Upbeat News from eMarketer!

The firm is forecasting that US retail e-commerce sales will total nearly $132 billion this year! eMarketer also found that 152 million people age 14 and up will shop online this year...and that number is expected to reach 177.7 million by 2013! eMarketer's Jeffrey Grau said almost nine out of ten Web users will "browse, research or compare products online this year!"

These findings continue to demonstrate just how crucial a Web presence is during the downturn. Don’t miss out on the billions of dollars that will be spent on the Web this year! WebDrafter.com can help with all your e-commerce needs. Call 866-421-3723 today for a free quote/consultation!

Website Redesign for PVBI by Webdrafter.com

Penn View Bible Institute is proud to announce their website redesign by WebDrafter.com.

Penn View Bible Institute has become a premier training center for missionaries, ministers, educators and laymen in the holiness world since their beginning over 40 years ago.

Visit www.pvbi.edu to learn more about Penn View.

Contact WebDrafter.com today at 866-421-3723 for a free quote to design your custom website.

Shoppers Touting E-Commerce is an Eco-Friendly Alternative to Visiting Brick-and-Mortar Establishments

Did you know...

On top of all those other big reasons that consumers are increasingly turning to the Web (convenience, price, and selection), shoppers are now touting that e-commerce is an eco-friendly alternative to visiting brick-and-mortar establishments!

A Shop.org survey found that 35% of respondents believe online shopping is better for the environment than in-store shopping, and 60% of those who see online shopping as a "green" alternative said they planned to continue using the Web to maintain a more eco-friendly lifestyle!

Even in the downturn, consumers are demanding environmentally-conscious products and services, and they see the Web as a source for these things. With e-mail marketing tools, e-commerce capabilities and much more, your Web solutions can be the keystone to your "green" marketing!

Call or visit WebDrafter.com today for a free evaluation at 866.421.3723!

Growing Number of Mothers on the Web

Did you know...

Last month, we shared some recent information about the growing number of mothers on the Web. Here's more research on this booming demographic!

According to eMarketer, 34 million mothers in the US go online at least once a month. The research firm concludes that mothers are "key decision makers for many family purchases, and increasingly the information they obtain and activities they engage in online affect those decisions."

eMarketer's Debra Aho Williamson said mothers, "shop for their kids-and themselves and when they find something great for their family, they talk about it, not only with their family and friends, but often with a much broader online audience."

Last October, Razorfish and CafeMom found that the most popular categories among mothers using the Web to research products or make a purchase included:

• Clothing & Fashion Accessories
• Food & Cooking
• Baby & Parenting
  

So if you provide services in any of those fields, you need a Web presence that will meet the increasing demands of online moms! Call (866-421-3723) or visit us online today for a free quote at http://www.webdrafter.com.

Online Channel is set to Weather Economic Slump!

You might recall back in January when we told you Forrester Research was projecting that US online sales will increase 11% this year to reach $156.1 billion, making the Internet a source of optimism for struggling businesses. Forrester and Shop.org are back with more research revealing that the online channel is set to weather this economic slump!

"It's safe to say that it continues to be a bright spot in the economy," Shop.org's Scott Silverman said of the Web.

The firms' latest collaborative study found that businesses are increasingly turning to the Web rather than traditional forms of advertising. According to the study, "merchants believe online business is better suited to withstand an economic downturn than physical stores or catalogs." Four out of five retailers in the survey believe that the Web is "better suited than offline retail to withstand the recession."

Silverman said businesses that are active online remain optimistic. Their sense of security may especially be attributed to the steadily increasing number of budget-conscious consumers turning to the Web to research products and services.

According to the survey, e-mail marketing is a pivotal way to reach these consumers. In fact, 89% said that e-mail was their most successful online promotional strategy, adding that e-mail marketing is a "top priority." Of those who leverage e-mail as a strategy, 55% said they plan to use e-mails to highlight new product availability and request customer feedback, and 53% of those surveyed will send e-mails to notify customers of online-only promotions.

The Web offers endless business potential for businesses, especially if you leverage effective strategies like e-mail marketing. Have questions? Call WebDrafter.com today at 866-421-3723 or visit us online at http://www.webdrafter.com.

Website Redesign for BUDS

WebDrafter.com is proud to showcase York Area Down Syndrome (BUDS) new website redesign.

The York Area Down Syndrome Association provides support, education, fellowship, and encouragement to families and friends who have a loved one with Down Syndrome.

Learn more at www.yorkareadownsyndrome.org.

Contact WebDrafter.com today at 866-421-3723 for a free quote to design your custom website.

Despite Economic Downturn, Online Retail Increased!

Did you know...

Great news coming from Coremetrics! Despite the economic downturn, the research firm is reporting that online retail increased last month!

"Consumers who shopped online in March purchased nearly 12% more items over the previous month while the average dollar value increased by more than 4%, suggesting that not only were consumers buying more items online, they were actually spending more money on average than they had just the month before," the company announced in the release.

You've read it from us before: online retail is destined to weather the economic storm, and things are already looking up!

Visit WebDrafter.com for all your website needs!

Website Redesign for Tahiti Tan

Tahiti Tan announces the release of their new website redesign from WebDrafter.com.

At Tahiti Tan, they do their best to ensure that you receive the best tan allowed so you can look great whether it's for a wedding, prom or a trip to the beach.

Visit www.tahiti-tan.com to learn more!

Contact WebDrafter.com today at 866-421-3723 for a free quote to design your custom website.

Americans Choose Internet as Retail Outlet of Choice

"The Internet is fast becoming the retail outlet of choice for Americans," according to the Opinion Research Corporation. The firm's recent survey found that 36% of respondents reported the percentage of online purchases they made last year increased, and those respondents cited the following reasons:

• 25% said it's easier to locate items on the Web


• 19% said they found better discounts


• 14% said they upped their online purchasing because it saved them time


• 13% said online purchasing is more convenient

ORC's Linda Shea said, "...the dynamics of the online world are very different than they are in-store. The most successful online merchants are investing in tools and technologies that facilitate the shopper's entire purchasing experience..."

But that's not all-The news from ORC gets even better! Twenty-two percent of the respondents said that, despite the economy, their online purchasing will increase again this year!

Linda Shea said it's "...clear that shoppers are increasingly turning to the Internet as the channel of choice when they do buy."

It's just more evidence that consumers are hopping online to find the products and services they're looking for-especially during the troubled economy! Don’t miss out on this market.

Contact WebDrafter.com today to design or redesign your website.

Paul C. Hokr Painting Website Redesign by WebDrafter.com

WebDrafter.com is proud to showcase the redesigned site for Paul C. Hokr.

Paul C. Hokr Painting Company, in Minneapolis, specializes in multi-housing, commercial, and residential interior and exterior painting services.

Learn more at www.hokrpainting.com.


Contact WebDrafter.com today at 866-421-3723 for a free quote to design your custom website.

Email is Very Effective

Did you know...

According to the Opinion Research Corporation and Adfusion, 47% of those surveyed said they were either "somewhat" or "very" likely to read and act upon e-mail offers! That makes e-mail one of the most effective ways for businesses to reach customers, and WebDrafter.com can help make that happen!

Visit WebDrafter.com to learn more!

Website Redesign for The Green Shutter by WebDrafter.com

The Green Shutter announces the release of their new website redesign from WebDrafter.com.

The Green Shutter, in North Carolina, offers an eclectic mix of gifts and accessories for the home and garden. Some of the things you'll find include art glass and hand-blown hummingbird feeders, heavenly scented soaps, candles, and spa products.

Visit www.thegreenshutter.com to view all their products.

Contact WebDrafter.com today at 866-421-3723 for a free quote to design your custom website.

Organic (Natural) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

by Tom Elliott

If you're hoping that I'll cover the magic formula to guarantee yourself the #1 top placement on search engines here, you can stop reading now. I can't. I don't know it. Neither does anybody else, by the way. And even if they did, they wouldn't within 30 days.

