Search Engine Optimization - Why it's worth the high price tag.

Last issue we discussed Search Engine Submission companies and why you should consider saving your money: http://www.sagerock.com/automated_search_engine_submission.shtml

This week the topic becomes a bit more tricky. To see significant results on search engines you almost always need the help of a search engine optimization company or have a very solid understanding of search engine principals. I have seen time and again one-person companies to major corporations make major mistakes when it comes to search engines. This is a huge blunder at the most basic marketing level simply because of all the viable traffic companies are flagrantly missing.

Search engine optimization companies will shape and mold your site into a creature that the search engines are able to read and place appropriately in their index. There are multiple steps in the optimization process. Search engine optimization is likely going to cost you a minimum of $1000 and the price can explode from there. Unfortunately, you probably aren't going to find prices much less than that for a complete plan. Here's why:

First, and probably the most important aspect, you NEED key phrase research and analysis. Without thoroughly understanding what people are searching for in your industry and how competitive the phrases are, all the other steps will give you poor results. A good search engine optimization company will show you ratios of how often a particular phrase is searched for and how many pages you are going to be competing with if you go after that phrase. You and the optimization company should mutually agree on what is best for your site.

Second, the next phase is the actual optimization of your site. There are a couple ways to go about this. The ideal situation is to modify the code of existing pages of your site to reflect the key phrases that were chosen. This is preferable because search engines increasingly are on the lookout for any kind of manipulation of their results. Their goal is to give the most accurate results to their visitors. So if a certain site or page doesn't naturally have a particular phrase in it then it shouldn't appear in those results.

This is a problem because many completely legitimate pages get overlooked because they don't meet the very specific criteria of a particular engine. This can happen because the pages are dynamically created from a database, they are primarily graphic-based, or there is a great deal of behind-the-scenes code at the top of the page. To deal with these issues additional pages may need to be created to rank well with the search engines. The common term for these pages is 'doorway page' - meaning the page leads into the main site from a search engine like a doorway. There has been a lot of negative press about these kind of pages. But if they are created with legitimate content and provide information about the key phrase focused on there is nothing wrong with them. They can often be the solution to an otherwise difficult site.

Third is the submission phase. Often this is all done by hand. Each optimized page is submitted to the search engines by hand over a certain period of time. There is nothing magical here. Often, one page per day is submitted to each engine.

Fourth is the analysis stage. After a couple weeks then the optimization company will begin running reports to determine how the work is coming. This is typically done using a software analysis tool. You can often see changes in these reports every two to four weeks.

The fifth aspect involves researching your site statistics. From a search engine standpoint the most important aspect of these statistics is watching the site referrers. This statistic will show you where people are coming from and what phrases they are using to find your site on the search engines. Using these statistics will give you clues as how to continue to move forward. Often you will find phrases people are searching on that you didn't anticipate.

At this point you can continue to move ahead on the engines with the results you have seen and the traffic you have achieved. You can pretty much go back to phase one and begin the process again. This will often be in the form of a maintenance plan that keeps existing positions and extends your overall presence on the engines.

Quality search engine optimization work requires a great deal of hand-crafted work that takes a considerable amount of time. But the end results can be tremendous for the optimized web site. It often is a significant part of an overall web marketing arsenal.

If you liked this article, consider signing up for our information newsletter. All of our articles come directly from our newsletter we send out every other week on Tuesday. Consider signing up. It's free and easy.

Subscribe to SageRock.com Killer Web Marketing Newsletter by entering your email address in this form and click "Join"