SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION AND ITS IMPORTANCE

Importance of Search Engines

You have just created an amazing website to promote your company. It has just gone live and you are excited for all of the business that this website is going to get you. You go to www.google.com and you type in what your company does. For example, if you have a antique furniture store, you type in “antique furniture”. You scroll through the first page and there are a lot of antique furniture stores but yours does not come up. You go to the next page, and the next, and then the next. Finally on page 25, you see your company.

This is a very large problem for many companies. Studies have shown that almost 90% of first time visitors are directed to the website by way of a major search engine. Most of the time users will not look past the first two or three pages of the search results generated by such search engines. If you wish to generate a steady flow of good business for your website it is important that your page is located in those top two or three page results. Guaranteeing that your website is one of the few located at the top of the search results is a very daunting task but it can be done.

The pure volume of new sites that are being created each day is baffling. Maintaining a position at the top of the search results generated by a major search engine is a daunting task. Businesses are being forced to optimize the strategies used in order to maintain their position as one of the top search results. A tactic titled “Search Engine Optimization” is often used to make sure that websites remain at the top of the search results. If search engine optimization is properly used and executed in websites it will lead to large amounts of new customers.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is a process that allows for a given website to be easily indexed and searched by a search engine. In order to give a website such qualities, the website’s code needs to be structured in a specific fashion to allow optimal indexing. This re-structuring allows for the keywords in the site to be referenced when a general search query is done by a large search engine. It is the finding of these key words that places a site among the top results given by a search engine.


IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Always Among the Top

Once your website is among the top search results, it will constantly bring customers to your site as long as this location at the top is secured. This location at the top of the search results is extremely beneficial from a marketing perspective. Hundreds of visitors per month will be exposed to your website’s name and description. The more search engines that place your site among the top websites, the more exposure and site traffic you will receive.

Giving Customers what they want

When a customer types in various key words to search for, they already know what they are looking for. Since this search result will hopefully result in your website showing up, it is a great marketing edge. This means that a customer is already in search of a service or product because they took the initiative to type those key words into the search engine. Each and every person that finds your site by way of search is already interested in your product or service.

Popularity of search engines

Search engines are by far the most popular source of information on the Internet. Nine out of ten web users use a search engine each month (Neilson/NetRatings, May, 2003). This makes using search engines the second most popular thing to do on the internet; search engines are only second to sending e-mails. Search engines are extremely important and useful tools that can be used to better your business.

Search Engines: Behind the Scenes

Search engines are used to obtain valid and quality results for a given search string provided by the user. In order to obtain these results, complicated algorithms are used to ensure accurate and useful results. There are many factors in the algorithms and here are some of them: popularity of site, size of search terms, and proximity of search terms to one another. These factors all need to be taken into account when designing a website to be search optimized. In order to index this information from websites, search engines often “spider” or “crawl” through the entire web. This process is takes a large amount of time due to the sheer volume of information that is available on the web. One way that is used to speed up the indexing process, is that once a new site is completed, it can be submitted to a search engine to allow quick indexing. Search engines must constantly be “crawling” through the web.

The individual algorithms used by each search engine are very closely guarded secrets because these algorithms are the ones that make one search engine different or better than another. Often time these algorithms are tweaked and slightly changed in an effort to better the accuracy of the results.

Two Types of Search Results

There are two different types of results that are given by a search engine. These results are natural search results as well as pay-per-click search results.

Natural Results

Natural results are the results that we have discussed prior. They are the results that are obtained through the web crawling and the indexing. These results are often more relevant and accurate than the results that will be discussed below. Natural results are preferred by 85% of the people that use search engines. Websites often prefer to be found by natural results as opposed to the pay-per-click method.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay-Per-Click results are exactly as they sound. When a certain string is searched for by a user, a website will pay the search engine a certain amount of money per-click that they receive if their website is placed at the top of the search results. It is almost like bribery system that is used. Certain sites will pay the search engines over $25.00 per click. The price per click is often based on the popularity of the search terms as well as the other companies that are offering money at a per click basis. Often times to distinguish the natural results from the pay-per-click results the pay-per-click results will be located in a fixed location with a title of “Sponsored Links”. Often time these sponsored links are not nearly as accurate and precise as the natural results.

Often time it is in the best interest to invest in both pay-per-click results as well as a high ranking in natural results. With this combination, your website marketing scheme will be optimized.

High Rank isn’t Everything

When your website is among the higher results, it does not necessarily guarantee that your website will then gain traffic. If a website is attaining a high rank but is not generating the traffic desired, there are other things that need to be done like changes in the description and some of the wording to attract more customers. A website has reached its search engine peak when it has a high ranking, this high ranking generates traffic and then in turn the increased traffic has a direct increase in your sales.

Keyword Phrase Selection

As discussed before, certain key phrases need to be included in your website and also in the coding of the website to make it index friendly for the search engines. When choosing these key words, it is extremely important. It is these keywords and the frequency of their use that will achieve a high ranking result for your site. If you have a list of keywords that you think are important, but it turns out that these terms are not the most frequently used by users, then they keywords are relatively meaningless. The keywords designated by the site NEED to be the most commonly searched terms for that specific area of work.

