Check your website's Alexa Web Rank without the toolbar. Alexa Rank Checker also displays your Incoming Links and Reach Rank.
http://www.searchbliss.com/rank.asp
Saturday, April 18, 2009
New SEO Tools : Keyword Density Analyzer !
Keyword density is important since search engines use this information to determine the theme of your website, the perfect keyword density will help archive higher search engine positions.
The Keyword Density Analyzer tool is useful for helping webmasters achieve optimum keyword distribution.
The Keyword Density Analyzer tool is useful for helping webmasters achieve optimum keyword distribution.
Interview with Link Building Expert Bob Gladstein of Raise My Rank Services
The following interview was conducted in 2004 by Julia Hyde of Persuasions Copywriting.
Julia: Welcome Bob. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions about link building for Marketing Works! subscribers. I'm going to jump right in ask you why Web sites need links?
Bob: There are a number of reasons to have links pointing to your site. But let's start with the reason they were created in the first place. The original purpose of the Internet was to enable the sharing of information. For example, if a scholarly paper existed on a server at the University of California, and a professor at Oxford wanted to read it, the Internet made that instantly possible. Now, if the Oxford professor had a paper that referenced information from the UC paper, they could link directly to that other document rather than just quoting from it. So a hyperlink was intended as a way of connecting data, ideas, and references together. It's like saying, "if you'd like further information on this topic, here's a place to find it." When the Google search engine was created, its developers took this into account, and drew the conclusion that a link was an indication that the page being linked to was relevant to some particular subject-matter.
So that's a rather long introduction to a short answer to your question. Web sites need links because they send traffic that's already targeted to their subject matter to other sites, and because they help the search engines determine both their theme and what the web as a community deems their importance to be. Basically (although not absolutely), the more links that point to a page, the more relevant that page is determined to be. In addition, links are now considered the most reliable way (apart from paying) to get a site into the search engines in the first place. While both Google and Yahoo allow you to submit a site to their index, it's clear that the best way to get the search engines to pay attention to your site is to get a page that their spiders already know about to link to yours. The spiders then follow that link to your site, and add it to their index.
Thanks, Bob. But there are different types of links aren't there? Can you explain differences?
As we discussed in the previous question, there are text links from other sites. Some of these are reciprocal (that is, they link to you and you link back to them) and others are one-way (the owner of the other site decides, for whatever reason, to link to your site and doesn't expect you to link back).There are also image links: banners, buttons, etc. These have the advantage of standing out visually from the rest of the page, but many people have become immune to the standard banner ad and just ignore them, because it's assumed they're just advertisements, and as such, not necessarily relevant to the page on which they appear.
Then there are directory listings, where a link to your site appears on a page containing links to numerous other sites in what the directory editor has determined to be your particular niche. An important thing to consider regarding getting a link is the code behind it. If your primary concern is to send traffic to your site, this isn't important. In that case, what you need to think about is whether the link is going to send the right people to you. But if you want the link to be recognized by the search engines and to contribute to your ranking in searches, you need the link to be in simple HTML, without JavaScript or other code that will hide the link from search engine spiders.
There are also links that won't help you at all, or will put you in danger of losing your position on the search engines. Guestbook spam, the practice of going to a site's guest book area and posting a message like "Nice site. Come visit mine, at..." will do you no good. The search engines know that such links carry no value, and just ignore them. The same is true for free-for-all links pages, on which you can immediately add a link to any site, without any editorial oversight.
Link farms are a far more dangerous subject. These are networks of sites that are heavily cross-linked and offer to link to you as long as you link back into the network, or host a page on your site that serves as a directory of sites that the link farm has linked to. The idea here is to abuse the power search engines give to links by exponentially increasing the number of links to your site, without regard for theme or value. You link into the farm, and you have hundreds, perhaps thousands of links pointing back to you. But the links are only there to increase link popularity. The sites on which the links reside are not intended to actually be viewed by people; they're just intended to give search engine spiders the mistaken impression that your site is extraordinarily popular.
