Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

SEO vs PPC: What Helps the Conversion Ratio Better?

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

SEO Vs PPC has been a long standing subject of many debates. Which strategy gives better results? When it comes to web presence, SEO or PPC which is more effective?

Honestly the answers to these questions are highly relative and would depend on many factors and considerations. SEO and PPC both have their pros and cons. SEO strategy is used to rank your website higher in the organic search results of search engines. SEM (PPC) on the other hand involves paid advertising on the search engine results and other web pages.

Let us dig deeper into the subject by first busting a long held myth that PPC is costlier than SEO. No, it isn’t! In fact you may very well need to spend about $5,000 or more over 6 to 8 months, to get your page on top listing for highly competitive key words like weight loss or life insurance. A PPC advertisement however, can easily be seen in the visible spots on related pages. And it is relatively easier to control your budget for the PPC campaign.

A recent survey mentions that the websites receive 8 times more clicks from the organic search results than the clicks from PPC; however the goal achievement and conversion ratio is 1.5 times higher for the traffic coming from a PPC advertisement.

SEO obviously is a long term strategy. It may take about 3 to 6 months to see the actual measurable effects of the SEO campaigns. On the other hand PPC campaigns can give you immediate traffic. The biggest benefit of a PPC campaign is the speed of the expansive reach. It frees you of the headache of trying to figure out the search engine algorithms, and how can reach to the top position in the listing.
Thus if the website is about sale of products for Christmas where you would like to give away discounts and bonuses, the best way to go would be a PPC campaign. Because, in this case, it will be too late till the time SEO starts showing its outcome.
Another upside a PPC has over SEO is that the SEM campaign can be managed and changed in real time. PPC gives you the opportunity to hit the internet market with right advertisement at the right time thus grabbing quick eyeballs. With a PPC campaign it is easier to target large number of key words, whereas optimizing the website landing pages for a higher number of keywords is a highly daunting task. Hence a rightly managed and appropriately monitored PPC campaign will surly increase conversion ratio and gives a better ROI than a SEO.

Tags: PPC, SEM, SEO, SEO Vs PPC
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Why is engaging in social media an absolute necessity?

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

If you read articles about ting strategies, you will be flooded with advice about why you should have a blog and a Digg account and everything else. Today, even my 85-year-old grandfather who does not own a computer asks “What’s a Facebook?” because he read about it the daily newspaper.

The first successful communication on the internet was implemented on 25 December 1990. In 1992 internet access was made available to the common public and its use exploded. Until recently, websites were a great advertising platform. However, with the introducing of the first social networking site in 1995, and its widespread use today, websites have started to become invisible on the internet.

If you come up with a new website on the internet, then you would probably have to spend a lot of your time and resources to bring your website on the first page of the goggle search engine. However, a simpler way to let people know about your website or your company is through social media.

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace.com, Twitter, LinkedIn.com, etc. are very popular and so are great sources of promoting your website and products.

Gone are the days of “have a website and advertise”

Today, it is too costly to be noticed on an internet that is already full. Social media is the only way for new websites to get traction. If Darren Rowse, the guy behind ProBlogger, or Brian Clark, the guy who founded Copyblogger, talks about your website, then it’s visible. If your website comes up on the front page of Digg, then it’s visible. Once your website starts getting incoming links and lots of regular traffic, then you can use traditional SEO practices for staying visible.

Some of the companies that benefited from social media are:

Rubbermaid: A survey conducted by BazaarVoice reported that when the company Rubbermaid added customer reviews to their website, their sales increased and returns of their products decreased.

Fog Creek software: This company has achieved great success with no advertising because its founder has built an amazingly popular blog about writing software.

Nike: This company allowed customers to build and order custom shoes on their website. This move was a great hit with people and generated a lot of profit for Nike.

Will social media survive in the long run? Not sure. But today and for the near future, you can’t do without it. You have to jump in even if you do not fully understand it, or you will go the way of print media.

Tags: Digg, Facebook, google search engine, Internet advertising, Internet marketing, LinkedIn.com, marketing strategy, MySpace.com, Product promotion, SEO, Social marketing, Social media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Business over Web, Digital Advertising, Internet marketing, Product promotion, Search Engines, Trends! | No Comments »

Will Google Come Clear? PPC Advertisers cry foul!

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Google, the highest revenue earner in the on-line world, seems to have put itself in dire straits.

Three European web sites alleged Google of anti-competitive behavior and said that, the Internet search giant was unfairly steering traffic away from them. The three sites: Foundem, a British retail price comparison site; ejustice.fr, a French legal search engine; and Ciao from Bing, a Microsoft-owned shopping site that operates in Europe, alleges the search engine magnate, Google, of deceitful conduct.

The lines sound interesting and surely demand a pondering. Let us try to uncover the story, where lies the problem, why is the giant being probed?

