization firm would need to know to ensure you weren’t damaging it’s chances of ranking in Search Engine Rankings. A small change could undo months of careful planning and implementation.

You should start working on Search Engine Marketing as soon as possible and watch as your website reaps the rewards in increased traffic. I have attempted to share with you what I feel are some good items to help treat a sick ad. While it is hoped you have been enlightened by these few words, I am grateful. However, I do not hold nor do I practice as a Guru or claim to know it all. I do claim to have taken concepts from others added them to my personally developed ideas, and sorted out what works. Even, if you do not follow this advice, at least talk to some one whom you trust and knows about what you’re doing.

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An Introduction to the Basics of Search Engine Marketing

There are a lot of search engine agencies who promise overnight results, optimisation of websites and search engine success – but what does it all mean? Further to this, how can a focus on optimising your online marketing for search engines achieve your business objectives and generate revenue for your organisation? Keep reading if you want some straight answers to these questions.

When talking about Search Engine Marketing (SEM) you are referring to two main activities and what is essentially now two main search engines. SEM can be split into two key areas: organic or natural search and paid or pay per click (PPC) advertising.

Organic search involves the ‘normal’ listings in search engines, that is to say the non-paid listings. There are a number of factors that determine the Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP) in the major search engines. These factors can be classified under two main headings, on page optimisation and off page optimisation.

On page optimisation includes factors related to your website or blog itself, examples of this would be:

  • The text (or copy) you use on your website
  • The way your website is constructed in terms of design and information architecture
  • The coding of your website in terms of certain tags and structure
  • The frequency with which your blog or website is updated

Off page optimisation includes factors external to your website, for example:

  • Links to your website or blog from other relevant websites
  • Links to your website or blog from relevant news or article sites

The process of optimising your blog or website for high SERP’s is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – a lot of acronyms already, I know! The process of SEO and achieving success in the rankings for the major search engines can take a number of months and should be viewed as a long-term commitment and strategy. This is especially true where there exists intense competition for certain key words and phrases – more on this later.

Paid or PPC search engine marketing involves bidding for certain key words and phrases that you would like your website or blog to rank highly for, those who bid the most get the top spot. Paid search can be used to good effect to achieve quick results and can be seen as a good tool to leverage in the shorter-term. It is questionable whether this alone, without any attention being paid to natural search, is a good long-term tactic.

In order to get the most out of any Search Engine Marketing campaign or long-term strategy keyword analysis must be undertaken in order to establish the most relevant and productive terms which your target audience will use to search for your products and services. There are a number of methods which are used to undertake such analysis and these range from old fashioned brain storming to more sophisticated use of software.

One school of thought focuses on use of longer search phrases containing a series of words, these are known as Long Tail search terms, for example “golf clubs north Leeds”. Because you are using more targeted phrases there is often an improved chance of gaining high search engine rankings due to improved targeting and reduced competition from the untargeted masses.

When relevant key phrases have been confirmed for use it is then possible to use on and off page optimisation techniques to feature the phrases by talking about “golf clubs north Leeds” on your site, in articles and through other sites.

In terms of major search engines we are now only really referring to two companies – Google and Yahoo/Bing – a recent merger which will see Yahoo retain the front end of their search engine with Microsoft’s Bing (formally Live Search) powering the back end.

Finally, the last important part of the Search Engine Marketing websites is monitoring all of the activity you are undertaking as well as your SERP’s in the Google and Yahoo search engines. There are number of free and paid tools available to help you do this ranging from very simple through to highly sophisticated. Some good free tools can be found at the Google Webmaster and SEOBook websites.

I hope you found this article useful and it has shed some light on the area of Search Engine Marketing.

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Why SEO for Your Ecommerce Website?

Ecommerce sites are usually large sites with numerous web pages. Search engines therefore struggle to track e-commerce sites due to lack of proper SEO. It therefore becomes important to implement effective SEO strategies so as to increase your business exposure and visibility on search engines. No matter how brilliant or incredible your products are, success is subtle unless the ecommerce company is endorsed properly.

