Are search rankings dependent on your site content?

Ask experts about elements of search engine optimization and each will give different criteria for their SEO campaigns. But whether for an SEO consultant or a businessman content tops the list of highly important criteria for SEO and greater rankings. It’s true: content plays a vital role in improving your search engine ranking. The sole purpose of your SEO campaign is to improve search engine ranking, and without optimized content, you will be unable to achieve it.
Most SEO service providers today give a lot of importance to optimizing content along with developing SEO strategies. However, content for your website is not only limited to what a reader comes across on your webpage; it also includes the articles, blogs, promotional material as well as press releases. All these combined together affect your search engine rankings.
The following are 4 key points to optimize your content:

Keyword-Rich Content

Your website contains the most important content influencing your search engine ranking. It should hence be written with care to include keywords relevant to your products and services. Your other content-based material like blogs, press releases and articles should also contain an ideal amount of keywords in order to be picked up by the search engines. The keyword density in all these materials should be such that the crawlers of the search engines pick them up as relevant material when a reader searches for those particular keywords. These keywords should also be used in prominent places such as titles and be evenly distributed throughout the content. Only then will your SEO campaign become a success. A note of warning though: do not use your keywords so many times that the crawlers spam your material.

Meta tag Descriptions for Web Pages

Optimizing the title and description of the web pages in Meta tags also goes a long way in getting them picked up by search engines. Your Meta tag description should be rich in keywords and give a fair idea of the content on the web page. If there is a poor description or they do not contain targeted keywords, Meta tags can bring down search engine rankings.

Link Building through Content

If your content is interesting and updated, it will become a means to link building with other websites. Users will also become regular visitors to your website for informative content on your website. Also, when you exchange links with other websites, be sure to give the link text description proper attention; it will help readers know what the destination page will be all about. Making the link text with keywords or key phrases would be a good idea for search engine optimization.

Interesting subjects of the content

Make your content as different and informative as possible. Internet users today are bombarded with the same type of information from hundreds of sites. They will explore only when they see some innovative concept on your website or blog. In order to make the user come to your site or read your article or blog, give it an appealing title. Only if the reader finds the start interesting will he continue to read the rest of it. Such content increases the incoming traffic of the website as well as improves the trustworthiness of the site, which ultimately results in high SEO ranking.

Your 4-point checklist before hiring an SEO Expert

Everybody is talking about the recession around but nobody has a clue as to when it will improve so we can get a clear outlook. As a business owner you must be wondering if you will be able to slug it out this year. There are two situations here: you have to continue bringing in new business in order to survive and on the other hand, you have fewer resources to dedicate to it. Hence, bringing in the right kind of business is critical. If you are thinking of going for Search Engine Optimization for your website, you need to consider many factors when you select the SEO Service Provider. This is because of the fact that there are many SEO experts in the market, and you need to find the one that suits your requirements the most. Consider the following 4-point checklist which will decide the amount you will spend on your optimization campaign:

Design of your current site

Here’s the deal: if you have a site which was made some 8-10 years ago at a cheap rate and there have been no updates since then, the search engines are not going to be interested in it. You should have been constantly updating it with keywords and SEO-friendly features besides undertaking some high volume search promotion to obtain a good ranking with the search engines. This is in case you didn’t get the job done properly the first time, and the SEO services provider will have to work doubly hard to improve your current site. In case your site architecture is built well, it will cost you lesser to get your job done.

Experience of the SEO Consultant/firm

There are SEO services available at $15/hour, and there are those that charge $200/hour. If your SEO consultant has a lot of experience behind it, it is bound to believe it is worth a better price per hour than somebody who has started off. You need to judge which skill set you want working at your SEO campaign, and decide you budget for SEO accordingly.

Services Opted for

There are many services offered by a SEO consultant, and you need to decide which out of those the requirements of your business are. The more number of services you subscribe for, the higher your cost is going to be. In order to judge which services you require, you will need to have an in-depth knowledge of your business, its drawbacks and the areas that require improvement.

