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Simply put, SEO is getting your page to appear higher on the search page(s) of search engine searches based on key words used to find your site.
With over a billion sites on the Internet today, it is imperative that you work with someone that can get you favorable placement. After all, what is the point of having a web site if nobody can find it, other than knowing your domain.
We build our sites with Search Engine Optimization in mind, and continue to monitor our client's web sites after they have been built to make sure that they are ranking favorably. We can offer no guarantees as to how your site will rank, as we have no control over search engines, however, we can say that our clients are very happy with the placement of their web sites.
Search Engine Optimization is about getting your site favorable placement with the search engines so that it gets noticed. As a web designer, I feel very strongly that this is an important part of my job.
I include Search Engine Optimization as part of my fee for all of the sites that I build, and I do SEO consulting for a number of clients with existing sites. One of the biggest ideas that I always am very up-front about is that there are no guarantees with search engine optimization, as I have absolutely no control over the search engines.
I can tell you however, that I work extremely hard for all of my clients to get them the best possible placement. Search engines use algorithms (a system of mathematical formulas) to rank your site, and they differ, sometimes greatly, from search engine to search engine. These algorithms are highly guarded secrets, and they do change somewhat frequently. Think for a moment…if I could get you top placement for every key word phrase in your web site, I would, literally be worth billions. The last time I checked (which was about a week ago, when the Forbes 400 wealthiest people issue hit the stands), there was not one billionaire that listed SEO Guru as an occupation. There are thousands of “SEO” consultants out there, many of whom will make all kinds of crazy promises. If you begin working with a service that starts to make these claims, the biggest advise I can give you is “ Run Forest , Run.” By the same token, you should not hire an SEO consultant, with the expectation that they can get your site top placement with every search engine, drive a million visitors through your site each week, and in 6 months you can buy one of the Bahamian Islands and retire. If I offend you, I apologize, but this thought process makes about as much sense as making the Florida State Lottery your retirement plan.
As I mentioned, I really do care about how my clients sites rank, and I work very hard to get them favorable placement. I also check every site that I have on at least a weekly basis to make sure that everything is fine. Sometimes, I am able to capture the top spot, most of the time, I will get favorable placement, sometimes, I strike out the first time, but I never give up.
Although SEO professionals do not understand exactly how search engines rank sites (Google, for instance uses over 300 criteria that they consider when they rank sites), we do understand many of the basic principals behind getting favorable placement. Forget about algorithms, and everything else. If a site is written using sound principals that are proven to work, chances are very good that your site will, in time, enjoy a favorable spot on all of the search engines.
I build sites using legitimate principals to achieve success. In fact, although I have built many sites over the years that have had very good placement, a client will never hear me promise how well their site will rank. Promising something that you can’t guarantee is not honest, ethical business. There are a number of “black hat” tricks that are commonly used by some SEO people. Although your site may do well initially, it will eventually become banned from search engines for a period of time, if not forever. I do know all about these tricks, and how to use them, but I would never put a client in that position. Even though good placement does take time, I do respect Search Engines. Google, in particular, takes a long time to get great results, simply because they represent legitimate companies. Search engines acknowledge and appreciate web builders who write pages correctly. They do not have much tolerance for web builders that try to deceive them.
In all honesty, I do lose business quite often because I am honest with people, and tell them the truth about SEO. I don’t have a problem when they walk away, because, frankly, they aren’t the customers that I want to do business with. Most clients, who have done some reading about SEO, understand that I can make no guarantees. Finding the right person, who will work hard for them, conduct themselves professionally and ethically, and follow up often, understand, that in time, good things (meaning favorable placement) will happen.
The following pages explain Search Engine Optimization in great detail, and how I work to get my clients the best placement on the search engines and search sites that I possibly can. These articles are written in chronological order, so if you are new to SEO, you might want to start at the top and read them all. If you need a question answered, you can dive in at any point. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, please click on the contact button, and shoot me an e mail.
Cheers,
Malin Parker
Key words and key word phrases are the words, or group of words that you think people will use to find your site when they jump on a search engine and begin to hunt.
A lot of people that do SEO work get completely hung up on key words. Yes, all of your key words do have to appear in the [HTML code] text of your page (sometimes graphic artists will write text, but embed it with a picture. Hence it is a picture, not text). Key words must also be relevant to the content that is on that particular page. Having said that, start by sitting down, and just writing what and how you would normally write. Chances are very good that if the subject is important enough for you to include in your web page, then you are on your way to having a great set of key words.