Google AdWords, PPC, Bidding rates and Click Through activity…

All of us are aware of Google AdWords, it is the PPC Advertising service offered by Google, through which it displays click-able links from advertisers, in exchange for a charge per click.

PPC requires the advertiser to bid on key words in order to buy a top position in the search engine results for a particular keyword. Google determines the placement of the ad based on the bidding price and the ad’s click-through activity. The advertiser pays for each click made by a search engine user, through which advertisers’ web page gets a reckoning and is ranked accordingly.

Google AdWords is a powerful advertisement arena, by Google through which it is managing PPC sites. The problem is that, Google is being unfair by promoting its own products on every page it springs out. Google is indexing itself first amongst the PPC sites, whenever any keyword is searched for, here is the catch. Even if the keyword is not related to Google AdWords or Google Maps or some other Google product, Google is systematically favoring its own products, and indexing it foremost on most of the pages delivered by the search engine, irrespective of the keyword.

The service protocol of PPC, assures the advertisers, that their web sites will be delivered to the audience targeting the keywords, and the advertisers have to compete with their adversaries for the ranking through bidding and click through activity.

Let’s view this in affect:

If someone in US wishes to search for ‘SEO Service’, then the resulting page which Google shoots forward is like this:

We all know that “Google.com/AdWords”, is not a SEO Service provider…

What’s fraudulent here…?

No doubt, Google is unfairly steering away the traffic, by ranking the other sites lower to its own site, thus decreasing the click through activity and increasing the bidding rates. Moreover, it is violating its own protocol of delivering the clients’ link to a visitor, appropriate to the keyword being searched, by posing itself as a competitor to most client sites, irrespective of the keyword.

Let’s wait and watch the ramifications…

So now, when the titan is undergoing antitrust scrutiny by U.S. regulators, and is facing the music, let us see how it handles the ramifications of the allegations it has been alleged with.

Tags: Click Through Activity, good SEO, Google, Google AdWords, Google indexing, Internet advertising, Internet marketing, PPC, PPC sites, Product promotion, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines, SEM, SEO
Posted in Business over Web, Digital Advertising, Googling, Internet marketing, Product promotion, Search Engines | No Comments »

Video Marketing Can be Your Next Online Strategy

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

You would rather see & hear – than read about it

Why read, when you can witness? Last year surely has been the year for video marketing. What with more You Tube views than Google’s searches, video marketing is a more lucrative assignment. Finding ways and means to ensure that your video will not be lost in the crowd is what SEO would now be looking for. You do not expect to put together a video and hope it would generate business for you. You sure can add on a welcome video, a virtual tour, or a helpful tutorial video to your website, and use this as a riveting factor to compliment your content and your attractive web design. Expecting your videos to open up vistas all by themselves will require some innovative, creative and fresh approaches, which will now have to be accepted as a new challenge.

How You Make the Most from Your Video Presentation

There are some things to be kept in mind, and, which will come helpful for optimizing your video content to its’ full potential online. You can always be the first, and that definitely amounts to a very good start. Your competitors may just like to follow.

Embed your videos and share – You will definitely benefit by sharing your videos with an embeddable feature. Whether you are having viral videos, trailers, or informative video clips, embedded videos is an advanced feature, and will come useful in time.
Make sure to use the best format – There are a number of video formats available for you to choose from. You can have FLV, MP4, AVI, and others if you want; but, make sure to use the most popular, as this will help you make it easier while editing and viewing.
Make use of all available accurate tracking tools – What use are these videos if you cannot find out how they help you? Moreover, how would you be able to effectively optimize without understanding an angle that needs to improve upon? You would only be able to better your access and progress by measuring your performance and the impact each video can create on your online presence.
Video SEO will come useful – Your video is 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of a search result in comparison to your text pages. Make sure to utilize tags and keywords because these help you make your videos all the more visible.
Consistency eventually pays – If you are planning on integrating plenty of videos onto your website, see that when put together, they are able to give a very reliable image. Never confuse the visitors or promise them a moon that is not there.

Multi-media content will enhance your capacity to make some deep impact. As it is, we have been using images since a long time to assist our textual content make more sense, so also videos can integrate into design and generate a better sense if and when properly applied.

Tags: Google indexing, Internet advertising, Internet marketing, multi-media, Product promotion, Search Engines, SEO, video marketing, video SEO
Posted in Business over Web, CopperBridge Corridor!, Digital Advertising, Googling, Internet marketing, Product promotion, Search Engines, Trends! | No Comments »

Conversion Tips That Guide Your Online Business

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Some basic elements are very essential to the conversion rate of any landing page, and needs to be kept in mind right from the start. Here is a track list that will help you make and maintain a professional landing page in order to optimize conversions.

