Back to the Basics: What is SEM?

Posted on March 12, 2012 by The ThinkBIG Guy

What is SEM?

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a broad field that includes Search Engine Optimization, and Pay Per Click and impression based advertising. The object is to Increase Web Traffic, provide greater exposure to your site or brand, and attract targeted traffic. Targeted traffic includes potential customers who are already interested in one or more aspects of your site or the goods it provides, and are more likely to convert or visit your brick and mortar locations. SEM includes SEO Services, though it may not include emerging technology such as social media management.

SEM has to be closely monitored, as it changes often. These changes must then be reflected on the site itself, by changing keywords on the pages and in the META information elements. Because of this, SEM and SEO Services are often outsourced to a third party to allow the webmaster to focus on providing content and managing aesthetic design and navigation. Some webmasters attempt to handle all of the aspects of web design, SEO, and advertising, but most meet with varied results despite their best efforts to Increase Website Traffic.

Good search engine optimization will Increase Web Traffic, but a solid advertising strategy is the other leg of promoting and marketing your site effectively. SEO Services can often be purchased apart from advertising, but search engine marketing includes the advertising leg, and more. Your SEM strategy should be aimed at improving your site’s standing, increasing exposure, and attracting traffic. SEO Services are only helpful to an extent; you need a complete marketing strategy to get the most from your efforts, and SEM provides that.

PPC, or Pay Per Click advertising, is the primary form of advertising using online. The more you pay, the better results you will get from PPC. More money means more keywords on which you can bid, a higher frequency of your ad’s appearance, and better placement on the returns page. However, even a modest PPC campaign running for a short time can produce fantastic results. Impression based advertising can improve exposure even more, but can also be more costly. It is best to consult an expert in the field on the approach you should take for your site.

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Back to the Basics: What is SEO?

Posted on February 29, 2012 by The ThinkBIG Guy

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is more commonly known, is a method of improving your site’s ranking in the search engine returns and a great way to Increase Website Traffic. Webmasters decide on keywords and search terms related to their subject matter, website, or the products and services they provide, and include these in the structure and design of their site. Keywords and search terms and phrases are included in the directory structure, URL, META information, and textual content across the website.

Whenever possible, you should include your most important keyword in the URL. For this reason, you may wish to consult with a Website Optimization Firm before you begin designing your site or purchase a domain. An expert consultant can help you determine the best keywords for inclusion, and the best title for the site. Including the keyword in the URL is not always possible, but can greatly improve the ranking of the site and increase website traffic.

Keywords should also be included in the name of the site, the title, and the description. Many of these elements are included on most pages across the site, so this approach should be used with caution. Including too many keywords and search phrases too often is called “keyword stuffing” and can result in your site being punished by search engines, or even excluded from the results entirely. A specialist knows the right percentages and frequency of use to improve website traffic without overwhelming the search engines, and this is yet another reason it makes sense to consult a Website Optimization Firm before launching your site.

There is also a META KEYWORDS entry that is used by many search engines, but not all. Here, you can include keywords and search terms and phrases that relate to every aspect of your site and content. These keywords should be keyed to the page on which they appear, but should include general search terms and phrases used across the site as well. Once again, keyword stuffing has to be avoided, as does repetition. Violating these tenets can result in negative consequences for your site’s ranking, or even being excluded from the search engines entirely.

Search Engine Optimization is important to all websites, as it is the best way to ensure potential visitors can find your site and Increase Website Traffic. Keywords should be included in every aspect of your design, but including too many too often can have a negative effect on your site’s standing in the search engines. For this reason, and many others, it is best to consult a Website Optimization Firm before you start designing your site.

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Think Like Your Customer

Posted on February 14, 2012 by The ThinkBIG Guy

This article is part of a larger series on Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization is the name and getting your site ranked is the game!  It’s no secret really that the basic building blocks of SEO are quite simple: You need to have a good, fast, optimized website, with content that is updated periodically, AND in addition to that, you need to have other sites linking to yours. But WHY do you need all these things?  In this multi-part series, we will examine the various elements and processes that go in to a successful SEO or online marketing campaign.

