Why Is SEO Important for Your Business

In today’s highly competitive market, more and more business owners are finding themselves facing the dilemma of which online marketing approach to choose. Deciding which tool to use and focus on is a nowhere-to-easy job.

Many business owners, especially those who have a small or medium company, don’t have the budget for advertising like large ones have, which is why they naturally go for campaigns that will cost them less. Because of this, so many of them choose Search Engine Optimization that has no price tag attached to it. But is SEO what you need to promote your business? Is it worth it to invest in it?

Continuous Flow of Targeted, Free Traffic

There are billions of Google searches made each day. Using this search engine is absolutely free of charge and you can even earn from it. Unlike PPC advertising via Google AdWords, the organic traffic that comes to your website will not cost you anything.

Gives Your Business Exposure

As you know, one of the main reasons people use search engines like Google is to find solutions to their problems and answers to their questions. When people use search engines for answers and solutions, they click on about 70% of the links on the first page. So, if your website is ranking well, you will get the exposure your business needs in order to grow.

Generates Traffic That Has a Good Conversion Rate

According to some sources, the leads generated by SEO are as high as 14.6% close rate. This is a lot better than the 1.7% close rate you can generate from print advertising and email marketing. Depending on the industry you are working in, the users have different behavior and they are most likely to click on different links, which has a big impact on the conversion.

Helps Your Business Grow

As already mentioned, when you have a good online presence, your business will grow. SEO plays a big role in securing good online presence for your business and allows to increase its visibility up to 59%. And without online visibility, your targeted group of potential clients will never find you. When you have good SEO, you will have good online presence and your business will grow a lot faster.

If you still don’t have a business website but want to be present online so people can find your company more easily, turning to an online marketing agency is what you should do. When you have a good-looking website with quality content and are on the first places of Google’s SERPs, you will reach your potential clients and your business will grow.

Shop-in-a-box Websites Start-ups Beware!

Every business needs a website, it is amongst the first investment decisions a new business owner has to make.

Visiting the Business Start-up show at Excel yesterday demonstrated how shop-in-a-box software companies are targetting the small business owner in a big way. On the walk-way between the station and the show entrance I was handed no less than 5 flyers, from different companies offering a range of want to make money online easily solutions ranging from 299 to 699. None of these businesses were actually exhibiting inside and there were a lot of flyers in the bins, but nevertheless, where budgets are tight and a website is a priority, if you throw enough sh*t, some of it will stick. This numbers game, operated by the resellers is bound to get some of the thousands of attendees thinking, I would guess the appealing sales pitch would sway the odd start-up to part with some of their limited budget in pursuit of internet riches.

Once inside the exhibition I was greeted by a row of probably 10 more flyer passers (an individual paid a pittance by a company (probably) to stand and hand a flyer to each delegate on entry), on inspection 3 of these were for cheap website retail solutions. I was starting to feel a little bombarded imagine how the start-up must be feeling at this point information overload!

Of the exhibitors I would suggest that at least 20% were either website companies or companies that provide a website solution as part of their business set-up package. Every new business needs a website and the Start-up show presents the perfect demographic. Of the flyers and information I gathered, prices ranged from 499 to 899, but some of these deals included other items including company formation, printed materials and marketing consultancy too good to be true?

Will a shop-in-a-box website deliver? It really depends on what you want it to deliver!

Of the shop-in-a-box offerings I have researched since the show, the following questions are pertinent:

Will I have my range of products online? yes

Will my shop-in-a-box website be fully compliant and suited to the search engine criteria? no

Will my shop-in-a-box website keep pace with the constant changes in the SEO world? no

Will I be able to add additional features that I have seen on my competitor websites? no

Will my shop-in-a-box website be uniquely designed and different to your other customers? no

Will my shop-in-a-box website include full security, merchant processing, back office management solutions and everything I need to make money online? no

Need I go on? no

If the answer to any of the above questions is no, then maybe you should consider that if owning a website is one of the most important investment decisions a start-up has to make, a shop-in-a-box is unlikely to fulfil your aspirations of internet success.

I dont me to be unfair, but the very nature of businesses touting flyers without coughing up to exhibit is one thing, the way exhibitors were undervaluing their website offering by mass market selling is another but the deal breaker for me was that my under-cover questioning of some of the sales people revealed the dreams that they were spouting pitches included we have one client making 10k per week through his site and one client now owns more than 40 of our websites because they are making him rich. Needless to say they wouldnt tell me the highly successful companies in question due, to client confidentiality.

I have never seen a shop-in-a-box website feature high up on the search engines. I have met a few businesses in my time who have invested in one, it didnt work so they then have to consider a realistic budget to buy a website that is built for them, does everything they want it to, and has a chance of making their dreams of internet success come true.

