SEO St Louis

One of the most important aspects of a successful PPC campaign is choosing your keywords. Choosing the wrong keywords for your campaign can result in users never finding your site or can waste your advertising budget on non-targeted traffic.  But how do you choose your keywords? There are countless tools to estimate search volume and competition of specific keywords.  But, this research from Marketing Sherpa finds that looking at keywords that are already driving traffic and conversions is the best method of determining which keywords to choose.

 

Understanding the terms that your customers are using is critical to finding the best keywords and this research supports that idea.  Determining the keywords that actual customers are using is critical, and can be done looking at your analytics to determine keywords that are currently directing traffic to your site as well as your site search to find out what visitors are looking for when they are on your site.  Analyzing competitor’s sites is also an important tactic in determining popular industry-specific terms.  Using keyword tools is still one aspect of choosing the right keywords, but should be used in conjuction with many other research methodologies as well.

When it comes to soccer, in theory it is pretty simple– you need to put the ball in the back of the net. When this happens it is usually the goal scorer who gets the most credit, but what about the defense who got the play rolling? In reality there is far more to a team’s scoring strategy than the person who gets the ball into the back of the net, in fact Paul Tomkins has devised a system to track the contribution of each individual player. This system creates a value of how they contribute to the team over a number of games.

“When turning soccer into numbers, there will always be problems. And when it comes to ‘assists’, this is especially true. How can you reward someone who rolls the ball eight inches from an indirect free-kick as highly as someone who beats seven men and puts the ball in the striker’s path in the six-yard box?”

Those in the Internet marketing industry may want to take the time to read Tomkins’ strategy in order to relate it to the website conversion attribution debate. When it comes to website conversion, each keyword searched or direct visit – which ultimately results in a conversion–is in most cases a hit from a repeat visitor, or from a visitor who is familiar with the brand name, and each step of your search engine marketing strategy can be seen as an assist that led that conversion goal to your website.
With the highly-anticipated World Cup right around the corner, here is an analogy of how the steps to scoring a goal in a soccer game are similar to making a visitor react a desired way on your website.

 Website Conversion = Goal
You’ve done the hard work, you’ve found a potential customer who is interested enough in your website that they return via a keyword (or direct visit) and complete a sale, give you a call or whatever your call to action may be. This is the same as giving a player a free shot with just the keeper to beat. You won’t always get a 100% conversion rate – but in both cases there’s a very good chance it will end up with a goal.

Second to Last Visit = Assist
Some players don’t always score enough goals (David Beckham for example) but if you take him away from taking freekicks, corners and crossing the ball into the box then you’re likely to see a noticeable drop in chances created and goals scored. This could be exactly the same with your complete online strategy, which is why it is so important to find those advertising channels and keywords which are contributing to the end goal.

Mid-Level Visit = Midfield Pass
If Liverpool scored a goal last season, there’s a good chance Xabi Alonso (player known for his high number of assist) was involved at some point during that move. This may not have a huge importance to the overall outcome, but if involved more often than not, then he is clearly having a positive impact to the team. This could relate to an email marketing campaign, social media campaign or a keyword which may rarely convert, but is often involved in an assist. Take it away and those conversion chances may start to dry up.

First Visit = Defensive Build Up
What got the ball rolling in the first place? In the case of a soccer game, it may start with a key pass by the goalkeeper. When online, perhaps it was a search at the early stage of the searching process, as far back as typing your search words into Google. After this happens there is still a huge amount of work to do in order to grab that conversion, but you need to start somewhere!

So in which stage does the importance lie? In tracking the performance at all stages you can really get a strong idea about how every aspect of an online marketing campaign (or professional soccer team) is performing. With this valuable feedback from web analytics, you can make informative decision (whether that decision be to change up your keywords or to trade your center midfielder) based on the actual facts and figures. All in all looking at every step of your marketing strategy, rather than just the end result, will tell you which components of your overall efforts are effective, and which ones could use some help.