For every page of your web site, you should have 20 key words, or key word phrases, and the total number of characters should not exceed 500.
The next step is to take a legal pad, and number it from 1-20 (you should do this for every page of your web). Read your page, and write down words or groups of words that you think people would use to find your website. Once you have made this list, there are several places on the internet where you can check and see how popular the words on your list actually are. Here is a link to my favorite key word tool:
http://www.submitexpress.com/keytracker.php
You can type in 15 words, or phrases at a time, and it will tell you how many times each day your phrase is searched. The best part, is that if you scroll down, it will also suggest other key words that you might not have used, but can easily be plugged into your text without changing your message. A great example of this is recently, I did some SEO work for a housekeeping company. I wanted to find out which nouns were used most frequently to describe a person that cleans. After coming up with about 20 words, I found that the word “Maid” was hands down the winner. Maid beat out housekeeper, house keeper, domestic servant, nanny, personal assistant, etc. Understanding the words that people use to find your business will not only give you a great set of key words for your web, but will help you with all of your marketing materials.
Another way to find key words is to look and see what the competition is using. To see what key words the competition is using (using the Internet Explorer browser), at the top, click “view,” then “source.” This will pull up the HTML code for the page. On most pages, very near the top, there will be a group of lines that looks like this:
<title>Search Engine Optimization Experts, Green Room Webs, SEO Consulting, Sarasota FL </title>
<meta name="description" content="Green Room Webs, Search Engine Optimization Experts (SEO), Sarasota , FL. ">
<meta name="keywords" content="green room webs,website design gallery,web design,sarasota,fl,sarasota florida,web site design,webs,web,design,portfolio,page content articles,search engine optimization,seo,internet,search engine,key words,business,marketing.">
<meta name="robots" content="all,index,follow">
<meta name="revisit" content="7 days">
<meta name="Rating" content="General">
<meta name="Language" content="en">
<meta name="distribution" content="Global">
<meta name="Classification" content="internet">
<meta NAME="author" CONTENT="malinparker@greenroomwebs.com">
<!-- "green room webs,website design gallery,web design,sarasota,fl,sarasota florida,web site design,webs,web,design,portfolio,page content articles,search engine optimization,seo,internet,search engine,key words,business,marketing." -->
This is a common error that many people make. For example, in the web design business, I have to work very hard to get my own page to rank well with the search engines, simply because there are so many businesses out there that do what I do, and let’s face it, they do or should need to know something about SEO, or they wouldn’t / won’t be in business very long. When I wrote this web, I did my research, and found that “web design” was the number one key word phrase used by the public to find people who design websites. If you Google “web design,” you will get 511 Million pages. If I narrow it down to “web design Florida ,” there are 53,600,000 pages. If I go a step further, and Google “web design Sarasota ,” there are still a daunting 207,000 pages. This is where many people get scared, and start looking for key word phrases that nobody searches for. For instance, I just Googled “Pygmy tribal music” and got three hits…Now here is a category where I could dominate! I could have the number one spot! I’m brilliant, and I’m going to be rich! That’s great, but nobody is going to find you because nobody is really that interested in Pygmy tribal music, especially when they need a web site built. My point is, like it or not, I need to make it a goal to get to on the first page when someone does a search for “web design Sarasota ,” even though I have to climb to the top of 207,000 other pages. Keep in mind that this is not the only key word phrase that people will use to find your page, however it is one that you must take very seriously. If you looked at my key words, you’ll notice that I also used: green room webs, website design gallery, web design, sarasota, fl, sarasota florida, web site design, webs, web, design, portfolio, page content articles, search engine optimization, SEO, internet, search engine, key words. Although you do have 500 characters, don’t use them all unless you have to. Search engines like brief key words. Technically, you get 20 key word phrases. The words between two commas count as one key word phrase. Keep them short and sweet. Search engines frown upon using a bunch of adjectives, and keeping words and phrases as general as possible will only help you in the long run.
No, the robots that search your web site will use any words that are on your page that match the query. Several years ago, that was not the case, but today, the robots that search engines use are very sophisticated. If you have a web where people may use several different spellings, ie, “web site” & “website,” you need to be sure to make two different key words, and use both instances somewhere on your page.
True, your page will be found, but it may be on page 20. Ideally, everyone wants the first spot on the page. Getting on the first page should really be your goal, but realistically, getting on the first 2-3 pages isn’t horrible. Of course, the more pages people have to go through to find you, your odds are greater that your site won’t be found.
