When Allied Internet markets your Web site, you get the benefit of our years of experience with Web design, content development, programming, Internet marketing, and search engine optimization — as well as our experience working with tech support and account management personnel on behalf of our clients, including those at IT companies, Web hosting companies, and at advertising and marketing agencies.
We have a seven-part Web site marketing process that focuses on fundamental search engine optimization. The first four parts are essential and should be done right away, and the other parts should be done on a regular schedule after the basics are in place.
If your Web site offers more than a few products and services, it’s ordinarily best to begin marketing just the most important keywords (search terms), but needs vary and we’re adaptable. We begin by asking you to tell us which of your products and services you want to emphasize; this will often be because of their profit potential.
Careful competition research will allow us to market your site intelligently. We limit this part of our research to Google and Yahool because they represent the two principal kinds of search engine requirements, and because have no close competitors at this time. Our goal is to identify your online competitors who are doing well on search engine results pages.
We also analyze the content, the graphic design, and the text design of your own Web site, and evaluate it based on what we've learned about your competition. Unless your site has too many images — which can compete for a visitor's attention and even cause confusion — we don't ordinarily suggest changes in the graphic design of your site unless you are unhappy with it.
We email you written reports that include (a) a list of your top five online competitors on Google under each of your targeted keywords, along with any competitors who are doing well on Yahoo but not on Google; (b) detailed information about the content of your competitors' sites; (c) updated keyword research; and (d) recommendations for improvements to your Web site.
The sites that are near the top in search engine research pages are almost always doing well because of their content, but there are sometimes additional significant factors, and we will discuss all this during a phone conversation with you.
Our recommendations may include suggestions about the text on your site and suggestions about metatags (title, description, and keywords) that we think will help your site do better on the search engines. If we see structural problems with your site, we will explain your options.
A discussion of our recommendations with a client often results in further edits to the suggested text and metatags. We will then work with your Web designer to implement any recommendations you accept.
If you prefer to have Allied Internet make the changes to your Web site, we will give you an estimate of the cost of modifying the site.
After your Web site has been modified on the basis of our recommendations, we will generate a "sitemap.xml" file configured to Google specifications, put it online with your other Web site files, and notify Google that it's there. We also generate a file called "urllist.txt" for Yahoo and some of the other engines.
We then submit your site to the most important search engine databases including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search, and DMOZ.
Part 5. Link Development
The development of appropriate incoming links to your site is still important, although the emphasis is now on the quality of the links, not on the quantity.
Google has downgraded reciprocal links as a measure of a site’s popularity. Reciprocal links — “you link to us and we’ll link to you” — are artificial. They are not real indicators of a site’s value, and we therefore avoid link exchange sites, systems, and schemes.
Linking guru Eric Ward sums up the problem: "An artificial link is any link that you obtain or create with the goal of fooling a search engine's algorithm into thinking that link was freely earned. A link that is paid for, swapped, bartered, or otherwise engineered is — at least from an algorithmic standpoint — less trustworthy than a link that occurs with no strings attached. The link may be a great source of direct traffic, leads, etc., but for rankings, it's likely to have no value at all."
Ward recommends that "sites that are already engaged in artificial linking activities" should "either remove those links or accept that your site's ranking is on borrowed time."
Our focus is on building strong one-way incoming links, and we carefully evaluate a site’s suitability before asking for a link to yours. If links are going to help your standing with the search engines, a site that links to yours must be relevant to your site.
For our own Web sites, (a) we write news releases about what we’re doing, (b) we write articles for submission to other sites, (c) we get our sites listed in reputable directories, (d) we develop relationships with businesses in related fields who do not directly compete with us, and (e) we read and add comments to blogs that are relevant to our services. We always include a link to one of our sites.
Allied Internet can do all of these same things for your site. There is no quick way to accomplish any of this, but it’s a strategy for long-term success, and as experienced writers, editors, and researchers, we’re prepared to make it happen for you.
Part 6. Web Site Traffic Analysis
Even if you already have an account with Google Analytics or one of the other Web site traffic logging services, for ninety days we will add your site to our own account at HitsLink, the premier Web site traffic tracking and analysis program, and give you access to your statistics. If you already have HitsLink tracking your site, we'll ask your permission to access your account so that we can monitor the progress of traffic on your site.
Our analysis of the traffic on your Website enables us to review our suggestions about content and about metatags and to make new recommendations to you if there is a reason to do so.
Every couple of months we will have a phone discussion with you while you're looking at your statistics on HitsLink. We'll look at many indicators, including exactly which search engines are sending visitors to your site, and which search terms visitors are typing into search engines to find your site.
We'll also discuss the weekly and monthly traffic totals, and we'll take a look at the geographic distribution of visitors to your site.
Part 7. Content Development
The single most important factor in improving your standings with the search engines is the regular addition of genuinely useful content to your site.
Google wants you to "create a useful, information-rich site," and Yahoo looks for "original and unique content of genuine value." We can help you do this, or we can do it for you.
Because we are experienced writers, editors, and researchers, many of our clients ask us to share the responsibility for developing fresh Web site content several times each month. We can serve as your creative coaches and support team to whatever extent you request. See The Internet Examiner, our company blog, for samples of our writing.
Because we have already carefully researched your competition, and because we have analyzed the content on their sites and on your own site, we already know quite a bit about your business and the online competition you face.
Combined with our Internet marketing experience, this means that, we can help you make intelligent choices about the new content that will gradually improve your standings on the search engines.
Regular phone conversations are an opportunity to discuss where we are and where we go from here, and will insure that your site becomes and remains a professional, dependable information resource for your target audiences.
How Long Does the Internet Marketing Process Take?
Some clients want to do a little bit each month, while others want to quick-start the process by having us do quite a bit of work right away. If, after we've completed the work you asked us to do in a given month, you are ready to have us do more work right away, that's fine. We’ll be flexible.
The number of hours each part takes depends on how competitive your products and services are, so it's not possible to generalize. But we try to estimate the time it will take us to complete each part, and we keep in touch with you while we're working on it.
We take special care to avoid conflicts of interest, and we will consider what we learn about your business to be strictly confidential. We will not do any work for your competitors while you are our client.
We agree to do specific tasks for the money you've agreed to pay us. Our pricing may be more affordable than you expect; we don’t require long commitments; and we report to you about what we do during the hours you're paying for — we’ve been told that these things distinguish us from some of our competitors.
Call us at 1-800-935-1820 and we’ll discuss your needs. We are almost always available Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. Eastern until 5:30 p.m. Pacific.
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