In order to get higher rankings for your ecommerce website among the search engines, you have to make use of the right ecommerce SEO methods and strategy. This would not just drive targeted traffic to your site but would also increase conversion rates and improve revenues. Below mentioned are some tips which boost up the ranking of your ecommerce site.

The first thing which needs to be given priority is the content of your site. Make sure that the content is clear, concise and relevant. It should be simple yet informative and innovative. Dearth of fresh, regularly updated content is the major reason for low rankings of these sites.

Make sure that the keywords used by you should underline your product features as well as of your website, so that once the users search matches with your keyword then you can make them land on your site.
Once the user has landed on your site he would be looking for your product and its features; ensure that the user reaches the product in minimum number of clicks. Make sure that the images used should match the products offered by you. Avoid excessive use of images, which might hamper your sites reputation.

The URL should be SEO friendly and should make use of keywords. The title tags should be unique for each page and should make use of the name of the product and an exclusive keyword that describes the product. Since Ecommerce sites are larger sites therefore search engines find it difficult to index all the pages of your site therefore it is necessary to create sitemaps in case your site has more than 500 pages. Sitemaps are helpful in indicating the location as well as the number of pages to search engine crawlers.

The above mentioned tips can be successfully included in your SEO strategies for Ecommerce websites. If you follow the right Ecommerce SEO tips, there is nothing which can stop your ecommerce website from achieving top rankings.

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Ecommerce Website Design – Five Tips For Success

Gone are the days where you need to have a brick and mortar store in order to run a successful retail business, and welcome to the world of ecommerce. The success of taking your retail business online starts with a solid marketing strategy and most of all an ecommerce website design, built for success. Here are five tips for making your ecommerce website design a success.

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #1 – Showcase Your Products

When crafting your ecommerce website design architecture, think about your customers. The moment visitors come to your website they should know what you sell without having to look for much. Highlight some of your products with a simple flash intro. Make your specials stands out. If you offer free shipping or a money back guarantee, this should all be visible at first glance. Focus on strategically positioning your products; better yet list your product categories on the homepage. Ideally you should have a side bar with a list of all your products, as well as a product drop down menu on the main menu bar. Position your products strategically at every chance you get.

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #2 – Focus on Usability

Your new ecommerce website design should make it easy for your customers to get from one product category to the next. Better yet, make sure there is a continue shopping option when a product is purchased and ensure that the option to view shopping cart is available. Also give your customers the option to add or delete items, in order to create a great and user-friendly shopping experience.

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #3 – Increase Your Average Sale Per Visitor by Cross Selling.

Do you have products that complement each other or might be ideal for the customer? Cross sell your other products by suggesting other items in a non-disruptive manner. For example, if you sell skin care products, perhaps if a customer purchased a night-cream, it might be wise to also suggest a cleanser once the customer have added the night-cream to their shopping cart, by using a simple pop-up or automation. A great ecommerce website design should cover all the bases by seizing opportunity to sell your products at every opportunity.

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #4 – Provide an Option to Checkout as a Guest.

I have seen too much ecommerce website design that included only two options – create an account or sign in for the returning customer. People like options; don’t force your customers to create a user-account that stores their information if they don’t want to. It may lead to you losing the sale. Add an option for your customers to check-out as a guest, you can still capture their email information to send offers, order confirmation and a thank you during the checkout so there is no need to force your customers to create an online account.

Ecommerce Website Design Success Tip #5 – Give Your Customers Peace of Mind – Use a Recognizable Secure Sockets Layer or SSL for Website Security.

A great ecommerce website design makes it easy for your website visitor to do business with you. In this day an age where identity theft is so rampant it is important to highlight to your customers that you are taking steps to secure their personal and sensitive information. Add a SSL certificate to your website and publish that it is protected by a credible company such as Verisign or GeoTrust, which are companies that are recognizable by most online shoppers.

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