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Many entrepreneurs spend time and money increasing their website traffic or search engine ranking, yet pay little or no attention to how many of these visitors actually buy their product or service. Improving your website’s conversion rate is more time and cost effective than trying to bring in new traffic. In this article, I’ll show you the nine adjustments I make to help websites improve their conversion rates.

Before you begin, you must know your numbers. Tracking key metrics of your website’s performance will enable you to make educated marketing decisions. What is measured gets improved. Some benchmarks to start with include:

• Number of visitors
• Number of sales
• Average order amount
• Cost per visit
• Profit per visit
• Customer lifetime value

Once you begin tracking these numbers in Excel or a similar program, you can see the improvement caused by the changes you make.

Step #1: Add Rapport
Trying to sell a visitor on a first visit is like asking someone to marry you the first time you meet. Build relationships by sharing knowledge and giving away value before you try to close the sale.

Step #2: Remove Distractions
Anything that does not directly contribute to making a sale should be removed from your webpage. Reduce the number of clicks it takes to go from the landing page to the sale receipt page.

Step #3: Add Your Unique Selling Point
Explain why a visitor should buy from you. What makes your product or service better than the competition?

Step #4: Add Trust
Build credibility by displaying awards, recommendations, and testimonials. Prove you’re legitimate by providing a phone number and mailing address.

Step #5: Add an Irresistible Offer
Develop such an incredible package that the visitor cannot leave without buying. Create so much value that your asking price seems like a bargain.

Step #6: Remove Risk
Create a guarantee that removes all fear from the prospect’s mind. Go the extra mile, like offering a 110% money back refund and free shipping both ways.

Step #7: Add Payment Options
Allow your customers to order with the payment method they prefer to use. One website I worked with increased sales dramatically by adding PayPal as a payment option. Another found it profitable to accept phone orders. It goes without saying that you need to accept every major credit card.

Step #8: Remove Checkout Hassle
Make your ordering process as simple as possible. Get rid of all barriers that could discourage a purchase, such as requiring account registration.

Step #9: Add Follow Up
Are you losing a lot of visitors once they get to your order page? Create exit pop-up boxes with a discount coupon. Setup a script that sends the visitor an email if the order page is abandoned. If people are not going to buy your product at its existing price, offering them a coupon for a 30% discount will not hurt your profit levels.

If my advice could be summed up in one sentence, it would be this: build a relationship, develop a powerful offer, then remove all hesitations and hassles that would prevent an order.

Author:  Josiah Mackenzie: To see what increased conversion would do for your sales, try the free calculators here: http://www.theprofitfactory.com/sales-conversion

SEO. However you slice it, search engine optimization is something that you’re going to need to know at least a little bit about if you’re going to put your business on the web. The problem is that, when it comes to SEO, there’s plenty of conflicting information available. How do you know what to trust?

Well, rather than telling you who you can trust, let’s take a look at the flipside: who shouldn’t you trust when you’re looking for information about search engine optimization?

• The SEO Guru. You know you’ve seen them. The SEO guru is involved in forums, has a website that promises everyone that they can get to the top of the listings – regardless of how much competition you have for your chosen keywords. For that matter, you can sometimes find SEO gurus offering their services on eBay. The guru will give you the sense that their way is the only way, and that without their services you’re not going to get anywhere.
• The writer who promises that his or her book will tell you everything that you need to know about search engine optimization for your site. Because the ways that search engines work and because the big players change their methods from time to time, looking to a book – particularly one that was written years ago – is unlikely to give you the answers that you need.
• Of course, the number one person who you shouldn’t trust with search engine optimization for your site is someone whose own site isn’t exactly performing at its peak; think about it, if their site is on the fifth or sixth page of search engine results, how good can their tactics really be? I don’t mean the site they use to sell seo services. I mean ask them if they own a site that sells products or services other than Internet marketing that do well in the search engines and makes a profit.

Looking for the key to search engine optimization can be a lot like looking for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow: there’s a promise that it’s there, but chances are good it’s going to feel like you can spend all of your time searching and not much time getting results.