So, what's the best way to get legitimate and relevant sites to link to yours?
Before you can get a site to link to yours, you first have to find it. You need to do research on the subject-matter of your site by searching on the keywords you hope people will use to find it. The results of those searches will give you a list of sites that are already performing well for those keywords. You should then study those sites, so that you can write to the webmaster and request a link in such a way that demonstrates that you understand the purpose of their site. And give reasons as to why you think their audience will find your site of interest. You can buy links from sites as well, sometimes on a single page, and sometimes all across the site. These are just like any other form of advertising. So before you part with your money you need to determine if they're worth the purchase price by deciding if they'll send you enough of the right traffic. That's why sites that offer the opportunity to buy links will make claims about how much traffic they get and how their audience is made up of "decision makers."
Finally, there are directories, which normally require you to drill down to find the most relevant category for your listing. You can then (depending on the directory) either contact them with your information, or fill out a form on the directory itself and request a listing.
What would you say to Web site owners who are reluctant to use links because they think it will take people away from their site?
For one thing, a Web site without any off-site links is a dead end, and there is some evidence to suggest that search engines view sites that don't link out as being less valuable.
Unless you're willing to pay, you may have a hard time convincing people to link to you if you're not planning on linking back to them. But it's still possible, especially if you've got content that's so good people will want to link to you anyway, but it's definitely harder to get one-way links than reciprocal ones. I'm not suggesting that people link directly to their competitors. The idea is to link to sites that complement the content that you're providing. By doing so, you're contributing to the impression that your site is an authority on your theme: not only do you have great information, but you have links to other sources of information. That's another reason for people to come back to your site more often. And if you're still worried about sending people away from your site and never seeing them again, you can set your off-site links to open in a new window, by adding target="_blank" to the code for the link. If you do this, however, it's a good idea for usability purposes to let people know that the link will open in a new window. Otherwise, people who have their browser windows maximized may not realize what's happened, and should they try to get back to your site by hitting their back button they're likely to be confused when it fails to take them anywhere.
We often hear the term "Anchor text". Can your explain what this means and why it's important?
Anchor text is the part of a text link that's visible on the page. For example, the code for a normal text link looks like this:
Search Engine Marketing and Copywriting Services
On a Web page, that would look like this: Search Engine Marketing and Copywriting Services. "Search Engine Marketing and Copywriting Services" is the anchor text. What's important about it is that it tells both the user and the search engine spider what the page the link points to is about. In a search engine optimization project, getting links to your site that use your keywords in the anchor text helps to get your page to rank higher for those keywords. That's why it's important to have something other than "click here" as anchor text.The power of anchor text can be seen by the example of the practice of "Googlebombing," in which numerous sites will link to a particular page using the same anchor text. If enough sites do it, Google will rank that page at the top of its listings for searches on that text. George W. Bush's biography page on the site of the White House is still number one in Google for the query "miserable failure" about half a year after that particular Googlebomb was created. Whether or not you personally agree that those words do a good job of describing Mr. Bush, Google accepts what it sees as the opinion of the general online community. If enough pages tell Google that miserable failure = George W. Bush, then as far as Google is concerned, it must be true.
Another thing we hear a lot about is Pagerank™ — a tool webmasters often use to determine whether a site is worth linking to or not. What does this mean?
PageRank (not to be confused with "page rank") is a part of Google's algorithm for ranking pages. There are numerous theories as to how it's calculated, but only Google knows for certain. In any case, that's not important to this discussion. What matters is that PageRank is a measure of the value of a page based on the links pointing to it, the value of the pages on which those links reside, and the number of other links that are on those pages. It's strictly numerical, and has absolutely nothing to do with relevance or value to the reader. In other words, if I have a page about Shakespeare, and I link to two pages, one about Shakespeare, and the other about the care and feeding of parakeets, the same amount of PageRank will be passed to both of those pages. The fact that one of those pages is about the same subject as my page does not enter into the calculation. You can see an estimation of the PageRank of a given page if you have the Google toolbar installed. But it's important to keep in mind that PageRank is not everything, nor is it the most important thing. It's one of many factors Google takes into account when it ranks pages for queries, and it's not at all uncommon to see that a site that ranks on the top of a SERP (search engine results page) has a lower PageRank than the pages below it on the SERP.