Let’s look at it this way, from the point of view of someone doing a web search for a product or service.  They know what they are looking for, or at least have an idea of what they think they are looking for, and now they just need to pick a site from the list of results that popped up.  Most of the time, its the very first site that shows up on the search result. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Page 1 of Google is where all the search action is, and on Page 1, the Top 5 see the most web traffic. So, ideally, that’s where you want to be ranked to get the traffic. So we want to be thinking of keywords in terms of what someone would actually type in to the search bar, not what we think is an important term. One of the most difficult things at times is trying to convince a business owner that even though their service or product brand name is something they need to target, using the term a they refer to it may not always be the exact way a potential customer thinks of it.

It’s generally thought that most people when conducting a web search, will pick one of the first few results that are returned, but sometimes people do look further down the list.  One example of when this might happen is when someone looks for a very specific product or service.  Sometimes, if what a person is looking for is very specific, say a rare collectible, or a specific part number, this is when we see people searching several pages deep into the search result. This is one of the only times we really see this type of search behavior.

There is so much more to discuss on the subject of SEO, so if you are a business owner and are looking for targeted web traffic or SEO services, contact ThinkBIGsites today!

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Another Big Change For Google: Google+ Search Integration

Posted on January 10, 2012 by The ThinkBIG Guy

Google+

Those of us in the Search Engine Optimization field have been talking for a while about what we see as Google’s master plan. Well we are now beginning to see some of this come to fruition. This week, Google unveiled it’s new search strategy, called “Search plus Your World.” In a nutshell Google is incorporating all of the personal content with it’s social efforts into it’s search results. What does this mean for you and I?  It means if you are signed in to Google, you will now see Google+ posts, updates, and articles included in your organic search results. So people and products with Google+ pages will now appear in your search results. Relevant items that friends, family, and colleagues have shared with you will now appear in the Google search results.

The implications are impressive. Regardless of your feelings on Google’s jump into social media, with this single move Google+ is now a viable and important option for business and brands looking to increase web traffic and get more exposure and brand awareness. Now, if someone is searching for a specific product or term, with Search plus Your World, relevant Google+ pages will appear in the search.  Google+ pages will even appear in the auto-complete drop-down of the search box.

With this move and with many others that Google has made in the last year, we are looking at new unprecedented levels of transparency in search, all safe and securely located within SSL encryption. For many, this is exactly what they have been looking for, not just a web search engine, but a life search engine. And for those of you that do not want to see all of these new options featured in Search plus Your World, there is always the option to turn this feature off.

So how do all of these changes affect organic SEO? Stick with ThinkBIGsites and in the coming months we will continue to report on this topic as well as many others!

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ThinkBIGsites 2012 SEO Predictions

Posted on December 29, 2011 by The ThinkBIG Guy

Fragile... it must be Italian!

Greetings & Salutations! I hope everyone had a fun-filled holiday and spent some time relaxing with family and friends. While some people are taking some additional time off, we here at ThinkBIGsites have been back to work, mining to the very core of the internet to bring you the latest and greatest in Search Engine Optimization news and tips. We’ve also been putting together the Leg Lamp we got for Christmas.  What? It’s a MAJOR AWARD!

So as we prepare to say “so long!” to 2011, we turn to face the new year. What will it be like? What does it hold for those of us who work in Social Media and SEO Services?