Here's the deal, folks. Search engines are a moving target. They HAVE to be. Not only does technology change like clockwork, but unscrupulous folks constantly try to "game" the system and rig things to get ahead. "All is fair in love and war," right? Or you can take the Machiavellian approach that "the end justifies the means." The whole point, though, of a NATURAL ranking (also called an "organic ranking") is that Websites achieve their position based on the merit of their content relevant to what people are searching for, rather than a ranking that is attained by artificially playing an angle to gain an advantage.

As a result, search engines handle their criteria (their "search engine algorithms") in three ways. First, they keep them super-double-top-secret. Second, they continually make them smarter, becoming more discriminating and countering the antics of people who try to play them. Third, when cute little tactics are employed by people to gain unfair advantage, the search engines penalize those gimmicks when the algorithms are updated. A few tricksters may still accomplish their goals periodically, but overall, search engine companies are VERY focused on the integrity of providing untainted results.

The difference between "tactics" and "strategy" is quite simple, and very important in working with search engines. Tactics are short-term efforts intended to react or respond to the immediate here-and-now to achieve quick results. In the SEO world, they can be a house of cards. Strategy, on the other hand, is a long term plan the employs proven techniques and generally proactive methods to steadily move forward in achieving your goal: top placement on the major search engines.

When you are seeking a qualified SEO professional (someone who studies the search engine TRENDS and that understands the big picture), ask about their strategies. If what you hear appears to be "special ways to take advantage of loopholes" rather than a well-formulated, long-term plan, then you are likely dealing with a tactician rather than a strategist. If the tacticians plan fails, the cost is YOURS. In other words, they may be clever enough to fool the system for a month or two, but eventually when their methods catch up with them, your Website goes "bye-bye" from the search engine listings. Um... oh by the way, there's usually some clause in your SEO Contract that says "no guarantee, no refund." It's up to YOU to be the smart one and not get conned by someone who is boastfully "smarter than the average bear." They're either fooling the search engines (temporarily), or they're fooling you. Either way, they get paid.

Look for the SEO person who is willing to explain what they do. Unless you have studied the SEO process and have kept up on all of the latest trends (in other words, it's part of what you do for a living), you'd be crazy to try optimizing your site yourself. You would likely fall prey to some of the "gotchas" that search engine algorithms are programmed to detect, or you'd miss the mark altogether. Yet a number of SEO people seem afraid to "share the secrets of the trade" because they either 1) feel that you'll do things yourself and they won't earn your business, or 2) they're trying to protect you from doing something damaging to your site. One reason is obviously more noble than the other.

Regardless, I like to educate my clients. I look at it this way: when I go to the doctor, I like to know what he (or she) is going to do to me. If he pulls out a rubber glove or a needle, it's nice to know what it's all about BEFORE anything happens... and it's certainly not something that I would endeavor to try to do on my own. In a not-so-vivid kind of way, I see Website and SEO work in a similar fashion. Just as I'm not trying to put an M.D. after my name when I expect the doctor to explain a procedure to me, your Website solution provider shouldn't try to make an expert out of you by giving you the basics of how they do business. So ask. It won't hurt, I promise.

If you want to learn more about the general criteria search engines consider when your site is optimized, Website 411: Business Survival in an Internet Economy covers the material in a non-technical way. Thanks again for reading my book. I wrote it for you.

Visit www.website411book.com for more information!

SEO and SEM Explained in Plain English For the Non-Tech Business Owner

by Tom Elliott

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is akin to producing a TV commercial. That is, it is PREPARATORY work designed to get the website ready to be marketed, much like how producing the TV commercial involves editing, formatting, and fine tuning. Once the site is optimized, it's ready to be put out in front of the public's face (and the search engines). Marketing the site is the process of calling attention to it, and continuing to enhance the presence in front of the viewing audience, just like broadcasting the TV commercial.

Think of it this way: If you produced a TV commercial and only aired it one time, you may receive some business from it, but over time, peoples' memories fade and no one remembers the commercial. In much the same way, submitting the site to search engines (part of marketing) and creating links from independent sources (organic marketing) should get some initial results. But if the efforts stop there, then a few months later, the effect is gone. Just as you'd think it silly that a business owner complains 6 months later that no one is responding to their TV commercial (that only aired once six months ago), it is equally unrealistic that an SEO project that is marketed one time is expected to deliver results in perpetuity. It simply doesn't work that way.

Like the TV commercial, the preparatory work to get the website up and running is typically a one-time BIG expense (with periodic adjustments as the market changes) due to the time involvement to do the job... and the time it takes to do the job right depends on several variables: the market (competition and saturation), the goals (local, regional, national exposure), the scope of the site (number of pages, amount of content), etc.

Also like a TV commercial, the marketing and promotion of the site takes comparatively less time to implement, but must be a steady, ongoing process to be effective. It is a shame when a business owner spends the money to optimize their site, and then fails to follow through with "the rest of the job" in terms of marketing it. The initial costs of SEO go wasted in such instances.

Just like with any kind of advertisement, the business owner needs to establish a budget for Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Perhaps they shave bits off of their other marketing methods (brochures, radio spots, yellow pages, newspapers, etc.) to establish their position on the search engines. Dollar for dollar, a properly managed SEM campaign, whether organic or pay-per-click, typically yields a better return on investment (ROI) for the business.

SEO is a pre-requisite to effective SEM. It's the first part in the SEM process, and involves performing market research, defining and refining keyword phrases to maximize what SEO professionals refer to as "keyword density" and minimize the effects of "keyword dilution." SEO involves editing links, content, and sometimes structure of a website to get the site prepared for marketing. The SEM promotion of the site can be handled a variety of ways, using several different strategies (both organic and paid-for marketing) to accomplish the same end: getting the site found when someone searches for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. SEO is commonly known to have a direct impact on organic marketing efforts with SEM, but unbeknownst to many business owners (and even some Web developers, the quality of a website's SEO will often affect the price of pay-per-click marketing as well. For example, keywords used in pay-per-click campaigns through Google AdWords are assigned a "quality score", and sites that are optimized well will typically yield higher quality scores than poorly- or un-optimized sites. The higher the quality score, generally the lower the price-per-click for an optimized keyword.

A key point to remember about the search engines is that a company's "competition" is not necessarily its "sworn business rival" down the street or across town that draws from its customers. In terms of search engines, the "competition" is any website, link, document, advertisement, etc. that is ranked above the business's website, or showing up within a page or two of the business's search engine listing for a given keyword phrase. This is why proper keyword and market research is so important for effective SEO, rather than simply relying on the words and phrases that intuitively come to mind when a business owner thinks of his or her own products and services. Using the "hardwood floors" example, it is possible that articles and companies about carpentry, arboretums, laminate flooring, and floor wax could all be "competition" on the search engines.

The problem with any kind of marketing is that a business can always spend more money on it. For example, if a billboard company is approached to advertise a company and asked the question, "How much does it cost to advertise my business on billboards?" the answer is likely to be, "It depends on how many billboards you want to advertise on, an where they are located." A similar response would be offered in reply to someone asking the question, "How much does it cost to advertise in the Yellow Pages?" The answer: "It depends in what city and on how big of an ad you want on the page." The cost questions pre-suppose that there is some fixed cost to advertisement, which is far from reality. Not all markets are the same, and a business could conceivably spend an infinite amount of money on advertisement. SEM is no different.