One of the reasons people believe that PageRank is important is that if you do a backlink check in Google by typing "link:www.site.com" in the search box, youll generally (but not absolutely) only see pages that link to the URL in question and have a PageRank of 4/10 or higher. People have taken this to mean that a link from a page with a lower PR doesn't count, and that simply isn't true. It's true that, all other things being equal, the higher the PR of a page linking to yours, the more PR it's going to pass to your page, but as I said, PR is just one aspect of Google's algorithm, and every link apart from the troublesome ones we spoke of earlier has some value.
It's also worth keeping in mind that a page that shows a PR of 2/10 in the toolbar today may have a 5/10 or 6/10 a few months from now. When I'm looking for sites from which I may wish to request links, the only time what I see in the toolbar matters to me is when I see that it has no PageRank at all. Assuming the site isn't new, that can sometimes be an indication that the site has done something which caused Google to demote it. That is, it may be what Google refers to as a "bad neighborhood," and as such, you should be extra careful in checking it out before you agree to link back to it.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with my subscribers, Bob! I hope you all will check out Bob's site at: www.raisemyrank.com for more information about his company.
Julia: Welcome Bob. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions about link building for Marketing Works! subscribers. I'm going to jump right in ask you why Web sites need links?
Bob: There are a number of reasons to have links pointing to your site. But let's start with the reason they were created in the first place. The original purpose of the Internet was to enable the sharing of information. For example, if a scholarly paper existed on a server at the University of California, and a professor at Oxford wanted to read it, the Internet made that instantly possible. Now, if the Oxford professor had a paper that referenced information from the UC paper, they could link directly to that other document rather than just quoting from it. So a hyperlink was intended as a way of connecting data, ideas, and references together. It's like saying, "if you'd like further information on this topic, here's a place to find it." When the Google search engine was created, its developers took this into account, and drew the conclusion that a link was an indication that the page being linked to was relevant to some particular subject-matter.
So that's a rather long introduction to a short answer to your question. Web sites need links because they send traffic that's already targeted to their subject matter to other sites, and because they help the search engines determine both their theme and what the web as a community deems their importance to be. Basically (although not absolutely), the more links that point to a page, the more relevant that page is determined to be. In addition, links are now considered the most reliable way (apart from paying) to get a site into the search engines in the first place. While both Google and Yahoo allow you to submit a site to their index, it's clear that the best way to get the search engines to pay attention to your site is to get a page that their spiders already know about to link to yours. The spiders then follow that link to your site, and add it to their index.
Thanks, Bob. But there are different types of links aren't there? Can you explain differences?
As we discussed in the previous question, there are text links from other sites. Some of these are reciprocal (that is, they link to you and you link back to them) and others are one-way (the owner of the other site decides, for whatever reason, to link to your site and doesn't expect you to link back).There are also image links: banners, buttons, etc. These have the advantage of standing out visually from the rest of the page, but many people have become immune to the standard banner ad and just ignore them, because it's assumed they're just advertisements, and as such, not necessarily relevant to the page on which they appear.
Then there are directory listings, where a link to your site appears on a page containing links to numerous other sites in what the directory editor has determined to be your particular niche. An important thing to consider regarding getting a link is the code behind it. If your primary concern is to send traffic to your site, this isn't important. In that case, what you need to think about is whether the link is going to send the right people to you. But if you want the link to be recognized by the search engines and to contribute to your ranking in searches, you need the link to be in simple HTML, without JavaScript or other code that will hide the link from search engine spiders.
