Costs: free- $750 a month
Description: Search engine optimization on average will cost $100 -$1500 dollars a month. This may include landing pages or keyword research for your e-commerce site.

Search engines are content driven and based value systems developed by the search engines. Content analysis is based on complex algorithms most specific to your search criteria are delivered to end users. This is known as organic traffic and if you search for a product on Google most likely you’ll see a lot of content about that product name in the organic search results.

Mainly periodicals, blogs and other kinds of articles may come before actual e-commerce stores selling products. That doesn’t mean that the blogs, articles, news web sites don’t have advertising possibilities. It also doesn’t mean you can’t get your e-commerce store to come up with specific keywords. If your pages are optimized per the instructions listed previously in web site content, your pages should be ready for the search engines.

Google also offers advertising known as pay per click or PPC. You can read more about this in the PPC section listed below. However, suffice it to say that they are the leaders in this particular area since Google receives the majority of search engine traffic - almost 60%.

What are spiders crawlers and why do they sound so creepy?

Content spiders are engines that are designed to follow hyperlinks which link from one web page to another. The spider goes to a page finds all its links and evaluates the page and the keywords on the page. Using the information collected from the spiders and search requests by web browsers, search engines assign web site pages a rank in the overall compilation of web pages listed in their databases. Basically, the web site that serves up the most pertinent information or answers to web users questions coupled with inbound links and optimized pages wins and is displayed prominently in search results.

There are many services and software products that claim they can increase your search engine results. Many of them are useless and only do the bare minimum. Average effort creates less than averages results.

We often advise people to save their money and save up for an SEO expert. However, most of what is needed is a well designed web site, time and good business sense.

·     Target your releases to your buyers not just news organizations and journalists

·     Create content that is optimized for the search engines and rich in searchable phrases your customer would use in locating you

·     Embed links that lead them directly to your web site

·     Offer a link to sign up for a series of tutorials, a white paper or free service your customer might be interested in (This will get them into the buying cycle and you can begin to build a relationship with the customer)

·     Send a press release or article every chance you get. That means send them for all sorts of reasons – new product introductions, new services, improved web site navigational experiences, anything you can think of.

·     We recommend the use of a press release distribution service simply because it makes the whole process much easier and the chances of getting in online news services like Google and Yahoo are pretty much guaranteed.

o   PRWeb 

o   Business Wire 

o   Market Wire 

o   PRNewswire 

·     Create your own RSS feeds of your releases and news stories on your site. You can store them in a press area on your site where customers can get easy access and subscribe to receive your content.

Here’s our recommended list of best practices in creating your web site pages.

1. Research phrases people are looking for and using when looking for your product.Wordtracker offers a valuable, easy to use service.

2. Page content should be between 300-500 words

3. Pick up search phrases and keywords associated with the product or service you are selling on that page

4. Use search phrase in a way that makes sense and flows naturally.

5. Product Descriptions - Make the product descriptions neat and clean with unique keywords for that product.

6. Use Title Tags

     Keep title tags unique while reinforcing the topic of the page.

·      Google displays 60 characters with the ability to index 100 characters but the importance is placed within the first 60 characters

·      Title Tags are the Most Important On Page Element

·      Title Tags are the First impression on search engines and users

7. Keyword Meta Tags - Add in keywords to help assist in Yahoo rankings

·      Keep between 7 – 48 words

·      Separate keywords by commas ex. <meta name=“keyword" content=“phrase 1, phrase 2, etc,”>

·      Avoid keyword spamming

·      Use to reinforce the topic of individual pages

8. Description Meta Tags - Use this tag to reinforce the topic of the page and double as the description listed in the search results rather than content pulled from the page copy.

·      Keep between 12 – 24 words

·      Use a short descriptive sentence

·      Avoid using more than 2 commas

·      Incorporate targeted keywords

·     Do not use an exact sentence from the page content

9.Internal Links & Navigation

·      Reinforce the main targeted phrase with absolute links to the root level domain throughout the site. ex. http://www.yoursitename.com”> Your Site Name

·      Avoid Dynamic URLs, multiple URL’s (please see URL Rewriting below)

·      When creating new page names use hyphens (-) while avoiding underscores (_) spaces ( %20 ) and dynamic variables

10. Image Optimization

·      Use ALT Tags - Your Images should have keywords embedded in the ALT Tags.

·      Keep files sizes low