At some point in advertising, whether it be via traditional methods or via the Internet, there comes a point where the marginal cost increase in marketing yields a diminishing return on investment. As an extreme example to make this point, let's assume that a company achieves the Number-One position in the organic rankings on Google for a particular keyword, "hardwood floors". No matter how much money is spent on promoting the keyword phrase "hardwood floors", there will be no improvement in the position of that company because they can't be better than number one. If the position for "hardwood floors" were numbers three and five in Yahoo! And MSN respectively, then spending more money on organic marketing may bring them up to Number-One across the board (there are no guarantees), but those advertising dollars would be much better applied to marketing other keyword phrases that are not quite as prominent yet. In this way, the ROI is part of a "best bang for the buck" consideration in terms of effective SEM.

Search engines generally look at three criteria to determine a website's placement in the rankings: text features, link features, and traffic (or popularity) features. All three comprise the search engine merit of a website. Website developers generally only exert control over text criteria, meaning the content on the website itself. Taking it further, SEO/SEM experts "wordsmith" the text content on the site and work externally to the website to influence link criteria by creating and adjusting links from relevant content on the Web that points to the site, such as articles, blogs, and other websites. In other words, SEO and SEM address the text and link components of a website. The traffic component of the site's search engine merit is largely driven by the text and link adjustments. Eventually, if a site is optimized and marketed properly and effectively, the popularity (traffic component) of a website will continue to deliver placement results over time and allow the business owner to reduce their organic marketing budget, or perhaps realign those marketing dollars to focus on a different set of keyword phrases.

The business's budget will largely determine how that company's SEO and SEM strategies are prioritized and implemented, so it is important that the search engine optimization and marketing company is provided with limits. If a business owner doesn't know how much they want to spend on SEO & SEM, then it is smart to discuss options in a consultation and perhaps offer the business owner a "good, better, best" style of initial proposal for the scope of work that is defined. Surprisingly, most businesses can achieve favorable results with a fairly modest budget if they find a competent SEO and SEM company. That is, there are a lot of people and companies "practicing" SEO/SEM in the market place, but comparatively few that are proficient in it. Due to this, it's always advisable that the business owner insist on references of demonstrated results from a portfolio of other clients, rather than just make a decision on price alone.

Contact www.WebDrafter.com today for more details!

Are You "Low Hanging Fruit" For SEO Fraud?

by Tom Elliott

Let's begin with a case study:

"I had a client who had me build a website, and then we optimized it for the search engines. After a few short months, the site was achieving prominent placement on the search engines, both organically and in paid-for listings. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, I received a call from the client that he had signed a contract with another search engine company and was no longer going to use my services. When asked what had made him unhappy with his current placement, his reply was "nothing." He was perfectly happy with the work performed on his site, but this new company boasted "cutting edge technology" and offered a "guaranteed placement" on major search engines. They also provided him with a "report" on his website and arranged the report in twelve categories, grading each category in a "Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor" matrix. Of course, they marked his site as "fair" or "poor" for all categories, promising him that they'd fix everything. I had equipped his website with Google Analytics, and subsequently was able to watch his search engine traffic plummet 78% over the next month. His positioning on the search engines continues to slip, and his Google PageRank is no longer progressing in the right direction either. Consequently, he got scammed and is now contractually bound to pay the "intruding" company for six more months. The ironic part is that the former client is an attorney and admittedly has no recourse from a legal standpoint to correct the damage that has now been done to his business. He has become a statistic: another victim of a "too good to be true" search engine sales pitch."

Do not put yourself in the same predicament. To prevent a similar scenario from happening to you, you need to know enough to be an informed consumer for your business.

What makes you "low hanging fruit"?

As soon as you participate in pay-per-click advertisement, or as soon as your website begins to become visible in the organic (natural) rankings, you are vulnerable. By taking measures to promote your website, you unwittingly have "pre-qualified" yourself as a target for SEO and SEM solicitations. Some solicitations are legitimate, but many (if not most) have an underhanded element to them. Reputable SEO and SEM providers get a lot of business by word-of-mouth referrals or by incoming phone call requests from their advertisements. They remain pretty busy. In comparison, if you are receiving telemarketing calls, unsolicited emails, and junk mail ads, there is a pretty good chance that you have been identified as "low hanging fruit."

How did you become "low hanging fruit"?

There are several ways that result in targeting you for SEO/SEM solicitations. Here are a few of the most common:

• You placed a pay-per-click ad on the search engines, thereby letting solicitors know that being found is important to you. They therefore call you or email you and make lofty promises, or promise to save you money.
• You registered a domain name recently. Many companies monitor the registration of new domain names, and then target those businesses with solicitations to get your website optimized and marketed.
• Solicitors do searches for common topics, products, services, etc. and then target whoever shows up. It is simple for them to do a search and then quickly skip down 10 to 20 pages and "cherry pick" companies who are obviously trying to improve their positioning.
  

As a general rule, the more easily findable you are, the more solicitations you will get. By pre-qualifying yourself and making progress on the search engines, predatory search engine companies already know that 1) search engine positioning is important to you, 2) a lot of the "heavy lifting" work has already been done in order to attain the position you have, 3) they can solicit you and get your attention by suggesting better results for less money, and 4) they can take your money while riding on the momentum achieved by your prior efforts, knowing that you probably won't recognize that that's what happening. By signing you into a contract for six months to a year, they virtually guarantee themselves an income at your expense, and as your search engine position and traffic begins to slip, the damage is already done. You lose the momentum, and you're financially obligated to buy your way out of a contract in order to recover.

Common ploys to convince you to give away your money:
Emails that begin with "I just looked at your website and we can help you get better search engine placement."

These kinds of emails are usually false. I have multiple email addresses, myself, and it is very common for me to receive five or six such emails from the same source within a minute or two. They are spam. Sometimes these emails are more personalized, citing exact placements on the search engines. For example, the email might read, "Your website is showing up in position 162 on Google, but we can help you get to number 1." Keep in mind, the email is spam. I must ask, Position 162? For which keyword phrase? Did these guys actually take the time to look and sort through seventeen pages of search engine listing just to contact 'little ole me' because they are so helpful and they want to see me do better? No, of course not... The position number might be accurate for one phrase or another, but it is simply pulled from the search engines by a computer program and automatically pasted into the body of the email. Although it may look personalized and appear as though the sender is being helpful, you are likely just the target of a bulk advertising email campaign. Such companies that practice this technique often are banking the fact that you don't realize this. If you contact them in reply, they probably see you as gullible, and "low hanging fruit."

Emails and junk mail that begin with "We have performed a free analysis of your website, and we can help you get better search engine placement", accompanied by a report of some kind.

Think about it for a moment. Is there really a company out there that will really take the time to analyze your website (which typically takes several hours to do it right) at no cost to you, then provide you with a meaningful report that can be used as a decision-making tool? My guess is, "no", especially when you consider that such companies are sending out hundreds or thousands of such "reports" each month. A company that would actually take the time to do that many hours of work for free would undoubtedly go out of business. Those reports are nothing more than marketing propaganda, designed to get your money.

Of course, the initial reports are all peppered with "fair" and "poor" marks. Be sure to examine what is actually being assessed in the report; you will likely find that you are "graded" in categories that do not even apply to the current content of your website. If you hire that company to work on your site, how do you think they grade themselves after they finish taking your money? My bet is "excellent", which makes you feel good about the money you've spent until the next company solicits you and says "We've noted several problems with your website, and we can help you improve." At some point, buying into these kinds of deals will make you feel "burned", and for good reason: you have been.

Emails with promises or links to websites that "guarantee" your placement on major search engines.

First, be aware that there is a different meaning between "top placement on search engines" and "placement on top search engines". Top placement (or any specific ranking) can't be guaranteed. Placement on top search engines can mean just about anything. The words "top", "best", or any other such qualifier is very subjective, and is open to interpretation. If there are 3 million listings for companies similar to yours, "top placement" may be assumed to be anything that is in the top 10 percent. And if your listing is the 3 millionth one on Google, you would have been listed on a "top search engine". Tricks on words are commonplace, and the interpretation will conveniently be in favor of the company that takes your money.

