Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Process

Why is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) important?

According to a Georgia Tech/GVU Users Survey more than 80% of all Internet users find new websites through search engines. That’s 650 million people! Organic Search Engine Optimization techniques will get your business to show up on or near the top of the search results.

Why do I need high Search Engine rankings?

Search Engines rapidly return more results than anyone could possibly browse through. Try a Google search on "hair salon" and you will get "About 14,300,000 results in 0.43 seconds"! Realistically, people will only look at the first page or two or results. You can guarantee page 1 or 2 results by paying for sponsored links—the sites listed on the right-hand side of the page in the shaded box at the top. There are mixed reviews on the value of those but we’ve gotten some pretty good results. However, the most affordable and effective way to get high rankings by using "organic" search engine optimization.

What is "Organic" Search Engine Optimization?

Wikipedia says: "Organic Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. "

What is "Pay-Per-Click advertisements (PPC)"

Let’s consult Wikipedia again: "Advertisers select the words that should trigger their ads and the maximum amount they will pay per click. When a user searches … for relevant words are shown as "sponsored links" on the right side of the screen, and sometimes above the main search results. Click through rates (CTR) for the ads are about 8% for the first ad, 5% for the second one, and 2.5% for the third one. Search results can return from 0 to 12 ads".

How do I optimize my site?

The prerequisite for any optimization project is having a properly developed site using all the appropriate software development techniques. If the "spiders" and "robots" can’t easily read your site, they can’t index it properly. Next, you must have keyword-rich content and lots of it. The search engines need to understand what your site is about to determine when and where to include it in search results. They do this by "reading" the text on your site and making their determination. Therefore, it is essential to indentify and use the most advantageous keywords for your business.

After registering your site with the "big 3": Google, Yahoo and Bing, you need to generate inbound links to your site. In addition to link sharing with relevant business and registering with related Internet directories, establishing a presence on the social networking sites is essential. You need to generate interest by being an active participate and updating your content frequently. Get friends, contact old friends and make new contacts on a regular basis. Offer promotions and bonuses only available to "friends" and "followers".

How can 4D WebMasters help?

Using state-of-the-art tools and techniques, 4D WebMasters assists you in all aspects of search engine optimization!

Site Design: If your site was originally developed by us, you’re already good to go! If not, we handle all the scenes work to make the most effective use of meta tags (titles, descriptions, keywords), subpage URLs, html tags (H! through H6, Alt, Title, and so on), text placement, robots.txt , sitemap.xml and more.

Keyword Analysis: 4D WebMasters uses specialized software to find keywords used by your most successful competitors, new keywords being searched for by potential customers and the most popular searches in "pay per click" advertisements. We compare your site against those that currently achieve the top 10 rankings for your most important keywords evaluating over 30 categories. We then update your site with the additional customizations that will improve your ranking by the search engines.

Search Engine Registration: Your site is registered with the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing. They are responsible for the vast majority of the search engine traffic and they are "under the covers" of other search engines (e.g. AOL.com displays Google results while MSN.com uses Bing.). Proactive registration with the search engines ensures that your site is found and indexed and, by using their individual suite of webmaster tools, we can address any issues that the search engines detect.

Link Popularity, the next step in the process, is very important yet often overlooked. The more other websites link to your website, the higher your search engine rankings. The number of links alone is not enough. 4D WebMasters finds the appropriate sites from which your business should be linked. The linking websites must be related to your website and should include your important keywords in the link text. We add your site any or all of the other 60+ US based search engines and internet directories, as well as any appropriate international site. We "back track" the top 10 sites and those of your main competitors. That is, we find out where they are listed and add your site there, too.

Business and Social Networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linked-In are increasingly important. 4D WebMasters can set up your presence on these and provide you the information you need to use these tools to keep in contact with your current and prospective customers. Just being there is enough, though. You need to generate interest by being an active participate and updating your content frequently. Add friends, contact old friends and make new contacts on a regular basis. Offer promotions and bonuses only available to "friends" and "followers". We can help you get started or manage the whole process for you.

Pay Per Click: Is it worth it? Only you can decide. What we can do is set up your PPC campaign, control the amount spent by setting a budget and analyze the results.

Result Tracking : Is it working? How do we know? 4D WebMasters has a number of tools to analyze and report on your results. Our Ranking Report shows exactly where your site comes up on all the major engines for your most important keywords. Using other statistical software we identify how people are finding your site, where they came from and what search terms the entered. This helps us refine our approach and focus more on the aspects that are working the best.

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