Search Engine Marketing is being talked about all around the world. Today, I will give you an exact definition of what it refers to, and how it relates to both Web Search and Web Marketing.

Search Marketing is also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and as such we will refer to it as SEM.

Search Marketing is a part of business marketing efforts that is aimed at increasing traffic (the number of visitors) to your website from the search engines. Additionally, it addresses conversion (the percent of visitors who become buyers). The first is achieved by increasing search engine visibility, i.e. the position of your site in search engine results for certain keywords that people type in the search box to obtain these results.

For instance, if someone wants to find a landscaper in MT, they will go to a search engine such as Google and type “MT landscaper” in the search box. Google will list, in this case, a bazillion results. If you are a landscaper in MT, offer any related services, your site may be listed among these results. Here, everything depends on how deep you are. If you are on the first or second page of the search results, it’s more likely that such visibility will bring many visitors and customers from Google. If you are the 300th result, it’s unlikely that anyone at all will come to you from Google.

Together with the power and size of your banner / ad network, your affiliations and partnerships, SE visibility comprises a broader concept – Web visibility (aka online visibility).

Generally, there are two main methods of carrying out SEM: 1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 2) using pay-per-click and paid inclusion listing models.

Although paid inclusion and pay-per-click advertising methods seem like the fastest methods to search engine marketing, website owners prefer to adopt a more time consuming search engine optimization method to obtain better marketing of their website on search engines.

Organic rankings are results that you get for free. That is, you create Web copy and publish it, then after a certain period of time a search engine robot finds it (either by itself or as a result of your submission).

Finally, the robot reads your content and puts your site into its index. Now your site will be found by this search engine when people query for some words contained within your pages. Obtained this way, your positions in the result list are called your “organic search engine rankings“.

Paid listings are different: pay a search engine and it guarantees the inclusion of your site in the index. Moreover, many search engines offer advanced pay-for-performance programs, such as showing your site / ad in the search results for keywords of your choice. These are the so-called “sponsored” results. Most commonly, you will have to pay a specified rate for each visitor that comes to your site from this search engine that clicks on these ads.

Mastering both methods and their proper combination can provide maximum search engine visibility. Because things keep changing, search engine marketers need to devote a good deal of time staying on top of the SEO industry and its trends.

The aim of SEM is not only to find a proper balance between organic and paid listings, but also to achieve maximum conversion of visitors into loyal customers. Nowadays SEM relies on the statement that it’s not the traffic itself that matters, but how targeted and convertible it is. The way your traffic converts also matters a lot – even more than your site rank on a search engine. You can rank worse than a competitor and yet the percentage of your visitors that turn into buyers can be high enough to actually outperform a competitor several times over.

SEO Services cover a lot of areas like email marketing, directories, and the list goes on and on. If you have questions, post them on the blog, or contact BLaST Creative.

SEO Resources

Google Page Ranker

Who Links 2Me

WordPress

GoDaddy

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This article will give you sufficient knowledge on how to maintain a site’s quality level that avoids visibility and usability problems.
You may ask yourself why site maintenance is relevant to search engine optimization, promotion, and internet marketing – isn’t this the job of the webmaster or site administrator?

Remember that the Integrated Approach considers site quality maintenance as a secondary yet obligatory addition to your promotion campaigns and traffic analysis. The content of the website is the foundation upon which to build the online business. The higher the quality of this material, the more successful the business will be.

It is strongly recommended that you start your SEO campaign with a site quality assessment, especially in the following situations:

• When providing SEO / SEM services and being hired to promote a website already created by somebody else. In this case, you should cooperate (if possible) with the site development and administration team to properly prepare the website for the SEO campaign.
• When you have just developed a website of considerable size but cannot afford the time or resources to double-test every page and function.
• When a website you’re working with uses a dynamic technology and/or is constantly changed and updated with new materials, products, news, etc.
• When the website you’re working with is developed, maintained and managed by a group of people on a regular basis. Even if the team is well coordinated, this usually means that site quality will still yield some gaps.

