SEO Marketing

Monday, August 31, 2009

SEO Can Make Your Business Thrive

Whatever type of small business you run, you know that old marketing and advertising methods just aren't as effective as they used to be. With your marketing budget tight, spending up to $5000 per month for a half-page Yellow Pages ad makes less and less sense. Expensive newspaper display ads also reach fewer potential customers every year. Costly internet "inDEXes" and "Directories" just don't deliver the goods.

Today, your website is the key to informing current customers and attracting new ones. But, can potential customers actually find your carefully-designed website? All too often, they can't. Solving that problem is what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) does.

Think about how you look for a business to serve your needs. If you're like 71% of internet users, you head for Google and search. If you don't find what you need on the first page of Google results, you modify your search query until what you're looking for shows up at the top of the results page. Your customers and potential customers are doing the same thing.

Search Engine Optimization is a specialized set of techniques that customizes your website to show up at the top of Google and other search engine search results. Fine-tuned to your type of business, location, and using research into how potential customers use search engines, an SEO optimized website leads searchers to your website by getting top spots on search results pages.

SEO for Maximal Exposure

Once upon a time, physical location was the prime consideration for small businesses. Today, the prime consideration is virtual location in search engine results. Where your business's website shows up when web-users use the most-likely search phrases is a make-or-break factor in your visibility. Unless your site pops up at or near the top of the first page of search results, you simply won't be noticed. If a competitor shows up in that location, that business gets the click-through.

An effective SEO strategy for your website helps give your website top billing in search results whenever potential customers use common search terms. When it comes to getting people to your web site, quality SEO isn't just a good idea … it's a must!

SEO Is NOT an Amateur's Game

While Search Engine Optimization sounds simple, it's not a job for amateurs or fly-by-night SEO firms. The internet is littered with SEO scams. Some guarantee your website top search results cheaply, then use search phrases that nobody would ever type into a search engine to accomplish that. Some unethical SEO firms, use tricky techniques that were effective years ago but that have been screened out by Google and other search engines. You pay plenty, but get no results. Worse, Google may even block your website from all search results if these spam techniques are used for your website.

Some small business owners believe they can implement SEO on their own. That almost never works. Implementing effective SEO is a specialized skill. The same thing applies to letting a web designer try SEO. Web designers are excellent at creating effective and attractive web sites, but most know little about SEO or use outdated and ineffective techniques.

Finding an SEO Consultant in Minneapolis St Paul

You need careful, expert planning for an SEO transformation of your web site. A reputable SEO consulting firm will research keywords and search terms that will actually be used by your potential customers and will implement those into your web site and other internet activities to drive your web site to the top of search results. You'll get results, not just promises.

Your business is in the Minneapolis St Paul. Try a Google search for "Minneapolis SEO" or "SEO MN" An effective SEO service company for the Minneapolis St Paul, Minnesota should be able to position its own web site at the top of results for that search. If they can't, how can they help you with your own SEO needs?

Call us today at (612) 991-5678 and let us provide a Free SEO Analysis of your company's web site. We can help your site get the same kind of results we get for our own business.

Understanding SEO

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Over the past decade, business owners have learned that their website is the prime mover in driving new and continuing customers to their business. Costly advertising in Yellow Pages, and newspapers has taken a solid back seat to effective search engine marketing. With increasing competition on the internet, making your web site the go-to site for your type of business has never been as important to success.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a term you've heard over and over again. Understanding what SEO is and how it helps your business should be a critical concern for you. Myths and outdated information about SEO are stumbling blocks to making SEO work.

Search Engine Optimization IS All About The Search

Search Engine Optimization simply means using a series of techniques to make your website appear at or near the top of the first page of search results. Google is the primary search engine today, with a whopping 71% share of internet searches, and SEO focuses on putting a website at the top of Google Searches. If SEO works in Google, it also works in other search engines.

When internet users go to Google, they type in words that describe what they're looking for. These keywords and phrases affect the results they see. Often, a search doesn't lead to the desired results, so users alter the search until they find what they want. For example, searchers looking for SEO services in Minneapolis might type "SEO company" into Google. The result page will return generic sites from SEO companies around the world. So, they add other words to their search, like location, and get closer to what they want. Eventually they type in something like "Minneapolis SEO company" and get a list of businesses in their own area.

Typically, a searcher then clicks on the first results that fit his needs. If your website isn't one of the top sites on the search, your competitor's site will get the click-through and probably the searcher's business.

SEO History

Search Engine Optimization came to the internet marketing arena with the beginning of internet search engines. About 10 years ago, it was easy to get your website high on search engine results. There were few competing websites, so simple strategies worked. Today, with over a billion websites, getting your website at the top of search results is a daunting task.

As search engines grew more sophisticated, early techniques for optimizing search engine results not only lost effectiveness, but were screened out when search engines like Google implemented sophisticated algorithms to rank websites. Keyword stuffing, keywords in invisible text colors, phony link engines, and other techniques no longer work. In fact, Google often bans sites that use these techniques from appearing in search results.

Getting your site to appear at the top of common search engine queries is a sophisticated scientifically based process. It involves research into query psychology, analysis of competing websites, keyword placement, and more.

SEO Works Only When Managed by Experts

Search Engine Optimization can get your Minneapolis St Paul business at the top of search engine results, but only when implemented by experienced SEO engineers. It's an ongoing process, requiring continuing monitoring and fine-tuning to keep your site in front of the eyes of internet searchers.

Not all SEO firms are created equal. Some still use outdated or bogus techniques that no longer work and can actually get your site banned by search engines. Others make promises, but don't deliver. Using such a firm is simply wasting money. You need an SEO firm with integrity, experience, and up-to-date knowledge of effective SEO strategies.

The highly qualified expert SEO specialists at Site Revamp will work with you to optimize your company's website so it appears at the top of Google searches and will work on a continuing basis to keep it there. Call us today for a Free SEO Analysis.