Every site will need to weigh the cost of proper search engine marketing and the likely benefit to their company. There are several items to consider in the internet age.

One if you’re not seen on the in natural search you do not exist. Visibility is crucial to being considered as an option by your potential clients. An example I see these days is the company owner tells a secretary or staff member, find me some information on where to buy new widgets or to go in Oregon on a family vacation. The staff member not being invited on the vacation or not personally needing a widget goes to the internet and finds three options – why look further? These are then put on the company owner’s desk for consideration. Do you think you company would have been one of the three options? Given your company’s website position in natural search and the attractiveness of your website. If you answered no to this you need to consider what it takes to make you a yes!

If you were searching for the product or service your website sells would you be drawn to your website to become a buyer – be honest?  If not consider being a yes!

Are you proud of the image your website portrays? If your website was a reflection of how you dress would you meet a new client dressed like that! If the answer is no consider being a yes!

Much of the damage to the website is self-inflicted by not understanding what makes a high ranking website rank well in natural search returns. The problems found can also be from a web designer who has great web design skills but has no clue as to SEO needs. SEO needs are changing daily it seems, but basics are and always will be the foundation a high ranking website is built on.

Many business owners will simply not take the time and effort to give the web designer the text content or great photos a site needed to rank their website well in natural search and recieve increased sales. Text content and photos are so important to grab the visitor and pull them into their site.

I have one client after 3 years continues to shoot himself in the foot and continually damages his rankings. He has scores of dealers selling his products and does not supply the dealers with text content about his products – so the dealers steal the text content from his website and post it on theirs. This causes an ongoing duplicate content issue – solution write some content for the dealers so they can use content that will not duplicate the company’s website. Problem solved – three years later I wrote the dealer text myself and have made available to dealers – we are yet to see if it gets given to the dealers.

These guys have a heck of a time staying out of hail storms!

As a norm we are engaged for our search engine optimization services and internet marketing skills after a website has been designed and been up and running for a time. Usually this is when the site owner begins to understand that their website is most likely not going to rank well in natural search without some good search engine optimization and internet marketing.

The old saying – “The definition of Luck is when Preparation meets opportunity” holds very true in this case. Being prepared for a great ranking website by choosing the right URL (one with your prime search term in it) – creating SEO useful Meta tags within the site code. Avoiding flash entry pages in favor of a great content page. Properly built page names that reflect the pages purpose or content are a positive consideration.

 A little preparation for success in natural search will go a long way meeting opportunity and putting luck on your side.

I have this posted near my desk so it reminds me to work hard if I want success. Putting forth effort in internet marketing is the only sure way of arriving at goals of having your website rankings do well in search results. Effort coupled with knowledge of steps needed to be taken will upon completion result in success. 

Good Search Engine Optimization takes time and there are no quick solutions to producing high natural search rankings. If you are not able due to time available to educate yourself on good SEO techniques and how to apply them without breaking SEO rules followed by the search engines you will need to hire a competent internet marketing company to do the work for you.

I do not recommend an in house SEO – it seldom works to a great benefit and it will cost more for less result.

I doubt there is anyone out there that has the experince of seeing first hand what these One Way Linking programs have and are accomplishing for Linking program clients. We can help get your new Advanced One Way Linking program up and running!

When it comes to getting more Internet traffic for your business website there are really 3 ways to achieve this.

 1^st  Learn the skills involved with successful internet marketing.

It is not rocket science but it is detailed and time consuming and it does take applying yourself to study of components needed for successful search engine marketing. Components like proper Meta tag structure, keyword content, keyword selection for traffic driving qualities, and acquisition of quality links. Your site code will need to be clean with no duplicate content issues. A reasonable time frame for gathering this knowledge and learning to apply the same knowledge could run 1 to 2 years for most committed self SEO marketers. This option would be a good course for those with multiple websites with long term goals that include a high dependence on search engine derived traffic, or those with low competition for their search terms. It would also be important as a ongoing task to keep up with the ever changing world of search and apply latest ranking criteria to your website.

