MARKETING and ADVERTISING In order to market a website, the client should have particular goals that he hopes to achieve.With these goals in mind, and our experience in website marketing can analyze the site to determine what changes may be needed to make the site more prominent in the search engines. This often requires some analysis of competitors’ website's as well. Our marketing goal is to plan proper online placement of ads to draw the most qualified traffic to the client ’s website.     Search Engines (SEO) RULES Each of the major search engines create its own rules for what it considers “ethical” and “unethical” search engine optimization. Some of the unethical techniques, such as keyword spamming, will get a website banned from being listed in the search engines at all. Even if a website follows the rules, it faces other problems. Spiders might experience problems indexing Web pages that are set up in certain ways, and refuse to “crawl” them. Since we study and research SEO's monthly, our marketing company is familiar with search engine optimization techniques that will spot these problems at once and help the client take immediate steps to fix the situation.     INDEXING A SITE - Most major search engines send out automated programs, called “spiders,” to index website's These spiders examine a website to determine where that site should stand in the rankings when users put in particular key words. Search engine optimization involves setting up a website in such a way that the spiders will give it a high ranking, and the site will be one of the first ones to come up when someone searches on the particular term the website owner targeted as important. Website's that show up closer to the top in search engine results are more likely to get visited …and more likely to make the sales.     GUARANTEE - While it may be technically impossible to guarantee a top spot in the search engines with SEO, some website companies will offer a written guarantee that you will receive a specific number of visitors to your website. Read these guarantees carefully; make sure you understand the conditions (if any) that void the guarantee. Find out what the company will do to make good to you if they do not fulfill their end of the bargain. Everyone wants to be number one in the search engines. Take a Realtor for example, there are a few million realtors out there and every one of them cannot be on the top. The goal is to specify your particular market and area to reach the top of the charts. There are many companies that claim that they can place a company high in the search engines. Based on our experience, we believe that the majority of these companies do not deliver what they promise and we recommend extreme caution while dealing with these companies. Some of these companies generate "artificial hits" to your site using a smart program to simulate users thereby making you believe that you are getting a lot of hits through search engine placement. The only way to validate whether a search engine placement company is delivering quality traffic is to track the number of applications delivered as a result of such placements.   KNOWLEDGE - Before the Internet, business owners commonly advertised through newspapers and magazines, radio, and television. While some online companies still engage in that kind of marketing, it is much less important than getting your website in front of users online, when they are looking for what they need. Marketing a website online requires in-depth knowledge of search engine rules, a thorough analysis of the competition, and an awareness of the best places for ads. This kind of expertise cannot be acquired overnight. This includes technical skills that many business owners cannot afford to spend the time (or money) to bring in-house.

ONLINE ADVERTISING

Since the spiders’ method of reading HTML code changes, there is no guarantee for permanent placement. Online ads, on the other hand, offer guaranteed exposure. They can work synergistically with an optimized website. For example, if your website is optimized in the search engines to place highly when a user searches for particular keywords, placing an ad that also comes up when those words are searched for will increase your visibility – and increase the chances that a user will click to your website to find what they seek.

FEES - The proverbial saying “you get what you pay for” holds in this area as well…though, thankfully, you may encounter some pleasant surprises. Some individual consultants will do SEO for $2000 per month or less. Some large SEO and website marketing firms may charge large companies in excess of $30,000 per year for their services. Some website marketing firms, however, are able to keep costs down to their customers by taking advantage of bulk purchasing power for ads, and may charge as little as $500 (or less) per month. You still get the services of highly trained and experienced personnel dedicated to helping your online business grow.

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS: Based on working with thousands of clients, we believe that the best way to drive traffic to your site is to use a combination of online and offline strategies. We have affordable marketing plans available specifically designed to meet your needs. Each package is customized to your individual company needs. Please contact us for a free quote today.