Archive for September, 2009
Elements of a Search Engine Marketing Strategy
In the previous installment, the topic was on driving quality traffic. This week at St. Louis SEO, we’re delving into how the various conduits (search engine traffic, social media, pay-per-click advertising, press releases, etc.) influence your site’s traffic. The following elements are central to developing a successful search engine marketing strategy:
Starting with Google, Ask and Bing, these major search engines account for multiple traffic channels. Since, they aggregate all the links or a Web site’s referrals, they’re highly influential.
Pay-per-click advertising vitalizes site exposure. It simultaneously directs targeted traffic, assuring a measurable means of prominence. More importantly, with the right PPC campaign sites tend to generate a percentile of leads, conversions and sales predictability.
Social media sites, such as such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Jigsaw are relevant traffic tributaries. These cyber hotspots have the capacity to nurture the client following and consumer loyalty.
A regularly maintained blog assures that your site is being indexed on a regular basis by media outlets, RSS feeds and of course main blog search engine directories. Blogs comprised of information, news and industry-specific resources fuel repeat traffic and ultimately better page rank.
Press releases and major media outlets authenticate a Web site’s real estate on the Internet. For instance, PRWeb.com is a press release distribution portal, which categorizes company news, referring target specific traffic.
In due course, anywhere on the Internet, where your site is relevantly linked, influences site traffic. Not to mention, the above elements of the search engine market (SEM) strategy pay for themselves overtime.
For additional SEM advice, visit The Net Impact, Missouri’s Best web design company.
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4 Basic Questions you should be Asking Your SEO Company
1. What am I doing to be noticed?
The web is a crowded place and it can be hard, but not impossible to stand out. Make sure your SEO Company is providing you with relevant inbound links and keyword heavy content. Other ways for search engine spiders to find your site is to have a crawlable architecture and a quality presence in social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs.
2. What is my ranking?
If you want exposure and unique visitors to your site you must be ranking on search engines. Ask your SEO Company where you and your competitors rank on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. 82% of search engine users do not go past the first page to find what they are looking for. So, if you aren’t showing up early for some of your most targeted keywords, perhaps you and your SEO Company should devise a new plan.
3. Am I relevant?
Ranking is great, but it only matters if the traffic you’re driving is relevant, quality traffic. You don’t want users to bounce away from your site right away, you want them to stay awhile and click through. If the keywords you are using are not relevant to your site and your landing pages are not sticky, you are wasting time and money on your SEO Company.
4. Where are the results?
By now you know that it is important to be setting goals and tracking your conversion funnels. However, are these goals being met and what proof is being shown of it? Your SEO Company should be providing you with reports of how your site is performing, good or bad. This will help with future marketing and budget plans.
If your SEO company is not answering these four basic questions the way you want them to, perhaps it is time to look into a new SEO Company.
How to drive Quality Traffic?
The number of attendees and the span of their stay usually gauge the success of a party, event or gathering. The same concept is applicable on the company Web site:
• How much traffic does a site attract?
• What is the average duration of the visit?
However, one area of site statistics is commonly overlooked. Who referred those visitors (partygoers)? Did one person invite a bunch of complete strangers (unique visitors)? A good party has a mixture of people. Web sites are not any different. Most small businesses understand the importance of generating well-rounded traffic referrals. From organic search engine results, pay-per-click campaigns to linked referrals within a targeted network, the best traffic attracts an assortment of visitors.
Here are six different sources to drive quality traffic to your site
• Major search engines: Google, Bing,
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Twitter
• Facebook, Flickr, or Linked In
• Press releases
• Complementary sites
• Related blogs
• Major media outlets
Next time, we’ll review how and why all of the aforementioned referrals influence your site’s traffic. Read more about link building, click here.
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How to select key words for your pay-per-click campaign?
In the Chinese language, there are more than 15 million words. [Source: Chinese language]. If we were Chinese, there would be at least more than 4000 ways to communicate one idea. Fortunately, the English language is comprised of a short list of synonyms, phrases and keywords. Selecting the appropriate keywords to use for a pay- per-click-campaign is the difference between losing and attaining a return on the advertising budget.
Use these tips to develop a portfolio of keywords for your key word campaign:
Compile a short list of generic keywords.
Craft a long list of keywords, which best depict the products and services featured on each page of your Web site.
Next, narrow down your keywords specific to your company; in example, the location of your business, the neighborhood, other marketplace synonyms, et cetera.
Then, evaluate your competition’s keywords. Since the assessment of your keywords requires a modicum of search engine optimization (SEO) expertise, consult a St. Louis SEO company that has a proven track record for delivering results.
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