With that in mind, here are a few of our predictions for 2012:

  • Social, social, social! – Did you think Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were going away? Think again!  Even though the coffin is being nailed shut on MySpace, the Big Three will contiue to grow and thrive and lead the way in all things Social. It is hard to imagine a day or a week going by and not hearing some bit of news regarding the innovation and direction being forged by these companies. Personally, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to go back to a time with no Status Updates. You mean, if I want to see how someone is doing, I have to call them?  Not happening. Make no mistake, Social Media is here to stay, and will continue to play a major role in our industry as well as our day to day lives.
  • Content is King! – Mark my words, quality, well-written, relevant content will continue to be the driving force in almost every aspect of SEO and online marketing. If the Google Panda updates have taught us anything, it’s prepare to be zapped if your site has poor quality content just stuffed with links. Take my advice NOW, and start getting all that content rewritten… even if it is something you think may be OK, you will most likely see some real benefit from implementing a content refresh.
  • Google is getting smarter, but… – And I don’t mean just with the Panda updates. Google is of course doing everything it can, on a daily basis, to refine and optimize their site-crawling procedures and processes, but just like anything, it can probably use some help. If you are looking to increase web traffic, do yourself a favor and check out Google Webmaster Tools, and make sure you are following their guidelines for content and coding.  It’s a pretty simple equation: play nice + follow the rules = good rankings!

Those are just a few of our predictions for the coming year. I am sure we will have many more and will be posting on them at some point.  But until next time, have yourself a Happy New Year!

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Happy Holidays from ThinkBIGsites!

Posted on December 21, 2011 by The ThinkBIG Guy

Seasons Greetings!  From all of us here at ThinkBIGsites, we want to wish you a happy, safe, and healthy holidays.  Whether it be Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, or Festivus, may it be a great one!

As 2011 ends we reflect on so many events and changes in our industry.  Search Engine Optimization continues to evolve and change, and while some people “still don’t get it”, online marketing and SEO services continually prove to be an essential business strategy. We continue to see new tools and services introduced that help us drive web traffic, and we find that SEO along with social media are two vital components to a business of any size.

So what does 2012 hold? We continue to see social media growing in importance… Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+ have all shown themselves to be the big players in the field, but will it stay that way?  And how will the tablet revolution change things for everyone?

In October of this year, Google added SSL to search, so if you are signed in to Google and doing a search, SSL is the default setting, whereby Analytics and other services will be unable to report on web traffic and keyword data.  Moving forward, how will SEO, PPC, and other online marketing efforts be affected by this? Is this an effort by Google to somehow keep certain info to themselves, or maybe find a way to monetize this strategy?

Whatever happens in 2012, it will sure to be exciting and innovative. We here at ThinkBIGsites will continue to keep watch on changes and events in our industry, and report on them as they occur! So Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from ThinkBIGsites, the leader in targeted web traffic!

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Facebook Timelines… are you ready for it?

Posted on November 7, 2011 by The ThinkBIG Guy

It seems like every day there is a new social media fad or trend or something that is supposed to be a real game changer that ends up being just a re-hash of things we’ve seen before. Slap a shiny sticker on an old wrapper and it’s NEW!, right?  It’s like those furniture warehouse stores that have been GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! for the last 15 years.

Well finally, we have something new in social media, and of course I am referring to the new Facebook Timelines layout.

For those of you who don’t know, a few weeks ago Facebook announced it will soon be changing it’s layout and presentation of user profiles. The new layout breaks all of your info out into two columns, and creates a literal timeline of posts and events in your life.  The most amazing thing about it how it breaks it all down by year, month, etc., going all the way back to your birth.  It’s the online version of ‘This Is Your Life’.

My first reaction was, ‘Wow, this is different’, and it really is quite a change.  But now that I’ve been playing around with it for a few days, I am really liking it. I like that I have the option of getting rid of that embarrassing archive of comments if I want. But now the thing I am most curious about is how these changes will affect online marketing and the ‘business’ side of Facebook; the targeted ads, the sponsored links, etc. The new design is busy, but it is also very clean, if that makes sense.  There is plenty of space do try new things, or even add content if needed.

Look, I know in this blog I usually talk about search engine optimization and targeted web traffic, so while social media is not the type of thing I usually talk about, this is a big change that will affect all of our lives online.