The reality, however, is that the key to SEO isn’t nearly as elusive as a pot of gold. While there may not be one trick, one technique, that guarantees you the search engine optimization results that you’re looking for, there is one thing that is key to making your way to the top.

That key is fresh, informative, useful content. Simply by providing those who visit your site with quality content – tips posted to your daily blog, web pages that are easy to navigate and clearly written to address a particular topic, appropriate photos and even forums where site visitors can connect – you’ll find that the search engine spiders keep coming back for more.

The more that your site is crawled – and the more information that it offers – the more likely it is to make its way to the top of the listings. The more that people learn about your site, the more traffic that you will have and the more links into your site that you’ll receive. Traffic, links and visitors – along with content that keeps them coming back – are the key to your sites success.

Author:  Chris McElroy aka NameCritic offers seo services through his website at http://www.seoserviceprovider.com and does own and manage websites on a variety of topics that have number 1 listings in google. Take a look at his blog at http://www.seoserviceprovider.com/seoblog for more tips.

Blogs have become the wave of the future. People used to get newspapers and magazines daily in order to get their information. Now they just click the mouse a few times and are instantly given all of the information they search for. Unfortunately, it started becoming a really long process. One person might have thirty blogs that they enjoyed reading, or found informational, and they could easily spend an hour looking at all of those blogs. Even worse is when you read a good article and then spend hours searching for it weeks later.

The Perfect Solution

Once again, Google has come to the rescue. Everyone knows that Google is the number one search engine, and has become the best place to get free e-mail access and storage. We should have figured out that they would out-do the rss / blog marketing arena. They have done this in a huge way. The Google Reader uses RSS feeds to give users access to only the information that they want to have access to. Think of it as a personal, constantly updating newspaper!

How To Use Google Reader

Like most things Google, Google Reader is exceedingly easy to use. Some RSS readers require being downloaded and installed, which can be a daunting notion for anyone. Instead, Google Reader, like most things Google, keeps things all online, at http://reader.google.com/. You can use it in three simple steps:

1. Visit the Google Reader site.
2. Use the search box or enter your favorite blogs rss address.
3. Click “Subscribe”.

Three very simple steps and you have access to all of your favorite news and information sites. Trust Google to make things easy. One of the nicer functions of the Google Reader is that you don’t need to know the address of a specific site. You can type something in the search box, such as the word “news” and get a list of hits of sites that Google deems appropriate. Then just click on them, and click “Subscribe” and you’re all set up!

Once you’ve subscribed to a few feeds, look to the left of the screen. This space will show you all of the feeds that you have subscribed too. This means that, instead of spending hours looking at the sites, you can spend minutes searching for new content! Add this site to your favorites menu and it will be the only site you need to have access to.

Google Reader and SEO

If you are focusing on optimizing your site to increase your rank with Google, than the Google Reader should make you smile. The fact that this reader is both free and very easy to use means that millions of people will be searching for and adding their favorite blogs to the Google Reader. This means that blogs and RSS feeds will become even more important on the internet than they are now, which is an excellent sign for any internet marketer. Even better is the fact that the gurus at Google have added a search box to the Google Reader. This means that a user can type in a word or phrase, possibly to search for a blog post they read weeks before, and all of the top matches will come up. There is nothing an internet marketer likes better than to have their site be pushed to the top by Google.

So how does this help in SEO, well the ease of use means that by adding your own feeds and feeds that are from your favorite location then Google is now recognizing these feeds as well. The more popular your feeds are and the more they are used by others then the higher up your results will be when others are looking for relevant content to add to their reader and the more importance Google places on your content.

The face of the internet is changing so much and unless you are keeping up you are going to loose out. The value of internet users is now being taken more seriously then ever before and the more valuable your content is the more popular you become in the ranks.

Where to Start

The first thing to do is to set up your own Google Reader. It’s quick and painless and will give you an idea of exactly how the program works. In order to do that, just head to http://reader.google.com/ to begin setting up your account. Then just figure out what you’d like to do with your account. You can sit back and enjoy being able to read all of your favorite blogs in one area, or you can take it a bit further by using Google Reader to optimize the potential of your website. One thing is for sure, Google Reader has amazing potentials, no matter how you want to use it.

