Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

Hi Donna,

My advice is you consider pay-per-click search engine marketing such as Google AdWords over organic SEO, which is what you are talking about, here is why:

1) You want top-ranking guaranteed, however, no organic SEO expert can do this because you can't control Google, Yahoo et al. It is likely a top-notch firm can eventually get you nicely placed on page 1 or page 2 organically, however, because you've never had a website, it will take a long, long time - many months - because of the Google "Sandbox" effect. For these reasons and more, I would focus my resources on:

2) Pay-per-click (PPC) as offered by Google with their AdWords and Yahoo's! Search Marketing and Microsoft's adCenter. I would further recommend just implementing Google AdWords at this time as it is an overall better system - I have extensive experience with all of them.

Furthermore, due to your desire to target a geographical target area, you can't due this with organic SEO, but with PPC with Google et al, you can specifically geotarget where you want your ads to show - by city, by region - you can get as precise as you want. This is a tremendous benefit.

Lastly, with PPC you have complete control over the content of your ads and your "offers/calls-to-action" which is a huge benefit as I am sure a lot of your business is "seasonal".

2 ways to do PPC: 1) Yourself 2) Hire a professional

You can do it yourself, but most people/companies that do this quickly realize the learning curve to have a successful program is not as quick or easy as Google/Yahoo!/MS make it sound, so before you go down that path I would encourage you to shop around starting with the experts right here on this forum who do it for a living.

I hope that helps, you can contact me off-forum if you would like to discuss in more depth.

Hi Donna --

I would recommend a company called Overit the owners name is Dan and they have some very good SEO (including Press Release optimization).

www.overit.com

I will send your question to him as well.

Good luck!

PT

Hi donna, marketingriot is right when he says that no one can guarantee you top positions on certain keywords when it concerns natural listings. Their is a big competition in keywords in english and in wedding topics. However adwords are expensive and asks for a permanent budget and attention. I believe, and I have experience for 4 years now, that natural listings are the most profitable way to find customers on a regular basis and once you are through the set-up faze a few adaptions regularly keeps giving a good result. So the biggest investment is in the setup. Finding the right keywords/keyword groups. Also you will need a lot of relevant content and a lot of clever keywords (long tail). This you combine with smart landing pages that give you a high conversation rate.
The good thing is: you need to start with this project. This is a big advantage. Since you can now make it optimized from the start and think well about the content and keywords.
I am prepared to discuss it with you and give you some detailed advice, but not in this forum. (for several reasons) Can you give me an e-mail or some way to contact you? thx

There is some very good advice above.

We are Google Ad Professional Certified, as well as Yahoo Reseller - with that in mind I offer you the following:

1- Any SEO firm guaranteeing top placement for your ABSOLUTE key works or key search ability is providing false advise. - Most SEO professionals can get you into top ORGANIC positions for obscure keywords which will not prove beneficial.

First and foremost, you must develop an Internet Strategy and E Marketing Plan, it can be simple but it will provide you parameters for both ROI and a historical metrics of what you are doing, why you are doing it and what you hope to achieve.

Key is NOT traffic, it is conversion. Define what you consider a conversion before you ever consider keywords...It is ordering, filling out a RFI, making a telephone call , etc - define your conversion.

If you anticipate people picking up the phone and dialing - get a separate 800 # for use on your website and ONLY your website - monitor your monthly statements to determine penetration.

Make certain you have a solid web analytic tool in place, webtrends etc....Combine that with HTML coding available from Google and track your traffic.
You will be astounded on what you find.

PPC and PPA use it wisely with definitive landing pages with a call to action to your conversion proposition.

Most importantly, talk with more that one SEO firm before you turn over your website to them.

Remember: Content , content, content - without content people will leave as fast as they arrived .

People no longer surf the internet, they skim pages and are gone faster than they arrive.

Hope this helps

Good Luck and Happy Marketing ~