Seek Professional Help

If you really want to make any difference in your landing page conversions, we would need the help of professional experts. Go for specialists contributing to their dedicated area of expertise in order to maximize your landing page exposure, experience and off course conversions.

Hire an SEM for SEO and PPC.
A social expert for SMM.
An expert web copy writer for web writing.
A proven web page designer for landing page design.
An experienced designer for additional conversion tips & tricks.
A qualified web tester to monitor testing

Choose the Best Possible Content & Design

Check your contents including design from all angles. The copy, size, colors, the placement of buttons, the functionality of your page, headlines must all be effectively managed. Check the copy for length, grammar and formality; images for type, size, color, variations and placement. Visual click heat-maps are great to gain an understanding of paths of interest, and to effectively make changes in layouts and design. Just make sure to give yourself the best possible content and design in order to optimize your own conversion rate.

Compare Pricing Structures

Make it easy for comparison shoppers. Keep abreast with periodical reviews and check pricing on products and services. You need not be the cheapest to sell. You only need to be the most informative, authoritative and should have maintained a good reputation of delivery and performance. Goodwill is an asset no business can do without. Pass on these positive reviews to R&D. Conversion optimization is a combined process, where all units perform equally well.

Keep Mandatory Completion Elements at Minimum

If the conversion page includes a form keep the mandatory completion elements at the minimum. Include as much of auto fill wherever possible and make this as easy as you can. Encourage click to subscribe with enticing content, offers and future discounts. Focus on the core objective should no way be lost.

Target Your Landing Pages

Each target market demographic is distinctly different in many ways. Younger, or older; employed, or unemployed, or retired; attentive or inattentive, busy or bored, and all relevant parameters must be properly evaluated and effectively targeted.

Pre-test Your Landing Page for Being Effective

Usability is all about how fast the essence and functionality of a page are communicated and how quick and effective this is in engaging. Test this on folks and find out. Just give them 6-8 seconds at the most to tell you what they think this page –

is about
if they liked it
if they felt like leaving
what stands out
if they would like to bookmark it.

This will give you a fairly good idea of where exactly you stand.

Learn & Run With Competition

Although online and offline competitors are different, keeping track of what both engage in will come very useful. You would be also wiser to learn from their experiences as well, so that you can save on both, your money and your time. Take their learning’s and make sure to run with them at the same time.

Finish With an Attractive “Add to Cart” button

Color has a deeper impact most often than even the size and shape. Your ‘add to cart’ button has a lot to say than just that. Make sure that the shade of the color, shape and size are not only compatible with your business it should also be elegant and most effectively designed.

You are now perfectly placed. So get going – what are you waiting for. There is no one, no one can stop you now.

Tags: conversion tips, Internet advertising, Internet marketing, landing page, PPC, Product promotion, Search Engine Marketing, SEM, SEO, SMM, Social marketing
Posted in Business over Web, Digital Advertising, Internet marketing, Product promotion, Search Engines | No Comments »

SEO – Ranking for Mobile Search

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Yes Web designers are having a hard time trudging through some serious mobile design and standardizing issues. This easy and accessible mobile web seems to have many roadblocks as the operating levels are of an entirely different quality and standards.
The mobile search engines are also very new, evolving and imperfect. For these very reasons mobile SEO and SEM are also confused, and well, very immature. But for us, this is yet another challenge. We, as SEO enthusiasts still want traffic, and we still want users to find us in search results; and so we just won’t give up, we are born to fight.
Mobile SEO best practices – As of now

On-site mobile SEO
• Using 100% valid XHTML 1.0 code is the best practice as mobile search engines may however have more trouble digesting invalid code.
• It is likely that WML will be phased out in the near future, so play wise and safe. If you validate, the mobile search engines will not have any trouble with you.
• Follow accessibility best practices as they will ensure that your content is accessible to anyone regardless of their platform. This would include mobile users as well as the mobile search engines.
• Follow the traditional on-site SEO best practices, and which by now you know by heart. Major keywords for the title tag, H1’s and body text, keyword rich anchor text for internal links, and allow the link wheels to spin around.
Getting Spidery and Indexed by Mobile Search Engines
If you are wanting, your site to be indexed by the mobile search engines, they must come to know about it first. Make sure to submit your sites to major mobile search engines for some swift recognition. It would be a wise idea to see that each of your pages is having at least one incoming link.
List of mobile search engines
The following search engines are the major players in mobile search at this point of time.
• Google XHTML Mobile Search from Google Mobile
• Yahoo! Mobile
• MSN Mobile Search
• AOL Mobile Search
• Nokia Mobile Search
• Technocratic Mobile
• 4INFO Mobile Search

My sincere suggestion is, do not wait for the “year of the mobile” to arrive. Google has left us with a hint as early as the beginning of this New Year, 2010, when they decided to launch Nexus One. Get onto it and start creating some meaningful and genuine mobile related content. Apart from the adult stuff, we are having today, there is more that we can now do to make mobile SEO more relevant and effective in the days to come.