A retail website
is afterall a 24/7 sales person representing your business, charged with the task of bringing you a return on investment. A good retail website is a lot cheaper than a sales person, but a bit more expensive than 299. It should be viewed as an investment and not a cost.

With everything in life you get what you pay for. Dont buy cheap, youll buy twice!

Steps to Finding the Best SEO Specialist for Your Business Needs

You have an awesome website, but not enough qualified visitors.

Is this a problem your business is experiencing?

Sadly, many entrepreneurs and small business owners dont realize that once your fabulous website is built, potential clients simply wont know it exists.

Not until it is properly search engine optimized that is.

So how do you get people to find your website on the first or second search results page of Google, Yahoo! or Bing?

The answer to that question can be very complex.

This is why most business owners invest in search engine optimization (SEO) agencies or specialists to increase their website search engine visibility that will generate more sales leads.

In working with many entrepreneurs and small business owners, the last thing they want to learn about is SEO! They would much prefer to focus on their own business and core competency than to learn someone elses expertise.

So if your website suffers from low search engine rankings, and you dont want to have to learn a whole new profession in order to boost those rankings, here are four steps to finding the best SEO consultant for your specific business needs:

Determine What You Want

Websites can be at varying search visibility stages and will have different SEO needs. For example, your website might only need to be ranked better on different search engines vs. needing everything from pay-per-click advertising, ongoing SEO maintenance, content creation SEM (Search Engine Marketing), Social Media Marketing and more.

So before you jump in and try typing the “Best SEO agency in X city” into Google, you first need to determine what you want out of an SEO campaign.

Ask yourself: “What results do I want an SEO expert to achieve?”

It could be as simple as increasing website traffic by five to ten percent within the next six to eight months. Or your objective might be to build your list of an additional 100 qualified leads over a certain time frame.

Having these specific key performance questions answered will help you measure the success of your campaign. But do keep in mind that SEO and SEM are relative where the results you seek can be in direct proportion to the money you are willing to invest.

Keeping your expectations realistic is important, especially when no legitimate SEO expert can promise results that are out of their control when it comes to how the search engines behave.

Shop Around

Once youve determined what you want to achieve, talk with multiple SEO experts to compare which ones are suitable for your specific business needs.

A good search engine optimization campaign is a process that can take from four months to a year to achieve your goals. A good SEO campaign first needs to implement website improvements and then will have a cumulative effect before seeing potential benefits.

If an SEO agency promises high search engine rankings in a fast amount of time, run the other way. No one has the secret to that kind of success unless they were part of the inner circle working at Google.

WordPress SEO Hacks to Boost Your Business Website Traffic

We all want websites that are search-engine friendly. But sometimes when you are busy it’s easy to publish a new blog post and be off to the next thing on your to do list.

Over time, this can really hurt your SEO efforts. That’s why I’ve put together this short hit list of things you can do to boost your WordPress SEO.

Schedule these tasks in your calendar to make your blog traffic soar!

1) Post New Stuff Regularly Google has a bias towards fresh content. Part of Google’s algorithm looks at how new the content is and gives preference to more recent results. So publishing original content on a regular basis is important.

Also size matters when it comes to content. Generally longer content ranks higher than shorter content. So strive to make your post at least 500 words.

2) Create a Keywords List If SEO is a priority, then you’ll want to develop a keyword list. This is basically a list of keywords and phrases that describes your products and services. These keywords should include words from search terms that are more likely to be used to find your offerings online.

Google has some incredible tools to make keyword research easy including Google Search, Google Suggest, Google Instant and Google Wonder Wheel.

Hint: if you want a really targeted keyword list, hire an SEO expert!

3) Install an SEO Plugin This will allow you to set keyword-rich custom titles and Meta descriptions for your posts for search engines.

A couple of popular SEO plug-ins to consider are All in One SEO Pack and WordPress SEO by Yoast.

Again, this is something your web designer or an SEO professional can easily install for you.

4) Hand Submit to Search Engines What good is a site if no one can find it? That’s why getting listed in Google and the other popular search engines and directories is one of the most effective ways of getting free targeted traffic to your website.

You have probably seen lots of automated submission services where you pay a small fee for them to submit your site to hundreds of search engines. These services not only wont help they can actually hurt you.

Almost all of these free directories never send an actual visitor to your website and getting links from them can hurt your ability to rank in the real search engines like Google and Bing.

The best practice is to manually submit your site to search engines yourself. WordPress makes this easy once you set up an account in Google, Bing and Yandex Webmaster Tools.

