Search Engine Marketing...

Is your website working for you or are you working for your website?
As the world turns, the web evolves and so must your business.

Search engines allow you to appear in front of people who expressed interest in your product or service by typing a few KEY words relevant to your site. Your web link can appear in 2 places on a search engine page; as a natural result or a sponsored result.

Natural is the term for links that appear after a word or phrase is typed into a search engine. Sponsored links are advertisements you must pay for and are shown above or next to natural search results, which appears when keywords are typed into a search box.


Keywords.
The best way to gather keywords is to begin with some generic words then hone in more specific words-consider alternative words that mean the same thing. After you find 10 to 15 keywords they then need to be embedded into your meta pages. These are commands that describe the page it is coded to. Note they are invisible to your customer but important for search engines to find you. In addition to your keywords, search engines consider the viewable text of your site in order to determine its position in the results.

Paid Searches.
Paid search works somewhat like an auction. You bid on search terms for your product/service. Once you pay for the term(s) you develop a text-based advertisment for posting along side natural results, then pay-per-click when user click your ad. The advantage here is that your ad can appear near the top of the results and you get to set a budget that when met will automatically remove your ad. You should consider creating a budget; 1) how much you will spend over a period of time 2) how much you're willing to allocate for each click. The more $ you pay for a click through, the higher you will likely rank.

Keep in mind when it comes to generic terms, you are likely to be out bid by companies with bigger budgets. If you have the money, bidding on keywords can be a successful strategy for increasing your presence on-line, though it may not always lead to sales.