Monday, January 08, 2007

What YOU should know, about SEO


New legion search engine technologies and YOUR website.

By Troy Perkins (Owner) ZEROBREACH LLC

Opposed to any other advertising vector, a successful internet presence will determine if the vessel will sink or sail businesses in almost any industry. Studies show that approximately 85% of initial web site visits originate from search engine referrals. This clearly indicates that search engine marketing is no longer a luxury but rather an absolute necessity for online success. Search engine optimization (SEO), a relatively new art, is quickly developing and gaining notoriety among businesses who are competing in internet space.

Today's standards are much different than those early methodologies of search engines and search marketing. In the past, metatags or descriptors were embedded in web page header tags to rank high in search engines. Today's search engines utilize much more advanced algorithms to determine the best pages. In addition to metatags, these new algorithms also consider factors like word choices, who is linking to you, back-links from directories, if you're being talked about on blog sites and forums, the frequency of site content updates, and syndication of information. The list goes on!

These factors combine in what is now being termed by some as "organic" search results. Organic search is the new buzzword for the concept of pure, or crawler-based search. Organic describes a search that returns results by indexing pages based on content and keyword relevancy. This is in contrast to listings ranked based on who paid the most money to appear at the top such as those on Overture.com or Google Adwords , even Microsoft is surfacing with their own pay-per-click or ppc schema.. Why not!? After all, it is Google's primary revenue stream earning $592 million in the first quarter of 2006, compared with $369 million in the year-earlier period. The "unbiased search", sometimes called "pure" or "natural search" as it is supposed to be "untainted" by commercial payments or bids. The unbiased results section, usually placed below and to the left of most search engines paid for advertising.

Making these combinations of factors even more difficult to decipher, the search engine companies regularly reconfigure their algorithms as frequently as once every few months. With the interest of shareholders (since each is a publicly traded company), they are continually working to maintain an edge over one another.

Google is a prime example of use of these new methodologies and are now providing tools that display what is termed as PageRank (PR). Google's new desktop toolbar has PageRank measuring built-in showing how important Google thinks websites are to internet surfers. Google has filed an organic search patent, termed "Personalization of placed content ordering in search results", to serve organic search results based on user profiles. Google has also applied for a similar behavioral targeting patent for its advertising networks.

Since search engines regularly change algorithms, it also helps ensure that a company's own pay-per-click or ppc services remain useful and effective. These services will place a sponsor's link at the top or along the side for particular searches for 25 cents per click and a minimum deposit, usually of around $200. Although these services offer rapid and reliable placement, they can also be quite expensive.

Additionally, SEO services are very complex and a time-consuming element of successful web presence and visibility. Start up fees for some SEO companies range from $5,000-$10,000 in addition to monthly fees of $300 to $5,000 to maintain a client's site.

ZEROBREACH has helped businesses both large and small enjoy top rankings in the major search engines and directories as well as experience an increase in their web traffic. By working diligently with each client to understand their business and marketing objectives, we are able to develop a strategy that ensures their web site will have greater visibility in the search engines and above all, empower our clients by giving them the ability to measure their success. Our services will actively work to maintain and improve your web presence providing regular content updates and syndication of your content throughout the web. By maintaining a strong web presence with organic growth, your business will generate new leads and increase sales in the internet arena.

For more information, please e-mail me at: troy@zerobreach.com

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