Optimizing a Web site for Google or other search engines is a complex endeavor. To perform well with any search engine is a task that takes constant monitoring and requires a professional that works with search engines on a regular basis. A recent comment by a Google executive indicated that Google makes several changes a week to its complex mathematical formulas that rank your Web site.
There are some elements that you can control on your Web site so that your Web site performs well with the search engines. One of the most important elements is making sure that the title tags (that is the text in the blue bar across all browsers) and the headings on each of your pages is appropriate and relevant for the product and service you are featuring.
Another factor is making sure that your Web developer submits the right files to the search engines. There are specific files that help the search engines catalog and index the information on your Web site, giving your Web site an advantage over your competitors' Web sites.
The actual structure of your Web site and the way that it is architected is also important. The majority of Web sites we see have been built improperly for the search engines. This is a result of software programs such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver (called HTML generators) making it easy for anybody with a little computer skill to create a Web site.
A well thought out Web site that features your most important products and services and the resulting keyword phrases is a critical element of your Web marketing strategy.
One of the most controllable aspects of a well positioned Web site with the search engines is how many in-bound links to your Web site. It is very important that you have at least 50 links to your Web site. It is important for these links to be related to you products and your industry. The higher the ranking of the Web sites with links to your Web site the better your performance with the search engines. Think of it in real life terms. Typically the larger your network of quality friends and business associates, the more successful you are. The Web is no different.
So if your Web site is not achieving some of the elements mentioned above and your competitors are, chances are your competitors Web sites are ranked higher than yours.
There are hundreds of variables when developing a successful Web strategy. It is always difficult to spontaneously quote a price and Market Pipeline will resist it.
We will tell our clients that a successful Web strategy is no less a commitment than developing any market initiative. It takes patience, time, money and resources. We will also tell our clients that if they do commit to Market Pipeline, a good Web strategy should not cost anything. A well conceived and executed strategy should provide a very quick pay back.
For example, Market Pipeline is developing a very expensive application for a Midwest manufacturing company. It is an application that will improve our client's online presence, easily found by the search engines and makes the selection of a product extremely easy.
We anticipate that this application will give our client a dramatic improvement in market share in their industry, resulting in a very good ROI. In the final analysis, was that an expensive development effort? Not really.
A Content Management System is a highly developed software application that makes it easy for a non-technical person to edit and update a Web site. Typically a good Content Management System looks and acts much like a word processor. A Content Management system has many modules that make it easy to manage specific content on a Web site such as FAQ sections, news sections, event calendars, etc.
With a Web site becoming the most customer facing marketing channel it is critical that your companies marketing staff take control of their Web site. A good Content Management System allows your marketing content to be easily managed.
There are a ton of CMS systems out on the Web. There are dramatic differences between the good ones and the bad ones. Make sure that you understand your companies marketing needs and the skill sets of the marketing staff and take the Content Management System for a test drive to make sure it is right for your company.
Part of the problem with easy access to CMS systems on the Web is that there is a lot of "junk" out there. Anyone with a little skill can download a quality CMS and immediately turn it into "junk", jeopardizing the quality of your Web marketing effort, how the Web user views it as well as how the search engines view it.
E-mail marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available for today's small and medium size organizations. Market Pipeline can provide you with many articles and case studies that will help you understand the many benefits and show you why you should put the power of email marketing to work for your organization.
Market Pipeline makes every effort that all of our Web sites will be compliant with W3C Standards. These standards help make our client's Web sites accessible for people with handicaps and also make them more search engine friendly.
However, with our powerful Content Management Systems (CMS) that allow our clients to edit their own Web sites, Market Pipeline can not guarantee that our client's Web sites will stay compliant.
Market Pipeline can limit accessibility to the back end of our client's Web site for the benefit of good compliance and we can also advise them on what meets compliant standards and what does not.
Many Web sites that are compliant with W3C standards will have the W3C logos on their Web pages as you can see at the bottom of this answer. You may click on any of these different standards (logos) to see how W3C validation works.
Typically Search Engine Marketing means that a marketer has paid for favorable location with a search engine, a banner ad placement, or industry portal on the Web. See Web Marketing.
SEO means that a Web site has been programmed in such a way that the search engines, such as Google, can easily catalog the information in their Web site. Search engines, like Google, send out "bots" that will scan all the information on a Web site and catalog it on regular basis. When someone uses a search engine to search on a specific product or service, a well optimized Web site will show up on the first few pages of the search. Search Engine Optimization is an on going process and to be successful must be part of a regular marketing routine, much like we monitor the sales figures for a sales force.
That really depends on how aggressive you want to be with your e-mail marketing campaign and how big your list is. There typically is a set up fee and then Market Pipeline will design a campaign and monthly maintenance fee that fits into your budget. However, you can be sure that it is much less than a direct mail campaign and will certainly yield better results.
Market Pipeline works with a trusted partner that is centrally located in the United States. This ensures that your site will have a low latency to all corners of the globe.
All of our accounts are backed up nightly. Many hosts do not provide backups or may charge an additional fee for it. If you want to know all the technical details, just ask. But it is really boring stuff.
We produced vidoes to demostrate the ease of use of Market Pipeline's Content Management System.