Knowing how to use your key words is really the important part. No matter what, always use your key words in the text of your page, and make sure that they are relevant to the subject matter on the page. Key word relevancy plays a big part in how well your site will rank. Make your key words work for you. You have to make the robots that are searching your site think that these key words are really important to you. Here are a few tips:
Taking the time and effort to choose a great domain for your business is critical to the success of your web site, and there are several major factors that you should take into consideration before choosing a domain.
If you have not read about “key words,” I would recommend doing so before reading any further.
It is important to find a domain that is easy for people to remember, and that quickly tells people what your business is about. I highly recommend buying “.coms” and avoiding all of the other extensions, simply because people remember “dot com.” They don’t remember the others, and your domain will likely be forgotten.
It is a common practice to put hyphens in the domain, however, it becomes cumbersome when telling someone what your domain name is. Try to avoid words that are difficult to spell, or common words with “kreative” spelling.
Most importantly, make sure that your domain is rich in key words. If you are an artist, for example, I would recommend having the word “art” or “artist” somewhere in your domain. If your web site is “regional,” it is a great idea to include the name of the region in your domain, ie, “ Sarasota .”
If you have not yet checked out my page about Key Words, I highly suggest that you do so before reading this page.
The way that your title tag is written will have a great deal to do with your placement, particularly with the Google Search engine. Both the Title Tag, as well as the description tags needs to be “rich” in your most relevant key words or phrases.
It is important that you use all of your key words in the copy that appears on the page. For best results, you will want to draw as much attention to your key words as possible by doing things like placing them in “h” tags, anchor tags, bulleted lists, make them bold or italicized.
Pick your top 4-5 most important key word phrases, and put them together to form your title tag.
Your Title Tag should be no more than 80 characters in length. Most search engines will kick out title tags that exceed this length
Description Tags are another place where you want to use your key words. The description tag is exactly what it says it is. You have 250 characters to describe the contents of your page. I have found the most success by copying my Title Tag, pasting it into my Description Tag, and filling in the blanks so that it reads more like a sentence. Again, don’t just use random words as fillers. Exploit key words every chance you get.
Anyone who has spent any time at all surfing the net has been to a site with a horrible navigation system. A basic rule of thumb is that the person that is surfing your web should never be more than 2 clicks away from the information that they are looking for, no matter how large the site is. As a general rule, I try to include at least 2, if not three navigational areas on each page, so that surfers don’t even have to scroll up or down to get to the buttons that they need. In addition, you can use “bookmarks” on pages, so that when you send a surfer to a new page, they end up exactly where they want to be.
Building a user friendly navigation system for your web page is not just a courtesy to the guest who visits your page, it is also an excellent way to make sure that every page on your web site becomes indexed.
I will talk more about indexing later, and why it is so important, but here is a brief synopsis. In simple terms, when a page is indexed, the search engine knows that it exists. Hopefully, you have spent time researching great key words, writing Shakespeare-like Title Tags, and informative Description Tags, that are unique to each page. This takes a lot of time, and it would be a shame for Google to know about some of your pages, but not all of them. After all, there could be valuable information on those pages that won’t be found when people do a search, because the search engine doesn’t know that they are even there.
Remember a few pages ago, when I told you that when the internet was young, it was virtually a bunch of pages with nothing but words on them, and some links to other pages? As I have said over and over, although robots have become sophisticated, they do become confused, especially when you use a bunch of fancy buttons, and hotspots for navigation.
When a robot visits your site, the first page that it goes to is the page named index. From there, it begins to read through your page until it finds hyperlinks to other pages. As soon as it hits a hyperlink, it follows it like a Bull Shark following a scuba diver with a nose bleed. The problem is many of these really fancy links, particularly the ones that have all sorts of rollover features and play music, etc. can really confuse the robots to the point that they may not find the hyperlink that is buried in line after line of HTML scripting language. If they don’t find the hyperlink, and don’t visit the page, the search engine will not know that the page exists; hence the page will not be indexed.
I am not trying to tell you that building a high tech navigational system is wrong. In fact, when I hop on a website, and the designer has come up with a navigational system that is really cool, it adds something to the experience. I guess it’s because I love to design webs, and appreciate seeing something different. Elements like this show a sense of pride, attention to detail, and will definitely (if tastefully done) make people remember your site.