There are also links that won't help you at all, or will put you in danger of losing your position on the search engines. Guestbook spam, the practice of going to a site's guest book area and posting a message like "Nice site. Come visit mine, at..." will do you no good. The search engines know that such links carry no value, and just ignore them. The same is true for free-for-all links pages, on which you can immediately add a link to any site, without any editorial oversight.
Link farms are a far more dangerous subject. These are networks of sites that are heavily cross-linked and offer to link to you as long as you link back into the network, or host a page on your site that serves as a directory of sites that the link farm has linked to. The idea here is to abuse the power search engines give to links by exponentially increasing the number of links to your site, without regard for theme or value. You link into the farm, and you have hundreds, perhaps thousands of links pointing back to you. But the links are only there to increase link popularity. The sites on which the links reside are not intended to actually be viewed by people; they're just intended to give search engine spiders the mistaken impression that your site is extraordinarily popular.
So, what's the best way to get legitimate and relevant sites to link to yours?
Before you can get a site to link to yours, you first have to find it. You need to do research on the subject-matter of your site by searching on the keywords you hope people will use to find it. The results of those searches will give you a list of sites that are already performing well for those keywords. You should then study those sites, so that you can write to the webmaster and request a link in such a way that demonstrates that you understand the purpose of their site. And give reasons as to why you think their audience will find your site of interest. You can buy links from sites as well, sometimes on a single page, and sometimes all across the site. These are just like any other form of advertising. So before you part with your money you need to determine if they're worth the purchase price by deciding if they'll send you enough of the right traffic. That's why sites that offer the opportunity to buy links will make claims about how much traffic they get and how their audience is made up of "decision makers."
Finally, there are directories, which normally require you to drill down to find the most relevant category for your listing. You can then (depending on the directory) either contact them with your information, or fill out a form on the directory itself and request a listing.
What would you say to Web site owners who are reluctant to use links because they think it will take people away from their site?
For one thing, a Web site without any off-site links is a dead end, and there is some evidence to suggest that search engines view sites that don't link out as being less valuable.
Unless you're willing to pay, you may have a hard time convincing people to link to you if you're not planning on linking back to them. But it's still possible, especially if you've got content that's so good people will want to link to you anyway, but it's definitely harder to get one-way links than reciprocal ones. I'm not suggesting that people link directly to their competitors. The idea is to link to sites that complement the content that you're providing. By doing so, you're contributing to the impression that your site is an authority on your theme: not only do you have great information, but you have links to other sources of information. That's another reason for people to come back to your site more often. And if you're still worried about sending people away from your site and never seeing them again, you can set your off-site links to open in a new window, by adding target="_blank" to the code for the link. If you do this, however, it's a good idea for usability purposes to let people know that the link will open in a new window. Otherwise, people who have their browser windows maximized may not realize what's happened, and should they try to get back to your site by hitting their back button they're likely to be confused when it fails to take them anywhere.
We often hear the term "Anchor text". Can your explain what this means and why it's important?
Anchor text is the part of a text link that's visible on the page. For example, the code for a normal text link looks like this:
Search Engine Marketing and Copywriting Services
On a Web page, that would look like this: Search Engine Marketing and Copywriting Services. "Search Engine Marketing and Copywriting Services" is the anchor text. What's important about it is that it tells both the user and the search engine spider what the page the link points to is about. In a search engine optimization project, getting links to your site that use your keywords in the anchor text helps to get your page to rank higher for those keywords. That's why it's important to have something other than "click here" as anchor text.The power of anchor text can be seen by the example of the practice of "Googlebombing," in which numerous sites will link to a particular page using the same anchor text. If enough sites do it, Google will rank that page at the top of its listings for searches on that text. George W. Bush's biography page on the site of the White House is still number one in Google for the query "miserable failure" about half a year after that particular Googlebomb was created. Whether or not you personally agree that those words do a good job of describing Mr. Bush, Google accepts what it sees as the opinion of the general online community. If enough pages tell Google that miserable failure = George W. Bush, then as far as Google is concerned, it must be true.
