Think Big Blog

It’s summer; and for a great many of us that means heading off on vacation where there preferably is a body of water in which we will immerse ourselves for several days. If we’re lucky we’ll get to ride a few waves – give up the control that we have to absorb every day of our “normal” lives and just let go.

Control is a sticky subject for many people especially when it comes to their businesses. After all, they have built them – their blood, sweat, tears, and money is what has kept it afloat; and the idea of turning over control often doesn’t sit very well. Our new “babies” of business are our web sites. It’s probably been a long time since we had the chance to really sink our teeth into something and watch our vision come to life. But it’s not easy to turn them over so that someone else can give us the scoop on what we are doing that may or may not be interfering with our ability to increase web traffic.

But this is precisely what has to be done in most cases if there is going to be any traction made in not only attracting more web traffic but also attracting the quality traffic that can help grow a business – i.e. those who are in the market to buy what you have to offer.

Consider it riding the wave; letting go so that something more powerful can take the reins. The role of the web site optimization firm in this case is to harness the great power of the Internet – consider such a firm your surfboard or other method of transportation that allows you to enjoy the ride and takes you were you want to go. It’s time to give up control and see it where it takes you!

The great debate continues in the world of online marketing. Why search engine optimization when I can just pay my money for pay per click and be exactly where I want to be when I want to be there? There’s nothing that can take away from the effectiveness of pay per click. There is no question that it is a very effective means of online marketing –a way to get your company name out there, brand your business, and be directly in front of the people you are trying to reach. The difference between search engine optimization and pay per click often comes down to simply a matter of preference. But it also comes down to perception.

Internet search engine users understand that the space at the top and to the right of their search engine results are referred to as sponsored links; they know that this is purchased ad space and they appreciate that. But this is not a perception that can be avoided because it’s the truth. So while your link may come up in response to their search query it does not mean that you came up because you are the best in that realm, or the most notable, or the most popular; it means that you paid to be there.

This is not say that sponsored ad space is bad – not at all; it just is what it is. Search engine optimization is the effort that is put into making sure a link comes up organically in response to a query and this is often perceived by the online community as more credible.

Ultimately the decision to choose search engine optimization or pay per click is one that only you can make. Work with a web site optimization firm that can help you determine the best course of action in accordance with your goals and your budget.

In the last post we talked about the importance of marketing for all businesses – traditional and otherwise. The online business community may be growing by leaps and bounds but there are many industries that have had a difficult time adjusting. For instance, bricks and mortar businesses have understood the importance of professional marketing guidance for some time. But web site owners are too often still trying to grasp how crucial marketing is to their online success. To make matters worse, the market is saturated by less than reputable companies that profess to be online marketing experts…and are anything but.

This may be enough to put many people completely off the process of looking for a web site optimization firm but it doesn’t mitigate the fact that such professional guidance is critical for success. But with a few ideas of what to look for you can begin the process of seeking the expert advice that will see your online presence growing by leaps and bounds:

• Experience, experience, experience. Experience may be an obvious thing to look for but people often fail to look beyond the few nice words a web site optimization firm throws their way to advertise their services. Not only should the firm in question have some time under their belt they should be well versed in a variety of services including pay per click and search engine optimization.

• Ability to do for themselves what they claim they can do for others. It wouldn’t make sense to choose a web site optimization firm to do for you what they can’t do for themselves. Look for a web site optimization firm that has managed to find success for itself through its own system.

• Word of mouth. The Internet is at your disposal when looking for expert advice. Use it to your advantage and look for a company that has good press and positive testimonials.

• Customized solutions. Marketing a web site is just like marketing a traditional company; not every path is the appropriate one for reaching a goal. Look for a web site optimization firm that looks to increase web site traffic through proven and customized solutions.

Setting out to market any business requires a certain amount of understanding about the process; as well as the willingness to put trust in the professionals who can help you achieve the goals that you may not be able to reach on your own. Traditionally speaking, businesses have been putting their faith in marketing professionals for decades. But in the online arena, there are many web site owners that are, not surprisingly, hesitant to put their faith in those that profess to be experts in online marketing.

