»What is Search engine Optimisation?
»How long does search engine optimisation take?
»What does it cost to have a website optimised?
»What is Pay for Click and how does it compare with organic optimisation?
»What are the dangers involved in SEO?
What is Search engine Optimisation?
According to recent results, 694 million people now use the internet. If someone wants to find or buy something, they will often type it into a search engine such as Google, and look for it on the first page of results. What people rarely do is look at the 2nd or 3rd page of the search results and go to the websites listed there.
Search Engine Optimisers
work to raise the visibility
of their client's websites.
They work using a variety
of techniques to increase
the trust of websites
so that when people search
for whatever their clients
websites are about, they
are more likely to go
to that website. This
method of what is known
as 'organic optimisation'
is one of the best and
most lasting ways of driving
relevant 'traffic' (people)
to your site.
How long does search engine optimisation take?
Currently it normally
takes 3months to begin
to realise results after
optimisation work has
begun, and normally good
solid results are seen
at around the 6month mark.
However, the timescale
is massively dependant
on the age, history, size
and current trust levels
of the website in questions.
For a more accurate estimate
of time involved, please
feel free to email us
the website in question
using our contact
seo form with the
question, "how long
will SEO take for my site".
If you are looking in
the short term, you may
want to think about a
pay
for click campaign,
which will bring instant
traffic to your site.
What does it cost to have a website optimised?
The costs can be broadly split into two halves.
Firstly there are all
the onsite changes that
have to be made. These
are permanent changes
to the website itself,
which once implemented
rarely have to be revisited.
The changes will entirely
depend on the current
site set-up, but often
include things such as
the internal linking structure,
changes to the coding
of the pages, always involve
the title tags and meta
data and sometimes include
minor changes to the content.
We have a fixed fee of
£600 for this. We
do an annual review of
all this for clients at
no further cost.
Secondly we would require
a budget for the ongoing
optimisation campaign.
This is monthly amount
that is then spent in
various ways to raise
your ranking. The core
of this currently is a
very carefully targeted
link building campaign
that not only builds trust
for your site within the
internet, but educates
the search engines to
your website's relevance
to the search terms that
we want your site to rank
for. The budget does not
depend on the size of
your website; often a
nice large site is costs
less to rank than one
that is too small! The
cost will entirely depend
on the strength of your
competitors, the amount
of search terms, and the
state of your website.
To give you an idea, our
current client's budgets
range from £200
- £1800 from the
smallest to the biggest.
A website that is a couple
of years old with a medium
level of difficulty may
cost £350 - £600
a month. I'm sorry I can't
be more specific than
that. For a more accurate
estimate of the costs
involved, please feel
free to email us the website
in question using our
contact
seo form with the
question, "how much
approximately will SEO
cost for my site".
What is Pay for Click and how does it compare with organic optimisation?
Pay for click is when you pay a search engine such as Google to have your website appear at the top of the search engines in the brown sponsored link box as below.
The big advantage to this
is that it is instant.
You can have your site
begin appearing to people
searching within the engines
within half an hour of
signing up. How does this
work? Very simply. You
pick your the terms you
would like your site to
appear. For Example: you
sell chocolate. So you
might pick "buy chocolate"
and each time someone
types in "buy chocolate"
into Google you would
appear in the "sponsored"
box. However, you pay
for this. Each time someone,
anyone, clicks on your
link you pay. It does
not matter if they buy
from you or not, every
time they click on a link
you pay. The price? It
is done by auction, it
is a bidding war. If someone
offers Google more money
than you, they will appear
in the box and you won't.
In reality what this means
is for a main search term
like "buy chocolate"
you'll probably be paying
£2.50 - £3.00
per click. That means
if you have 5% of your
website visitors buying
from you, you are now
paying out between £50
- £60 to Google
for each customer you
get. For most companies
this cannot be sustained,
and you only continue
appearing in the box for
as long as you have money
to pay when people click.
While you are spending
money on it, your profits
are being given to Google,
and as soon as your budget
runs out, you disappear
and are replaced by a
competitor. Organic optimisation
is not instant like pay
for click. It takes a
minimum of 3 months to
appear in high in the
search engines. However
you do not pay every time
someone clicks on your
link. This means you can
sustain a high volume
of customers coming to
you at a very low cost
once you are ranked well.
I'm repeating this again
because it is key, it
is far more economical
and effective to
optimise
organically, but will
take 3 months for you
to rank. (more information
above under 'How long
does search engine optimisation
take?')
The ideal is to do both. When targeted well, pay for click can yield good results and be very profitable. Also whilst optimising to appear organically, it can bring the customers that you are looking for. As you begin to rank well, you can then reduce your spending in pay for click whilst still getting customers, thus maximising your profits.
What are the dangers involved in SEO?
As with working in any
field, if you hire someone
who isn't interested in
doing a good job and simply
wants your money, you
can end cheated of your
money. With engine optimisation,
you can also finish in
a worse position than
you started. Please note,
there are many legitimate
search engine optimisers
like us who operate in
the best interests of
our clients, the following
examples occur by the
hand of the well intentioned
but inexperienced and
ill informed on the subject,
or the outright thieves.
The biggest worry to any
website is being removed
from the search engines
index. This is the worst
thing that can happen,
and means that when people
are searching you will
NEVER appear for any search
term, not even your own
name. Last year Google
heavily penalised the
BMW website for breaching
their regulations by using
'doorway pages' inappropriately,
BMW's financial loss from
this was considerable.
This kind of thing will
only happen if you use
clearly defined forbidden
techniques in order to
appear high up in the
search rankings. There
are a number of things
that can affect your ranking
negatively, for example
placing an outgoing link
on your page to a site
that becomes flagged up
as untrustworthy. A good
optimiser won't do this.
There are countless techniques
that can be used both
completely legitimately
and well to help a websites
visibility, and be used
in ways that whilst increase
ranking dramatically,
if caught being used will
be penalised. You are
paying your optimiser
for his skill and knowledge
in using these techniques,
and as long he uses them
wisely you will benefit.
If he/she 'cheats' as
google sees it and is
caught, it will result
in your website being
penalised.