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R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Posted on October 6, 2011 by The ThinkBIG Guy

We’re going to take a break from talking about SEO services and targeted web traffic to talk about the loss of Steve Jobs.

Like the rest of the world, we here at ThinkBIG always thought of Steve Jobs as a great business and technology innovator, but it was only at his passing that it really hit us: we lost someone special. Even though our office is mostly a Windows environment, each of us here own enough Apple products for us to realize that Steve Jobs really did impact our everyday lives. For me personally, while I’ve used Apple computers since high school for journalism and design, the product that really changed my life was the iPod.  I listen to music all day, every day. I think in song lyrics, and most of my personal Twitter and Facebook updates pertain to bands or what I am listening to. To be able to have pretty much my entire music collection available to me on a device that fits in my pocket? Yes, I will spend hundreds of dollars for that.

When we are sitting in the airport, surfing the web on our MacBooks, making a call or listening to the new St. Vincent album on our iPhone, playing Angry Birds on our iPads, or watching the latest Pixar movie with our kids, we should thank Steve Jobs.

So thanks, Steve.

Check back next time, for more of the latest news, trends, and tips on all things in online marketing and social media!

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Common Follies of the Common Website

Posted on September 19, 2011 by The ThinkBIG Guy

With the hundreds of millions of websites on the Internet and countless more being added everyday, it is only logical to conclude that many of these sites are very common, or unexceptional. These are the sorts of sites that become quickly stagnant, do not get much web traffic and do not do very well in the search engine rankings. Many small businesses and first time website makers simply don’t know what it takes to help a new website to thrive in the crowded online marketplace. Discussing some common mistakes can help those who are looking to design sites, and those whose sites get little or no web traffic.

Lack of Updates: Putting up a website is not a one day commitment. Many small businesses set up websites and then forget about them. They not only neglect to update them but many small businesses forget to invest in online marketing, or even promote them to their own customers. The Internet is a big place and the odds of someone stumbling across a site that you made three years ago and haven’t touched since are slim to none.

Lack of Proper Keywords: So you thought it would be a better idea to use the phrases ‘footwear’ and ‘Maryland’ instead of ‘shoes’ and ‘Baltimore’ on the website for your independent shoe retailer? Could it make a difference when people are looking for the nearest shoe retailer near their home in Baltimore? Certainly. Knowing how people search and how to get them to find your shoe website through search engine optimization is crucial to driving web traffic to your site.

Doing It Yourself: Making a webpage for your family reunion is okay to do yourself. Making a website for your company that you want people to see, not so smart. Unprofessional looking websites are a dime a dozen and have little chance of getting much web traffic. Hiring a web designer and SEO experts is always a good investment if you want to increase web traffic, and have your site visited and visited often.

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What Does It Mean To Have Organic SEO?

Posted on September 8, 2011 by The ThinkBIG Guy

SEOEveryone knows what it means if a product is organic in the produce world. The term has garnered a lot of buzz in recent years with more and more looking to purchase and eat organic food free of chemicals and other pesticides. In the Search Engine Optimization world, organic has a different meaning but a very similar connotation.

Organic Search Engine Optimization, or Organic SEO as it is referred to in the industry is a method of getting ranked higher in search engine results based on your content, and not how many pay per click ads you run. Unlike paid advertisement, organic SEO relies on your websites own quality and substance, making sure that all of the information contained within is working to put your best foot forward, so to speak.

Is it better to be organic? Just like the philosophy behind eating organic food, creating an organic website is thought of as a more sustainable method of long-term survival. Pay per click advertising is effective, but it also goes away when you stop paying for it. Having  website optimization for organic SEO puts your website ahead of others and does it from the inside out. The content you post on your site and the time you invest in promoting your web presence will all go back to helping your target demographics find and go to your website because your content will be the most relevant to their search.

Think about your own online search habits. Would you rather click on an online ad or click on one of the first non-paid, most relevant search results that come up? This really depends on your business, your clients and your short and long term goals.

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