Both "top placement" and "placement on top search engines" tell you nothing about any particular sets of keywords. There's a whole lot of wiggle room for the SEO/SEM company. And how can they possibly guarantee you top placement for keywords that they haven't analyzed or evaluated. When two companies both guarantee number one results, how is it possible that they can each deliver, especially when your business isn't the only one they're soliciting? In short, they can't. A common ploy is that your site will be marketed under some obscure word or phrase that none of your legitimate customers would search for, and the SEO/SEM company earns you the number one spot for a useless term in order to take your money. Or perhaps they show you that your company's name appears number one when searched for, and they use such results to document that they earned the money. Even without optimizing your site, your company name may likely be found in some searches with zero effort, but the fact that 1) the SEO company made a change to your site, however small, and 2) you were found in the number one spot, in any capacity, they can legally take your money, even if the search rankings did not result from their efforts.

Flat rate package deals that are offered by telemarketers, email solicitations, and junk mail flyers advertising that claim that the solicitor will optimize your site for $X (some specific amount of money).

Buyer beware. Search engine optimization and search engine marketing is not a commodity. It isn't something that can be boxed and shrink wrapped, then labeled with a one-size-fits-all price tag. Every business is unique, and every market is different. Companies that offer pre-packaged deals are certainly not going to price their packages in a way that will make them lose money. If you understand that to properly optimize and market a website involves individual market research based on your locality, your business type, etc., you will realize that there is absolutely no way to rubber-stamp your website. To do the job right, it has to be a custom job. Interestingly enough, this is one area where a custom job, done right, should actually cost you less money than a package deal. In other words, if the package deal costs less, it's probably done half-baked or is a scam. For the package job to be done right, it would typically be over-priced to cover any unforeseen contingencies in order to "beat the odds" so that the solicitor remains profitable. In comparison, a custom job, done right, is only going to cost you for the work that is done.

Blanket solicitations that offer search engine submission to X number of search engines, using X number of keywords, for the flat price of $X per month or year.

Again, beware. Optimizing your website means "preparing it to be search-engine-friendly." A website must first be optimized before it is marketed in order to be found effectively in the organic rankings, or found cost-effectively in the pay-per-click rankings. Search engine optimization is a pre-requisite to search engine submission. When you get a flyer in the mail (or email) that offers some flat rate amount (like "$75 per year" or "$50 per month", etc.), if your site has not been optimized, you are throwing your money away. If the advertisement specifies that you are paying for submissions to the search engines versus optimization, you really have no recourse because the company is actually doing what they are advertising, even though they know that submitting an un-optimized website actually potentially damages your search engine placement, but does nothing to help it. They don't care. They got paid.

Contracts that bind you into some minimum term for service:
How does the typical scam, deal, or unethical company assure themselves of an income? They make you sign a deal that commits to using their service for some defined period of time. Not every company that has you sign a contract is unethical, but again, buyer beware. If they are doing their job, why do they need to hold you hostage? What if you are not satisfied with the results after a month or two? The song and dance you'll get is that "it can sometimes take several months to see top results on the search engines." That doesn't answer the question. The real reason is that such companies 1) want your money, and 2) know that someone else will be calling you (or emailing you) shortly with the next best offer, so they are solely interested in protecting their own interests, not yours.

"That's shameful," you might be thinking. Well, it should be, but keep in mind that in order for these people (freelancers) and companies who use these techniques to feel shamed, they must first have a conscience. Somehow, when their cash flow is booming, they don't seem to have much trouble with their consciences. What it amounts to is "search engine malpractice" at the expense of YOU, the unsuspecting business owner. But unfortunately, the legal system has not yet caught up with technology. Therefore, there are not yet any significant laws in place to penalize such unethical practices. That puts YOU squarely at risk for the money you spend on SEO and SEM, because search engine companies cannot ethically guarantee any particular placement in the major search engine listings.

Here is the paradox, where you are caught in the middle:

If a company makes such a guarantee for search engine placement on any of the major search engines, they are not being ethical. No such guarantees exist.
If a company disclaims any search engine placement guarantees (which they must in order to be ethical), they can legally take your money and are not really liable for anything if your website does not achieve good placement.

Does that scare you? It should.

Here's the funny part, ironically:

If you know enough about what to ask, you will be amazed at the "tap dancing" that results from questioning some of the solicitors. In the telemarketing world, the person who is trying to sell you a package generally is unfamiliar with the actual process of SEO and SEM, so your questions are met with circular reasoning, babble, and scripted responses to common objections. When I receive such phone calls myself, they usually begin with the same "flavor" of conversation: the solicitor identifies him- or herself as being with a search engine expertise company, and further explains that I am "losing a lot of business in my local area" because my site is not optimized. (I live out in the "middle of nowhere", so I'm always amazed/amused at how I could possibly be losing a lot of local business when there are more cows than people in my rural town.)

There always seems to be a sense of urgency and concern in their voice that I take immediate action to fix the problems, especially "in this economy", as I'm often told. When I question them as to how they found me to let me know about this huge revelation that my site is in some kind of problem status. Many times, their answer is that they were looking online and "came across" my site, and they "happened to notice" that it wasn't optimized well, could be optimized better, or other such thing.

My response: "So, if you happened upon my site inadvertently and you managed to find it, how can it possibly be so poorly optimized? Did you spend hours trying to find a site that you didn't know existed?"

Now the flopping and twitching begins. Sometimes they'll change gears after a few moments of wrestling with the question, and they'll tell me that they can save me money on my optimization and marketing. Really? "How can you tell me you'll save me money when you don't know what I've paid to optimize and market my site?" More flopping and twitching.

Maybe I should be kinder about it, not giving the telemarketer such a hard time by asking sensible questions. I just find it disgraceful that such scams, deals, pitches, and packages are sold to the unsuspecting all the time. When I let them know about my own experience with SEO and SEM, the telemarketer thanks me for my time, apologizes, and hangs up-- or just simply hangs up, depending on how embarrassed they are.

Key points you must know:

• The better and more effective your search engine efforts are, the more solicitations you will receive. It simply makes sense that the more visible you are online, the more solicitors will find you to try to get your money, and you have already pre-qualified yourself as a prospect for them because you have shown active efforts in SEO/SEM.
• There is no such thing as "guaranteed placement" on major search engines.
• Package deals where you pay a flat rate to optimize your site are frequently scams, and are often overpriced to favor profitability of the service provider, rather than consider the unique needs of your business
• To market a site effectively, it must first be optimized. Solicitations for submitting your site to search engines without optimizing it being optimized first are deceptive and can do damage to your ranking.
• The better your search engine placement is, the more solicitations you will receive. The fact that you have good placement is how many scams and unethical companies find you.
• Email solicitations that claim to have evaluated your site or provide you with an analysis report of your site are usually automated, computer generated spam from companies that prey on the unsuspecting. The fact that you call them to inquire is a good tip-off to them that they are dealing with "low hanging fruit."
• As a general rule, be wary of solicitations and telemarketers that contact you. If they call you, you may be a target for SEO/SEM scams or deceptive practices. You should seek out a provider and ensure they are qualified.
• Proper SEO and SEM on your site cannot be done until your site has been individually analyzed with relevant market research for your industry and your location. It therefore can't be priced without an appropriate consultation.
• The market analysis of a site is part of what is necessary to define the best keywords to use. If a company asks you to provide the keywords rather than help you define them with statistical data, buyer beware.
• Always get references. View a portfolio. Ask challenging questions. Do something to qualify the company as being legitimate.
  

What you should do about it to protect yourself and your business:

Please, for your own benefit, get familiar with the common deceptive practices that run rampant in the SEO/SEM world. Most web developers and search engine companies are reputable, earning an honest living. They are not typically the ones who are predatory, calling and emailing you with unsolicited spam. In fact, a good sign that you are working with an honest, ethical company is that you called them for help, not the other way around.

