Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing

[GAtkins]

Greetings:

This whole SEO and SEM stuff has really got my head spinning.

Where is the best source to get this done for a reasonable price that is honest and trustworthy? With all the information out there its seems like a person could spend a gazillion dollars and end up with nothing.

I am looking for reliable sources to conduct SEO and SEM if anybody has some experience or ideas in this area.

Thanks in advance for any help and best of luck to everyone.

Glenn

[jonparker83]

Hi Glenn

I'm not sure whether you are developing your site or getting another company to do it but here is a list of some generally accepted factors that can affect your position in the google rankings

There are "over 200 SEO factors" that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). What are the search engine optimization rules?
Here is the speculation - educated guesses by SEO webmasters on top webmaster forums. Should you wish to achieve a high ranking, the various confirmed and suspected Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Rules are listed below.

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm#negative-off

Search engine optimisation is something that can take months to get right so if you are looking for quick results and especially if you are in a competetive market, I'd consider alternative methods of getting traffic to your website

In terms of getting your pages optimised, if you have developed the site yourself, then many of the above 'positive on-site' factors can be implemented by you (and the negatives eliminated)

If you have got someone else to develop your site, perhaps you could get them to make the necessary changes listed on that page, or post your project to elance with a link to both your website and also the link I provided

Hope that helps

Jon :)

[jetpacklife]

If you want a passive, successful, long term muse, then SEO is very important. It's not something you can buy outright, it takes a lot of work and analysis of your target audience. In the end, it's mostly about building a quality site that people actually use and link to. The long term payoffs for proper SEO can be very profitable.

SEM is for those who want quick results, and can afford to pay for it. It's a lot harder to make it cost effective though.

[laniers]

You might check out www.thirtydaychallenge.com. They are an amazing source of free information for SEO and all the techniques there are also free. Even if you want to pay someone else to do it you can simply outsource the techniques they offer and you can probably have it done for a lot less then if you just go to someone and say do SEO for me.

[neuromancer]

I signed up for the thirty day challenge. Join up and we can team up.

[Mike Rhodes]

SEM is for those who want quick results, and can afford to pay for it. It's a lot harder to make it cost effective though.

Glenn, The answer - as for any good question - is, it depends!

Jetpacklife, I have to say I don't agree with you 100%.
As I don't believe SEO is actually 'free'... you either have to invest a lot of time learning the craft (I'd highly recommend www.seobook.com (no aff link) by Aaron Wall if you want to), or hiring someone else to do it for you - which generally requires a substantial ongoing commitment of funds and time.

As you may have guessed I'm more of a fan of SEM - particularly AdWords.
It's fast, easy (ish) to learn, and won't cost the earth. It's a great way to test your muse, and then once you've found one that works, to drive traffic to your site.

jetpack said it's harder to make cost effective... true, sometimes it is - it all depends on the market. (Hint, don't go after the ringtone or mortgages markets on your first try!)
But for many markets, there are plenty of advertisers that don't know what they're doing that are easy to beat.

And the point is that it's so measurable. You can see exactly how much it costs to bring a visitor to your site, how many visitors you need to fill out an opt-in form, how many opt-ins you ned to make a sale.
Exact, near-instant ROI measurement - how many media can ofer that?

Glenn, I know this isn't the place to self-promote, but I think ofering a source of help is ok, so if I may I'll point you at http://websavvy.com.au/free-video-course/ which is a free AdWords video course I put together to help people just starting out.
It's about 1 hour 15 mins spread over 5 days. All content. No pitch.
There's also a mindmap of AdWords that many people have found helpful at http://websavvy.com.au/maps/Google_AdWords_Mindmap_Expanded.gif

Good luck - let me know if you need more help.

Cheers,
Mike

[deanypop]

Seriously, good SEO does take time (repeated spider visits, accumulated linkage, etc).

That said, there are simple things to do to a site to make it SEO-friendly without a ton of manual labor... Using one of the major free CMS or Blog packages for the site itself (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla/Mambo, etc) will go a long way. These systems automate creating the metatags, alt text for links and images, etc... And also help organize your content and make it easier to search. Some even make the act of updating/customizing your site look easier if you aren't good with html.

Anyway, I highly recommend looking into software to organize your content, and reading up on SEO techniques specific to the software itself. That, more than a service for hire, will improve your rating dramatically. Just by switching to one of these, without changing my internal site content, I rose from page 4 in google to the first result for my main "keyword"... Didn't have to do any work making my site better (though I'm still trying to STAY on top, so I have to get my butt in gear).

Ultimately, though, once you have your site organized, you just simply WILL need to make some noise/get people to check you out and link to you. SEM/SEO scammers can always "steal" first place for a bit, but they have a real hard time faking the organic popularity of your actual site content across the internet.