Keywords

It’s simple: if you opt for a few keywords, the charge will be less, whereas if you opt for hundreds of them, you will be charged more. Time taken to optimize many keywords will be more, hence you will be charged more. But always insist for organic optimization so that your site continues to show results even if your SEO term is over with your consultant...

Clash of the Titans: SEO vs. PPC, which is better?

As an SEO consultant we have come across this question several times: Which online marketing strategy is better for businesses: Search Engine Optimization or Pay per Click marketing?

A very simple answer would be: Depends on the end results you expect from your online marketing strategy. Let’s get down a bit more into the details to understand this dilemma.

When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine, this is called "pay-per-click" (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). One of the highest recognized PPCSE is Google Adwords. Pay-per-click search engine advertising allows you to quickly leverage search engine traffic by "bidding" (paying) for high-value keywords related to your product or service.

In the other corner we have "Organic" or "Natural" search engine optimization (SEO). Generally speaking, organic SEO consists of optimizing your web pages to enhance their position in the naturally occurring search results. Organic SEO consists of On-page and Off-page optimization.

Organic SEO as an internet marketing strategy requires patience, but the rewards when reaped are plentiful. Although organic optimization is not the first choice for many (depending on the brand and business model) organic search does have inherent benefits that are unparalleled by sponsored or paid advertising tactics. The benefits and results last for longer period.

As per the latest stats on marketing budget spent versus the results :

SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets. Surprising?

One of the major reasons for quick adoption of PPC strategy is that it is very similar to traditional paid advertisement strategy and business owners can manage such campaign on their own. Whereas SEO requires a pre-requisite set of skills to ensure your website reaches the top rankings on search engine search through various on-site optimizations and off-site organic search engine optimization strategies.

Another reason why businesses, prefer PPC is that they have better control over the entire program and they know exactly how and where their dollar is spent and results for each dollar spent, can be seen through subsequent Ad words report. They also do not have to change their tactics each time the search engines change their algorithms, which can prove a real headache, especially for those who are only interested in quick, short term results. Organic SEO might seem like too much of work, with absolutely no guaranteed results for short term goal seekers.

While a PPC campaign can deliver leads with relative ease, it can be a big money drain and has no real longevity -- once you stop shelling out the cash, the website traffic goes away. SEO and link building require a lot more creative effort, but can have more sustainable results. It also allows a business to target a larger base of users, as most studies reveal that 75 - 80% of searchers click on organic listings as opposed to paid listings.

As time goes on, web surfers are less prone to clicking PPC links on the right side of Google’s results or in the top sponsored links section. Why? In the past web surfers didn’t understand the difference between sponsored and non-sponsored links. Now web surfers are much more net savvy. The result is that a growing number of web surfers will click on non-sponsored links on the first page of results because they think: if that site made it into the top ten without paying for it, they must really be the best sites.

Organic SEO is fine if you;

1. Have a product that you can dedicate 300-750 words to describe its value.


2. Can exhibit supporting materials images, references and materials that emphasize the products benefits.


3. If you can shroud it in essentially keywords consumers might use to find it in enough frequency, that it can leverage a high-ranking organic search result.
   
4. If you are patient enough for 2-6 months to hold out for long term sustainable results

If you have a product that has a high price point, where there is some wiggle room for how much you are willing to spend to keep the cost per sale within bounds, then by all means pay per click advertising is a viable solution.

At Analytix Solutions our SEO experts will suggest a marketing plan only after analyzing your goals and what results you expect from your online marketing. During tight credit crunch it is advisable to increase reliance on free organic SEO strategies rather than PPC. A hybrid plan (combination of SEO +PPC) is another alternative for those who seek quick results and suffer from very poor rankings, as SEO will ensure with time regular traffic builds for your site, while PPC will bring serious buyers to your site through banner ads, to get the ball rolling for your business. Once SEO tactics picks up, the budget spent on PPC can be minimized and then totally withdrawn, if required.

Beauty of search engine marketing lies in the Flexibility & Control it offers which is very difficult to achieve with traditional marketing tools. Finally, the selection of best online marketing strategy is obviously upto you....