Search Engine Marketing (SEM) essentially consists of two larger parts: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC):
ORGANIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
Search engine optimization involves a number of content management techniques that make your website as easy as possible for search engines to find and index.
We call these techniques, “Dotting the I’s”, and its amazing how many websites dont follow these basic principals. Here are a few.
Google and a number of other search engines publish suggestions that will help give your site higher rankings, but typically it takes an experienced consultant to propel your site into the top five results, where approximately 70% of all clicks come from.
Search Engine Optimization involves a relatively high initial investment but can reap an enormous number of “free” clicks if done well.
If you’re considering a website redesign or restructuring your website in any way, it’s critical to bring in an SEO consultant like myself as part of your small business’ internet marketing strategy.
A QUICK WORD ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL SEO…
As of January 2008 all of the major search engines, including Google, began to display a separate interface at the top of their search result pages for locally-targeted keywords and keyphrases (like “Pizza Stuart, Florida”). This new interface features a map and a combination of either three or 7 text listings (known colloquially in the search marketing industry as a “Local 3-pack” in Yahoo or “Local 7-pack” in Google). They also show these listings for selected product & service-based searches without any geographic modifiers.
Take a look at the patterns in Google’s search results. It shows that almost 90% of your customers are clicking on the first page….and almost 65% click on the top 3 results.
Results
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For Most small businesses, currently the following are the minimum strategies you should be implimenting. Setup and Monthly Maintenence
Initial Discovery and On-Page Optimization
Keyword Discovery and Competitive Analysis - $300
On-page Optimization and Submission (Dotting the i’s) – $75per page
Attention Wizard, Heat maps and Focus group testing ($2400 over 3 mo.)
Local Places creation (Yahoo, Bing, Google) – $750
$500 mo (applications w/ min. 3 mons) + $300 mo. for Analysis and Advisement
Then Monthly Maintenance
Monthly minimum 2 hours $300
Recommended – 4 hours $500 (Save $100)
Package rate times above
In addition to SEO on Search Engine Optimization, is Social Media Marketing and Management. In an effort to cover both of these areas for our clients SiteDesignZ has Packaged together our services, from:
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