Search Engine Marketing Questions Answered

Search Engine Marketing -Frequently asked questions

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Question:Will you give me improvements in search engine rankings,visitors or conversions for my website?

Answer: Our process and systems deliver you all three: ranking, visitors and conversions. Our objectives for your website are to achieve high ranking listings that will attract and entice qualified visitors to your website, who once there will convert to sales/enquiries by clicking your calls to action (fill out an enquiry make a purchase or call you by phone). Your success is our success, our ongoing monthly reporting and monitoring are key to developing your website The level of help we can offer you on converting clients will of course, depend on the access we have to your site, your log files etc. Click here for more information

Question: Do you offer any guarantees?

Answer:
Yes we will guarantee your website an increase in visitors, and guarantee a top 3 position via our Pay-per-Click services. Visitor increases can be proven via our monthly log analysis reports. No search engine marketing company can guarantee top listings on major search engines and directories on all keywords, as like us, they don't own the search engines. More important to us is working with you over time to build you a successful website measured by visitor numbers, calls to action and conversions. Free search marketing report > - find out if you might be missing opportunities with your web site.

Question: I already use a search engine positioning company or use a web design company to take care of search engine marketing. What can you offer that's deferent ?

Sometime asking your web developers to market your web site is like asking your printer to design and print your stationery and market your company as well. Without knowing more about your site, it's a hard question to answer, but what we would ask is are you 100% satisfied with the results. Are your visitor numbers going up? And more important are your sales/enquires from your web site as high as they should be? If yes, then they are most certainly doing their job, but if you are not satisfied with the results you are achieving or not sure how many visitors you should be receiving then contact SE Marketing > - we will look at your site and check your positions/ rankings and links and give you an honest answer if we can do better.

Question: How will your services impact on my existing Web site?

Answer:
This depends on our website audit. We will normally download a copy of your website to our server before conducting our audit, and the report we will supply you with will be honest and inform you of any changes or pages that may need to be added and why. Your copy optimised website pages will be published to our client area for you to approve before uploading/publishing to your site. Our objective is effective website pages that score high in search engines.

Question: Am I offered free as well as paid for listings on search engines and directories?

Answer:
Yes we offer free placements where available, although the major search engines and directories now charge a fee some annual some just a one-off fee. The advantage of paid submissions are that your web site pages are almost guaranteed to be included, plus your web site pages will be indexed on a regular basis giving us the opportunity to make changes at a future date to win you additional targeted visitors. Warning: submitting your website is not enough to achieve top listings on either directories (Yahoo) or search engines. We strongly advise that you get professional advice ask a question or request more information about search marketing for your web site >

Question: How long will it take for my web site pages to be in the search engines and directories?

Answer:
This does depend on your final approval of the optimised pages, but once you have approved the changes to your site and your new optimised site is uploaded/published and that we are paid, you will start to see results in 1 to 2 weeks from search engines and directories. We will provide a positioning report and website log analysis report after 1 month for you to see your ranking and visitor numbers from the search engines and directories. Some search engines and directories do take 6-10 weeks to index your site.

Question: What is Pay-Per-Click or Pay-For-Placement ?

Answer:
You may have seen "Sponsored Listing" or "Sponsor Matches" or "Sponsored Results" with a list of 3 or 4 web sites listed when you search on major search engines (ask-jeeves) and directories (Yahoo). These top 3 or 4 results are supplied to the search engines by our Pay-Per-Click/Pay-For-Performance partners. Find out more about search marketing campaigns >

At present there are 3 major Pay-Per-Click providers in the UK (Overture-UK, Espotting and Google Addwords) and maybe another 100 or so covering Europe and the US. All operate in a similar way which is for a fee (from 5p upwards dependent on who else is bidding for the keywords , the highest bidders get top positions) the fee is charged to your account each time your listing is clicked. In return for agreeing to pay the fee for click through's to your web site, your listing is guaranteed a top 3 listing with in major search engines and directories.

The advantages are that you can purchase multiple keywords/phrases related to individual pages on your web site and create multiple titles and descriptions similar to small adverts and only pay for results. If you have a good Pay-Per-Click strategy in place that includes having listing and landing pages optimised to gain maximum conversions then Pay-Per-Click can be a very successful marketing medium with an excellent return on investment.

The down side is that without a strategy in place, you may end up paying for lots of click through visitors but few conversions, in addition other web site operators also bid with you for each keyword. The end results is that the price you pay for each click can be very variable. In addition when you stop paying, your listing is dropped, Pay-per-click does have its place, but research shows that search engines not paid listings are still very popular, which is why some sites can be on page 2 of a search engine results page and still receive good visitor numbers. In conclusion there is more to being in a top position especially when you are paying for clicks.

Question: What is a Pay-For-Review program?

Answer:
Pay For Review programs are operated mainly by directory based search engines (e.g. Yahoo). Directories which are edited by humans. Generally, directories contain higher quality sites, they charge a fee to you to review your site for possible inclusion, and providing your site works and has content that is not offensive you are likely to be accepted. However being in a directory is not a guarantee of achieving a high ranking for your keywords, you will still need professional optimisation to achieve a high ranking under specific keywords, plus once you are in, it's almost impossible to change your listing.

Question: What is a Pay-For-Inclusion program?

Answer: Pay For Inclusion programs are now becoming wide spread on search engines including fast/all-the-web, lycos, Altavista. The principle way pay for inclusion programs operate, is for a yearly or 6 monthly fee per URL (e.g. each page). The fees range from £25 to £40 per URL. For this fee the URL submitted will be included in regular spider visits (software that visited your web site and indexes the pages) and re-spidered/indexed from 2 days to 1 month. The advantages are that your web site pages are guaranteed inclusion within the search engine and that your listing will always be up to date.

The disadvantage of Pay-For-Inclusion is that there is no guarantee of ranking for your keywords or site, just inclusion with the other 2 billion pages, plus search engines incorporate a number of calculations also known as algorithms to rank and index pages. The algorithms are a closely guarded secret and specific to each search engine. They are in place to benefit the clients, which are surfers like you and me to deliver us relevant pages in response to the keywords we enter, to obtain high rankings in pay-for-inclusion search engines. It is highly recommended that you employ the services of a professional search engine marketing company.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)-why do I need it
With SEM, you are paying for know how, research and abilities. With a good Search Engine Marketing Strategy in place we can leverage Pay-Per-Click, Pay-For-Inclusion and Pay-For -Review services within your budget to build you long term results. making sure your products/services are in front of your target market and that you receive an above average return on your investment SEM is about marketing.

Search engines optimisation has been developed to insure your web site pages are found by multiple keywords/phrases related to your products/services in both directories and search engines, with titles and descriptions that ENTICE visitors to click, with monitoring of results both visitor numbers, keywords/phrases used and search engine positions.

Your ranking/positions on search engines can change on a regular basis. The reasons are that each day millions of additional pages are being added. some of these will be your competitors. In addition search engines do change their algorithms, plus keyword/phrases that surfers use can change. A professional search engine marketing company will monitor your competitors, your visitor logs and your search engine positions using a 7 point 360degree process information, data selection, data analysis, strategy, plan, action, monitor and report.