They sound pretty similiar – SEO and SEM, but they actually refer to two different parts of the same Internet marketing strategy. Obtaining website traffic through search engines falls into two major categories — search engine optimization (SEO or organic search) and search engine marketing (SEM or paid search). SEM is a much broader term than SEO, and actually includes SEO as one of its techniques. SEM is all that a company can do to advertise itself on a search engine, including pay per click and other online advertising techniques.

While both techniques result in an influx of website visitors, the methods and goals are radically different, especially when considering where your site visitor came from and what page they see when they arrive to your website. SEO, is the key to making content rank highly in natural or organic search results. And while these “free listings” in a search-results page are technically, well, completley free, most companies pay an SEO company  to keep their content at the top of the search engines.

 

But remember - both SEO and SEM are essential for optimal website conversion. It is the strategic combination of both that brings traffic to your site but it is the exclusive domain of SEM to get people to purchase products or contact you for a chance for you to sell them something. For example, you invent something new and the SEO of your website helps search engines find your site when customers become aware of your new product or service. Once the potential customer finds your site, they then need to be guided to make a sale – this comes back to basic marketing principles which is where SEM comes in.

The Net Impact provides strategic services for companies wishing to market their business online. Our process is clearly focused on learning your business, marketplace and competitors. As your SEO firm, we are committed to providing you with the most up-to-date methods for optimizing your website. We are constantly researching new trends and techniques to keep pace with the ever changing search engine marketing industry. Contact The Net Impact to boost your company to the top of the search engines!

High quality content is vital in Internet Marketing. SEO content appears in your web pages, articles, blogs, press releases and social media marketing, and needs to be continuously updated if going to be effective.

Before jumping into writing optimized content for the web, remember these tips:

•Use keywords the right way – make sure your SEO content writing is easily understood. Don’t just stuff key words into your content.

•Place readability of the content first; if the keywords didn’t come naturally (or if you haven’t used enough to meet keyword density requirements), insert them where appropriate to turn your document into effective SEO content writing

•Never use too many keywords. An adbundance of keywords could transform your document from an SEO content writing project into spam (search engines are not stupid, and if this is the case they will not recognize your website.)

•Keep SEO content writing short and sweet- stay on the topic

•Stick to two or three keywords per page of SEO content writing to avoid reader confusion

If readers are unable to tell that they’ve just read SEO content writing, you have done your job. If you wrote content that is easy to read, flows well, is to the point and doesn’t leave your readers wandering why you have used the same word X amount of times- mission accomplished.

The proceeding article features an example of how a content management system helps generate a motorcycle comfort seating’s website traffic.

In March 2010, a well-known motorcycle comfort seating’s Website design required a site makeover. The website design reconstruction called for exacting guidelines:

• Visually mesmeric web design
• Web design which maintains the online brand  identity
• User-friendly navigation designed to motivate interaction
• Website design to fortify web marketing presence
• A fuss free web content management system to enable instantaneous site updates

Since the Auctori content management system was developed to automate search engine optimization, the web design company and Ad agency conferred to integrate all the components needed to integrate the motorcycle comfort seat’s brand and Internet marketing strategy.

With the creative  components in place, the Web design company customized the master pages into the Auctori content management system.  This assured for instantaneous updates.

To assure visitor ease, the content management system enabled the designers to develop a user-friendly navigational architecture; whereby new site pages could be added among the various product overview pages, multimedia, events, retailer contact information and other Web site landing pages.

The final Web design was the end result of a “cutting edge yet professional site, which inspired site interaction and lead generation.

In the end, the Auctori content management system affords high-end Web design, destined for web traffic, made possible through search engine optimization.

Please call 888.629.4672 to learn how the Auctori content management system integrates custom design.

In this age of the application rage, certain aspects of Web design and web marketing are outmoded. In the proceeding post of SEO-St. Louis, we’re reviewing several instances whereby web content management systems are simplifying Web site updates and the search engine optimization process:

No more requests. It was merely half a decade ago when companies had to schedule Web site updates. Since many sites were developed using HTML or PHP, modifications required certain programming expertise that only the Web design company could perform. As for keeping a Web site fresh with new keyword driven content, corporations relied on an SEO company’s understanding of their products and services.