Sites Benefiting Already

Here are sites running blogs in various industries that are making full use of the Google Reader and already saying they have seen the traffic results for it.

1. http://www.freeonline-slots.net/online-slots/
2. http://www.nodeposit-casinos.com/news.php
3. http://www.mycustomwater.com/news
4. http://www.pirate-theme-party.com
5. http://blog.autowarranties.com

Author:  Darren Dunner, Editor of SiteProNews.com Take advantage of all the artilces published here and be up to date on the latest in SEO tactics, Marketing and building better sites. Visit our Articles Archive section to what has been posted over the past year.

A press release is many things. It is a marketing tool. It’s a way of getting your name out there. It’s a way of getting links to your site if you’re distributing it online. It’s a means of getting your company into newspapers and on news sites.

However, most importantly, a press release is news. Unlike articles, which are timeless pieces, press releases must be relevant and timely. If it’s been a week or longer since the “news” happened, it’s not news any more.

A critical mistake that some people make is assuming that they can get away with writing a press release that doesn’t actually have any news in it. Press release distribution services don’t like this, and newspapers hate it.

“But…but…how do I find newsworthy topics?” you may be asking. Well, never fear. If you’re running low on PR ideas, here are a few places you can look for topics.

What is your business doing?

At first glance you might not think that your business is doing anything newsworthy, but think again.

• Have you won any awards or broken any records recently?
• Are you celebrating any anniversaries?
• Are you launching any new product lines or reviving old ones?
• Have you hired anybody for a prestigious position?
• Are you launching a new website?
• Are you moving to a new location or renovating your old one?
• Do you have any upcoming events that you’re sponsoring?
• Will your business be helping out with any major local events?

That’s just a short list, but look seriously at everything your business is doing. You can find a number of potential press release topics just from that.What is your industry doing?

Pay close attention to the news in your industry, particularly at new studies and technological advances. You can provide commentary on these advances and to better help people understand what’s going on and how it could affect their lives.

If a study shows of a special benefit that comes from using your product, or shows a major problem that your product solves, then comment on that. There’s nothing like scientific studies to back up the assertions you’ve been making in your sales material.

What are relevant trends you can offer advice on?

Look at relevant industry trends. Not only can you provide commentary on these, but you can also offer advice on how people can incorporate that trend if they so desire. For example, if there was a particular trend in the interior decorating industry that meshed with your product, you can give them tips on how to decorate their room or house in that trend.

What season is it?

Sounds silly, but there it is. If you sell football bedding, set up a tips press release to coincide with the beginning of football season. Sell hunting clothes? Have a press release ready for when hunting season starts. Do you help college graduates manage their credit? Have a press release ready for graduation time in May and December.

It’s not necessarily the most newsworthy thing, but if all else fails, it could provide you with enough of an angle to get your release out.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a press release is newsworthy just because you wrote it or just because it’s about your business. Find something that lets people know why it’s current and relevant and why they should be reading it. By making sure your PR topic is newsworthy, you’ll make it easier to write and much easier to get distributed. And that distribution is what you really want.

Author:  Jessica Cox and Michelle Pierce are graduates of the University of Oklahoma’s College of Journalism with a background in Internet marketing and writing for the Web. They currently provide PR services at Xeal Precision Marketing. Sign up for a free 25-point website evaluation and pick up crucial tips at Xeal’s free Thursday webinar at http://www.xeal.com/webinar.

SEO makes more sense with Geographic Targeting Increasingly the Internet is being used as a tool for finding local resources. Not just for finding information or buying products online, but you can use it to find homes for sale in your neighborhood, local independent insurance agents, local retail stores and local law and accounting firms for example. It is becoming increasingly important to keep geo-targeting in mind when optimizing for search engines. It makes sense to not only target by a searchers keyword but also by the searchers geographic location.

Hypothetically, let’s say I own a business located in Philadelphia, PA. I am looking for a public relations firm in order to help market my business to consumers living in the Philadelphia area. As you would expect, one of the first ways I look for a public relations firm is to search online using a major search engine such as Google. Because I am a small or medium sized business located in Philadelphia, it makes sense for me to do business with a public relation firm located in the Philadelphia area.