This is where form and function come together. In a text book answer, the best navigational systems that you can build are words (static text) that are in an anchor tag. My web site is designed that way, not because I am against fancy stuff, artistically for this site, which has a minimalist feel, I felt it just looked better. I have a number of sites in my portfolio and in my gallery with some really crazy navigational systems. If you notice, with 99% of every page I build, there will be a navigational system along the top of the web site, as well as at the bottom of the web site. One of these navigational systems will always be static text. The higher up on the page, or the further to the left of your page you can add the navigation, the easier time the robot will have finding every page on your site.
Another trick that I use, which is completely ethical, is that at the top left of every page I build, I add a Site Map link. A site map is kind of like a table of contents. I usually make these pages as plain as possible, so that robots can easily follow the links, and hopefully find every page. I usually try to find another place on the page to add a link to the site map. I put it in the top left corner of the page, because that is the first place that the robot is going to look. Although surfers can use this to navigate through the site, truthfully, I put it there for SEO reasons.
The first time a robot visits your site, even if you do all of these things that I have told you to do, it may still not hit every single page, but after 2 or 3 visits, I can almost promise you that every page will be found and indexed.
If you use Macromedia Dreamweaver as your Text Editor, it has a great library tool. You can build 1 navigational system, save it in the library, and then all you have to do when you build a new page is insert it. Back in the olden days, if you had a hundred page web site, and you wanted to add a page, you would have to go through each page and build the hyperlink. Not with Dreamweaver…you simply open up the library item, add the link one time, and it automatically updates every other page. Just remember that when you download your changes to your server, you will need to download your new library, as well as the other pages for your changes to occur on the net.
One last point about navigation, that really doesn’t have anything to do with SEO, but as long as I am on the subject, I will mention it. When you link to a page outside of your web, make sure that you write the HTML code to open a blank frame so that when the surfer clicks on the button, a new window opens, and your site still remains open. If you are using a text editor like FrontPage, or Dreamweaver, when you build the hyperlink, it gives you 4 options (the default is self). Choose “Blank”. If you are going commando, and writing HTML code, your link should look something like this:
<a href=http://www.greenroomwebs.com target=”_blank”>
If you have been reading every page of my Search Engine Optimization saga, or you have knowledge of how SEO works, you know that originally, when the concept of an internet was started it was not the art-form that it is today, but rather a way of sharing valuable information. One of the best ways of sharing information is to link to other pages that have important information on them. Sometimes these pages are within your own website, other times, they are on another website. When you write a website, always keep in mind that the reason that you are building a page or a site is to share valuable information with the world. Frankly, I am glad that the internet has gotten more artistic through the years. It is actually evolving at a mind-boggling rate. In all honesty, it is the design element of building web sites that got me interested; however, I enjoy and appreciate the knowledge that is shared. Search engines think the same way. They want you to build pages that people will want to read, but they also like to see pages that convey information (they refer to this as being “text rich”), and aren’t just there for decoration. If you take nothing else from this SEO primer, remember that.
If you notice, I use the term search engine, and search site. They are two terms that are often confused, and used synonymously; however, they are very different. A Search Engine is a site that actually goes through the internet, looking at your pages, and ranking them according to their algorithms. There are really only 4 Search Engines: Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask. All of the other sites like AOL, Alta Vista and Lycos (there are literally hundreds of thousands of them, in fact, you can easily make your own web site a search site) are actually Search Sites. Unlike search engines, that actually surf the net, gather and rank information, Search Sites buy their information from these 4 sources. Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies out there that make you think that there really are all of these companies operating independently, and charge anywhere from $30 - $100 to “register your site with 100,000 search engines.” Every single one of these companies is a scam. If you have read my entire site, you might say “you say that you register my site with the major search engines.” I do. I register your site with Google, Yahoo and MSN. Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves), does not allow site submission. Their robots will find your site on their own. I also do not charge a fee for this service, as I can register your site with all three search engines in less than 10 minutes. Be wary of web builders that charge a fee for this. If you go to my toolbox at the bottom of any page, there are links that will take you exactly where you need to go to register your site. The process is very easy. I build sites on line, so that my customers can see their site is being built as I am building it. In most cases, I try to get their account set up, and build it using the domain where it will reside once I publish the site. Lately, I have been having search engines find my sites and index them before I have a chance to go through submitting them. The bottom line is, don’t pay a dime to anyone for submitting your site to a bunch of Search Engines.