If unsure, just ask your webmaster or SEO Specialist to set up these accounts.

5) Add Tags to your Posts WordPress, straight out of the box, comes ready to embrace search engines. The tags features is one of those SEO friendly features you should take advantage of.

Be sure to add relevant keyword-rich tags to every post you publish.

6) Leave Comments on Other Blogs Start linking more to other peoples posts on their blogs and encourage them to link back to you.

What To Consider When Asking Web Design Agencies To Redesign Your Site

Redesigning a website requires a lot of effort if you want to achieve satisfying results. Because of that, it is very important to know what to ask web design agenciesbefore starting the process.

Take The First Step Yourself Before Starting Working With Web Design Agencies There might be various reasons for changing your web design; updating the company profile, following new trends, the need to improve user experience, and many more. Whatever it is, a business has to choose wisely while picking the best services from numerous web design agencies. In addition, it is crucial knowing what to ask, as even the most qualified professionals cannot offer a solution if you do not know the problem. .

At the very beginning, the proper research should be done. This means that you have to start with testing the existing design to notice crucial problems. This process should be followed by the identification of your target audience, as well as performing market and keyword research. Even if you did that some time ago, it is better to complete these tasks once again as the market is constantly changing. Only after knowing this can you ask web designers to recreate the website and adopt new and functional SEO, as well as other essential solutions. Things To Ask Web Design Agencies For Your Website Redesign

If you want to have a website that is better than your competitors, then pay proper attention to its redesign process. Here are some crucial features to consider for making your virtual home appealing. How to structure the website?The structure is the vital part of every website, so you have to find the best way to organise yours. Pages that provide the most traffic should be easily reached and visible. In addition, the customers’ journey through the website, from the home page to the desired action (purchasing, subscribing etc), has to be without any unnecessary interruption. The web page should also be created in a mobile-friendly version as more and more people are browsing the internet through smartphones or tablets.
How to structure the content? Although it seems that the content does not have anything in common with the design, it does. Only informative and interesting information can attract visitors, so it is important to decide how it will be structured. Is it enough to only have product pages, or should there be a newsfeed, or a company blog? Questions like this help to design the website in a way that provides visitors what they are looking for. What technical solutions should be made? You are not expected to know all the technical terminology, but there are things you can ask web design agencies to do. Firstly, the website should load as quickly as possible – people hate waiting and will leave your page for a faster website. In addition, a proper web page should comply with the international standards, such as W3C or having a cookies policy. Finally, the code has to be written in a way that ensures that search engines will easily identify your website and give it higher results.
Indisputably, when redesigning a website all design solutions like colours, fonts, or the arrangement, are crucial. However, usually businesses only focus on these and forget the features mentioned above. If you think you’ve got to make some changes in your digital space, ask web design agencies to change not only the appearance of it, but also the other important elements mentioned.

Qualified Web Design Agency For Satisfying All Needs If you are looking for a reliable web agency that could offer you quality solutions, Advansys can offer everything you need. With more than 13 years of experience, we help our clients to solve various problems from website structure to multichannel ecommerce. Would you like to have quality services provided by professionals? Contact us now! Telephone: 0845 838 2700 or email:

Here Are 3 Conversion Rate Optimization Benefits Your Online Business Cant Ignore

Although conversion rate optimization (CRO) is often confused with SEO (search engine optimization), the two services are quite different. SEO experts drive more traffic to your website in order to generate more sales. CRO experts, on the other hand, boost online sales from existing traffic sources by optimizing key website components, such as:

1. Copywriting on Key Landing and Sales Pages 2. Website Design 3. Layout of UI Features and Special Sales Tools 4. Website Programming 5. Marketing Funnel(s) 6. Shopping Cart/CMS/Core Site Platforms

But I get it: Who cares? After all, what Internet Marketing service out there doesnt promise to boost online sales? The real question is: What kind of return on investment can you expect from conversion rate optimization?

Because at the end of the day and if everyone is being brutally honest: Most Internet Marketing services produce absolutely appalling ROI. You are literally lucky to generate 3 dollars in revenue from every 1 dollar invested in SEO, PPC, or even social media marketing. So by the time you also take overhead, fulfillment costs, and labor into account: Most Internet Marketing services honestly dont move the needle in terms of the ROI they deliver for your online business. Conversion rate optimization, however, is a completely different beast.

