Web site design Vancouver, Ten Day Design

Both Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEM and SEO) have to be the most misunderstood new terms to come out of the internet. This is an entire industry that was built by Google (and MSN, Yahoo! and Ask) and is based on getting better results from search terms. Now don't get me wrong, where your website places on specific search terms related to your products/ services can mean the difference between $200/month and $20,000/month.

SEO/ SEM is just that important. One Adword campaign (Google paid advertising based on search terms) I ran was spending $2500 month to be listed on specific search terms, the company that was coming up first on the "organic" or un-paid results was getting over 3x the monthly traffic from Google and wasn't paying a penny to Google. They had invested their money in optimizing their website so that Google could easily find what it was looking for and made it easy for people on the site to get where they wanted.

Google ready web site design 

And there it is, the big secret that people will charge thousands and thousands of dollars for - the easier you make your site for Google to access and read, and the better the layout of the site for it's users, the higher you will find your site in the listings. There are a few technical aspects, but if your content is formatted to match what people are looking for Google will make sure that they find you. This type of optimization won't happen overnight, in fact it could take months, but the amount that it will not only save you by reducing your advertising costs and how much it will generate you in higher sales or more qualified leads/ prospects will more than pay for itself numerous times over.

Quick tips for solid SEO and SEM

A few tips for SEO are;

• create a list of keywords for your products/services -generate a list of related keywords as well and make sure that you incorporate them in your site content
• use <h1> tags for important keywords (use for titles) Google will give them higher importance
• make sure that your URL (web address) is human readable (no index.php?id=9&gh=98454 should read /how-to-SEO)
• get some sites to link to yours (find people in related non-competing industries and swap links).

A few tips for SEM are;

• write some articles and submit them like crazy to article directories
• keep your content fresh with a blog and time-delayed articles
• write reviews and testimonials on products online (be sure to include a link to your website)
• post a video blog on Youtube.com/ 5min.com/ any video sharing site.