Directories are often confused with Search Engines, or Search Sites. The best directory is Open Directory Project (again, there is a link in my tool box). When you submit your site to a directory, a human being actually looks at your site and decides whether or not your site is worthy of being included in their directory. Many directories will ask you for a reciprocal link and often times (and should) give you the HTML code to put into your page to link back to them. I highly recommend registering with these directories. It really is a win-win situation. Your site gets an incoming link, and it is another way for people to hopefully stumble across your web page. Most of them have a section where you can pay for higher page placement, but normally, they will give you an option of listing your business for free for a reciprocal link.
So, why are links so important? As I have written, search engines use a mathematical set of algorithms to determine the ranking of your site. Some search engines like Google put a lot of emphasis on incoming links. Other sites like Ask.com, put very little if any emphasis on incoming links. Putting very little emphasis on links by the way, is a very new trend in SEO. If you are curious about how many pages are linked to your site, click on this link, and enter your domain (www.greenroomwebs.com).
http://www.submitexpress.com/linkpop/
There are a lot of questions about links, so I’ll do my best to answer them:
Why does Google say that I have 0 links, and MSN says that I have 25 links…Shouldn’t they be the same? Google is very particular about giving you credit for links. It appears that a domain has to be active for about 6 months before Google will count a link. The link must be listed as a link for a period of time as well (guessing, I would say between 4-6 months). I have heard that Google will not count a link if it is coming from a page with a ranking of less than 4, however, I do have quite a few links coming into my site with a page ranking of 3, but none less than that, so I assume that page ranking does play a part in this.
Does incoming page ranking make a difference? Yes, page ranking plays a huge roll. If you can get just 1 incoming link from a page with a ranking of 4 or above, it will substantially increase your placement. On a side note, you might get lucky and get a page with a ranking of 4 to link to your site. If there are a lot of other outgoing links from that page, that link may not count as a 4. Page rankings kind of get split up like slices of cake. Don’t get me wrong, you may not get the page ranking of 4 that you wanted, but, it is still an incoming link, which will never hurt you.
My Uncle Larry races lawnmowers (this really is a sport), and has a link on his website to mine, but it doesn’t show up? My guess is that good old Uncle Larry probably doesn’t have his pages indexed. Only about 10% of all web pages are actually indexed. Many people have their home page indexed, but because they haven’t written their pages correctly, the robots can’t find links to the rest of the site, so the rest of the site isn’t indexed. You need to make sure that every page on your web site is indexed. If this doesn’t make sense, read my section on navigation.
Do some links carry more weight than others? Yes. If you are a restaurant, and you get a link from the American Chef’s Federation, or the National Restaurant Association, it is going to carry a lot more weight than if you get a link from Uncle Larry’s lawnmower racing site. Again, remember the principal about sharing information. If people are looking for culinary information, a site about lawnmowers really isn’t relevant. There really isn’t such a thing as a bad incoming link, but chances are, it isn’t going to benefit you a great deal.
What are “link farms?” Link farms are something that you need to stay away from, unless your goal is to get kicked off of a search engine. There are people that set up sites where anyone can link to them, and they will link back to you. Since they have so many incoming links from everywhere, they have a very high page ranking. This is one of those black hat tricks that I mentioned that can get you great placement for a while, but will eventually get you banned from a search engine. I can assure you that you will get booted off. Search engines are very aware of these sites, and don’t look very favorably on people that abuse them.
What happens if a link farm links to me, but I don’t have a link going back to them? Probably nothing. Search engines realize that you have no control over who links to your site. As long as you are not linked back to them, you should be fine. In the event there is a problem, you should contact your web master, or contact the search engine. They are really good at working with you if there has been a mistake.
Do outgoing links hurt me? The textbook answer is “kind of”…you certainly want to limit the number of links going out of your page. If you have a lot of outgoing links, it can kind of “drain” your page ranking for that page, but generally speaking, if one page on your site has a page ranking of 2, and all of the pages are indexed, then, in most cases every page on your site will have a page ranking of 2. Again, write web pages with the reader’s in mind, and you will be fine. A note of caution…Do not have more than 100 hyperlinks on any page (this includes internal hyperlinks).
Does the wording of a link make a difference? Yes. If you ask for a reciprocal link, you should tell the person what you want your link to say. If you have written a good Title Tag, this is a great place to start. A reciprocal link for my website might be: Sarasota Web Design, Green Room Webs, Website Design For Small Business . See how I used 5 important key word phrases that are targeted at my key audience:
In closing, one of the best ways to get better placement is through getting quality links. Think of all of the organizations that you belong to, friends, etc. Don’t be shy about asking for links. Anyone who knows anything about the internet will be more than happy to help you. This isn’t an overnight process, but with SEO, if you are patient, and do the right things, you will get favorable results.