The reason that this is not surprising? Because the Internet – while all-encompassing for most of us – is still very new in the overall scheme of things. It has taken some businesses - and some industries at large - a fair amount of time to recognize that not only is the Internet not going anywhere it is going to play an increasingly tremendous role in commerce in the future. Of course, this has also sparked the growth of many less than reputable online marketing firms that profess to be able to raise online rankings; firms that leave web sites high and dry in the end with nothing to show but money lost.

Has this tarnished the reputation of online marketing as a whole? Absolutely. But this does not in any way mean that all online marketing firms are unable or unwilling to deliver.

Where does this leave web site owners? Squarely in the position of having to vet those online marketing companies that they are considering hiring to help them elevate page rankings and grow their company brand. There are very particular things that web site owners should look at when looking to pair with a web site optimization firm. In the next post we’ll talk about some of the things to look for when considering a web site optimization firm.

There are those marketing efforts that businesses do to garner speedy results in order to get them noticed. But it is the more comprehensive marketing plans that allow for more long term and sustainable results; those marketing plans that require commitment and consistency. For web sites, this kind of long term sustainable marketing plan includes search engine optimization.

Pay per click is a very effective marketing effort that consistently draws attention to a site - positioning a web site in a choice position on the search engine results pages. But search engine optimization can provide a longer term solution to sustainable marketing efforts by organically and highly positioning a site on the search engine rankings.

Of course achieving such a position and maintaining it means committing to a marketing plan that is in line with your company’s branding strategy and is best positioned to propel a site ahead of the competition.

When looking to the future for your web site it can have the most impact to work with a web site optimization firm to lead the way towards success. A web site optimization firm is charged with marketing a web site and they are consistently and completely focused on this effort. This is a huge bonus for companies that don’t have the resources for an in-house online marketing team. A web site optimization firm acts as an arm of a company – an off-site marketing team whose role it is to strategize a customized and affordable plan for marketing a web site to the top.

Shortsightedness will not deliver longstanding success online. Look to the future of your site by putting solid and consistent marketing plans into place and professionals in charge of the journey. A web site optimization firm can help deliver more web site traffic now and well into the future.

It is official – summer is here; and with it comes the inevitable slowing of most of the business world. That, of course, is something that historically happens no matter what the economy but in an economy such as what we are experiencing right now, this slowing has even more impact than ever. Why not make the most use of this time?

It can be difficult to focus on marketing efforts throughout the year. You do what you can to make sure that your business is promoted effectively but it cannot compete with the time it takes to actually run the business. Not surprisingly most people turn to professionals to take over the marketing reins so that they can focus on the business at hand. Web site marketing should be no exception.

Take the summer months to explore the potential that a web site optimization firm brings to the table. By making sure that professionals head up your marketing efforts you can rest assured that everything is being done to make sure that your site is promoted to the appropriate audience. This period of time can allow you to focus on such things as search engine optimization, pay per click, and other marketing vehicles that will better position your web site for success throughout the year.

Most importantly now is the time that you want to look for the web site optimization firm that will work best for your needs and help you grow your business through your web site. Look for a web site optimization firm that has a strong reputation in the marketplace and a distinctive plan for marketing your site. Within this general idea for a plan, however, should be flexibility for customization depending upon the state of the site and their ultimate goals for the short and long term.

When it comes to building web site traffic it tends to go in stages. Those who just launch their site are most interested in getting web traffic at all! They want to know that their efforts to design and launch did not go to waste and that people are actually able to find them. As the weeks pass, however, these same web site owners will undoubtedly look for more web traffic; it’s great that people found them but let’s make sure they are coming back and bringing some friends along with them. At some point, however, web site owners will make the very important connection between their rankings on the search engines and the quantity and quality of visitors that they are getting. Are these visitors converting to customers or are they jumping on and off the site?

This is when web site owners will invariably turn to a web site optimization firm to help them make heads and tails of a marketing strategy that will allow them to reach a higher pinnacle of success. The understanding at this point is that it is important to reach a site’s target audience but the way to do that with any level of consistent success is through the search engines.