Alleviate downtime. Given the advances in web content management systems, businesses are no longer dependent upon the downtime associated with modifications. Bid adieu to the time lapse between the site update request and the actual site modification.

Businesses used to rely on IT departments and the web design agency to deploy web site updates. Between phone conversations, instant messaging, email messages, communications disconnects accounted for approximately 25 percent of Website design glitches.

For now, web content management systems not only afford companies of any size the self-sufficiency to amend design elements and media content, but minimize outsourcing Web design service expenditures. This translates into a higher return on the Web marketing budget.

Despite cost efficiency, certain web content management systems, designed with built in search engine optimization, place companies on the roadmap to major search engine traffic. In example, the Auctori content management system exposes each week’s content additions, social media posts and other web marketing uploads to Google, RSS feeds and other steady streams of traffic flow.

Read more about how the Auctori web content management system helps automate search engine optimization, visit: www.Auctori.com.

In the March 2010 issue of Fast Company, the feature story reviewed the success of Mark Zuckerberg, the Founder and CEO behind social media giant Facebook. Considering that the six-year behemoth has inspired the most popular global brands to subscribe to social media, it is growing increasingly impossible to rebuke Facebook’s potency.

Despite the fact that the social mega media site is still in its babyhood, 2009 was the first time the company turned a profit. With more than 350 million users and growing along with a slew of free tools available in 70 languages, Facebook represents one vital role for any company:

EXPOSURE. EXPOSURE. EXPOSURE

Social media networking has shifted the paradigm in market research. Any-sized corporation can directly interact with their clientele to tweak products and services.

There is no longer the need to invest thousands of dollars in market research.

Aside from commissioning a web design company to create a Facebook page, an incentive driven social media strategy is necessary to assure a booming fan-base.

An Analysis of Trident’s Social Media Strategy

• Cadbury’s Trident® utilizes an incentive focused social media strategy.

• The marketing incentive welcomes consumers to enter its “Perpetual Festival,” which includes “30 festivals around the globe in 30 weeks.”

• Trident’s Facebook page incorporates the same web design that is presented on its UK Web site. The sweepstakes engages the consumer to participate in the drawing by leading the visitor to enter a code from a pack of Trident gum

• From the Facebook page to Trident’s micro site, each website design maintains continuity, transitioning the consumer from one page to the next.

Given Facebook’s omnipresence, the social media marketing is impossible to disregard. Now that the most powerful search engine directory, Google is caching and posting Facebook’s status updates, social media is an extension of the SEO strategy.  

Consider the following questions about your company’s social media marketing strategy:  

• Are your competitors using social media to bond with the target audience?

• How can your organization out-face the competition or better retain the target audience’s attention via Facebook?

• Does your company have a Facebook fan wall reflective of your products and services brand identities?

• Are you posting engaging media, which entices the target market to subscribe, contribute and engage in the conversation?

• Is the company Facebook page updated on a regular basis?

If you need assistance developing social media design in sync with your Internet marketing strategy, contact The Net Impact.

Connect with The Net Impact on Facebook.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a silent member of the sales force. While it won’t infringe on co-workers’ territory, take the day off to entertain ‘clients’ at the Cardinal’s game, or require health insurance, SEO supports the sales staff. This article provides a succinct overview of the effects of marketing sans SEO.

Did you know?  Businesses that do not incorporate search engine optimization in conjunction with their site’s Web design are merely invisible on the Internet.

 What transpires without SEO:

Concealed.

• The company Web site is virtually invisible on the Internet.  As long as any entity Web site occupies cyberspace, the objective  is to expose its products and services to as much of the target market as possible—to acquire new business.

Counterproductive.

