The time when potential customers looked for local businesses by flipping through the yellow pages is completely gone. Nowadays, like it or not, we are all part of the Google Generation. If your company is not near the top in the Internet search results, you will lose customers to those who are on the first two or three pages of the list. Potential customers will check out very few websites, stop by ones that give the most comprehensive information, the ones they trust, and the ones they like. The search is over; the decision is made! The good thing about this is that everybody has a fairly equal chance to be positioned near the top. The competition and winning won’t cost too much. Believe it or not, it costs less than placing a tiny ad in the free local newspaper. The amazing thing is that a small business or even an individual can now compete with corporate giants.
Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the most efficient way of marketing on the Internet because it improves your website’s ranking in the search engines. When people search for a business or a product on the Internet, they type keywords or keyphrases in Google, Yahoo or other search engines and get the list of hundreds and thousands of related websites. The competition in the Internet market is extremely high. If your website is not optimized, it’s not likely to be found within the first pages by a potential customer. The purpose of SEO is to get a website listed near the top of the search results, ideally on the first page.
When do you need to look for an SEO specialist?
Sure, when you can’t find your website in the search engine results or you are not satisfied with its search engine ranking (SER). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important.It’s one of the most misinterpreted terms in the business world. It’s simply a set of activities to help a website be found in search engines using relevant keywords and phrases and get a higher ranking in search engine results. In other words, it occurs because of the quality of a website’s code and content.
How to determine whether your website is optimized or not?
Obviously, if you can’t find it in the search results, there’s something wrong. Next, check out its source code. If you are not able to find the same meaningful content that you see visually on the web page in the browser window among the code and scripting language, that means that your site was not built by a professional designer or it was done with a web-builder. Perhaps, SEO requirements weren’t set at the time it was built. In addition, the coding practice can be outdated. The web standards continuously improve and completely change every 3-5 years.
We use only organic SEO methods. We never use any embedded scripts and tricks that can artificially boost your ranking for the short term but ruin your search engine credibility in the long run. We follow Google SEO guidelines, and we recommend that you check out Google suggestions on hiring an SEO company.
How long will it take until you see results?
There are a few factors to consider:
- The age of your domain name and website
- The quality of your domain name and website
- Current SEO performance
- Competitiveness that is specific to your target market
- History with the search engines’ crawl diagnostics
Practically, the first results can be seen after a months, and within 3 to 6 months the result will become consistent.
Our SEO services start at $150 a month* and include the following:
- Free initial consultation, checking the website and setting the goals
- Website evaluation on overall functioning, usability, and quality of source code**
- Content analysis on matching industry-related keywords
- Code and content adjustment, if possible
- Submission to major search engines and directories
- Statcounter installation
- Generating and submitting XML sitemap
- Building proper internal links
- Developing a strategy for receiving quality inbound links from relevant websites
- Ongoing creative SEO development
* To get this price, we require a one-year contract with quarterly payments. Otherwise, there may be a $300 one-time fee for only improving website performance (lines 1 to 7 in the list).
** Redesign and/or recoding may be required, and there may be a fee comparable to up to one half of the charge for building a website. Usually, websites that were built with web-builders or completed more than 3-5 years ago require extensive recoding
Does every website needs SEO management?
Not always. You may not need to promote your website extensively if your business is location-based, for example, a corner or grocery store, a retail store at the shopping mall. If you take orders over the phone, like a restaurant or a mobile mechanical service, or you are a hair stylist and you are building a customer base, you may consider SEO as an affordable and effective addition to your advertising campaign. How much do you spend on print advertising every month? You can have SEO for as low as $90. Why not give it a try? You’ll be surprised by the number of customers who would never have found you otherwise.
Do you guarantee that my website will appear on the first page in Google search?
No. Being at the top in Google search results is such an advantage these days that every business is making an effort to be there. It’s a highly competitive environment. SEO is only an essential part of a company’s marketing activity that will help it have a competitive edge.
Can I do an SEO on my own?
A fair answer is that is likely “Yes”. It’s not rocket science. It’s time consuming, and you need to be computer and Internet literate and have full access to your hosting account. It’s more about research and marketing than programming and engineering. If you are not busy 24/7, download SEO Basics from Google, learn and take action. If you asked the same question about building a website, the answer would likely be “No”, even though there are thousands of free templates and cheap website builders available.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM
Search Engine Marketing (SEM), is a general term that includes SEO as an organic or algorithmic part and other Internet marketing activities such as pay-per-click advertisement (PPC), directory submission management, and quality link exchange.