Search Engine Marketing Blog

Impact Media take first place in the Top Seo’s Best Link Popularity Services for July 2008.

Top SEO’s evaluate the the leading search engine marketing companies and ranks the top performers taking into account both results and customer satisfaction.

See the link popularity services results for yourself.

If your website is an online shop selling products to consumers then it is probably easier to measure the success compared to a site promoting a brand.

Every website should have a purpose and be a tool which provides value to a business and you shouldn’t just have a site because all of your competitors have one. Your website should make up part of the marketing strategy and if it isn’t fulfilling its role then review the site to find out why people aren’t buying or not contacting you as a result.

Google Analytics is a great way to measure the success of your website and set benchmarks. A direct measure like the volume of sales or leads enables you to reach a conclusion easier. But if your website is there to endorse your brand then this can sometimes be harder to measure.

By using the data provided by Google Analytics you are able to calculate the sites’ brand engagement by analysing the search terms and direct visits to your site. This can help to measure the impact of offline marketing activities and your brands’ presence amongst your users.

So make sure that you have Google Analytics on your site and start measuring your site’s success!

Health Connection were established in 1997 and specialise in the supply of top quality, value-for-money, health products.

We are delighted to announce that we have been selected to manage the companies Pay Per Click (PPC) activity, and look forward to working with them on this project.

The Segrave Club is a shared access supercar club based in Knightsbridge, looking to generate more new business from their website.

We will be working with The Segrave Club to implement a professional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign, and to manage the companies Pay Per Click (PPC) account.

We are delighted to have been selected as The Segrave Club’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) partner, and look forward to working with them on this project.

Shapes of Virtu was created by a group of independent photographers and provide abstract, macro and contemporary photography printed on stretched canvas.

We are delighted to have been selected as Shapes of Virtu’s search engine marketing partner of choice and look forward to working with them on this project.

Is your business showing on Google maps?

If not it’s a very simple thing to set up and has many benefits.

All you need to do is enter your businesses details into Google’s Local Business Centre. You may have to register for a Google account if you don’t already have one. In your business listing you can include details of your Business including opening hours and payment taken. You can also include Photos and link to Videos you may have uploaded to You-tube.

Having your business on Local Business Centre means that you may well appear on local searches on Google. For example the search Southampton wedding photographer in Google shows a map with the top 10 Photographers marked on it at the top of the search results.

At Impact Media, one of the areas that seems to crop up regularly is the issue of can we guarantee rankings for our search engine optimisation projects? Unfortunately, we can’t do this for the simple reason that we have absolutely no control over the search engines! That one aspect alone means it is impossible to guarantee anything and to do so would have to be a lie or, at the very least, sales spin.

Further, we do not know what may have happened with a site previously nor what the competition are doing. Regardless though, the bottom line is that no one can give assurances of achieving a certain position for a given key phrase within a specified time scale in the natural listings.

Now, of course, you may find a search engine marketing company who do offer a genuine, no strings, guarantee to get you a top 10 ranking in the organic results. If you come across such a company and the case studies, testimonials and contract terms all confirm that, then my advice would be to ‘bite their hand off’!

You need to ensure that when a company says ‘front page listing in [major search engine] within 24 hours’ that they aren’t simply talking about sponsored listings, or Pay per Click.

The other consideration is how long are you going to be tied in to a contract whilst waiting for this guaranteed position? At Impact Media, we don’t lock companies into any lengthy contracts (just 30 days notice required) instead preferring to work in partnership with our clients knowing that we can only retain their business if we add value to theirs.

So, if you are in the market for search engine marketing services and someone is offering guaranteed top 10 rankings, make sure you get all of the facts and not just the headline!

Blogs are now being adopted more and more by business’ but why? That’s easy, because not only can they communicate to your clients and potentials clients but they can also be a great source of traffic for you. If you have a business and you are knowledgeable on your niche then the chance are you have a lot to offer people in the way of information.

Information you can blog about are:

• Tips
• How to Guides
• Articles on different subjects
• Latest products
• Discounts and offers
• New Clients
• Latest Company News
• Jobs and Recruitment

There are many benefits to blogging within your business but the main 4 are:

1. Increase your online visibility for the blogged about subjects
2. Become an industry authority on your niche subject
3. Create a rapport with potential clients and show you are a real company not just a pretty site
4. Keep existing clients informed

Blogging does take effort and discipline to ensure it is kept up to date and current but it is well worth it when you start seeing the results.

The only warning I would give is if you are not prepared to keep your blog up to date you are better off not having one as nothing puts potential clients off like an out of date blog.

Although an AdWords Search Query Report can give you some idea of what search queries are triggering broad and phrase match keywords much of the useful data is hidden under ‘….other unique queries’ entries.

This data is an absolute gold mine for identifying new keyterms and negative keywords.

So how do we find out what some of those hidden terms were?

By using Google Analytics thats how. By following the simple instructions shown at www.semvironment.com you can easily start to use this vital data.

Did you know it only takes 8 seconds for your website’s visitors to decide to leave your website?

First impressions really count in business and they can make the difference between your business’ success and failure.

Things that can make visitors hit the dreaded back button are:

• Slow loading speed (caused by big page sizes and bad hosting providers)
• Poor navigation
• Unprofessional design (made in your bedroom type designs)
• Background music (elevator music is not a good idea)
• Flash only sites (some people don’t have the applicable plug ins)
• Site is an obvious ad farm
• Not displaying correctly in all browsers (very common problem with websites)
• Excessive pop up or pop under adverts
• Poor spelling / grammar
• Hard to read text (too small or non standard colours of text or backgrounds)

Are you making any of the above mistakes? If so you know what to do, fix them!