Every web development and search engine company that is ethical should be forthcoming with information that is verifiable. Most will want to provide a free consultation prior to accepting your job. They should provide you with options, working with you closely to determine the best strategy that meets your needs within your budget, rather than throwing an arbitrary, packaged price on the table before they get to know your business.

Avoid 6-month or yearly term contracts if possible. You may be asked to sign an agreement that defines the scope of work for your project, but avoid the six-month or one-year commitment that typically contains penalties for early termination. Some contracts might define the scope of work to be done each month, but there should be a penalty-free out clause that gives you the right to "fire" the company if they aren't performing.

Be sure to have your website equipped with statistical analysis tools so that you can see the results that your SEO/SEM provider's efforts are yielding. You need this data in order to make good decisions. Usually, the information is available in the form of graphs and charts, so you do not need to know much about the Web to be able to determine how effective your marketing efforts are (or aren't). If you see upward trends in traffic, and if there is a corresponding positive impact in business transactions, new customers, etc. then you should smile. If the trend remains flat or declines, then you should ask questions, make adjustments, or find a better provider. Having website analytics reports available to you will help eliminate or reduce the "artificial traffic" resulting from the unethical practice of a service provider visiting your site to fabricate results, because you should be able to determine the source of your traffic. If all of your traffic comes from the same source, and/or if your site is getting a flood of repeat visitors but few new visitors, it's a hint that something shady may be happening.

Have your site evaluated by a professional you seek, rather than a solicitor. If your site has already been optimized, in some cases you may actually have good traffic numbers before an adjustment to your current optimization, but the traffic may be mostly from the wrong audience. This is a common result from some of the package deals from being "low hanging fruit." Sometimes a re-optimization will yield less traffic but more sales, as is typical with niche market businesses or some seasonal businesses. This simply means that the adjustment resulted in re-targeting your website's promotion to find the right audience that contains more buyers and fewer "tire kickers." In most typical businesses, however, more traffic equals more sales if the SEO and SEM were done right.

In any case, look before you leap. Check references, and don't fall for a sales pitch that includes, "we respect our customer's privacy and therefore can't provide you with their contact information." Yes, of course it is important (essential) to respect customers' privacy. However, any website developer or search engine optimization company worth its salt will have customers who agree to be cited as references. (Make sure it's a third party business and not a family member or friend. Ask about their relationship). In the high-fraud, "no guarantees" environment of SEO and SEM, solid references are about the only certainty you have that a company is going to deliver on what they tell you they'll strive for, but can't ethically promise.

Much like the wild west, Internet marketing is a wide-open frontier that still being developed and explored. Consequently, there are plenty of traveling charlatans and swindlers who will call you with convincing presentations to sell you "snake oil" as the cure for all that ails you. They know more about search engines than you do, generally, so that puts you at a disadvantage. In a lot of industries, the expression "you get what you pay for" is used to justify spending more money or to explain how lower prices might offer less value. It' takes on a bit of a nasty spin in the search engine and Internet world, though. Even though a price you're quoted might seem better than others you have received, sometimes with search engine optimization and marketing, you don't even get what you pay for. It is almost completely "buyer beware." Your dollars are at risk.

Someday there will undoubtedly be better laws and several lawsuits to set a precedence for ethical SEO and SEM, and I look forward to that day because it will "clean up" the industry. In the meantime, however, you must do everything you can to protect yourself from being cheated. Unfortunately, it often costs more to try to get your money back through legal channels than it does to walk away from the money as a "lesson learned." Spare yourself the grief by asking the right questions and doing your due diligence in consumer research before you buy. Don't get sold a bill of goods. It doesn't mean that you need to become an expert. You just need to know enough to sort out fact from fiction.

Visit www.website411book.com for more information!

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

by Tom Elliott

If you are looking for information about effective, traditional methods of promoting your business, please refer to the Marketing section of my book, Website 411: Business Survival in an Internet Economy. I touch on a variety of ways to earn a return on your Website investment in that section, including a brief discussion of paid-for advertising, subscribed links, and so forth. This article goes into a little more detail on those, and covers some whiz-bang techniques to affordably get your site "found."

Similar to my text messaging article on SEO, I will remain very broad in covering this topic because there are many options available to you , and some of them will be better suited for your particular goals than others. The best advice I can give is to talk over your specific goals with a qualified Website solution provider who practices SEM and is familiar with integrating it into Website design.

The ways to market your business (your Website) via the search engines makes up a lengthy list. The pay-for-placement methods are somewhat fewer, and can be broken down into some general categories as follows:

You can pay for the number one spot (in the margins) of the search engines by individual keywords. Although this kind of placement may seem appealing, it is only as reliable as your advertising dollars allow. You can be outbid by someone who is willing to pay more for that position.
You can pay-per-click for given keywords, and depending on your budget and the popularity of the word(s) you select, your positioning will vary. Again, this is effective in getting traffic, but there is a difference between someone who clicks their way to your site and someone who makes a purchase once they're there. (You aren't paying-per-click for customers who buy something. You are paying just to get the visit.)
You can pay to advertise on other peoples' Websites by having the search engine companies liaison between you and the other site owners. This is a comparatively more recent way to advertise, paying to put out an advertisement while other Website owners receive some search engine indexing and kickback benefits for allowing your ad to be on their sites. In theory (and usually in practice), this is a win-win option.
Of these three general methods, keyword ad campaigns can usually be limited to a pre-specified number of dollars per month (or until your account is replenished). So you aren't really writing a "blank check" to advertise with keywords in these ways, but you do need to manage your budget and your account carefully.

I have had several clients who came to me because of keyword ad accounts that were handled poorly by their previous service provider. In the worst cases, some of them were victims of out-and-out fraud. One case in particular stands out in my mind.

I had an accountant approach me with complaints that he had been spending $400 to $600 per month for the past 6 months for 200 guaranteed clicks to his Website per month. "Wow... that's a pretty good guarantee," you might be thinking. And he received a report from his provider each month that substantiated that he was in fact getting that kind of traffic (more than 200 hits per month) from his keyword ad campaign. His complaint, however, was that he had no new clients that came from his Website. Something seemed fishy to me.

I did a bit of research on his Website's performance, and what I found was disturbing. His account was set to automatically replenish (rebill his credit card) on the fifteenth of each month, back up to his specified maximum monthly budget of $500. That means that if his account balance was $250 on the fourteenth of the month, another $250 would be charged to him to restore his account balance to $500. Each click cost him money, and over the next 30 days his balance would incrementally be debited until it came time to replenish it on the fifteenth of the following month. If he ever hit zero, his ad would fall off the map, but he was guaranteed to never go beyond his budget. Sounds like a foolproof way to advertise, right? Guaranteed hits with no cost overruns! But he was getting scammed!

When I did an analysis of his Website traffic, I saw a steady trend of visitors that came from a variety of sources, some of them from his paid-for advertising campaign. I counted about 20 to 30 hits related to his pay-per-click deal. Suspiciously, however, he had about 150 to 180 hits on the fourteenth of each month, the day before his account replenished. It never took him down to zero, so he didn't think anything strange was going on. But it seemed apparent that whoever was managing his account was taking advantage of his trusting nature, and he was paying extra for artificial hits. His reports showed over 200 hits, just as he was promised, but he was unwittingly padding the pockets of his account manager!

Don't let that happen to you! Most solution providers and SEM companies that have been around for awhile are reputable or they wouldn't stay in business. But you must take an active interest in the management of your advertising budget. Ensure that your SEM provider gives you more than just a total-hits-per-month report and an invoice for recharging your account. You should require them to provide you with the Website analytics that show all of your traffic, the trends, the hits-per-page, hits-per-day, sources of hits (so you can ensure they're from different addresses), keywords used to find you, and so forth. Even if you never look at the details of those reports, the fact that they are provided to you will be a deterrent to keep your SEM provider honest. They probably are honest anyway, but in the end you have to CYA (cover your assets).

