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by: John Metzler
Sometimes a search engine optimization company will miss that glaring
question posed by potential clients and assume the benefits of search engine
optimization are obvious to everyone. While shelling out a couple thousand on an
SEO campaign is common sense to some, others may find it hard to part with the
cash unless they know it is an investment in their business that is sure to
bring a good return.
Search engines account for a huge portion of traffic to web sites. Data
varies depending on what sources you read, but the bottom line is that search
engines are used millions of times each day by consumers searching for goods and
services. And having your business displayed at the top of search results is
essential if you want to do any business from the major search engines. Nine in
every ten users will find what they're looking for in the top 10 results and
won't go to page 2.
It's obvious that people can make a lot of money from online sales, but how
you advertise your products has a large bearing on what kind of profit you make.
If you buy advertising space on Google AdWords or other services that charge per
click, you may only shell out 10 cents for every visitor to your site - But what
if it takes 100 clicks to make one sale? If your products only sell for $10 a
piece, then there is no profit being made. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns will
also never stop costing you money. Search Engine Optimization, on the other
hand, can be very affordable over months and years.
Many SEO and Internet Marketing companies will say that ongoing maintenance
is needed to reach and keep top search engine rankings. While this is true, be
careful how the company says they do it. There is an affordable way and then
there's a way to pad the pockets of the "experts." For more on this issue, read
my other article entitled "What Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO
Campaign?" In short, the affordable way will involve an intense content
optimization followed by work to raise link popularity. This link popularity
development should be the bulk of any ongoing maintenance. A couple times a year
keyword research should be done again and the content should be looked at.
Search trends can sometimes fluctuate so you want to make sure your content is
still aimed at the right audience.
What is affordable and what isn't varies greatly from company to company,
industry to industry. In the bed and breakfast industry, $30 per month may be
enough to keep a top 5 ranking on Google if the market is not very competitive.
A web site competing for a top spot in a database administration field may be
looking at several hundred a week if not more. The bottom line is, if you pick
the right Search Engine Optimization company, your return on investment from an
SEO campaign can be over 1000%.
While there are other ways to advertise a web site (No, search engine
optimization is not the be-all and end-all of online advertising) very few can
match the wide targeted audience and affordability that search engines provide.
| >> About The Author John Metzler is the co-creator of Abalone Designs, Inc.
www.abalone.ca, a Search
Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved in
web design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs
into one of the top SEO companies in the world. john@abalone.ca
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