What is SEO? Do you offer that?
Written by Scott on Saturday, February 24th, 2007SEO (search engine optimization) is pretty huge right now. Just go to Google and type in SEO and you will get a gazillion companies promising to rank you number one on Google. Truth is, Google keeps their ranking formula a secret, so there is really no one that can promise you that. However, Google does provide some basic SEO best practices on their website.
SEO is a web marketing strategy designed to get your site ranked as high as possible on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. So for example, I own a web design firm in Wilmington NC. When someone goes to Google and types in ‘Wilmington NC Web Design’, I want my website to come up first, right at the top. At Impulse Web Solutions, we follow the Google webmaster guidelines and implement industry standard techniques to help your site get noticed by your target audience.
Other options for SEO include Pay Per Click advertising and Ad Campaigns. Basically you tell Google what keywords you want to appear for. Then, when someone clicks on your site Google charges you. If you have ever done a search on Google (who hasn’t right?) you will notice some links appear at the top in a blue box, then some links appear right beneath that and then some links show up on the right. The ones on the top and right are paying to be there using pay per click advertising while the other ones are what we call organic links and are not paying to be there. Pay per click advertising is great for a new site to get some hits, but eventually that will get expensive and what you want is to be an organic link. You want to rank high because you have a great site, not because you paid to be there.
Less expensive methods include optimizing your page content and HTML code to be more search engine friendly. At Impulse, we provide a basic SEO package that includes the following and is a one time cost of $100.00:
-Site submission by hand to the top 3 search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN
-Google Account and Webmaster tools so you can monitor your site’s progress
-Sitemap development and submission to Google and Yahoo
-Access to monthly reporting tools Google Analytics Account for monitoring site stats
-HTML code optimization and meta tag design for optimum visibility
(Note: Sites over 10 pages will be charged $10/page for HTML code optimization)
For an additional cost, I can also help you setup Adword and Pay Per Click campaigns with Google. Visit my site for more info.