I didn't relay that story to scare you or to deter you from using paid-for advertising. Really, paid ads are extremely effective in the right situations. I simply want you to realize that, like everything else with doing business, there is more than meets the eye. Forewarned is forearmed. Get into the game of marketing your Website, but do it with a wise eye and wary wallet. The best approach is likely to be one that combines the three types of advertisements bulleted above, so you can measure which one works best for your particular campaign. You might also want to try a Text Message Marketing Portal (like the one used to deliver this article to you) to supplement your variable advertising budget with a flat rate option! Text Message Marketing (TMM) is a relatively new marketing trend that appeals to millions of consumers for a number of reasons, which I cover in my Texting article.

Visit www.website411book.com for more information!

Ensure Your Business Survives the Recession

by Tom Elliott

Dollars are scarce in today's economy. Phone book advertisements, radio spots, billboards, and other forms of advertisements have not become any cheaper in recent times, and in fact, costs are on the rise. In uncertain financial times, it can be very uncomfortable to sign a contract binding your business into a predefined term that commits you to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars over the next several months to a year. With no guaranteed results and no way to effectively measure return on investment (ROI), most business owners would prefer not to be bound to such contracts, especially since such contracts usually include stiff exit penalties for early termination. But what are the alternatives?

We live in an Internet world today, and most people are familiar with finding what they want through search services like Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. As consumers, we're all familiar with the concept of typing a few words in the search bar and clicking the search button to explore our options. As business owners, however, the process on how to achieve a prominent placement in the search engine listings is often a murky, undefined, seemingly "random" process. Additionally, it can be very confusing when telemarketers and solicitors call on your business with various conflicting packages, promising to deliver "guaranteed" results but at a steep price tag. Many times, the lip service is gone once you sign the contract.

Using the Internet to advertise your business is a viable way to cut costs, focus marketing efforts, and deliver incredible results, but there are a few key points that you must know in order to protect your interests. Here are a few deceptive practices and myths to be careful about if you consider marketing your business online:

Deceptive Practice #1: Guaranteed Placement

There is no such thing as "guaranteed" placement on any of the major search engines. I wish there were, but if you think about it, such guarantees don't make sense. It's always possible that someone else might be willing to pay more for higher placement in the sponsored links area of search engine results. In the organic (or natural rankings) area of the search results, there is only one "number one" spot, so if someone offers you a "guarantee" that they can get your website to the number one spot, you'd have to question how they can possibly do that for your business when other unscrupulous sales people are making the same guarantees elsewhere. And what if they approach another business in the same industry as yours? Are they guaranteeing your competitor the #2 spot? I doubt it. What about the sales person four states away that is pitching their prospective client that they "guarantee" the number one spot? How can that be? In short, it can't. Individual telephone or marketing companies may own their own, propriety search services in which they may guarantee placement within their own listings, but you must consider how narrow or wide-reaching their services encompass, and whether the price is worth the exposure for the number of people who search through them versus the major search engines. Regardless of how many angles someone tries to play it, there is no way to ethically guarantee a particular placement on the major search engines. If someone makes such a claim, show them the door.

Deceptive Practice #2: "We work closely with the search engines"

It sounds great, and it would be quite the cozy situation if it were true, but again, no one has the "inside scoop" on how to tip the scales in your favor by "being in bed with" the search engines. Every professional, competent Internet marketing provider keeps up-to-date on current changes, but to say "working closely with" is, at best, misleading. If someone gives you a sales pitch that they have an inside track with Google, Yahoo!, MSN or any other search service, they're blowing smoke and trying to "sell" you on a relationship that simply can't exist. Why can't it exist? Because search engines would go out of business if they compromised the integrity of their ever-changing algorithms. (Their "algorithm" is the formula they use to rank and score websites based on weighted criteria, and it is "super-double-top-secret"). True, experienced search engine companies stay very familiar with updated materials and guidelines that search engine companies make public, but nobody has the executive privilege of calling up a particular search engine and saying "Hey, I've got a client that needs to be ranked number one for a particular keyword. Can you 'hook me up?'" Anyone who says that "they're in bed with the search engines" is making promises in the dark.

Deceptive Practice#3: Flat Rate Offers for Search Engine Submissions

Buyer beware. You may receive solicitations in the mail that appear to be bills but the fine print reads, "This is a solicitation. This is not a bill. You are under no obligation to pay this amount." Elsewhere in the correspondence, in much more conspicuous print, you will see the words, "Remit the following amount by (some date)." It's a legal scam. How can it be legal, yet still be a scam? Quite easily, actually. They will deliver EXACTLY what they advertise, which is often some number of keyword phrases submitted to some number of search engines on some periodic basis over the next year or so. If they do what they promise they'll do, it's legal. However, submitting a website to search engines without properly preparing it (called "optimizing") for submission and marketing to the search engines produces virtually zero results for you. Therefore, taking your money for something that will knowingly do nothing for you makes it a "scam," at least in my opinion.

Deceptive Practice #4: Using a Name to Define Itself

This is a common ploy that capitalizes on the unsuspecting and th unknowing. It's pretty typical (although not guaranteed) that a company will appear in the number one spot on search engines when using the name of the company as the search term. It makes sense that a company's name will be the best fit for search results when searching using the company's name. (Sounds redundant, right?) Do not let anyone fool you by telling you that they worked hard for the money to achieve great results by showing you that your company comes up prominently when you search for yourself. Such results often happen almost "automatically," with no effort at all. Plus, how many people really search for you by company name? The goal in search engine optimization and marketing is to get your company "found" by searching for your products, services, manufacturers, etc.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) is like the Wild West. Technology has expanded much faster than laws have been able to keep pace, and therefore there are plenty of opportunities for fraud and deception. The burden of maintaining integrity in the system has fallen largely on the individual search service companies like Google, Yahoo! and MSN, which explains why those companies need to continually update and refine their algorithms to keep the riff-raff out. In true "Western Movie" style, the terms to describe "good guy" practices is dubbed "white hat SEO/SEM" while the "bad guy" practices are labeled "black hat SEO/SEM." It sounds over dramatic, but the "good guys" engage in industry best-practices and adhere to ethical approaches, whereas the "bad guys" try to subvert the search engine algorithms and are usually the ones who engage in deceptive practices while preying on the ignorance of unsuspecting business owners.

Someday, there will undoubtedly be legal controls in place to support SEO/SEM malpractice lawsuits, much like how consumers are protected from medical or legal malpractice. I look forward to that day, because it will "clean up" the industry. As it stands now, the search engine optimization and marketing industry is the only one I can think of in which:

there is no way to ethically guarantee results
SEO/SEM practitioners can collect money with the disclaimer of "no guarantees", and
after collecting money for no-guarantee work, SEO/SEM companies can legitimately deliver "no results".

Of course, reputable SEO/SEM companies that engage in fair practices will likely take measures to make a happy customer, but the overall big picture allows for a lot of dubious practices in the market place. The few "bad apples" that leave a trail of destruction spoil it for the bunch who are honest, white hat SEO/SEM service providers.

How can you protect yourself? How can you be reasonably assured of not being ripped off? First and foremost, get references. Secondly, check those references. And finally, apply common sense to the situation, resisting the urge to take the bait of anything that seems "too good to be true." Any company that offers to provide you with SEO/SEM services should be able to provide you with qualified references. Even so, be sure to contact their actual clients to ensure a couple of things:

• is the company easy to work with?
• are the clients happy with their results?
• are the results producing traffic?
• would the clients recommend the company?
  

