Search Marketing

Search Marketing

You already know that just having a website doesn’t mean that your target audiences will find it or become your customers if they do. The goal of search marketing is to make your business website more visible on search engine results pages.

Search marketing includes search engine optimization (SEO) — but search marketing is a whole lot more than SEO. Search marketing means creating authoritative content for your business website — better, more reliable information than your competitors have.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is a way of editing a website to position it for success with Google and the other search engines. To take just one example — you should target no more than five search terms for your homepage or other landing page on your site — and then use each of those targeted search terms three or more times on that page.

Some people used to think of SEO as a set of tricks that could outsmart the search engines, but that kind of “black hat marketing” will eventually hurt you.
The Importance of Content

Your content is much more important than your site’s graphic design. If your site is easy to navigate and visually clean, you’ve taken care of the most important design issues. But if your content is deficient, a great design won’t help you.

Your graphic design is not a factor in the placement of your site on search engine results pages. Few visitors to your site will make a decision to stay-and-buy (or hit the “Back” button) based on your graphic design — unless it’s distracting or confusing. Most first-time visitors to your site just want to see who you are and find out if you offer what they are looking for.

Many of our Internet marketing clients don't really need a completely new design. If you want to keep the basics of your current graphic design, Allied Internet will help you evaluate it as a marketing tool, and suggest adjustments that may be to your advantage.

Search Engines Evaluate Your Content
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live Search are primarily in the information cataloging business, and that they reward sites that have good information.

Many of us now use the search engines instead of the Yellow Pages, but it’s important to understand that the search engines are not in the directory business. Let's say it again: they are in the information cataloging business. Google says that their mission is to organize the world’s information; their mathematicians write algorithms that notice and reward sites with regularly-updated information.

Our most important advice if your goal is long-term success with the search engines: make your site an information source that is clearly better than what your competitors are offering.

Because your site has reliable information that is regularly updated, the search engines will eventually reward your efforts. Visitors to your site will bookmark it because your information is so good — and so up-to-date — that it's worth a return visit from time to time.