So the question is, how do I find a public relations firm located in the Philadelphia area? I can search on Google and type in “public relations firm” and I will get a list of thousands of public relation firms from all over the world. Since I want to hire a Philadelphia area public relations firm, the search does not give me what I am specifically looking for. Chances are, local companies are not found easily in this type of search. Internet users are becoming more savvy on how online searches are conducted and more and more users search using geographic locations. For our discussion, I would search using the keyword phrase “Philadelphia public relations firm,” which gives me a better listing of local public relation firms for which I am looking to conduct business.

The concept is fairly simple and makes sense; however, many websites do not include this concept as part of their Internet strategy. As a company or organization conducting the majority of business with local companies, how do you take advantage of the concept spelled out above? The idea is to develop your search engine optimization strategy around the concept of geo-targeting in order to increase your search engine rankings when a potential client or customer is searching for your product or service locally.

There are two ways to get your website listed on search engines such as Google. The most popular is organic search optimization, also known as natural search optimization; it is a continuing process allowing a web site to gain free listings within the major search engines without incurring ongoing marketing costs. If you are targeting clients within your local area, you may want to consider the following geo-targeted strategy.

Include the following:

1. Full address on all your WebPages, the higher on the page the better results.
2. Areas where you do business throughout your website copy.
3. Geographic location in your title tags and Meta tags.
4. Your city in the link text when linking from other sites to your Website.
5. Register for local search with the major search engines.

The second way to get listed on search engines such as Google is through “pay per click” (PPC) campaigns. If you use PPC advertising, you pay each time one of your ads is clicked on a search engine. Google PPC marketing is called Google AdWords, which is located on the right side of a search page

How PPC (pay per click) works:

1. Register with a PPC system, provide credit card number and load your account.
2. Create one or more ads with title, body text and link to your appropriate WebPage.
3. Associate your important keywords with each ad.
4. Bid on each keyword, the more you bid the higher the listing.

The key for a local businesses using PPC is to take advantage of Geographic Targeting. Google allows marketers, using AdWords, to specify the geographic locations in which their ad will appear. For example a business in Boston that targets local companies can set up their campaign so that only people in their market area will see the ad. This makes a lot of sense because the Boston based company does not want to be charged because a person from Florida clicked on their ad. By taking advantage of geo-targeting the searcher from Florida will not see the ad.

Author:  Jason Lomberg, founder of The Philadelphia Marketing Directory (http://www.philadelphia-marketing-directory.com), Internet Marketing Expert and Internet Strategist with 12 years of experience from the Philadelphia area. Jason holds a Marketing Degree and a MBA from Rutgers University. He can be contacted at jason@philadelphia-marketing-directory.com

If you’re just starting out with internet marketing, you’re probably curious about the Sponsored Links listed on the right-hand sidebar as well as across the top of Google search results. In both cases, there are a series of ads listed and you can be among them if you’re willing for the placement. The program is called Adwords and Google remains the market leader with this type of online advertising.

It’s important to understand that Google isn’t the only company providing such advertising opportunities. Yahoo does the same thing and so do a variety of other search engines. These programs are referred to as pay-per-click advertising because the advertiser only incurs a charge when someone actually clicks on their advertisement. In other words, the advertiser only pays when someone has actually visited their website. In effect, you’re paying for visitors.

It’s also important to understand that the primary search results listed in the left center portion of the search results page are NOT paid for positions. Today’s search engines go through a lot of trouble ensuring the results they provide are the best possible resources given the search criteria entered by the user. Companies like Google use complicated algorithms to assess the value of different website pages and their search results reflect those assessments.

Having said all that, the ads listed in the Sponsored Links section are paid for and anyone can have their ad show up on the first page of a search result if they’re willing to pay enough for it. You see, the amount you pay is determined by an auction-style process where everyone looking to purchase a particular keyword bids on the price. If more people are looking for the same word you’re looking for, the price will be higher. If fewer people are looking for the same word you want, the price will be lower.

