In the recent year or two both Google AdWords and Overture.com have been #1 when it comes to pay per click advertising. The dynamic capabilities of both engines allow for easily manageable marketing campaigns that reach targeted customers. But will the upfront cost get you higher traffic in the long term?
It is a great idea to use this targeted pay per click advertising as a long term way to guarantee visitors to your site. However, this targeted advertising comes at quite a price. With bids for clicks ranging between $0.30 and $2.00 it won't take long for even a medium sized marketing budget to run into the red. Check the latest prices for your keywords on Overture The solution to this is to get a good mix of both paid advertising and search optimized marketing.
Tao Logic has just gone live with our latest project, “Easy OC,” a comprehensive Orange County, California search engine and website directory. www.easyoc.com
We had been brewing over the idea of an Orange County Directory for almost six months before actually deciding to develop it. As we gathered requirements for the site, we found that the demand was far greater than initially presumed.
Lao-Tzu: "I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures."
Tao Logic has adopted this quotation to become the cornerstone behind our philosophy. While the three items seem basic enough, they are much more difficult to achieve and maintain than most realize, especially in this day and age of high-speed everything.
Simplicity: While everyone clamors that they are a minimalist and that they would like to simplify their lives, no one actually does. It is near impossible. The least that we can do here at Tao Logic is incorporate it into the development and design of all of our sites.
I just went by the local Barnes and Noble today and picked up this book The Ultimate Marketing Toolkit and found it to be very straight forward and practical for anyone starting their new business or looking at expanding their current marketing strategies. The author does a good job of making it a simple read while providing plenty of examples to prove her point.
Is your website sending the right message to your viewers? The most essential elements of a sales driven or marketing website. While today's entry is focused mainly towards corporate websites it does pertain to all sites as well.
Website name with tagline or motto.
- As simple and stupid as it may seem, there are still plenty of websites that don't display their name in an easy to read, well placed area of their website.
- tagline... Yes, a tagline. What is it that your business offers? Do you sell real estate or do you promote realtors? There is a big difference in the previous example. The key to easing your users experience is to not make them think about what you are offering them.
Easy to Read Text
- To this day I still visit a website trying to sell me a product or service and I can't help but question their legitamicy simply because they can't display readable text.
- When your website is difficult to read and looks outdated it creates a very negative image of your company. It makes users think, "Wow, this company must not pay much attention or care that much about their online customers."
A Contact Form
- Using a contact form is easier for your visitors to fill out than sending a full email, so you can expect a higher response rate.
- Using a form also hides your email address from search engines that collect emails for spamming. So your inbox will have less spam, and that's always a good thing.
Final Advice
When in doubt just look at major websites such as Amazon, eBay, or Yahoo!. These websites are all professionaly developed with the users website experience of highest importance. You will learn a lot just by viewing other websites critically.
If there is one thing you are going to do to help your website get better ranked by search engines. Adding keywords to your website's meta-tags isn't going to do it. The only way adding new keywords to your meta-tags will help is the following:
- You put new keywords in different pages AND use those keywords throughout that page. This is because search engines are smart enough to realize that someone only added certain words into the keywords and not into the web page because clearly that page isn't actually about those keywords.
- You don't put too many keywords in your meta-tags because that will get you black-listed. Too many usually means more than 255 characters, and yes spaces are included in that count.
So what should I do then?