Another thing we hear a lot about is Pagerank™ — a tool webmasters often use to determine whether a site is worth linking to or not. What does this mean?
PageRank (not to be confused with "page rank") is a part of Google's algorithm for ranking pages. There are numerous theories as to how it's calculated, but only Google knows for certain. In any case, that's not important to this discussion. What matters is that PageRank is a measure of the value of a page based on the links pointing to it, the value of the pages on which those links reside, and the number of other links that are on those pages. It's strictly numerical, and has absolutely nothing to do with relevance or value to the reader. In other words, if I have a page about Shakespeare, and I link to two pages, one about Shakespeare, and the other about the care and feeding of parakeets, the same amount of PageRank will be passed to both of those pages. The fact that one of those pages is about the same subject as my page does not enter into the calculation. You can see an estimation of the PageRank of a given page if you have the Google toolbar installed. But it's important to keep in mind that PageRank is not everything, nor is it the most important thing. It's one of many factors Google takes into account when it ranks pages for queries, and it's not at all uncommon to see that a site that ranks on the top of a SERP (search engine results page) has a lower PageRank than the pages below it on the SERP.
One of the reasons people believe that PageRank is important is that if you do a backlink check in Google by typing "link:www.site.com" in the search box, youll generally (but not absolutely) only see pages that link to the URL in question and have a PageRank of 4/10 or higher. People have taken this to mean that a link from a page with a lower PR doesn't count, and that simply isn't true. It's true that, all other things being equal, the higher the PR of a page linking to yours, the more PR it's going to pass to your page, but as I said, PR is just one aspect of Google's algorithm, and every link apart from the troublesome ones we spoke of earlier has some value.
It's also worth keeping in mind that a page that shows a PR of 2/10 in the toolbar today may have a 5/10 or 6/10 a few months from now. When I'm looking for sites from which I may wish to request links, the only time what I see in the toolbar matters to me is when I see that it has no PageRank at all. Assuming the site isn't new, that can sometimes be an indication that the site has done something which caused Google to demote it. That is, it may be what Google refers to as a "bad neighborhood," and as such, you should be extra careful in checking it out before you agree to link back to it.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with my subscribers, Bob! I hope you all will check out Bob's site at: www.raisemyrank.com for more information about his company.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) !
What is SEM?
Search Engine Marketing encompasses search engine optimization, web marketing, online media buying, basically any advertising designed for the search engines. SEM is where you bid on keywords based on your business, product or website. The winning bid will receive the highest sponsored links in the search engines. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is generally a term referred to generate visibility in search engines in order to increase revenue.
Why SEM?
High percentage of developed world is online, so the odds of your potential customers, partners, employees are also online is very high. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is not only the fastest growing and popular channels available but also cost effective when compared to both online and offline channels.
Why SEM for you?
With more than 500 million people using search engines to locate for a product or services it is essential for your website to rank high in most search engines, whatever the size of your business is. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) makes it easier for your target audience to find you. Through Search Engine Marketing the conversion rate of casual visitors to potential customers is high.
Why SEM with us?
Nowadays there are so many websites without proper search engine marketing; therefore business cannot be benefited online. We aim to design effective, professional and functional looking site, which increases your traffic through search engine marketing. As the search engine algorithm is changing regularly, we keep abreast of the latest development and update accordingly for your continuous top ranking in the search engines.
Benefits of SEM:
The main reason behind Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to help your business drive quality traffic to your site and increase the conversion rate of visitors to buyers. It gives you new ideas on how to attract new customers. Here are a few benefits of Search Engine Marketing.