The interesting thing is that you don’t have to buy a single word. You can buy an entire phrase. And by doing so, you end up paying a lower price because there less competition for word phrases than for single words, and the people entering a word phrase as their search criteria are usually closer to a purchase decision anyways. If they’re entering multiple words, they obviously know exactly what they want and those are precisely the people you want. So by purchasing word phrases, you end up paying less for better leads.

The argument against buying word phrases is that you immediately eliminate a large percentage of the people who might enter the single word. It’s indeed true that someone purchasing a single word to activate their ad will get a lot more traffic than someone purchasing a word phrase. But again, the increased traffic will be less likely to buy anything and each click will cost you more.

The thing to do if you’re looking to get more traffic is to buy many different word phrases, each slightly different. Google even has a free keyword tool that will provide a long list of related searches for any individual phrase you enter. The tool will even tell you how often the different word phrases are entered by Google users as well as the competition for each phrase by other Adwords advertisers.

The world of pay-per-click advertising can be complicated at first. But once you understand how the system works, you can quickly and easily purchase a series of low-competition word phrases and get visitors to your website at a low cost. Go setup an account with Google Adwords. It’s free. Even if you never use it, your account will give you access to some great tools for processing better than all your competitors.

Author:  Tactical Execution with Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a strategic company focused on growth marketing and program implementation across business markets.

Getting a website set up is one of the most basic things any business has to do. You might think that it’s as easy as buying a domain and hiring a tech guy to throw something up there, but that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. With today’s digital society, your website may very well be people’s first introduction to your business, and you don’t want to give them the wrong impression.

Here are a few tips making a smooth entrance online, rather than throwing a page up online for all the world to see.

Look at the competition
You probably looked at the competition in your area before you set up your business. It’s important to see what the market has to offer and understand what sets you apart. Now, it’s time to check out what they’re doing online for the same reasons. See what you like and don’t like about their pages. Compile a list of things you can adapt or do differently for your own site.

Get examples together
They say when you’re decorating a house, you should go through magazines and rip out pictures that you like. It helps you find your style, and gives you something to go from when you’re actually shopping. That’s the same idea with websites. Find sites that have a setup you like, or find examples of designs that you feel would go well with a visual image for your company. Make a portfolio of ideas to show to your web designer, so that they’ll know generally what you’re looking for.

Finding a designer
Chances are you know how to use the Internet, but you’re a little fuzzy on the details about actually putting a web page together and getting it up and running. That’s where a designer comes in. When you’re looking for a web designer, ask for a portfolio or examples of previous work and make sure they mesh with your company image. If you want a mature look for your site, don’t hire somebody who primarily has a cartoony feel in their previous work.

Also, listen to designers when they make suggestions regarding the website. They’re familiar with what looks good and what will register well with customers, so lend an ear to their input.

Keep your feel consistent
All your marketing materials, from your website and blog to your ads and business cards, should have a similar feel. You don’t want to send mixed messages with your company, so keep a consistent design in mind when you’re developing your materials.

Developing content
You can’t have a website without something to put on it, right? The content you put up can include pictures, audio, video and keyword-rich copy. A mission statement and “about us” page are always good ideas, as well as a searchable list of products you offer, or a detailed list of services.

Make sure somebody goes over your written copy with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that the spelling, punctuation and grammar rules that you haven’t thought about since grade school are followed.

This is just a brief overview of things you need to consider before you start designing your website, but they’re all important. You want to give the right first impression with your site, so take the time to make sure it’s top-notch.

Author:  President and founder of Xeal Inc., Tony D. Baker is Oklahoma’s leading Internet marketing expert with more than 10 years of Internet marketing experience. You can catch Tony on the Xeal Radio Show on Sunday nights on 1170 KFAQ Tulsa. Sign up for a free 25-point website evaluation and pick up crucial tips at Xeal’s free Thursday webinar at http://www.xeal.com/webinar

Many webmasters do not know it, but real SEO success can come from promoting a single page or a few pages at most to search engines. Actually the most common mistake most people make is to try and promote the whole site and worse still to generate links targeted at the home page rather than a specific page that you are promoting.