• Employees have to work harder finding prospective clients, who are in the market for the company’s offerings. With a website designed using SEO, targeted traffic (as in sizzling hot leads) visits the company site, fueling the sales teams’ prospects and sales opportunities.
• Low page rank and online exposure are counterproductive to any sized entity’s targets and sales goals.

Stunted financial results.

• Search engine optimization has been found to leverage marketing results by twenty-five percent. Without SEO, the losses represent a fourth of productivity.

Low Retention

• The marketing strategy is incongruent with sales goals and targets. Word-of-mouth and traditional local advertising lack the retention rate companies require to thrive in the marketplace.

Kudos to any organization or business model that can thrive in today’s economic climate sans SEO.  As for those, who need the perpetual sustenance of new leads, prospects and sales,  learn what SEO can do for your business, when you click contact the Net Impact.

Search engine optimization (SEO) considerations often pose several challenging questions: 

• Which is better hiring an in-house web designer or outsourcing?
• How to maintain autonomy without being at the complete mercy of the Web design company? 

These answers are subjective. The cost analysis depends on how much a business values time, money and results.

What is the timeframe?

If your business plans to make an impact on the search engines, every day is critical. In other words, the longer your site is offline or not optimized for search engine traffic, it represents substantial losses. 

How much will it cost to have the internal IT department build a new web design with the latest search engine-marketing infrastructure?

In order to compete with the competition, a business Web site attributes for a significant part of the market strategy  and new business development (i.e.: lead generation, sales transactions, new subscriptions).

If your IT department is manning the company’s network, how realistic is it to expect a timely completion of the new Web site design?

While many web designers understand the importance of marrying website design with search engine optimization, the wheel is always being reinvented. SEO is in constant evolution. A Web design company, who specializes in SEO, can ensure that your business site is current with the latest trends and practices in search engine marketing.

Want the immediacy of professional web design, yet the autonomy to manage regular updates –in-house?

A web content management system offers the autonomy to update content on a regular basis without the cost of outsourcing billable hours. For example, Auctori is a legal content management system with built in SEO.

How can you assure that your Website attains the highest ROI?

Most employees do not sign a contract offering to forego their salary if a Web site underperforms in site conversions. To assure an ultimate return on investment, opt for a Website design company that offers a strategic partnership. This alleviates the chances that the search engine optimization strategy will become obsolete.

To maintain a competitive edge, consider a web content management system designed with search engine optimization. Learn why more and more companies are powered by the Auctori.com web content management system, please click: “Auctori” to read more.

Social media is not limited to nurturing narcissistic tendencies. Despite the market research indicating that only 65 percent of American business professionals incorporate social media, it’s rapidly emerging as paramount component of the search engine marketing strategy. 

Amid Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, a new crop of social media networking sites mushrooms across a myriad of marketplaces. SEO-St. Louis compiled a shortlist of social media networks geared for vertical and horizontal markets. Here are the finding: 

Cofoundr is a community for entrepreneurs — designers, investors, and programmers, and other individuals, who are committed to developing partnerships for new start-up ventures.

Doctors HangOut.com is a social networking service for medical students, doctors and residents.

FastPitchNetworking is an international business social networking site.

Nexly is a business to business social media marketplace for small to mid-sized businesses to network. (Nexly’s URL is www.nexly.com)

ResearchGate is a professional social networking site designed to help scientists and researchers collaborate on new studies and trials. 

Ryze is another professional social media networking site, segmented into thousands of organizations to nurture new business relationships.

Select Minds is a corporate social networking platform designed to connect current employees, former employees and organizations with each other to procure new business.

Upspring is a social networking site designed to help vertical markets such as retailers, manufacturers and service providers to improve their local web presence. 

The microcosm of social media sites validates that corporations can no longer afford to ignore the potency of social media (Twitter, Facebook, et al).  And in terms of maintaining robust search engine optimization—as in online exposure, social media networking fortifies that visibility, affording an abundance of new professional and business relationships.

If your organization is considering Twitter, Facebook or any of the aforementioned social media networking pages to enhance new business, please click “contact The Net Impact” for a hassle-free consultation.