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> Search Engine
Optimization
 Get
listed at or near the top on the free search
results
Target
niche markets and keywords
Drive
targeted customers to your website
Search Engine Optimization
is the process of building or modifying a business's website so that it performs or ranks well on
the "organic" or
" non-paid" listings of the "search engine
results page" (or SERP as it is known in the industry). A SERP is
what you see after conducting any given search on your favorite search
engine such as Google, MSN or Yahoo (to name but a few). These results
usually appear after the paid listings and are, you guessed it, free.
A critical part
of "ranking well" is to identify the "search terms" or
"keywords" that your potential guest will use while
researching their travel plans and then to build your website with those
keywords in mind. It's of little use spending marketing dollars
developing a website to rank well for a term
that is seldom used by your potential guests. Conversely it is very
important that you rank well for the most often used terms in the market
segment you are targeting. Digital Storm has the expertise and the
software to identify those terms for you and then build your web pages to
target them. Keep in mind though that there
are many search engines and that they all rank websites differently. To
make matters more confusing they often change the ranking formula.
Whether you are currently ranking
well for a given search in a given search engine, the important thing from
an SEO point of view, is that you are targeting the right terms and enough
of them. The best search engines (which not coincidentally are the most
popular) will rank your site decently for the terms we target.
Often, there are "market niches"
that can be easily targeted. For example, Griffin Lake Mountain Lodge in
Revelstoke,
British Columbia, Canada specifically targets European and United
Kingdom honeymoon couples wishing to spend their honeymoon in the
Canadian Rocky Mountains. Griffin Lake Lodge identified this niche and had
Digital Storm, in this
case, identify some of the most common search strings
used in that market niche. We then "optimized" Griffin
Lake Lodge's website to perform well for those search keywords. For Griffin Lake
Lodge, targeted SEO has allowed them to easily, inexpensively and directly
reach their honeymoon market niche (see our SEO Proof Page
for examples of the terms we have successfully targeted)
SEO also involves the
process of ensuring and generating good "linking" to your site.
Essentially, having other relevant well ranked websites that link to your
website causes your rankings to increase. A more detailed discussion of
"linking" can be found on our Directories
and Linking page.
Another important content
consideration for your site is the number of pages it contains. Search
engines crave new pages and the more you have the higher your rankings.
Each page though, must have unique and relevant content. For example, the
core website of a B&B might have a main page, a page for each of it's
rooms, a rates and reservations page, a photo gallery page and a guest
comments page, all constructed using good SEO practices. Then, to
enhance the content volume of the site even further, Digital Storm
can add pages with good content about the city or town, the history, the
attractions and so on. The cheapest and best way to create the content for
these pages is to have the client do a lot of the leg work by
researching and supplying us with the information (written text, photos,
links to sites, etc.) via email. We can then
quickly construct the pages. Alternatively, we can do it all for you - including the research
and writing.
Unlike the PPC web marketing methods, SEO is a process that involves
relatively higher up-front investment that pays off very well, but in the
longer term. This is because after all of the analysis and website
construction or modifications are done, it takes weeks and sometimes even months for
the search engines to "recognize" the content changes to your
site. PPC advertising, on the other hand,
can usually be implemented within 48 hours.
Depending upon your SEO needs (i.e. the number of
keywords you wish to target, new or modified site, number of pages, etc.), Digital Storm's SEO work can take anywhere
from 2 to 25 hours. We bill SEO work at our hourly
rate, however all new pages that we create (whether for new or
modified sites) include SEO for the most important keywords. It
is unfortunate that many firms in the business of designing and
building very visually appealing websites, give little or no
consideration to the process by which search engines rank the websites for
relevant search keywords.
We encourage clients to view the costs of SEO work as
an investment, not an expense. Unlike traditional advertising expenses,
SEO work will benefit your rankings, occupancy rates and cash flows well into the
future.
Still have unanswered
questions about SEO? Just email
them to us and we will gladly reply..
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