Little do they know that there is tremendous power in focusing on a single page on the site at a time and concentrating all the SEO promotional activities on it at least for extended periods of time before moving to another different web page. .

Find The Best For SEO Promotion
Firstly there is a need for you to realize that the World Wide Web is fiercely competitive and not all the pages or content on your site can compete effectively. But chances are that you have an article or two that you are really proud of and feel confident that they can hold their own against the very best. That is the article or the articles that you should actively promote on the web and do everything to generate links pointing to. .

If there is already such an article that you have done, a good way to start is to go back and brush it up with an excellent headline and the right keywords to get you attention from search engines. You must do a little keyword research and look for a keyword phrase that you can target successfully. Choose carefully. Do not select a keyword that has only a few hundred hits a month. And don’t select a keyword from the very top that is obviously just too competitive for you. Select something popular enough that you feel you have a good chance of rating highly on. A good gauge to analyze your chances would be to compare your Google PR (Page rank) with that of the site currently in the position that you would like to go for. If the other site is only one position higher or you are even the same page rank, then it is a realistic shot and you can go for it. .

Link To That Special Page From Your Other Sites
Recent changes in the Google algorithm has attached much more importance to the total number of sites linking to a page rather than how high their page rank is. This is to counter the common trick many unworthy sites have used in the past of buying links from a high PR site and instantly watching both their PR and positioning in the search engine change overnight. The way the algorithm has been tweaked to deal with this problem, is such that although the PR of the sites linking to you and their relevance is still a factor, it is not as important as it was previously. .

What this means is that it is now more of a numbers game than anything else, which to my mind is the fairest way out of a complex problem. So your SEO efforts should focus on generating as high a number of one way links pointing to your sites as possible. Which means that you should not pass by the opportunity to have some of your other sites pointing to the single web page on your site that you are currently promoting. .

How To Use Comments To Boost Your Search Engine Positioning
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that self-created links from spam comments left at blogs do not work anymore with a leading search engine, Google. Just as well because this is a rather annoying habit that many lazy webmasters have picked up in recent times. The right way to leave comments at blogs and discussion forums is to firstly find highly relevant posts and discussion topics. Then the idea here is not instant gratification but to build a reputation over a longer period of time. This will be much more effective in drawing attention to you and the web page you are promoting. I have seen this resulting in many folks reposting articles written by a regular commentator they like, complete with one way links pointing back to their sites. .

The immediate and very welcome result of leaving comments is that traffic shoots up dramatically, which is also desirable for your SEO efforts because the more people who see and appreciate the contents of your web page, the higher the chances that it will get re-posted with valuable one way links leading back to your site. .

In Conclusion
This strategy of concentrating all your SEO promotional efforts on one of your web pages over a long period of time can be very effective in helping lift up any site from obscurity to prominence. .

Author:  Terry Detty, 42 years old, finds internet marketing his passion. In addition to marketing he enjoys reading, and occasionally goes out for a short walk. Sending bulk emails with email marketing is an excellent website promotion technique.

It’s an unfortunate fact – no matter how good your search engine optimization company or in-house talent is, brand new websites have a more difficult time achieving search engine success for competitive phrases than their older counterparts, particularly on Google. However, the worst thing that a new site owner can possibly do is presume that they are “too late to the game” and decide not to pursue this marketing channel at all. A good search engine optimization company should be able to effectively work with a new website; setting the foundation for a remarkable success story while still achieving steadily increasing short-term benefit.

The Issues
There are many reasons why new websites face an uphill battle. What follows are only a few of the major stumbling blocks: .

The Google Sandbox
There is much debate as to what exactly the Google Sandbox is, and even debate as to whether it actually exists. However, recent patent filings on behalf of Google would seem to confirm that one of the factors that Google will take into consideration when deciding how websites should rank is the age of the domain name. More than one search engine optimization company has noted that there seems to be a penalty assessed to new websites, especially those that seem to gain too many inbound links, too fast. This is all conjecture, but this would make sense. Inbound links factor largely in Google rankings, and therefore many sites that were already popular in Google began selling links from their sites based upon that popularity (a practice that goes against Google’s terms of service). However, text link buying is very hard to police. The Sandbox makes sense in this scenario, because Google seems to be saying “we may not be able to stop people from buying text links, but they are going to pay a pretty penny for them before we’ll give them any ranking boost because of them.” This is more conjecture, of course, but it is a popular theory in numerous search engine optimization forums. .