 2^nd  The Pay for Click Route

With Pay for Click your site can be visible to the searcher very quickly. To do this, research the search terms that drive traffic to your websites subject. Open a Pay for Click account and fund it with some dollars in your pay for click bank with one of the top search engines like Google – Yahoo or Bing. If you want to be found on all three open a Pay for Click account in each.

 There are a few negatives.

• Some coveted search terms can be very expensive running $5.00 to $10.00 per click or even much more.
• Pay for Click adds receive only a small portion of searchers for the term 3% to 10%. Natural search receives 95% or more.
• When you are out of dollars in your Pay for Click account your out of traffic.
• When you stop paying for traffic you have little or no infrastructure for natural search.
• Your website will have little or no value as an asset should you sell your company down the road. What would your website be worth if it were in the top 3 for your search terms?

 3^rd  Seek Established Internet Marketing Services Specializing in Natural Search

Choose an internet marketing service that is current and motivated to stay current on latest internet marketing trends. Your focus in a website marketing service should be to find a marketing service with a holistic approach. Look for an internet marketing service that can provide all important aspects of ranking a website high in search. This alone separates most Internet Marketing Services, Advertising Agencies, webmasters or the in house marketing efforts. It is much more costly to pay for high rankings and receive little result than it is to do it right and do a holistic approach. A holistic Internet Marketing Plan would include but not be limited to:

 Research and selection of prime traffic driving search terms.

• Apply proper Keyword Densities to page text.
• Create useful Meta Tags using selected traffic driving search terms.
• Review code for errors and corrects these errors, clean code improves ranking.
• Researches the competition for your search terms and can devise and implement an internet marketing plan that brings stronger ranking criteria to your website than the competition.
• Apply relevant inbound links.
• Has capability to add inbound directory links.
• Has capability to do article submissions.
• Reviews and removes duplicate content issues – the more successful your site the more likely someone will copy it damaging your hard earned rankings.
• A website marketing service that will review you sites rankings Bi-weekly for position movements both positive and negative and react to keep your websites rankings as strong as possible.
• Monthly reports on ranking status.
• Monthly Linking reports of number links applied.

What not to do if you want top tier website rankings!

A few pitfalls are relying on an advertising agency, website developer (webmaster) or in house IT expert for website rankings and internet marketing services. Sure there maybe the exception out there but you most likely would not be researching and reading articles like this one if all was rosy in search land for your website. Leave the Internet Marketing to the experts.

Any investment made to increase your websites search results in natural search is an investment that increases your websites value not only in the new customers you receive but your companies value when and if you sell your company, a high ranking website it is a valuable asset. Just think would you rather by a company with little or no search presence or one that sits at the top of your industry in relation to customer base driven by the internet.

As with all things the choice of what is best for your company’s internet presence is something your company will need to decide. A good SEO Company with a holistic approach should be able to give you a reasonable idea of ranking competition for your best traffic driving search terms and your ability to compete, every search term is different. You should not dismiss your company’s ability to rank high in most cases a little research can give you a much better view of your options.

The longer natural search internet marketing is delayed the more competition for your search terms becomes entrenched.  It is common for the top ranking sites to be fairly well marketed but by mid page one the competition for most search terms become much weaker. It is very rare for us to see any site with all their bases and criteria covered well. Which means there is almost always a way to improve an up and coming website to be very competitive.

 We are in hopes this article gives you and your website marketing a new direction – upward in rankings. Read More…..

Directory Submissions

Internet Marketing Services offers Directory Submissions to build strong relevant links to your website. We have taken a great deal of care to research directories of value before choosing the directories we use for submission of our clients websites.

There are thousands of internet directories available for submitting websites for inclusion. Many of these directories are poorly designed or have little linking value. We have narrowed our useful directory list to just over 1000 directories.

We will submit your website to these 1000 plus internet directories with an expectation of 500 directories actually accepting and posting your website link. We are able to submit your site with two keyword phrases to 1000 plus internet directories for $500.00. This is a big bang for the buck, $1.00 per returning directory link.

Article Submissions

A great way to receive valuable one way links inbound to your website or internal pages is to write and submit articles to authoritative websites. Internet Marketing Service will submit your written article to authoritative websites for $10.00 per submission. This is a great opportunity to get high page rank websites to give your site or internal pages a valuable one way link. We recommend submitting multiple original articles as often as you can. 50 submissions can return some valuable results that will help your sites rankings.  