Cost effective
Increases brand awareness
Immediate Feedback
Increases the quality of site visitors
Better results in a short period of time
Higher sales conversion ratio
Delivery of targeted message to an active audience
Rapid return on investment (ROI)
SEM Outsourcing in India
Search Engine Marketing is the most effective way of marketing for any online business. Out of all the outsourcing destinations, India is the most favourite places. Some of the major reasons are huge manpower, improvement in technology, innovative ideas coupled with time management and many more. This is the most cost effective way of marketing online and ROI (Return on Investment) is maximized.
Search Engine Marketing encompasses search engine optimization, web marketing, online media buying, basically any advertising designed for the search engines. SEM is where you bid on keywords based on your business, product or website. The winning bid will receive the highest sponsored links in the search engines. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is generally a term referred to generate visibility in search engines in order to increase revenue.
Why SEM?
High percentage of developed world is online, so the odds of your potential customers, partners, employees are also online is very high. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is not only the fastest growing and popular channels available but also cost effective when compared to both online and offline channels.
Why SEM for you?
With more than 500 million people using search engines to locate for a product or services it is essential for your website to rank high in most search engines, whatever the size of your business is. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) makes it easier for your target audience to find you. Through Search Engine Marketing the conversion rate of casual visitors to potential customers is high.
Why SEM with us?
Nowadays there are so many websites without proper search engine marketing; therefore business cannot be benefited online. We aim to design effective, professional and functional looking site, which increases your traffic through search engine marketing. As the search engine algorithm is changing regularly, we keep abreast of the latest development and update accordingly for your continuous top ranking in the search engines.
Benefits of SEM:
The main reason behind Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to help your business drive quality traffic to your site and increase the conversion rate of visitors to buyers. It gives you new ideas on how to attract new customers. Here are a few benefits of Search Engine Marketing.
Cost effective
Increases brand awareness
Immediate Feedback
Increases the quality of site visitors
Better results in a short period of time
Higher sales conversion ratio
Delivery of targeted message to an active audience
Rapid return on investment (ROI)
SEM Outsourcing in India
Search Engine Marketing is the most effective way of marketing for any online business. Out of all the outsourcing destinations, India is the most favourite places. Some of the major reasons are huge manpower, improvement in technology, innovative ideas coupled with time management and many more. This is the most cost effective way of marketing online and ROI (Return on Investment) is maximized.
SEO and SEM: Two Names for the Same Thing?
By most people's standards, the internet is still very young. New technologies and developments in existing technologies are appearing at an extraordinary rate. As technologies change, so does the terminology used to describe them.
I worked for three years as a webmaster. Ask a dozen people to define that term, and you'll get a lot of different answers. A webmaster may be the leader of a large team, including developers, writers, marketers, designers, usability experts, technical support people, and yes, search engine optimizers. Or s/he may perform all or some of those duties alone.
The same is true for search engine optimization. For many people, the term is a new one, and they have no idea what it is an SEO does. To others, SEO is synonymous with SEM -- search engine marketing. In my opinion, there is a big difference between the two.
Search Engine Marketing
I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.
Aspects of search engine marketing which I would consider to be outside the realm of search engine optimization include the following:
Paid Inclusion
This is simply the practice of paying a search engine or a directory to add a site to its database immediately, rather than setting up that site so that it will be found by the search engine spiders on its own. In the case of some search engines and directories, paid inclusion is the only way to get listed. For others, it's presented as an option. If you're willing to pay, your site will be listed sooner. It's also a useful practice if you wish to make frequent changes to your content, because your site will be spidered more often and you will be able to test how changes affect your ranking.
Traditional Ads
This involves placing paid advertising on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Normally, these ads appear based on the keywords entered into the search engines, and one is charged based on the number of impressions, i.e. appearances, of the ad. In other words, you pay whether the ad sends anyone to your web site or not.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC ads are simple enough to look at. They're text-only. PPC ad campaigns are completely controlled by the advertiser. You decide which keywords should bring up your ads, you write the copy, and you decide how much you want to pay. And, as the name indicates, you only pay for an ad when someone clicks it and is brought to your site. There are two main networks of PPC ads, run by Google and Overture, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but in both cases, one should be prepared to spend a great deal of time (and money) monitoring and adjusting such a campaign.