Lack of Links
Unfortunately, here, a new website is faced with the opposite problem. Links to new websites are called into question, but without incoming links, a new website has a slim chance of performing well on Google. This Catch-22 is obviously a sore spot for many owners of new websites. .

Trustworthiness
For many years, a common search engine optimization company strategy was to set up numerous new websites all for one company, each geared toward targeting a different search term. This was largely due to the fact that search engines used to place a much higher importance on the home page of a website, rather than interior pages. Over time, search engines caught on to this trick, and as a result new domains are now looked at more skeptically. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that while it is relatively easy and inexpensive to set up a new website that targets a certain term, a website that has been around for much longer and has a breadth of content has much more to lose and is less likely to attempt to “game the system”..

The Solutions
Does this mean that you shouldn’t hire a search engine optimization company to work on your new website? Not at all. In fact, it is in the very beginning of your website planning that a long-term strategy should be put into motion – a strategy that still offers positive results in the short term. .

Before You Build
It is important to get your search engine optimization company involved as early as possible before you build your new website. Not only are there many technical issues that you should be aware of before you begin design (such as linking architecture, types of text to use, and balancing your SEO efforts with your brand), but there are also strategies that can be set in motion at the outset that will counteract some of the stumbling blocks listed above. If you involve your search engine optimization company after you have built your new website, much of the work you have done will likely need to be redone with a long term strategy in mind. .

Targeting Appropriate Phrases
A good search engine optimization company will tell you that targeting highly competitive phrases with a brand new website can be an exercise in futility. However, this does not mean that you cannot achieve initial success on search engines. The trick is to target less competitive phrases at the outset, and to begin tackling the more competitive phrases later. For instance, let’s assume that your company makes custom widgets, and that “custom widgets” is a very competitive search phrase. A search engine optimization company working on your new site might recommend that you instead target less competitive variations of the term, such as “custom made widgets” or “custom widget manufacturing.” Since these terms are less competitive, you will be more likely to obtain high rankings for them with your new website. You can thus enjoy highly targeted traffic in the beginning of your campaign and eventually target more competitive and popular phrases as your site gains traction, quality inbound links, and a reputation for usefulness. .

Make Your Site a Resource
A quality search engine optimization company will encourage you to turn your new site into an industry resource. You can do this by providing educational content about your industry in the form of articles, whitepapers, and other forms of non-biased content. There are many benefits to this approach, one of the primary being that such content attracts inbound links without any effort on your behalf. In addition, such a resource area builds your credibility in the eyes of your potential customers and serves to educate them in all stages of the buying cycle, so that when they are ready to make a purchase, you will likely be first in mind. .

Build Links
While making your new site a useful resource is a great way to attract inbound links, this does not mean that you shouldn’t also be seeking them out. Your search engine optimization company should get your site included in many general directories (such as the Yahoo directory and Business.com) but, even more importantly, in directories that are specific to your industry. Not only do these links help to boost your search engine rankings over time, but they are also a quality source of targeted traffic. .

Keep Your Content Fresh
A search engine spider will revisit your site frequently if your content continues to increase and evolve frequently. A site that has been optimized for three years with no changes to its content will usually not fare as well as a site that has content which is consistently updated. It’s as if the search engine is saying “Well, this old stuff still looks good, but it certainly isn’t the newest stuff out there about this topic.” This so-called “freshness factor” can have a large impact on rankings, particularly with new websites. .

Although it may seem that achieving search engine success with a brand new website can be a daunting prospect, it needn’t be if done properly. Hiring a skilled search engine optimization company is a good first step. There’s little use in lamenting the difficulty before you, or feeling that you have already fallen too far behind to begin. As an old Chinese proverb reminds us, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.” .

Author:  Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld.  Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, Organic Rankings, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.  Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Download Medium Blue’s latest exclusive whitepaper, “Adding Search to Your Marketing Mix,” for more insight.