Not many people would argue that marketing your website is absolutely necessary for conducting business online in today’s competitive market.  Potential customers use search engines as their primary tool to find products and services every minute of everyday.  Search Engine Optimization helps increase your website visibility and puts you directly in front of those searching the web, who are essentially your potential customers.

So why would you not want to be engaged in some form of web marketing, especially search engine optimization for your business?  Well, for many people who are not familiar with the web medium, the costs may seem be a bit out of reach for some businesses at first.  The reality is that search engine optimization is one of the most cost effective methods of web marketing today. It’s true that implementing an SEO campaign is not cheap, but it is relatively inexpensive and very affordable when compared to the other traditional alternatives.

One reason for this is that there are many types of web strategies that can be performed at different levels and they do not all have to be done all at once.  Since, SEO is an ongoing effort, it is always better to do something (even if it is just a little) than nothing at all.  Since all efforts are cumulative, overtime, your site will definitely reap the benefits and your money would be wisely spent.

You might want to start by just focusing on ensuring that your web pages are properly optimized and easily crawlable by the major search engines.  Plus, try adding content on a regular basis, as this will make your site more dynamic to both your visitors and the search engines. Setting up a blog is a great way to add fresh content regularly.  Did I mention that the search engines love blogs?  Yes, the search engines thrive on this because it is giving them exactly what they want… relevant content!

SEO services are actually very affordable when you consider the high costs of traditional marketing such as TV and print.  If you are not familiar with the costs involved for this type of marketing, I encourage you to check the rates for national print publications.  It is really astronomical.  Not to mention the fact that you cannot easily measure performance and ROI.

For instance, how many people will actually read your ad when in is published in a print magazine or newspaper?  Nobody knows.  I can assure you the costs of implementing an effective web marketing campaign are modest in comparison and the ability to measure results and performance is quite impressive with search engine marketing tactics in place.  Remember, whether you hire a professional SEO company like us to implement a search engine campaign or you do it yourself, marketing your site online is much more cost effective and affordable than traditional methods.  Plus, you can measure your results!

Many companies have seen the potential of social media marketing, but there are still a large percentage of businesses that have not. Building a brand and selling consumers on your product has become easier in some ways and harder in others. Facebook is one of the largest social networking sites, with over 350 million users. Creating a successful fan page for your business is a great way to increase traffic to your site and create a “buzz” about your brand.
A great example of this is Target, they had the “Bullseye Gives” campaign under which their fans could vote how they would spend money on charities. “[U]sers select which of ten charities they’d like to see funds allocated to. Money will then be given out based on percentages, so if 10 percent of users vote for Salvation Army, that organization will receive 10 percent of the total donations.” Sounds pretty straightforward, but how does that fit in with Facebook you may ask? Well, Target wisely chose to integrate this application with Facebook by allowing your daily vote to be published on your Facebook feed for all your friends to see. This provided the opportunity for even more individuals to see “Target’s branding and becom[e] fans of the company.”
Victoria Secret understands that with so many people and businesses on Facebook, it is impossible to find someone unless you are actively searching for them. So they created a link on their web site’s home page to encourage traffic on their fan page. By funneling visitors through their website and to their Facebook page, VS has a much better chance of increasing their fan base.
Offering applications, tools, or widgets is another way to improve your Facebook fan page. Since they are not part of the normal demographic on Facebook, Dell realized they would have to be creative in expanding their social media influence. So, they offer “social media resources for small business” on Facebook. “Understanding that small business owners buy computers, by offering them this resource, small business owners interested in social media keep Dell top of mind.” By offering something unique a business has the opportunity to attract customers that don’t fit into their usual demographic.

If your website has been a victim of scammer’s techniques and you have been penalized by search engines for it, here are some strategies to get yourself re-listed on search results. Having your site removed from major search engines like Google can be devastating for your traffic, but it might be helpful for your site itself as it gives you an opportunity to look over the site, see where you need to make changes, and give an overall “facelift” to your pages. Remember that search engines do not read Flash so if your site uses animations be sure to add plenty of tags and relevant content so a search engines spiders will know what your site is about. Ensure your server is working properly too as your site won’t attract anyone with technical problems.