Here is how you find out whether or not your page is indexed. Google makes it really easy. Download the Google toolbar. If you have an older version, push the “blue button with the I on it.” If you have a newer version, push the place that says “page rank.” If you don’t see either one of these, your computer is infected with the VTX34EXplosionworm virus, and your hard drive will be erased the next time you turn off your computer. Just kidding! Just go to the settings on the Google toolbar and add the button so that it is visible. You’ll use these buttons a lot more as you read on. Anyway, push the button, and you’ll get a pull down menu. Click on “cached page.” If you get a white screen with a bunch of black letters at the top, this page has not been indexed. If you get a page that looks like yours, with a block of writing at the top, your page has been indexed, and it will even tell you the date and time the robot last visited your site. The best way to check the other search engines is to do a search. If you find your website, look for the word “cached” at the bottom. If it says “cached,” then this page has been indexed, if it doesn’t, then it has not been indexed. If you change your web site often, don’t be alarmed if your cached page looks dramatically different than your current page. It is a snapshot of what your page looked like the last time that search engines robot visited your site.
Pay-per-click campaigns probably shouldn’t be mentioned in an SEO article, since the principal behind Search Engine Optimization is to get good placement. If you have good placement, you shouldn’t need to pay for an ad, Right?
As I have mentioned over and over again, SEO takes time. If your site is in a very competitive market, where there are a lot of sites that are all competing for the number one spot, sometimes pay per click campaigns make a lot of sense. They can even the playing field.
In a nutshell, here’s how they work. You create an ad, (the ones that you see at the top of your search pages, or along the right hand column), and associate key words with the ad. You specify a budget, and how much you are willing to pay each time someone searches for your key words. Depending on your budget, when someone types in key words that match the ones for your campaign, your ad will pop up. The more you are willing to pay for key words, the higher up your ad will place. You only have to pay if someone clicks on your ad. You do not pay if your ad is displayed, but nobody clicks on it. Once your budget has been spent for the day, your ad will no longer run. You can run as many different ads as you want to for your website. In most cases, you can also target specific geographic locations as well. If you are selling snow boots, you probably don’t want to waste your money running a pay-per-click ad in Key West .
One myth is that if you pay for ads on a search engine, your site will place higher. This is not the case. You can run all the ads that you want to, and it will have no effect on your placement. This is a completely separate service that search engines offer.
One reason that you might want to consider pay-per-click ads is if you have a new website, and you have not had enough time to get good placement, or if you are in an extremely competitive market, and it is simply very hard to get good placement. In this case, running an ad makes some sense, in an effort to at least get your site noticed. Remember, most people will not search past the first couple of pages, so if your site appears on pages behind the first 2 or 3, you should really think about this strategy.
The big reason that I like pay-per-click advertising is that you can really specifically target your clientele. When you run an ad in a magazine or in a newspaper, the vast majority of the people reading your ad are probably not even interested in your product, which is why most advertising doesn’t work. Most advertising doesn’t reach your target market. Pay-per-click campaigns on the other hand only target the people that are interested in the goods or services that you offer. Even better, generally if people are actually going to the effort to look for a product, they have already made the decision to buy. Ads in newspapers and magazines are good for getting your name out there, but it is rare that your ad will reach someone that you want to target, and that they have made a decision to buy at that point in time. Remember, 90% of internet users shop on line before they decide where to buy. Just because they don’t make a purchase immediately, doesn’t mean that they won’t buy from you via another method. As gas prices continue to rise, this figure continues to grow.
On average less than 1% of people who visit your site will make a purchase. Targeting the people that you know are interested in your product or service can raise this figure up to 20% or more.
I don’t know whether or not you pay much attention when you get on a page as to where your eyes wander, but the Search Engines know exactly how the human brain works, and they place ads where people will see them, even before the “free” listings.
Lastly, you can set a budget. Yes, you can do the same thing with magazine and newspaper advertising, but these ads are very expensive. With pay-per-click campaigns, you can really test the water until you find something that truly works with a minimal amount of financial risk. The bottom line is what is going to bring you the greatest return on investment.
If you are interested in making some extra money on your website, you can allow search engines to run ads on your site. You are paid a percentage when someone clicks on the ad from your page. There are pros and cons to this. The obvious pro is that you make money, the downside is that people leave your site, and your ultimate goal is to keep them on your site as long as you can, because the longer they stay, the better the odds are that they will make a purchase. If your site has an artistic quality, ads really detract from this.
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