Almost every company now has an online presence, and for many it has become an integral element of their marketing and sales program. Your internet presence needs to aquire new clientele outside your local or high visibility market, and potential customers are most likely to discover you through search engines. To ensure your site is being found by people looking for your products and services it’s necessary to implement a comprehensive SEM (Search Engine Marketing) program.
Google has, and continues to dominate Web Search market share: Fig 1: Search Engine Landscape (Source: Compete.com)
Generating high volumes of traffic to your website is not the only goal of search engine marketing. Effective SEM assures your website will be visible to potential customers who are seeking the products and services you have to offer, not just to the world at large! This presents an opportunity to showcase your business offer to customers just as they are considering making a purchase. The superior leads generated will result in a better conversion rate.
Search Engine Marketing Techniques
Two very popular search engine marketing tools are pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO).
Pay Per Click
Pay per click is a method of advertising with search engines, social media or other avenues for particular keyword phrases. A small fee is charged every time a visitor clicks on the advertisers PPC ad. Basically, website owners can attract more traffic by purchasing their way to a better position on search results pages.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is a term which has evolved in the last few years to incorporate many strategies and processes to attract superior traffic to your website. Initially, when the internet was relatively new, it meant altering your website to make certain the search engines could;
a) Locate your website and
b) Rank it properly in their indexes.
Using a complex algorithm based on keywords, META tags, page content and the number and quality of incoming links from other sites, websites were ranked.
SEO now includes a much more extensive group of potential actions to reach your target audience.
There are two main areas into which an SEO program may be divided:
1. On-page optimization – Involving adjusting the content and code behind the site to suit the principal SEO factors. Standard methods include:
- Use of keywords in particular locations on the page or website;
- Generating themed sites;
- Developing the internal link structure of the website to give specific pages and links added value in the eyes of the search engines;
- Building content which gives emphasis to certain keywords and phrases, and
- Using headlines, bold text, underlined or italicized text and optimized copy.
2. Off-page optimization – These actions may utilize:
- Link building with other sites (often known as 'back links’);
- Article marketing;
- Posting threads to forums or blogs;
- Syndicating content with other sites, and
- Social media marketing.
Our Services
WSI has SEO experts who will work with you to design and implement a comprehensive SEO campaign for your business, integrating both, on-page and off-page optimization. Your WSI managed SEO campaign can include:
- Monitoring your search engine positions;
- Analysis of our actions and the quality of traffic coming to your site;
- Creating relevant content - blog writing, articles, press releases and web page content, and
- Strengthening your niche positioning to positively impact your business through a diversity of online promotions.
Read our articles on search engine marketing or call your local WSI consultant for more information.