Site quality assessment means detecting and troubleshooting the two principal factors that ultimately determine site traffic and visitor conversion: site visibility and usability.META and TITLE tags and other elements important for the search engines), it means you’re having visibility problems.
When you’ve removed all errors and breaches that could potentially damage your visibility, pay attention to usability flaws: missing or incorrectly displayed images, broken links (these can frustrate not only spiders but human visitors also), missing JavaScript included or CSS styles. These types of usability problems appear in your site by not displaying or functioning correctly.
Remember your audience is always split into human visitors (the “visible” audience) and search engine spiders (the “invisible” audience). If your site isn’t initially spider-compatible (has broken links, lacks META and TITLE tags and other elements important for the search engines), it means you’re having visibility problems.
Finally, whether you’re a hired hand or running an SEM campaign for your own site, you may want to clean up the technical waste which emerges when a website has been on the Web for a long time or when it lacks proper supervision. This generally means orphaned files which are no longer included or linked to from anywhere and just clutter your hosting space.
For more information on Search Engine Optimization,Internet Marketing or Web Design, please contact BLaST creative today.

SEO Resources

Google Page Ranker

Who Links 2Me

WordPress

GoDaddy

The post Auditing and Improving Your Website appeared first on Website Design and Marketing.

I’ve been thrown under the bus so many times in my lifetime by business partners, associates and friends that the tread marks have left excruciating scars and I sit here wondering if honesty, integrity and loyalty exists in 2013! I hate not trusting people, but time and time again I get slapped in the face by reality. I recently read an article on Katie Couric’s website:

Want to know how to spot a liar? Here’s how!

From Janine Driver, body language expert and author of “You Can’t Lie to Me.”

Read more here…

Basically you can never be too sure if someone in your life is being dishonest. But you’d think with the age of the Internet and Social Media, people would try to be more honest, because their reputation is on the line-literally! Edward Snowden is a prime example, his life is ruined and he can’t go anywhere in the world without people knowing him and what he did. Kids in high school and college know all too well how one bad decision can end up online and destroy their lives and yet, here we are in 2013 and people continue to be dishonest, show lack of integrity and loyalty. So color me stupid, people just don’t care and that scares me, what is the world going to be like 10 years from now?

According to Webster Integrity is:

Definition of INTEGRITY

1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness

3: the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

And this is Webster’s definition of Integrity for kids:

Main Entry: in·teg·ri·ty
Pronunciation: in-teg-rt-
Function: noun
1 : the condition of being free from damage or defect
2 : total honesty and sincerity
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided

So you be the judge, is there integrity in the world in 2013? Especially when it comes to business! Has the oil boom and the almighty dollar turned us into a society with no morals, no integrity and no loyalty? In a world where everyone claims to be a Christian, where is God? In Luke 6:31 it says do unto others, as you would have them do unto you! So does that mean I should treat business partners, associates and friends the way that they have treated me. Or how about Exodus 21:24 where it says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? The biggest lesson that I’ve learned in life is that if someone claims to be a Christian or talks about their faith in God and God has led them to this or that, RUN, RUN for your life! I once believed that Christianity, honesty, integrity and loyalty all worked hand in hand, but I am here to tell you that I was wrong.

Loyalty is something I am finding is almost extinct. Does loyalty exist among brands? Is there customer loyalty? What about loyalty among friends? Coworkers? Do we live in a society where everyone is ready to jump ship and no one is loyal to anyone or anything? Personally, I do not believe that loyalty exists in our world in 2013. Loyalty is important to me and I am loyal to others, but sadly it is not a two-way street. So here I am at a crossroads wondering what I should do. Do I change my morals and values? Do I forget about them altogether? How do we live and survive in a world where the existence of honesty, integrity and loyalty are on the verge of distinction?

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