Companies like Google, Apple, and even heat mapping sites like Crazy Egg are hiring CRO companies and boosting overall online conversions by up to 150% or more. And sure, those might be exceptional examples and not even close to what an average website owner could expect from hiring CRO experts. But with conversion rate optimization, you dont need to generate massive gains in the overall conversion rate to see a massive ROI or a dramatic boost in online profits. In fact, here are 3 bona-fide benefits of conversion rate optimization that no serious website owner can afford to ignore:

CRO Benefit #1: Permanently Increases Conversion Rate

You know why the ROI is so low for SEO, social media, or even content marketing? Because the minute you stop investing in new content, your traffic levels will quickly drop along with your sales. But one of the biggest conversion rate optimization benefits is the ability to continue driving new sales and increasing ROI for months, in some cases years, after the CRO experts have wrapped up the project. That means even modest gains in overall conversion rate will not only drive increased sales this month, but next month, and the month after that, and so on. By making permanent changes to your copywriting, web design, and other core website components, CRO experts optimize your website to generate more online sales and a growing ROI that far exceeds anything you can expect from traditional Internet Marketing services.

CRO Benefit #2: Increased Online Sales without Increasing Your Marketing Spend

You know the biggest problem with driving another $50,000 in online revenue from SEO, social media, or especially PPC advertising? The answer is the bane of every website owner reading these words because they know its quite simple: Because generating an additional $50k in online revenues might require an investment of $20k or more in PPC, SEO, or social media. And when you include overhead, what, if anything, is left over for all that hard work and investment?

Why Hire a Web Designer and Not Use a Website Builder

Website designer or a website builder? Whom do you choose to build your website? Both promise you outstanding results, both offer you customization, and both will probably give you what they promise. Then what are the criteria to choose which is better? Here is a point-by-point revelation of why it is better to hire a web designer.

1. Customized from scratch, not from a template

Web designers build websites from scratch. They do not use a ready-made template and make changes in it. That is very important if you want a highly customized website. You would want your websites design to mirror your companys brand image.A website designed from scratch can be customized in ways that a website created from a template cannot. The only reason being that a template already has a set structure(panels,placement, columns, interactive media, banners, ads, text boxes), that can only be changed so much.

2. Search engine optimized

Qualified web designers are trained in search engine optimization (SEO) and integrate it in a websites design. SEO is super important to make your website visible to the people. Even if you have a brilliantly designed website and nobody sees it, that defeats the entire purpose of having it. Web designers make your website optimized by creating SEO friendly URLs for each website page, including meta tags and meta descriptions, optimizing images, using keywords, etc.That helps to gain a higher ranking on search engines and getting more visitors.

3. Continued support, not one time service

A web designer monitors the results you are getting in terms of traffic, bounce rate, active users, audience analysis and so on. Services such as Google Analytics help web designers to monitor results. Based on results, they make changes in the website and check the results again. This process substantially increases the chances of a websites success. On the other hand, you have website builders that only provide services in website designing. After that, you are on your own to discover if your design works or not.

4. Fixed one-time cost

Web designers usually charge a one-time fixed fee for designing the website. You pay a fixed amount and get a customized website made. With website builders, you usually pay a fixed amount every month, like forever. If you calculate the total cost of creating and running your website on a website builder, it will most definitely be way more than a one-time fee from a web designer. On top of that, website builders may revise their prices anytime.

Even if you get your website designer to monitor results and make necessary changes, you are in control of the pricing.You can anytime choose to hire another designer. In other words, you are not stuck with one service provider.

5. Time taken to build a website

As web designers build a website from scratch, they take more time to build your website. But that time is devoted to give you quality and customization. They work on your specifications to create a design that is newly built inside out. What website builders do is to provide you with a basic structure (template) that you can tweak. That really doesnt take time and you are the one making the changes, not them. So, it is faster, no doubt. But you must also keep the results in mind to really understand if faster is all you want.

6. Who does the work?

When you hire a web designer, it is the designers responsibility to integrate all the features you want and test them. You give instructions on what exactly you want in broad layman terms and you get the results you want. Thats easy. The problem with a website builder is that they only offer you tools. They will provide you with 10 tools and give you instructions on how to get them to work. Thats the opposite of how you work with a web designer. Easy as it may seem to integrate features in your website, it needs at least some knowledge of what those features do and how to get them to work on your website.

7. Fully featured

Most of the website builders offer features such as responsiveness, website hosting, SEO, security, 24/7 support and so on.These are great features to have, but can you get more customized features at lesser cost from a web designer? A qualified web designer is fully capable of adding any feature you need or they think necessary for your website. So, consider the overall cost based on what features you are getting.

8. Communication

With a web designer, you are the employer. With a website builder, you are their customer. Communicating with your web designer is from one person to another whereas communicating with your website builder is from one person to a company. That makes a difference when you need to communicate regularly. So, even if a website builder is offering 24/7 support, consider the quality of that support and how comfortable it will be for you to get help.