The Advantages of These Practices
In contrast to pure SEO, these SEM practices offer the advantage of immediacy. If you need to increase your traffic and your visibility right away, and you don't have a problem with spending a lot of money, this may be the way to go.
The Disadvantages
You knew this was coming, didn't you? Think about it this way: you've spent your time and money to bring people to your web site. What will they see when they get there? You've convinced them, at least for the moment, that your site is worth visiting, so they're expecting to find exactly the information they were seeking. Is it easy to find? Is it there at all? You only have a few seconds to convince them that your site can deliver what they want. Will your visitors, failing to find what they're looking for, click their browser's back button and try another site?
Your site has to be ready for your visitors. It needs to be written, structured, and coded in such a way that the information is clearly laid out and easy to find. If it isn't, your site will either be immediately forgotten by visitors, or worse, it will be remembered as one that fails to deliver.
SEO First
No SEM campaign is complete without SEO. Moreover, since the purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and users, you may find that it will suffice on its own. In any case, the advantages of SEO over the other aspects of SEM make it clear that, even if you are going to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.
I worked for three years as a webmaster. Ask a dozen people to define that term, and you'll get a lot of different answers. A webmaster may be the leader of a large team, including developers, writers, marketers, designers, usability experts, technical support people, and yes, search engine optimizers. Or s/he may perform all or some of those duties alone.
The same is true for search engine optimization. For many people, the term is a new one, and they have no idea what it is an SEO does. To others, SEO is synonymous with SEM -- search engine marketing. In my opinion, there is a big difference between the two.
Search Engine Marketing
I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.
Aspects of search engine marketing which I would consider to be outside the realm of search engine optimization include the following:
Paid Inclusion
This is simply the practice of paying a search engine or a directory to add a site to its database immediately, rather than setting up that site so that it will be found by the search engine spiders on its own. In the case of some search engines and directories, paid inclusion is the only way to get listed. For others, it's presented as an option. If you're willing to pay, your site will be listed sooner. It's also a useful practice if you wish to make frequent changes to your content, because your site will be spidered more often and you will be able to test how changes affect your ranking.
Traditional Ads
This involves placing paid advertising on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Normally, these ads appear based on the keywords entered into the search engines, and one is charged based on the number of impressions, i.e. appearances, of the ad. In other words, you pay whether the ad sends anyone to your web site or not.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC ads are simple enough to look at. They're text-only. PPC ad campaigns are completely controlled by the advertiser. You decide which keywords should bring up your ads, you write the copy, and you decide how much you want to pay. And, as the name indicates, you only pay for an ad when someone clicks it and is brought to your site. There are two main networks of PPC ads, run by Google and Overture, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but in both cases, one should be prepared to spend a great deal of time (and money) monitoring and adjusting such a campaign.
The Advantages of These Practices
In contrast to pure SEO, these SEM practices offer the advantage of immediacy. If you need to increase your traffic and your visibility right away, and you don't have a problem with spending a lot of money, this may be the way to go.
The Disadvantages
You knew this was coming, didn't you? Think about it this way: you've spent your time and money to bring people to your web site. What will they see when they get there? You've convinced them, at least for the moment, that your site is worth visiting, so they're expecting to find exactly the information they were seeking. Is it easy to find? Is it there at all? You only have a few seconds to convince them that your site can deliver what they want. Will your visitors, failing to find what they're looking for, click their browser's back button and try another site?
Your site has to be ready for your visitors. It needs to be written, structured, and coded in such a way that the information is clearly laid out and easy to find. If it isn't, your site will either be immediately forgotten by visitors, or worse, it will be remembered as one that fails to deliver.
SEO First
No SEM campaign is complete without SEO. Moreover, since the purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and users, you may find that it will suffice on its own. In any case, the advantages of SEO over the other aspects of SEM make it clear that, even if you are going to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
