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Many web development firms claim they can produce search engine friendly websites and there is nothing wrong with this claim. The CMS technology has come a long way and most of the content management systems are built to output search engine friendly URL structures and at the same time they minimize the other negative SEO signals like duplicate content and URL canonicalization too.
However, when a web development company misconstrues their offering as “search engine optimized”, there is a case for the client to look deeper into it. As a premier web marketing firm, our project estimates typically start with an overall understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the client website. We get daily requests to redesign and revamp websites and this is when our creative team works with the search marketing team to identify issues with search visibility and conversion optimization on the websites. Our solutions are as much about visitor conversion and interaction as they are about design and programming.
If you’re running a business that sells through the web either directly or indirectly, you would definitely look at search engine optimization as a crucial technique to build your website traffic base and for lead generation. Correctly implemented search engine optimization can bring new visitors to your website and if your site is well designed and is conversion oriented, you can convert these visitors into paying customers.
However, as the marketing manager of such a firm, you need to take decision of whether to hire someone to manage the SEO in-house or to hire an SEO firm to work on all the intricacies of search engine optimization. Here are some of the pros and cons of hiring vs. outsourcing your web marketing requirements.
The biggest advantage of keeping an important activity like search engine optimization in-house is the focus which it can get. Not to say that an agency would not focus, it may perhaps more than you can get, However, if you get to hire a competent in-house SEO manager, she would only be focusing on your company, a handful of online properties (yours) and your own industry with a bunch of competitors. She will understand the online set up of your industry and would know in and out the main blogs, forums, listservs, news sites and influence makers in your industry.
Ranking is one of the most highly used, overused and abused SEO metrics. While most of the SEO experts are responsible for over-hyping this SEO performance measurement technique, the role of clients seeking higher results for every possible keyword, cannot be undermined. Clients or SEOs, everyone seems to be obsessed with higher rankings and we are yet to find a performance evaluation where rankings are not the first metrics to be reported.
Some result-oriented type SEO firms combine this with tools that predict SERP CTR rates. A SERP is a search engine results page and CTR refers to Click-Thru rate. While it is true that higher rankings bring more traffic, trying to predict accurate percentage traffic which corresponds to SERP position, usually leads to failure. Due to their relative positions on a SERP, rankings 1 to 5 get much more visibility as compared to the 6-10th ranking. Eye-tracking studies and leaked papers from AOL click-thru reports were used to predict ranking to traffic measurement numbers. Moreover, X or Y% increase was further translated and projected as future expected inquiries and sales for clients.
While everyone was looking happy with this so called perfect trajectory, a lighting of realization struck companies when the traffic figures didn’t match the predicted numbers. The reality to prediction numbers were so wild that there was nothing that businesses and their SEO’s could do apart from scratching their heads and tossing their prediction files into secret bins, so that they never have to see them again.
This popular topic is presented in an insightful series of 6 articles, with this introductory overview being the first in our six-part series. In this part 1 introduction article, our goal is to give you a topical overview on the important aspects of improving your company or organization’s website and its online presence.
Each series will delve much deeper than we do in today’s article, and provide you with great information and guidance to ensure your online success. Our goal is to equip you with a solid understanding of all aspects of effective web design and web marketing so that you and all our readers’ experiences with their web design firms or web marketing companies are successful and profitable.
This 6-part series of articles is provided as follows:
Part 1: Introduction to Improving your Web Presence (Today’s article)
Part 4: Importance of Clean, Crisp Design and Effective Content Flow
As you learn new ideas and concepts from this series of articles, we are sure that new questions will come to your mind. We would be happy to answer them for you, so feel free to visit our site at www.ocularconcepts.us to submit your question on our contact form or call us at 866-530-6584. We hope you enjoy this series!
Is my SEO working? This is a question that most businesses ask themselves and find no clear way of tracking just how much SEO is really working for their business. Most of the organizations are trapped in a unilateral way of measuring SEO success – by monitoring their rankings. While rankings are the primary metrics which tell you about the effort that you or your SEO company is putting in, rankings cannot be taken as a true reflection of your online presence. Here is why:
High ranking for keywords that no one searches for is like opening a shop in a remote location, far from the city where traffic is.
Google personalizes search results through web history, geographic locations and bookmark history; hence you may see results which others are not seeing.
High rankings have a bigger goal – a quality traffic stream. If high Google rankings do not send you inquiries, they probably do not matter a lot.
SEO is like fishing – the wider your net, the better your catch. Too much obsession with limited keywords means your daily, weekly and monthly traffic number may still remain low.
SEO is much more than just high keyword ranking. The success of any SEO campaign is primarily tied with what the high rankings are doing for your business. If you really want to know the effectiveness of your search engine optimization campaign – try web analytics and the simplest tool is Google Analytics –clean, crisp, easy to understand and moreover – FREE.
The importance of a professional website cannot be undermined as a part of an effective online sales and branding strategy. Your business website provides first and a lasting impression of your business on your customers and potential buyers. Along with sales, your corporate website is also supposed to do a remarkable job at conveying the brand message across to your audience.
However, website aesthetics have to be combined with high search engine rankings for an effective web strategy, without which not much can be done in terms of sales and online branding. For this, SEO or search engine optimization is one of the most effective techniques that generate quality leads for your website.
Everyone wants to see their website ranking in the top 10 on Google for the keywords that matter the most to their business. You have gotten a great design which complies with W3C HTML standards, have remarkable content in form of presentations, blog posts and articles and you have also have submitted your website to directories. However, that top 10 ranking still remains elusive, doesn’t it? We all have gone through that stage of oblivion and it is true that the shining stars of today were nowhere to be found yesterday.
While ranking in Google in not a rocket science for those who know how to do it, even the best of the search engine optimization specialists tread cautiously when it comes to ranking newer websites. Not many, who know the art and science of SEO, are ready to offer commitment, leave aside a guarantee, for your high ranking endeavor. This hesitation is well grounded in the fact that Google’s ranking algorithm is heavily tilted towards aged and trusted domains. Yes, aged AND trusted – while the two are different, the former helps in building the later and hence they are directly related.
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