Remember, the level of service you get will differ based on what you pay. SEO/SEM efforts, done properly, are based on data but are somewhat subjective. In other words, there is more that one way to achieve positive results, and different SEO specialists can achieve comparable outcomes by employing different techniques and strategies. This often makes it difficult to compare "apples to apples" as a business owner when you are trying to determine the best company to hire for your search engine project. Here is another scenario to consider:

Let's assume you have a typical seven or eight-page website in a moderately competitive market. You can interview three separate companies regarding the same SEO/SEM project, and you may receive three dramatically different prices for the same job. One bid, for example, may come in at $200 to optimize your site, while the others come in at $1200 and $3000 respectively. Is the $200 bid the best value? Is the $3000 bid overpriced? Not necessarily. All three salespeople can look you in the eye, shake your hand, and tell you that they will optimize your site for their respective prices. The confusing part is that they are each being honest with you.

The person who quotes you $200 to optimize your site may do so by doing some cursory research to select a few keywords, and then use those same keywords on each page of your website while also adjusting basic information in your web page titles. Can that person legitimately say that your site has been optimized? From the "something is better than nothing" department, yes. In such a scenario, your site has been optimized-- to a degree.

In comparison, the $3000 bid would likely be much more thorough of a job. There may be several hours of detailed keyword research conducted, including an in-depth analysis of each of your top competitors' websites to define the best quality words and phrases to use. Then each page of your site might be individually optimized using specific sets of keywords to maximize the effectiveness of each keyword, including changes to the textual content on each page to include strategic placement of keyword phrases throughout. Additionally, pictures on the site might be annotated with descriptive labels (called alt-tags) on each page, and additional characteristics involving fonts, links, descriptions, etc. may be adjusted to refine the page characteristics so that search engines "smile upon" the website when your site is indexed. Certainly, you can be confident that your website was optimized in this case.

The individual that quoted you $1200 would likely involve something in the middle, perhaps with less market research and a more universal selection of keywords on each page, but still including alt-tags and other content adjustments to improve the website's merit with the search engines.

In all three instances, your site would be optimized. The difference would be the level of detail involved with the job. I wish it were just that simple, but the story continues...

It's true that you can do too little to achieve any worthwhile results. For example, if your budget is only $50 to optimize a website in a highly competitive market, spending the $50 on optimization would probably do nothing for you, and it would be better to take the money and treat yourself to a nice dinner. It's also true that you can wastefully spend too much money without seeing any improvement. For example, if you do achieve page 1, number 1 results in the organic rankings on Google consistently with a $200 budget for a particular set of keywords, increasing your budget to pay for more marketing efforts using those same keywords won't yield any better results. (i.e., you can't get better than #1.) In between the "too little" and "too much" areas, there is a very large "gray area" of spending that will produce varying results in varying time frames.

Optimization is a part of marketing. It is the preparatory work to ensure that your site is ready to be promoted, much like how producing a television commercial is the preparatory work in getting the commercial ready to be aired on TV to the public. The other part of the equation is the actual marketing of the site itself. Marketing the site, which involves submitting it to search engines and then promoting the site on an ongoing basis, is akin to broadcasting the television commercial. If you only air the commercial once, you might see some short term results from it, but in the long term the money spent to produce the commercial would be wasted because people would forget about it. Likewise, if you only market your website for one month, your site will not gain visibility in the long-term. Search engine marketing is an ongoing process. You need to establish a budget for it, just as you would for a phone book ad, magazine ad, radio spot, etc.

The good news: Actively promoting your website to the public is much less costly than traditional methods of advertisement, as long as it is done correctly. The end result of effective SEM is that you receive focused, pre-qualified buyers for your goods and/or services, and you can measure your ROI by reviewing which keywords are working, how long your visitors stayed on your site, knowing which pages they visited, and seeing when and where they left your website.

The bad news: There are obviously a lot of "small parts" to the SEO/SEM puzzle which pose a "choking hazard" to the non-technical business owner. Consequently, the process of actually getting the job done can be confusing, frustrating, and (for the unsuspecting) expensive. This is where a little bit of information and education can save you a whole lot of grief and time.

What most people do not realize is that the quality of your website's optimization (the SEO part of marketing) often directly affects the costs of the ongoing marketing costs for the site. For example, when Google indexes your website (which means that it "takes inventory" of your site's contents), it assigns a quality score to the merit of your keywords based on the content and construction of your site. If you participate in a marketing campaign using a pay-per-click service like Google Adwords, the higher your quality score, generally, the lower the cost per click for a given keyword selection. This means that you can end up paying less per keyword than your competition, but actually achieve higher placement in the sponsored links area of the search results.

In the example scenario above, the $200 bid for your job would probably not yield the same quality score impact as the $3000 job. However, if your budget doesn't support the more expense, detailed work, then it may be more comfortable for you to pay a slightly higher price per keyword (in a pay-per-click campaign), but spend less money on the optimization efforts for your site.

In many ways, you can compare SEO work with putting a heating system in your home. To equip your home with a heating system, you can pay more up front for a geothermal system, and realize a monthly cost savings over a long period of time. Or, you can put in a heat pump for less money up front, but your electric bill will be somewhat higher on a monthly basis. Either system will heat your home, but the break even point will be very different depending on the choice you make. Detailed versus general SEO works much the same way, and the variables that you must consider are 1) when do you want to start seeing results, and 2) how much do you want to spend monthly or quarterly on an ongoing basis?

The key to remember is that your website should first be optimized (to whatever degree you can comfortably afford) prior to marketing it. There are some search engines (and search related services) that will place your site (or a business listing that represents your company) in their search results for a "raw dollar amount" without your site being optimized, but such services can typically only do so within their own service networks. If your customers generally do their searches via major search engines instead of phone company or private industry search sites, then the dollars you spend for top placement within a marketing service's proprietary system may not be worth the cost.

What NOT to say: When discussing your project with a search engine optimization and/or marketing consultant, avoid asking the question, "What placement will I get on the search engines if I hire you?" It reveals that you aren't familiar with how search engines work, and it tips your hand that they might have "low hanging fruit" to make a sale. Of course, if you are savvy to how search engines work (and the limitations that SEO/SEM companies are subject to in achieving results), then asking this question may be a qualifier/disqualifier for the sales person who solicits you, depending on their response.

What to ask: It's reasonable (and shows insight) to ask an SEO/SEM consultant how involved their SEO efforts will be for the price. You may not have a good feel for what a reasonable budget is, so you can ask them to provide a "Good / Better / Best" proposal that outlines what they would include for different levels of optimization, so you can make a "best fit" budget decision for your business. With regards to marketing efforts, ask about the number of blog posts and/or article publications that can be expected for the money (for organic marketing), or what keyword selections (and their corresponding popularity demand) would be used for pay-per-click advertising.

I'm a firm believer that a company's SEO/SEM strategy needs to be customized to their specific market (local, regional, national, etc) and industry within that market. To illustrate the point, the roofing repair market in Seattle, WA, is much different than the roofing repair market in New Orleans, LA. In both cases, companies in roofing repair would likely focus on local search results within 50 to 70 miles of the business location. Priorities, word choice, and economic factors in each market will have a different impact on the best choices for keywords to use in each. Yes, of course, there will be some overlap. But in the big picture, the competition within each market is limited to the local area, so there would be a much more narrow approach to addressing the competition in order to achieve the best search engine results.

Comparatively, a health and nutrition company that wants to be competitive nationally for vitamin sales would involve a much different strategy in achieving desired results. The amount of time and effort, and consequently the costs involved with doing the job right will be completely different.

Therefore, if you are presented with a one-size-fits-none "package" deal to promote your business at some flat price, you might think twice about the quality of results you can expect for the money, given that many companies are "very good" at living up to the no-guaranteed-results nature of search engine marketing. Spend your money wisely. Ask questions. Get references. Check them. There is no "free lunch", and unfortunately in the search engine arena, you may not get what you think you pay for.

