Web Marketing Hotline

Quick Answers to Common Questions

More Questions?

Why is my new business website not showing up on search engines?

There are two answers.

One: Your web designer or web hosting company usually doesn't promote your website. That's not their area of skill. Promoting your website is a lot like traditional advertising or PR combined with writing using keywords that your customers are likely to use in a web search.

Web developers and web masters are smart people but they usually don't list sales copy writing or public relations on their resumes. You may need a specialist in Website Marketing.

Two: Your web site may be invisible to the common search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

• Does your website have words as pictures rather than words as simple text?
• Do you have a very minimal website with few or no words?
• Does your website use mostly FLASH animations?
• Does your website use frames?

Websites with the above problems, may look really great, but they are almost invisible to the search engine link indexing programs.

These are only some of the reasons why your web site may not show up in a Google or Yahoo search.

Is Pay per Click advertising worth doing?

That depends.

What sort of product or service do you sell? Computers? Legal services? Pay per click can be very expensive if you are selling what a million other businesses are selling. Pay per Click can be horribly expensive for competitive products like cell phones and broadband internet service. You have to segment the buyers in your market in order to stand out in the crowd.

For most other products, Pay Per Click services like Google Ad Words and Overture can be very effective. It often depends on the ad keywords that you choose.

How can I get more people to visit my business web site?

• I can place news articles about your website using traditional PR methods.
• You can use traditional advertising.
• Place your website URL on every letterhead, printed collateral document, business card or brochure that goes out of your office.
• I can write web content that helps users learn about your business. Search engines and users both love content articles.
• You could have your website reviewed and optimized so that search engines can see your content. You can use link building, keywords, good site navigation techniques and content relevant to your customers' needs.

Can you, or anyone else, guarantee that MY website will be number one in the search engine results?

There are many techniques that I use to get your business website into the first 10 search engine results on search engine result pages like Google. Nobody can guarantee that you will be number one at the top of the search page results. It is often possible to get into the top ten search results using the proper keywords and a market segmentation method.

Some times it can be tough, especially if you sell something that a million other companies sell. It can some times take weeks or months to get good results.The good thing is that once you optimize your web site for search engines, the results are often long lasting. With continued effort, search engine results tend to improve over time.

How can I get more sales leads from my website?

• Do you have a call to action in your web sales copy?
• Do you somehow involve visitors in your web site using an online comment forum, a newsletter sign up page or a comments page?
• Do you have a page where users can sign up for more information?
• Can users easily find your phone number and email address?

These are all easy methods that get users involved with your website.

"The good thing is that once you optimize your web site for search engines, the results are often long lasting. With continued effort, search engine results tend to improve over time."

Ed Hill runs edhillpr.com, an Atlanta search engine optimization firm that specializes in getting targeted, ready-to-buy traffic to your business website. Ready for our Atlanta SEO firm to increase traffic to your business website?

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