Tags: Google Caffeine, mobile search engines, mobile seo, SEO, Social marketing, Social media, Spiders, year of the mobile
Posted in Business over Web, Googling, Internet marketing, Product promotion, Search Engines, Trends! | No Comments »

How to Hire a Good SEO

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Every firm or company, small or big is running behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to carve a niche for itself in the Online marketing world which is the most competitive and ever growing world of marketing. SEO services are on a boom and SEO companies are popping out in every nook and corner. Some of these companies even without looking the client’s website promise to bring it on the top of search engine result pages (SERP). Some fall for these preposterous claims, some do not. I would like to present some guidelines for choosing a genuine SEO analyst so that you will be included in the list of people who do not fall to those preposterous claims.

You visit a SEO company and it guarantees you a ranking even before analyzing your website. These SEO analysts are either are just interested in extracting money from you and stuffing it in their pocket or they take SEO too lightly. A SEO strategy is different for every website and the optimization strategy depends and changes according to the nature and theme of website.
Some just fill in the Meta tags with absurd keywords and create spamming. Your website might end up getting banned by Google. Increasing Meta tags list with irrelevant keywords is no SEO technique.
Some SEO people create doorway pages that are held on another server and then they purchase this traffic to shell out more money from you. Make sure the SEO changes you pay for occur on your website only.

Quality of SEO analysts

A good SEO analyst is always aware of the fact that the tactics of the search engine algorithms is ever changing and the same old techniques do not work for every website.
A good SEO will never guarantee results on SERP because anyone who guarantees is sure to be a Charlatan. A good SEO will guarantee that they ill be driving the traffic on your website which will guarantee sales.
They should be able to tell you exactly what they’re doing, and how much the cost is for various parts of the service.

A Few Important Tips

A good SEO firm will try to get itself involved in rebuilding of website if it is done. They believe in avoiding the pitfalls like excessive use of Flash, HTML frames or graphics at the early stage because modifying them later on becomes a nuisance and waste of money.
Make sure you check the references of the SEO Company on your own and check from the owners whether they are driving more traffic and having more sales.
A really good SEO is no joke. By limiting the budget to less than a thousand dollars, you will be indirectly limiting the creative abilities of the SEO analyst. Pay more to get his focus on your site more. Also by finding some one working on much less pay scale is like finding some one who is willing to take your money for doing nothing.
It is east to blabber about SEO techniques by reading from book. But when it comes to actual action, no reading helps as SEO environment is ever changing and dynamic. Do not fall for such blabber and research the work done by the SEO Company for other websites.

Search Places for Good SEO Analysts

Visit the SEO forums. There you will find many companies posing as SEO experts. But the genuine ones will shine out on own.
Search for SEO related articles found on sites such as Clinks, ISEDB, Search Guild, and Search Day
You can trust the ones recommended by your friends. But for this you will have to trust your friend first.

Image Credit: Theseonerd.com

Tags: good SEO, SEO, SEO analysts, SEO comapny
Posted in CopperBridge Corridor!, Googling, Internet marketing, Search Engines | No Comments »

The Why & How of LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Image Credit: http://stompernetimages.com

The number of WebPages on the internet is increasing rapidly on the web which is posing a challenge to the search engine crawler. The prime motto of the search engine crawlers is to index the true original content and help the search engine give its users ideal search results. The search engine optimization process started in the nineties and initially the search engine crawlers failed to distinguish between original and copied content. The scenario has changed over the years with the advent of Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). LSI is a form of artificial intelligence which enhances the search engine’s content analyzing capabilities.

The older search engines failed to distinguish between similar words with different meaning. For example the word Die can be referred in context of a Dice or related to death or clay work.The crawlers also failed to distinguish between words with similar roots like water, watering etc. Singular and plural forms of words like dog and doggies meant the same for old search engines.

Latent Semantic Indexing

The search platforms related with LSI does not just focus on the bunch of keywords. The search engines now days operate on relevance feedback. That is why now days when you search for the keyword tiger woods, you are displayed sites related to golf rather than websites related to tiger conservations and wildlife.

LSI is a concept rather than an algorithm of search engines. The phrase “artificial intelligence “attached to LSI technology echoes its true meaning. LSI is an answer to people who considered themselves smart by writing a meaningless template with rotating synonyms into which any keyword could be inserted innumerable times. LSI analysis is used by Google to detect this kind of spam content where excessive use of irrelevant keywords is used to fool the search engines.

Tags: LSI, Search Engines, SEO
Posted in Internet marketing, Search Engines | No Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

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