Qualifying Your SEO/SEM Provider

The biggest challenge you will face in achieving positive results via Internet marketing will be finding a capable, competent, ethical, experienced search engine company. In your interview process, if the sales person seems more interested in pitching you on their product rather than learning about your needs, beware. If you feel pressured into "closing the deal" by time-sensitive "now or never" discounts, or if you don't get straight answers to your questions, walk away. Sometimes the right answer to a question is "it depends," but such an answer should be followed by a reasonable, understandable explanation. Your prospective search engine optimization and marketing provider should be more interested in providing you with an education than in taking your money.

What to Expect if it's Done Right

Again, based on the ethical issue that no one can guarantee placement, your best indicator will be checking out references from different potential providers to get a reasonable assurance that a particular company has delivered for customers in the past. A proven track record is a good indicator that you have found a reputable, reliable company. Why is this so important? Because you will have to trust them to look out for your company's best interests in an ever-changing, no-guarantee environment, so you want to have some peace of mind that you aren't overpaying for their service, and they will not be using your business as a guinea pig to experiment. By talking with their references, you can also assess whether a client's prominent search engine placement is short-lived or consistent. Short-term and intermittent placement on search engine results may be (but not necessarily) an indicator of black hat SEO techniques, rather than white hat best-practices that yield more consistent results. Realize that there is little to no correlation between what one customer paid for their SEO/SEM work versus what another customer might have paid. The amount of money it costs to do the job is typically tied to the amount of time involved, and it will vary widely based on industry, market, and each client's goals.

All things considered, when you find a SEO/SEM provider you are comfortable with, trust, and can afford, you can expect your costs to be a fraction of what you pay for traditional advertisement, while yielding better results. This allows you to cut your advertising costs while increasing revenues. As more revenues flow in, meaning better cash flow, you can pare back your traditional advertising (meaning, reduce but not discontinue), and redirect the additional funds to additional internet methods for compounding effects.

Budget permitting, you can even use the Internet to measure ROI on your traditional marketing methods. For example, by securing multiple domain names (which are inexpensive), you can target your marketing efforts by individual source (such as billboards, magazines ads, etc.) and measure the traffic from each source. There are many ways to creatively and cost-effectively use search engine and Internet methods to measure, monitor, adjust and control the marketing success of your business.

Visit www.website411book.com for more information!

Choosing The Right Domain Name For Your Online Identity

by Tom Elliott

What's in a name? Yes, it's a clichéd question, but it is of paramount importance when it comes to your Website. As you've read in my book, the seemingly trivial task of "pick a name" takes on a whole new meaning when you must consider the way that the Internet handles domain names.

You will find yourself having to answer a series of other questions in order to make the right decision. Will your domain name "work" (will it be understandable) when you remove the spaces between the words? In addition to the .com and the .net variations, should you also protect your identity by getting the .info, .biz, .org, etc? Should you register it for one year, or for several? Is your name easily misspelled, and if so, should you also register the common misspellings so customers "accidentally" find you on purpose (or intentionally find you by accident, depending on how you look at it)?

Okay. Now that you have all of those answered, you go to register your well-conceived name. But alas, it isn't available. Now you're back to the drawing board. For Pete's sake, how hard can it be to pick a name? (And you thought it was a two-minute process!) REGISTERING the name is a two minute process, once you find one that is available. Getting to that point involves (potentially) a lot more work.

Here are a few points to ponder when you set out to pick a name. This guidance is in addition to the advice I give in the book, so if you've already read Website 411: Business Survival in an Internet Economy, this builds upon what we've already discussed.

• Search engines have started looking at the length of time that domain names are registered. Since so many scams, "link farms" and other gimmicks only use domains with one-year registrations, you have a better chance of being found if you register your name for 3 or more years, ensuring that you renew it before it is within a year of expiring.
• It's an unfair practice (and unethical in my opinion), but your Web-savvy competition may register the variations of YOUR domain name and point them to THEIR site... Because of that, it's a good practice (and cheap insurance) to register the variations yourself at the time you register your main domain name. Protect your identity!
• Domain registrars (the companies that sell domain name registrations) don't like to leave money on the table. Therefore, if someone has shown interest in a domain name by checking its availability, registrar companies collect the information of domains that have been checked-but-not-purchased, and they sell the lists to bidders. Then, if any of the checked domains seem "catchy" or worthwhile, the domain gets purchased and auctioned by the person/company who bought the list. In other words, if you find a domain you like, BUY IT... If you wait, you'll probably lose it and have to potentially pay hundreds of dollars to get it back!
• Beware of bogus renewal notices. It's a common practice (much like long-distance companies did in the 1980's and 1990's) to solicit customers and try to get them to swap providers. Unless you have registered a private domain and kept your contact information confidential, it is easy for companies to find out who owns a particular domain name. You will get unsolicited mailings from these companies urging you to renew your name before it expires. (In fine print, it will notify you that the mailing is an advertisement, not a bill... but it will sure look like a bill). If you unwittingly send the non-bill back with your payment, the fine print also states that you are agreeing to transfer ownership and registration to THEM... at which point they own your identity, and can charge you whatever they want to let you use it!
  

It's a shame that I need to share all of these warnings on how to protect your interests... the list goes on. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be a need for it, but then again, we're not in a perfect world.

Now for a piece of advice on email accounts using your domain name. This kind of overlaps with my text message response page on marketing, but it's worth mentioning here. When you have your domain name, what's your next step? What do you do with it besides connect it to your Website? (Your Web developer can help you do that). It's pretty straightforward.

Email addresses, you may have noticed, all end in .com, .net, .org, etc. They are tied to domain names. You may be using email that your internet service provider supplies you with, using their domain name (like verizon.net, comcast.net, earthlink.net, cox.net, etc.), or you may have an email address from a third party provider that you check by logging into their Web-based service (like aol.com, msn.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, gmail.com, etc.). Either way is fine.

Once you have your own domain name, why not start using it for your emails? It's part of your identity and marketing. You'll have more credibility and better exposure when people go to YourName@YourBusiness.com rather than SomeNickname@AnotherProvider.com. Give it some thought. I've even seen some Website designer (usually small freelancers) that either don't have their own site, or if they do, their email address is to a generic email service provider... It makes me scratch my head. Along the same lines as the old expression "Never trust a skinny cook," how experienced and savvy is a Web developer without a Website, or one that doesn't have an email address from their own domain? Pet peeve of mine... Things that make you go "hmmmm. "

Just the same, you should work under your own flag versus flying someone else's. If you are "married" to your third party or Internet service provider's email account (meaning that you don't want to miss anything going into those accounts), most of them allow you to forward incoming message to another account (Your domain's). Yeah, I get stuck on the details.

The best advice I can give you is to find a reputable service provider that offers complete solutions (including domain name management), get a consultation to define your identity online, and let them register it on your behalf (ensuring that YOU own the rights to it.). Check the National Directory of Website Solution Providers on this site for a company near you, or give me a call at WebDrafter.com (866-421-3723) and I'll help you out. You can manage your domain name(s) yourself, but if you'd rather not tangle with the process, your Website solution provider can handle the technical details, annual verifications, and periodic renewals.

Maturing Americans are Shopping & Researching Online

According to eMarketer, more maturing Americans are hopping online than ever before! The Pew Interview and American Life Project recently released their findings about this growing market. Check out some numbers from their survey:

• 73% from ages 64-72 get online to research products
• 91% in that same age group use the Web to read e-mail
• 56% in that age range use the Web to make a purchase

Meanwhile, of surveyed users 73 years and older:

• 79% use the Web for e-mail
• 60% get online to research products
• 47% use the Web to make a purchase

As eMarketer observes, a steadily-increasing number of older Americans are using the Web. If your target market includes or focuses on this age group there has never been a better time to compete in the online shopping arena or to advertise your business or online using the Web to research products or services.

Are you ready to expand your market? Call WebDrafter.com today at 866.421.3723.

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