It is most important that the search engines are able to find a web site and deem it relevant enough to be ranked within its return results for queries made by engine users. This is what will ultimately get a web site the traffic it needs and what will ultimately deliver them with the quality visitors that will help them grow their business and their web site to the next level.

A web site optimization firm will help a site achieve this in a number of ways – through calculated and results-driven marketing.

Many web site owners and operators that come to a web site optimization firm for help in generating more web site traffic are nervous to say the least. Many do not understand the importance of having professional marketing on their side; the impact that it can have on their business. It’s much easier for people to understand the need for a traditional bricks and mortar business to have an advertising agency or marketing firm. But they fail to make the connection between an online business and its equal need for an online marketing firm.

What’s also scary to some web sites is the penchant for a web site optimization firm to deconstruct their web site. The site owner may feel that they have put the time and the money into creating a well-designed site and they only want to market it, but a lot of what a web site optimization firm does is making sure the site itself is optimized to be found by the search engines, thus generating more web site traffic.

To start, a web site optimization firm will look to determine the appropriate keywords that should be used for a web site. These keywords will correspond to the phrases that potential customers may use to locate your services; not just potential visitors, potential customers. The keywords that are chosen are chosen for this reason, as well as their competitiveness in the online market which impacts a site’s ability to climb the rankings for that phrase.

The keywords will be infused into online content and this is where the onsite work begins. Web site owners need to be comfortable with the optimization firm that they pick as such a firm will help them upload newly optimized content, among other things. Those other things may include looking deeper at the site’s nuts and bolts and potentially making changes to make sure it is optimized to receive more web traffic and future customers.

In the last post we began to talk about the state of modern society and our propensity for having it all in the grandest scale possible. Many of us are definitely of the mindset that the more we have of something the better we are; but this is often not the case, as we previously discussed. In the example we set in the last post, businesses would be doing themselves a disservice to only be concerned with quantity as it relates to visitors. A traditional business that happily rejoices in the throngs of visitors that come in to their store on a daily basis are partially missing the point. They have every right to be happy with the attention and should continue to encourage visitors but ultimately it is the quality of the visitors that will impact the bottom line. And in this case, quality visitors refer to those who are in the market to buy the particular product and service that the business offers.

Again, this is especially true of web sites. The responsibility of a web site owner is two-fold. They certainly don’t want to be cast into the great World Wide Web without a plan on how people can find them. So they turn to a web site optimization firm to start the process of online marketing – which will often include search engine optimization, pay per click, public relations, and other marketing efforts – to increase web traffic and make sure the site is indexed by the search engines and can be found by Internet users.

But this, again, is partially missing the point. Web sites that will ultimately find success will do so because of the quality of their visitors. The web site optimization firm that truly understands this differentiation will ensure that they not only increase web traffic but increase the right kind of web site traffic by using the appropriate keywords that will draw an audience that is also likely to become customers.

We are a culture that is vastly concerned with quantity on a grand scale. We want it all; we want it now; and then we want more. And lots of it. Our accustomed way of thinking is that more means better. Unfortunately, however, this line of reasoning can get us into trouble because it skews the reality of our situation, especially when it comes to business.

Consider the business that is only concerned with the number of visitors that they get in their store. Is heavy traffic a good thing? Sure it is. This kind of attention creates a buzz and a buzz is never a bad thing in business; it helps to build a brand in a grassroots manner.

But how effective is a buzz if no one coming into the store is buying anything? All the traffic in the world doesn’t do a business any good if it’s not the right kind of traffic; and therein is the important differentiation between quantity and quality.

Quality visitors are really what a business wants in the end; those who are likely to become actual customers in their purchase of products or services. This is especially true when it comes to web sites that count on web traffic to populate their site. Through search engine optimization methods and other marketing efforts, web sites do their best to increase web traffic. When web traffic is increased the business- the web site – is positively impacted as a buzz is created and the brand is grown. But, as with a traditional business, what good is all that traffic if those coming to the site are not the visitors who will ultimately buy from you?

A web site optimization firm helps web sites to identify their target audience so that they can begin to understand the difference between quantity and quality and grow their business accordingly. More to come…