SEO|The Full Insider SEO Details Exposed

There are two major search engine marketing strategies in use today: SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). These two methods are very different, and deciding which one is right for you can be hard. Which one do you think will do more for your website? Well, that all depends on what your websites like.

One leading contributor to the difficulty in deciding which is correct for your site is that you dont really understand why you cant just use both. There is no real reason that you cannot implement both methods when marketing your site, in fact, I encourage this behavior as PPC can be integrated quite nicely into an SEO plan.

PPC is a good way to get users to become more familiar with your site. Once they are used to seeing your site, they will probably begin to stick around if they encounter it in a search engine. The more often that your site is visited the more that search engines will like it. This is one reason that it is so crucial to attempt to get as many quality hits as possible.

Reading up on the pros and cons of each program lets you sit down and decide in your own time which strategy would work best for your website. Since search engine marketing is undoubtedly the best source of targeted traffic out there at the moment, as people will continue to battle for the top search engine positions, even from day to day.

As people continually try to find new and unique ways to being additional traffic to their websites, the SEO industry continues to grow. PPC refers to text-based advertising on a search engine, and you will be charged by the click whenever a visitor clicks on one of your ads. These order of ads is usually based on bidding prices, meaning that the advertiser who bids the highest price per click will be listed first. Weve all heard of sponsored listings, right? Well, thats what they are: PPC listings.

SEO tries to change your search ranking by looking at a number of factors, including link popularity, PageRank, and so on. Rankings you get through SEO will appear on the main, natural search results pages, not over in the box with the sponsored links. And you dont have to pay for your clicks!

So, how can we tell which method is better? You cant say that one method will always be better, because they serve different purposes. However, one is likely to be a better fit with your business than the others.

PPC.

PPC traffic, rankings and results tend to be more stable and predictable than SEO, and, combined with its low cost, this makes PPC one of the more popular ways of advertising. Most companies try PPC before they try SEO, because its seen as more stable and respectable.

In many cases PPC lets you rank high on the search engines, without having to do the tedious work involved in SEO no finding link partners, posting links, and so on. As long as you have the budget for it, the rankings yours, and another advantage is that the listing will get posted when you add it, not when the search engine gets round to it.

Sadly, PPCs popularity makes it a competitive market. You will find that CPCs (costs per click) are steadily rising, and that hurts the little guys. Prices work as auctions the more people in the auctions, the higher the prices.

SEO.

The main benefit of SEO is that it can be done entirely for free, and lets face it, who doesn’t like free traffic?

The disadvantages, though, are that your traffic is unpredictable. You have to guess, adapt, and constantly change strategies. One month you could just fall out of the top 10 without any warning, and there goes your income. SEO is also slower than PPC, as the search engines only update their natural listings about once a month.

So what should you choose? Well, it depends on how much money you have to spend. If you have cash then PPC should be your first choice, as it produces faster results. If youre on a low budget, you should look at SEO first. The best thing to do, though, is to use both techniques together use PPC for some keywords and SEO for others, depending on the keywords price.

Algorithm. A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the pages contained within its index in response to a particular query. No search engine reveals exactly how its algorithm works, to protect itself both from competitors and from those who wish to spam the search engine.

Back links. These are links to a website from external sources, including other web pages, directories, and advertising.

Banned. When pages are removed from a search engine’s index because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming, or violating one of the search engines other rules.

Click-through rate. How many people clicked on a link, as a percentage of the total number of people that saw the link.

Cloaking. The act of serving content to search engine spiders that is different to what normal visitors would see. Search engines will ban you if they find you doing this.

Contextual links. Contextual links are displayed on web pages when the content on the page indicates to an ad server that the page is a good match for specific keywords or phrases.

Conversion rate. The percentage of visitors to a website who buy something.

Cost per click (CPC). A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their website.

Cost per mille (CPM). A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times an ad is seen, regardless of how many people actually click through. The mille refers to one thousand viewings of the ad.

Crawler. A component of a search engine that gathers listings by automatically crawling the web, following links to understand how pages are connected.

De-listing. This is when pages are removed from a search engines index, usually because they havent been updated for a long time.

Directories. A type of search engine where listings are gathered by humans, rather than by automated web crawlers.

Doorway page. A web page created in the hope of improving another pages ranking in a search engines listings. Doorway pages dont give much information to the people viewing them.

Graphical inventory. Banners and other ads that appear depending on the keywords a page contains. This includes pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.

Index. The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query.

Landing page. The web page that a visitor reaches after clicking your search engine listing.

Link popularity. A count of how popular a page is based on the number of other pages that link to it.

Link. A link is text that you can click on to go to another website, or another page on the same website.

Listings. The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search.

Meta-search engine. A search engine that returns listings from two or more other search engines, instead of using its own index.

Meta tags. Tags placed in a web pages code that pass information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.

Meta description tag. This meta tag allows pages to provide descriptions to search engines.

Meta keywords tag. Allows authors to add text to a page to help with the search engine ranking process.

Meta robots tag. Allows page authors to keep some web pages from being indexed by search engines. Similar to a robots.txt file.

Natural listings. The listings that search engines do not sell. Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine believes it is important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Note that paid inclusion listings are still treated as natural listings by many search engines.

Outbound links. Links on one website that lead to other websites.

Paid inclusion. An advertising program where pages are guaranteed to be spidered and included in a search engine’s index in exchange for payment.

PPC. Pay-per-click means the same as cost per click (CPC).

Paid listings. Listings that search engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs.

Pay-for-performance. A term popularized by some search engines as a synonym for pay-per-click. It stresses to advertisers that they are only paying for ads that “perform” in terms of delivering traffic, as opposed to CPM-based ads, where ads cost money even if no-one clicks on them.

Paid placement. An advertising program where listings appear in response to particular search terms, with higher rankings typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers.

Rank. The order in which web pages are listed in search engine results.

Reciprocal link. A link exchange in which two sites link to each other.

Results page. The page that appears after a user enters their search terms.

Robots.txt. A file used to keep web pages from being indexed by search engines.

Search engine. A service designed to allow users to search the web, or another database of information.

Search engine marketing (SEM). Marketing a website using search engines, whether youre improving your ranking in natural listings, purchasing paid listings or some combination of the two.

Search engine optimization (SEO). Altering a website so that it ranks higher in the search engines.

Search terms. The words a searcher enters into a search engine’s search box.

Shopping search. Shopping search engines allow shoppers to search the web for products and their prices.

Spam. Any search engine marketing method that a search engine decides is detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant search results.

Spider. See crawler.

Submission. The act of sending a URL to a search engine, for inclusion in its index.

XML feeds. A process in which information about a page is fed to the index without using a crawler, for example using RSS.

The best advice is to follow a good search engine promotion system. Keep track of when you submit your sites and how soon theyre indexed — checking once a week is sufficient.

Ranking systems can be confusing and there are often complex factors involved, but you do not need to be an expert in the field to achieve top results. Take a chance after all, you have nothing to lose.

Many thanks to Danny Sullivan, Kevin Lee, Ikonya Nginyo, and all the other volunteers who contributed