Points to ponder

Before deciding whether to hire a web designer or use a website builder, think about these questions:

a). What will be the total cost of designing?
b). How much customization do I need?
c). What are the SEO services being offered?
d). What do I do if I need continued support?
e). How much time can I invest in building the website?
f). Do I have basic knowledge of necessary features of a website?
h). How much communication can I have with my website builder?

If you only want to try out a personal website and not care about getting visitors, you can use a free Starter Plan provided by website builders. But if you are investing in a professional business website, consider the points above to make a decision that youll be happy within the future.

Automotive Seo & Internet Marketing For Automobile Industries

Automotive Internet Marketing is highly essential if you want to increase sales and services to create a potentially successful online presence. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a highly competitive arena in a lot of major industries and thus making it extremely tough for companies to scale the ladder in the search engine optimization on Google, Yahoo, Bing and MSN. There is an immense opportunity for automotive dealerships to hit the competition through actively marketing their websites using a strategic SEO campaign to gain more visibility in online business directories for ratings and reviews.

To start you can just do a simple online search to see where your company is ranked in the competition by using a couple of the key words you want to rank in. After a few test searches, check how your company is ranking in those key words. This will help you to clearly understand your online local ranking as its compared to your competition. If your company is atop the search results, its a good thing, but note that a constant Automotive SEO campaign is a must to keep your standings strong. Its also a plus to make changes to your existing site frequently so your content is fresh. If your company is not listed high in the search results or listed in the lower pages, then it is safe to say that an Automotive Internet Marking SEO strategy and marketing plan needs to be in place to get you in the top rankings.

You dont want your competition stealing your customers from right underneath you, do you? Well then an Automotive SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) should be an integral part of every automotive marketing strategy, and it’s imperative that your dealership has a monthly strategy and marketing plan. We can help your dealership, whether big or small reach new platforms in innovative SEO solutions. HOW MUCH DOES INTERNET MARKETING COST? Its a question we get often and that is why we provide you Automotive INTERNET MARKETING PRICING packages and a la carte services to fit your budget. We have Internet Marketing packages for all ranges of budgets and can even customize packages to fit your automotive dealership needs.

Our Automotive Search Engine Optimization packages consist of SEO Fundamental, Google Safe strategies, start up, social media, and budget packages. Our Automotive Search Engine Optimization A la Carte programs consist of Press Release writing and distribution, Video Distribution, Blog promotion, Article writing and submission services, Social media branding, Website directory submissions, and local search.

Internet Marketing for your business

The internet has captured the imagination of many people when it comes to what it is, and what it can provide. Internet marketing is only one aspect of the internet, but it is a very important aspect at that. When people search for items on the internet they are normally looking for information, this information can come in a variety of ways and it can either be free, or purchased. For those that are looking, that is one area of the internet. For those that are providing, this is an area where broad and local internet marketing come into play.

As stated before, internet marketing is only one aspect of the internet, and it basically consists of marketing a product or service online. But there is much more to this phenomenon than one may think, and in this article you will discover what they actually are.

* Internet Marketing Consultants

When private individuals and business owners decide to take their ideas for business online, they will be better served if they use the services provided by internet marketing consultants. The reason for this is – on today’s internet it’s much more than simply purchasing a domain name, securing a bit of hosting, and launching a web presence. You will need to know a little more about the marketing side of things in order to be successful obtaining the type of targeted traffic you are looking for.

* Internet Marketing Consulting

Consulting will come in many different forms, and the type that will work for you will be determined by your specific needs. Allowing a professional internet marketer to consult you will allow you to avoid the pitfalls in which other less experienced marketers fall prey to. You will discover that because you’ve taken the time to invest in internet marketing consulting, your chances of surviving your first year on the internet can almost be guaranteed.

* Website Search Engine Optimization

As stated before, having a web presence is much more than obtaining a domain name and hosting. You will need to properly setup your website in order for search engines to find you, and to ultimately provide informational and educational content for the people that visit. The other important factor will be the visitors. You don’t just want any visitor coming to your site. You’ll want relevant targeted traffic because these will be the most likely visitors that are interested in your products and services.

* Search Engine Optimization Companies

There is a wide range of companies available that can provide SEO services for you or your business. One of the most important steps will be to find a company that can provide everything you need, and explain exactly why you need it. There are companies available that provide outstanding service and it will be up to you to find one that is a perfect fit.

The internet and internet marketing isn’t going away, and in fact it is growing at a very rapid pace. If you’ve been contemplating bringing your business to the online community, you may find the information provided in this article extremely helpful.