So, your web site looks great, but you're not getting the visitors you were hoping for?

You've searched high and low on Google and Yahoo, but still find yourself hidden away on page 15?

Chances are, your site needs a serious dose of SEO or SEM to improve the situation.

The goals of SEO or Search Engine Optimization and SEM or Search Engine Marketing are the same. To get your web site as high in the search result rankings as possible. How they go about that, is fundamentally different.

SEO and SEM. Related, but not the same.

Search Engine Optimization is the one everyone strives for. It costs nothing, and is a result of organic growth.

Organic growth?

Yeah ‘organic.’ I don’t mean organic in the farming sense. Heck if that was the case – I’d have more top ranking web sites in the back paddock than I could shake a stick at.

I mean organic in the natural sense. Growing without any additives. Additives like your cash for instance.

You’ll understand organic better when I talk about Search Engine Marketing, but for now, let’s just say that SEO while a little trickier to get right and longer to see results, is the one we really want to have on our team.

Search Engine Marketing? Now that takes an entirely different approach. Basically with SEM, you are paying for your search result placement.

Typically you set some kind of budget, and a price you’re willing to pay should someone click on your listing in the search results.

That’s pretty much it. Well, ok… there is keyword analysis, landing pages and stuff like that, but that’s the concept. You get immediate results, - however if you have a lot of people clicking your result listing, it could cost you a lot of money.

Unless you can convert your visitors into paying customers.

So SEO is organic, and SEM is cash injected steroids.

With all Search related efforts though, think from the perspective of your target market. What would they be searching for if they were looking for you? The more specific the search the more likely it is they’ll find you near the top.

Take this example. On my web travels in the not too distant past, I came across a web design company promising great successes with SEO. I was intrigued. What I found was sadly much hype.

The goal of SEO isn’t to optimize the exact phrase that will find you, but to optimize a combination of keywords that will find you.

So the claim of we took this low ranking web site and after 2 days it was number #1 didn’t really mean a heck of a lot when the search phrase was ‘space agency houston’ – well it wasn’t that exact phrase, but it did narrow it down to the point where of course the ranking was going to be high.

Bitter?

No. Not even the slightest.

I do think it’s really important that everyone understands that SEO isn’t simple, and it does take time. Lots of time in some cases. There are a lot of people who get sucked into those sorts of claims. I just don’t want you to be one of them.

Think about how you use the search engines as well. While ranking #1 is great, appearing in the top 5 or 6 is an excellent result. Especially if you are in a crowded market like insurance for instance.

There are lots of techniques to get sites ranking higher in search results. Some are good, and some are most definitely bad. If the company who optimizes your pages goes for the quick and dirty option – you could find yourself blocked from appearing in the results at all.

Sadly this happens more often than people realize.

So now that you know what SEO and SEM are, feel free to contact us, and find out how we can get your site greater visibility.