Blog Submissions – Blog Advertising

Blog links are important for several reasons: Blog Links provide traffic and buzz about your site, Blog Links insert your website into the conversation, Blog Links can be relatively easy to obtain and they send one way link value to your website. Blogs have become an important source of inbound links. We will submit your written comments to Blogs at $25.00 per Blog.

This was related to Precious Maui Weddings request for service before we started:

Deanne and Eric, I have reviewed your site Precious Maui Weddings (nice looking site). First let me say that your request to rank top for 8 search terms is probably not realistic for the home page, ranking for eight search terms could be done using internal pages as well.

Maui Weddings
Maui Weddings Packages
Hawaii Weddings
Hawaii Weddings Packages
Maui Wedding Planner
Maui Wedding Coordinators
Hawaiian Weddings
Hawaiian Wedding Packages

We were hired to address the home page only and after one and one half years after ending services these were our results. Shows our work stands the test of time, not high today low tomorrow.

Maui Weddings –  #1 Google
Maui Weddings Packages – #1 Google
Hawaii Weddings – #23 Google
Hawaii Weddings Packages – #5 Google
Maui Wedding Planner – #5 Google
Maui Wedding Coordinators – #15 Google
Hawaiian Weddings – #5 Google
Hawaiian Wedding Packages – #15 Google

 Plus – Maui Wedding – #8 Google

This was a note I received from Eric and Deanne:

Hi Steve,

Eric wanted me to let you know so far things are looking good.  The big companies we worked with prior were just a waste of our time – it’s much better working with a small company like yours.  We are seeing good improvements so far in the rankings.

Thank you very much!

Eric & Deanne

Central Oregon Truck operates with flatbed trailers primarily hauling limber products nationwide. With the terrible housing markets and lumber mills shutting down operations until the new housing market boosts demand for lumber it was tough for them to secure a robust clientele. No lumber sales no shipping needed.

Central Oregon Truck therefore in a cost saving measure suspended our services however it is important illustration to show how well Central Oregon Trucking’s website improved in natural search in the one year they were with us, services were canceled 9 months ago and how well our services have held up.

Rankings as of 5/10/2010 compared to 2/20/2011

Flatbed Freight Services #2 on Google – still ranking #2
Flatbed Freight #12 on Google – now #19
Flatbed Freight Carriers #4 on Google – now #5
Flatbed Freight Trucking #9 on Google – now #10
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On all Oregon Flatbed Freight and Trucking terms the site is in top 4 on Google.

Oregon Flatbed Freight Services – now #1 on Google
Oregon Flatbed Freight – now #1 on Google
Oregon Flatbed Freight Carriers – now #1 on Google
Oregon Flatbed Freight Trucking – now #1 on Google

Not bad after 9 months of no service. We do feel if Central Oregon Trucking had of been able to stay with our internet marketing services they would have benefited in there pursuit of top rankings national trucking search terms.

In the 16 months we managed the Pioneer Log Homes website we applied 4500 one way links and instituted good SEO techniques. Pioneer always demanded results to match their high standards. We improved Pioneer Log Home’s rankings from bottom of page 2 when we came on board to mid to top of page 1 results.

Pioneer Log Homes dropped our services as of January 31^st 2011. Saying they wanted to try another direction and really appreciated our services and if thing did not work out they would return to our internet marketing services. Time will tell.

We believe Pioneer Log Homes was on a path of success with our service and if they had become committed to staying with the program their site would have eventually grabbed the top natural search positions for their industry. There is a huge amount of traffic for their search terms.

Below you will see the rankings that Pioneer Log Homes had reached in 16 months of service as well as the traffic for the search terms. These were highly competitive search terms. We all know how difficult the economy is in selling new homes today. When a site reaches as an example #5 there are only 4 sites in the world better than they are. So when a site gets into the top 10 a position up or down can be a big victory or like wise a loss. Pioneer canceled 20 days ago and we have changed nothing however their new service must have as their rankings are sliding already.

Pioneer Log Homes of BC