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Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

Keyword research tends to be a bit tedious for those who are starting out building their reputations with their website.  There is no exact formula or science that gives away the “secret” to obtain the perfect words or words to use in their site and ultimately is just an element of ‘keep trying.’

Good couple rules to use for searching for those keyword elements are:

1. Use two to four word keyword phrases that people might use to find your website;
2. Search your competitor websites with tools such as a keyword density tool to help identify what they are using.
3. Using the keyword effectiveness index or KEI to help identify how effective your choice in keywords will be is ideal.  The KEI if too high could mean that you are choosing a word that is highly competitive, as well as if you choose one that is too low on KEI then you may not see the effective traffic to make using that particular word useful to you.
4. Avoiding dead words such as “a”, “the”, “but” in your keyword phrases is not advisable and will only break up your phrases into elements that will probably not be as useful as you would like.
5. Utilizing your keywords in not only your content, but your domain name, your links, ‘alt’ tags and in headers, titles and beginning and end of your page will give it strength and credibility with the spiders;

As you can see, it is important to plan a good deal in advance to where your business will come from, the demographic that you need to appeal to as well as your competition in order to start off on the right foot.  Most spiders visit about once a month, and if you plan right and your developer/designer is on their game your keywords, design and presentation of a live site should start  helping your traffic and your ranking with the search engines.  Keyword research and development is important before you start development of your site.

Acronyms run rampant in the realm of the Internet. LOL stands for ‘laughing out loud’ and BRB means ‘be right back.’  Those are pretty common in the words of Internet users of today.  However, there are a few elements in which not many know and can actually be extremely confusing to those who need the services.  Today, I felt it necessary to educate you as to what each one represents and what you can expect from both.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

SEO specialists will inevitably find your technical flaws in your website that may keep you from getting some of the exposure you want by being so tucked away in the Search Engines that your site doesn’t do what it was supposed to do.  They can identify problem areas that come with design, layout, text and other elements that may be seen as abuse by search engines when they send the spiders to your site.  These elements may not be seen as important to you, but to obtain data to index your site properly and put you ahead of your competition, this can be ultimately the first step to making your site successful.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing

SEM guru’s are individuals who know how to elementally take your content and use tools such as Google AdWords, Ad Campaigns, and Pay-Per-Click sites that implement an ad or blurb that will identify what you are selling based on what you are paying for.  These can run costly and therefore are not as popular with smaller businesses or individuals. The always almost require an investment of some type and as all paid advertising, may not produce the results you were hoping for. 

Both of these elements work better when used together, however, we also agree that SEO can work quite effectively on it’s own, but SEM truly should have elements of SEO working with it to provide it with better results and customer that are content with the information they receive enticing them to purchase or use your services.

You mean they are two separate entities? YES, they are!

What most people have begun to do is to lump the Web industry careers into one lump.  Designers,  developers and marketers all have their strengths in the industry and it all involves the Internet elements of your site.  Be sure you understand the differences of what your web master/mistress is actually categorized as.

Web Designer:  These individuals have a strong understanding of layout, navigation elements, website visual standards, website loading times and new design techniques to keep your site visually appealing and functional for the viewer.  Most designers have a great strength in layout but only some if very little developer background.

Designers also have a tendency to implement big no-no’s that are frowned upon by the optimization and marketing industry.  Too many of these items can end up getting you by passed by the crucial search engines that would get you the very business that you are trying to gain. Getting your site designed and getting it functional and smiled upon by the search engines CAN be done, but keep in mind, most designers may not know the rules of optimization.

Website Developers:  Very technically derived industry that deals with a great deal of those wonderful scripts and code that sit in the background of a site.  Predominately any site that is running an e-commerce or interactive database in the background requires the code that developers can dream up in their sleep and often do. Database, or what they call dynamic sites, are very common as stores go online, dating sites become very interactive and the demand for Internet based scripts that do certain things continue to be on the rise.  However, what we find is that because these are ‘code’ and ‘number’ people, little artistic creativity and user ends skills are required or used to help put that information in a readable format that the rest of us can appreciate and read. The end result that it works and provides the queries and required data when it’s called for is what they are concerned about.

Marketing and SEO: SEO, stands for Search Engine Optimization.  SEO and website marketing people are two different cookies as well, but for this instance, we will speak of them in a group together.  They are the ones who make sure that the search engine guidelines, link reciprocation and quality link exchanges will help drive the traffic to your site.  If a site sits idle and is unable to be found because of it’s lack of exposure, it ceases to be what is needed for your business and is a waste.  In most cases you will find that most designers are now being heavily involved with the marketing aspect and building sites that are ultimately optimized for the best possible placement.  However, because it is extremely difficult to remain up to date with these skills as the guidelines are constantly changing and updating with technology.

The excellent part about having this knowledge is knowing that there are many people that can be involved with your site to make it the most profitable and functional.  ProTypists.com employs only the most educated of these industries to assure you that when you need your website, we provide it with the ultimate of skills and with the utmost care.