Website Optimization

[GB2]

I desperately need a number of new websites and I don't have a clue. I need a standard website and an e-commerce website at least. I would be happy to drop it someone's capable hands at a fair price but from everything I hear from everybody, there seems to be so many variables and different ways to do things I don't know which way to turn. Also, not unlike the sign business, there seems to be hordes of people who latch on to some free service or cheap design program and then call themselves web designers. Consequently, there are lots of high priced web design studios that have very unimpressive portfolios, which leads me to wonder if there really is a higher cost to a higher quality product in the back end of web hosting/building/designing. Another thing is that I constantly get communications from people promising 1st page listing guaranteed. I mean...how can everybody be promised 1st page listings all the time? Are these website optimizations real, a scam or something that should just come with a good website creation in the first place? Here's an example of one (the names have been changed to protect the scammer):
As per our conversation I know your not quite ready yet, but her is some info for the future, and I hope to hear from you. Thank you, JM, 123Media.com<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
<?xml:namespace prefix = u3 /><u3></u3><u3> </u3>I noticed that your company is running a PPC campaign with Google, and the cost can only increase as you are in a bidding war on a daily basis with your competitors. Did you know that Organic search results are viewed about 70% of the time while sponsored ad results are viewed only about 30%?<u3></u3><o></o>
In these difficult economic times it's more important than ever to capture as much business from the internet as possible. The majority of new internet business comes from the organic listings on the 1st page, and the way to get your website on the first page is by having the site optimized. <u3></u3><o></o>
For the last nine years 123 Media has been the low price leader in this field and has been putting their client’s websites on the first page of the search engines. (see samples below) 123 Media only handles one client per market per industry, which will naturally push one of your competitors off the first page and put you on it. <u3></u3><o></o>

<TABLE class=MsoNormalTable style="BACKGROUND: #5a739c; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: #fa5d00; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" colSpan=3>Most Relevant Search Result
(Determined by % of Search Engine Users)<o></o>
</TD></TR><u3></u3><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 1"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: #ffe084; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>Property<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: #ffe084; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>Organic<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: #ffe084; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>Paid<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 2"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>Google<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>72.3%<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>27.7%<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 3"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>Yahoo<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>60.8%<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" vAlign=top>39.2%<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD></TR><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 4; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; PADDING-RIGHT: 2.25pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; PADDING-LEFT: 2.25pt; BACKGROUND: #ffe084; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2.25pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; PADDING-TOP: 2.25pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8" colSpan=3>Source: iProspect, Survey Sampling International, WebSurveyor, and Stratagem Research<u3></u3><o></o>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>​

By allowing 123 Media to optimize your website, we will guarantee you multiple 1st page placements with Google, Yahoo and many other major search engines. You will receive more traffic than you ever thought possible from your existing Google & Yahoo sponsored ads combined.<u3></u3><o></o>
Here are 5 Reasons to Go Organic<u3></u3><o></o>

1. Natural Listing Get More Traffic Than Paid Sponsored Listings.
Eyetools, Enquiro, and Did-it uncovered that being number 6 in the Google organic search results will bring you the same number of clicks as being in first position in the paid search results, and far more than from the second, third and lower sponsored listings.<u3></u3><o></o>
2. Organic Search Visitors Convert Nearly 30% Higher Than Paid Search Visitors.
Users tend to trust organic search engine results to be more relevant to the information they are seeking, and rightfully so. Statistics show that searchers are more likely to click on a natural SEO result vs. paid sponsored link.<u3></u3><o></o>
3. Organic Search Engine Optimizations Delivers High ROI
Today’s online businesses are more ROI accountable. One cost-effective way to boost ROI is through organic search-engine optimization. Jupiter Research study found that companies who run both SEO and PPC campaigns show a significantly higher ROI with natural search engine optimization.<u3></u3><o></o>
4. Rent vs. Own Website Traffic.
Investing in quality content and search-engine-friendly architecture is like investing in your own home. This investment can generate free traffic for life, while paying search engines and advertising networks per click (PPC) is like paying rent, it will eventually break your bank.<u3></u3><o></o>

 

[artist4christ]

If only SEO was that simple, basically, it comes down to a couple basics. Ranking is only generated two ways, the easiest, is to pay for placement. The cheapest is optimization, so a good balance is going to get you the best bang for your buck. With a e-commerce solution you can use what are called prettyURLs which allow a database driven site to be indexed. When search engines index a page it takes the content in its text based form and the index is created. So with database driven content the indexing doesnt parse the page and then index its indexes stricly based on content. This is where SEO is important.

1st page placement is really relative to the market you are trying to hit, you have overall organic search traffic and local organic search traffic.

As a developer both self-employed and career employed, I understand the qualm that exist with the quality vs. cost. It's tough, in the development community degrees and certs are here nor there. You want to find a dev that understands budget and keeps up to date on the advancing tech. Its all supplemented my good graphic design.

hope that helped maybe, I'd be open to answering and helping if you have any other questions or interests.

-Jesse

 

[Edserv]

If you really want to know how to rank organically, try to buy a "Stomper Net" disk on ebay or network and find someone who knows what Stomper Net is. It works. I can't say enough about Brad/Andy from learning from them over the last 5 years.
Good luck!
Chris - Lets Go Banners (currently ranked #10 for "vinyl banners") (I've fallen over the past few months- by choice!)

 

[binki]

Take a look at what comes up on searches. First are a few paid links, then local results if you are either logged in or searching with a city name and then relevance results.

If you have a physical location and the search engine picks you up you will show up in that second part above the relevance results.

That is how they are working today.

 

[marcsitkin]

The SEO optimization companies are scams. The most they can do is get you a high ranking for a short time. Good SEO takes a consistent effort, and constant attention.

Google has information about SEO online, and it's a good place to start learning.
Right from the horses mouth, so to speak.

Regarding the two sites, regular and e-commerce. They are different animals, and require different skills.

You're regular site might be best handled by a CMS (content management system). Take a look at Joomla, which is free, stable and well supported. It can also be extended into an ecommerce site.

For a pure e-commerce site, try Magento. Ours has been up for a year and works well.

For a do-it yourself site, look at squarespace.com. It's a combo host and site creation tool that looks very effective. Take the tour and if it's appealing to you, take a 2 week trial.

Keep in mind that with any web site, you have a tremendous amount of competition, and it's a big commitment in time to create and maintain it. And you still need to drive traffic to it. Also, unless the content is really compelling, it won't necessarily lead to sales. Don't depend on it as your sole marketing strategy. It can be a great supplement and a worthwhile resource.