For example, if you are a used car salesman in Bucks County, you do not want to have “used car” as a keyword. If “used car” was one of the keywords, someone in Ohio would type in used car and your website would come up. This is good in the slight chance that this person is willing to broker some kind of a deal from Ohio, but the chances of that happening are very unlikely. It is important to have geographical terms to add to your main keywords to allow for users in the area to easily locate your site. Often times users will add these geographical terms to the general service terms in order to narrow down the search for themselves.

The importance of these keywords can not be stressed enough. It is extremely important to include ANY and ALL keywords that may pertain to your business. These keywords include product information/services provided as well as the locations for where these things can be obtained. The combination or properly placed keywords throughout your web page is essential to the success of the site.


Search Engine Optimization vs. Traditional Marketing

 Medium  Cost  Terms  Audience Reach

Local Television

A 30-second commercial on a local station in a top 10 market  ranges from $4,000 to $45,000+ during top rated shows.

 Airtime can be purchased throughout the year but is often scheduled in flights that center on sales, and product introductions.
 As a broadcast medium, television reaches a large number of consumers. It is extraordinarily expensive to use to reach smaller target audiences. Targeting is difficult.
Network Television

A 30-second commercial in prime time ranges from $80,000 to $600,000, depending on ratings, averaging from $120,000 to $140,000.

 Network spots are also purchased in flights but can be much smaller than local and cable flights due to the high cost.

 As a higher-cost solution, one can determine the best possible time and show for a spot to run in order to capture the most targeted audience for the product. Even so, the return on investment is still very low.
Cable Television

A 30-second spot in prime time runs between $5,000 and $8,000 depending upon the network.

As a more affordable solution, the dynamic of cable television offers themed channels as an outlet for advertisers to approach target audiences.

 With a larger number of channels to choose from, companies can more effectively target audience demographics in hopes of higher returns.
Radio

Commercials range from $200 to $1,000 for a 60-second spot and all depends on the time of day that it runs and each program’s ratings.

Radio is also purchased in flights that center around specific events.

 Many factors affect the effectiveness of radio advertising. Stronger stations charge premium rates to get your message to a large audience. While listeners are a captive audience, typically listening in their cars or at work, it is difficult for them to respond to an ad.
Magazines

Ads in regional editions of national magazines cost an average of $50 per 1,000 issues in circulation. The average cost of an ad in a local magazine is about $120 per 1,000.

 Magazine ad sales can be sold as annuals, specific months of publication or special issues.

 Magazine editorial allows advertisers the ability to target audiences more effectively than broadcast and allows for delivery of more information.

Direct Mail

The most common forms include promotional info in letter-sized envelopes costing $15 to $20 per 1,000. Single sheet newspaper inserts cost between $25 and $40 per 1,000 issues circulated.

 Direct mail is limitless in its development style and delivery frequency. From postcards to free samples, direct mail can deliver anything. Unfortunately, demographic research into neighborhoods only goes so far, often delivering your message to more people who won’t respond than to those who do.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 As a custom marketing option, search engine optimization can vary in price for specific needs and goals. Typical programs can range from $3,000 to $6,000 per year. Search engine optimization programs run monthly or quarterly. As a narrowcast medium, search engine marketing services target those who are already seeking information about products or services in your industry. Return on investment numbers are exceptionally high as visitors to your website become regular customers.
Source: 1UpWeb

How We can Help

Here at Trisis Technologies, we have the experience and skills necessary to bring your website to the top. By implementing all of the techniques and theories discussed prior, we can increase the targeted traffic to the site which will in turn, increase the amount of business.

In order to fully optimize a client’s website, we go through a rather lengthy process. The first step of our process is to analyze your business, your competitors, and also your customers. Once we have a good grasp on those topics, we begin to formulate a keyword list. This list is not necessarily completed until it has been looked over numerous times by you and also heavily analyzed by us to guarantee that all keywords are included and properly placed in the document. We do a lot of in house testing using various algorithms to test the rank of your site before it is submitted to go live onto the Internet.

Our algorithms are created and based off of the most popular search engine’s algorithms. We then analyze your competitor’s websites to ensure that your ranking with the most important key words is above theirs. Due to the fact that search engine’s algorithms are constantly changing, we have created an environment that will easily allow us to edit the algorithm and heavily test each instance of the algorithm here at Trisis Technologies.

Constant Updates

As you know, search engines are constantly altering their search engine algorithms. It is imperative that your site remain as one of those top results. Remaining in the top results for a search is almost as hard as achieving that status in the first place. In order to maintain your position at the top of the list, your site has to change, just like the algorithms used to search it.

To keep up with the changing algorithms, Trisis Technologies has committed to providing monthly search engine optimization reports that will allow you to compare your traffic prior to search optimization to the traffic after optimization. By providing you with this kind of input and feedback, it will allow you to better optimize your site for searches.

In Closing . . .

Placing your business on the internet is only half of the battle. By optimizing your site for indexing and making it one of the top search results, the chances of your site becoming popular for its service or product will greatly increase. Search engines are constantly changing and adapting to new technologies.

Here at Trisis Technologies, we are committed to staying up to date with the current technologies. We can make any changes necessary to ensure that your site will be among the top results found when the keywords listed are searched for. We are constantly updating our methods for search optimization so that we remain ahead of the up to date.