Search Engine Optimization and Website Marketing

This can be the most important part of your website's creation: getting traffic for your website. Unless you are planning to advertise your website by outside means, the only way people are going to find your site is through search engines. If you plan on selling goods and services online and you do not promote your website by traditional means (TV, radio, print advertisements, etc.) or promote your site in search engines and directories your web site will Fail. Just having a website online without promoting it is like having a store in your basement without a sign.

Optimization is an ongoing process. There are many factors that could lower your rankings. Your competitors will improve their optimization, making it necessary for you to improve yours again and again. Internet "rules" are constantly changing, and a good web developer will stay current with the newest optimization strategies. This is why search engine optimization companies charge by the month. Optimization is not a one-time shot. It's continuous service.

SEO is a constantly changing field. What used to work no longer does. Customers have come to us who had previously paid other web 'professionals' to have their sites optimized and promoted with no results.

If a web designer's idea of search engine optimization is just to play around with your meta tags, or submit your site to 1000's of unknown search engines they are ripping you off.

If someone promises to get you top 10 ranking in the major search engines in less then 2 months, they are most likely lying. Although its possible in some cases, most promotions take more then 2 months to take full effect.

Be wary of website optimizers whose own sites don't rank for any competitive terms related to their business. If they cannot rank their own site, should they be trying to rank yours?

Be wary of website optimizers who will not show any real examples of their work, or who try to use case studies that involve extremely uncompetitive or obscure search phrases.

Be wary of extremely cheap website optimizers. Although this may seem to be a self-serving statement, coming from a company that sells website optimization, it is true. For someone who knows how to promote websites online there are many opportunities to make money. This includes things like affiliate opportunities or starting their own web business. However, these profitable endeavors take time and many man-hours of labor. In other words, optimization is hard work. Why would someone who is REALLY going to optimize your site offer their services for dirt cheap when they could apply the same efforts to their own sites or affiliate contract sites and make MUCH MORE money? The answer is: they aren't really going to optimize your site. Either they don't know how or they don't have the resources to perform a successful optimization campaign. Always ask for some sort of guarantee.

Be wary of website optimizers that won't guarantee anything. It's true that nobody really controls search engines except the owners, but there should be some minimum ranking expectations laid out in a written document when you do business with an Internet Marketer. The requirements should have realistic goals that take into consideration the changes in the search algorithm. For example top 10 or top 20 positions in a search engine results is reasonable, whereas guaranteed number 1 is unrealistic.

Get a guarantee that your site will get a reasonable ranking (top 10) for your targeted terms.