Some files such as robots.txt folders will actually inhibit and discourage the spiders you are trying to attract so deleting them is advantageous. Once you have revisited and revamped your site, you can send a re-inclusion request to the search engine that blocked you. Don’t expect an answer right away. Search engines often update their results in a scheduled fashion so it may be as long as a month before you see your site listed again. One of the biggest characteristics you should strive for on your website is useful, relevant content. “Currently, the [search] engines are emphasizing relevancy. Algorithms seem to favor relevant content, relevant title and description tags, and a relevant linking strategy.” Content that is helpful, informative, and properly tagged will really help you score big with search engines.

Sometimes coming up with new ideas for web marketing campaigns can seem like a major challenge. However there are a few tested categories that are always newsworthy. Here are some ideas for advertising and how you can use them on your site.

Keep a close eye on what going on. For instance, “If you see something on the Today Show that touches on your area of expertise, send a quick news release to the NBC affiliate in your town and offer them a ‘local angle’ on the story.” Local news usually gets put on the internet and there it becomes international news. Having an article from your local paper on your website can give you more credibility and make you appear more real to your customers. Another topic that is always popular is children and animals. If appropriate, try and incorporate children and animals into your website. Whether they become part of the graphics marketing your product or you have a separate area of your site “just for kids” to teach them about your industry or product, children and animals are an easy, feel-good way to attract visitors.

“The paper out of which the world’s longest flying paper airplane was made”; did that grab your attention? Milestones and record breaking accomplishments are interesting because they describe the limits of human ability or special events we wish to remember. As the famous De Beers commercial so aptly stated, “A diamond is forever.” In 2000 Advertising Age magazine named that line the “best advertising slogan of the twentieth century.

Polls, surveys, and contests are attractive to people because everyone likes to give their opinion on things and see what others think. Even a simple poll can become a huge marketing campaign if people like it. Consider the McDonald’s ad that had people naming off as fast as they could, “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” Have you counted all the quiz applications on social networking sites like Facebook? From “which Disney princess are you?” to “what color crayon are you?” these are subtle and effective ways to advertise your brand. Do not be afraid to try different things as the web marketing has lots to do with trial and error. Test it and see how well your audience responds and make adjustments accordingly.

No one likes spam. However, just like breathalyzers sometimes mistake an innocent person for a drunk, search engines sometimes confuse legitimate marketing techniques with spam. Or even worse, what if someone uses your site to promote their spam and you get penalized as a result? Here are some of the most common spamming methods you want to watch out for and avoid at all costs. Getting caught spamming will quickly destroy any progress you have made with web marketing.

“When one page is served to search engine crawlers to get a good ranking but a different version of the page is served to search engine users” it is called “cloaking”. Some cloaking includes changing meta tags, while others don’t, but it is spam however it is done.

Another technique that is called several different names is when users are taken to a site that is unrelated to their original search. Whether you call it “spoofing, redirects, or meta refresh” it makes search engines very suspicious fast meta-refreshes. If you have a legitimate reason for redirecting your visitors, most web experts recommend using server-side redirection. Avoid using JavaScript to redirect people, as that is distrusted by many search engines as well. “Mirror sites” are web pages that are identical, but placed under different domain names. Some web developers also refer to mirror sites as “domain spamming”.

Keyword stuffing is annoying both to search engines and to the casual visitor to your site since it makes your text virtually unreadable. Clever spammers have discovered new ways to covertly keyword stuff a site such as shrinking the text to make it unnoticeable and setting the text color to match the background so the stuffed keywords are invisible. Of course the most commonly known spamming technique is flooding the web or email addresses with your site by “over-submitting”. This is an intentional spamming method as is creating misleading links to fool search engines. Deceptive or irrelevant tags hidden in web pages or attached to the title are yet another way for spammers to illicitly promote their site.