Class: Search Engine Optimization
Learn how to set up your web pages so that they are optimized for search engines. Do this right and you'll never have to pay for online advertising ever again - well, this is not entirely true. There will always be some kind of budget set aside for marketing - whether they are internet related or not. However, optimizing your web site will generate a much higher quality traffic than you would otherwise and with our proven techniques and strategies, you'll definitely get measurable results. Measurable results in terms of inquiries, sales or communication with your online visitors in one form or another. Watch out for phony marketing services with overinflated promises, there's a lot out there! Don't fall prey to spamming, spoofing or any type of illegal tactics just to get more traffic...it won't last long and it will only mean trouble, if not today, then tomorrow. If you want real and long term online success, don't skimp on search engine optimization. Play by the rules. Your web site will live longer and will have a better chance for success than ever.
Class Package Includes:
- 10-Hours of Hands-On Classroom Training over 2-Days (5 Hours per Day)
- Day Use of Computer, Internet Access and HTML Editor - Dreamweaver or Notepad
- Learn how to optimize the use of HTML codes so that it is in compliance with W3c.org
- Learn how to manually and formally submit your web site and domain name to search engines for inclusion
- Learn how to create an XML sitemap.
- Learn how to create an .htaccess file to redirect retired web pages to the new and updated web pages
- Limited Seating so Reserve Early
- Advanced payment is required to secure seat.
- Wednesday and Thursday (with 1/2-Hour Lunch Alotted)
The False Promise of Guaranteed Ranking on Search Engines
You've seen the ads: Guaranteed #1 Ranking! There are no guarantees in search engine marketing and website promotion. If anyone tells you different, you should check quickly to make sure they don't have their hand in your wallet.
Suppose you sell widgets. You want to sell more widgets, and the way to do that is to make sure that more people know about widgets, and that you are the place to buy their widgets. You might decide to buy a half-page ad in a national magazine to tell your story. When you place that ad, you are "guaranteed" your position.
With a magazine advertisement, you know what the magazine's circulation is, who reads it, and which page will feature your ad. The magazine can guarantee all that, because they own the medium.
Search engine marketing is qualitatively different. When you work with a search engine marketing firm to promote your website, they cannot guarantee where your listing will appear. Certainly there are types of online ads where there are guarantees in place: banner ads priced at "cost per thousand impressions", pop-up ads, and so forth. These are like traditional media buys, where you are working directly with the owner of the medium where the ads appear, but this is not search engine marketing.
Even so-called pay-per-click search engines cannot guarantee your position. In Google AdWords, for example, it is not just the price you pay for a given keyword that determines where you will rank. They also bring in other factors, including how often your ad is clicked-on, to determine which ad will be listed first. Just throwing money at them will not necessarily get you into the #1 spot.
The bottom line is this: search engine marketing professionals do not own the search engines. They can tell you that you will achieve #1 ranking on a given search engine, or they can tell you that the moon is made of green cheese, but there is no way they can make either of those happen. When you tell Time magazine you want your ad to be on the back cover, and you pay them enough money, they will guarantee you the back cover. If you tell your search engine marketing people you want to be #1 in AllTheWeb, they cannot guarantee you that result. They can recommend changes to your site that will increase the likelihood of your ranking higher, but that is a long way from a guarantee. If you don't control the medium, you can't guarantee the result. Since your search engine consultant doesn't control the search engine, there is no way they can guarantee your position.
The ranking algorithms of the search engines are a closely-guarded secret. The search engine wants to give top ranking to the site that is the best match to an individual visitor's search query, not to the site that was able to "beat" the system. That is where the value of real search engine marketing comes in.
While the search engine marketing person cannot guarantee you a position, what they can do is to apply years of experience to tell you what has worked in the past, and to help you make it work today. In many ways, "organic" search engine optimization is really a matter of editing web pages or whole sites to make them the most search engine friendly they can be. Making sure that a given page has just the right combination of keywords, title, links, and so on, is really at its base simply a matter of making that page the best web page it can possibly be. The page that will rank the best in the search engines is also the page that will make the most sense to the human visitor. Rather than relying on tricks to try to make the page rank high, it is a matter of just making the page the most focused and on-message that it can be. The bad news is that this doesn't guarantee which position in the search engine rankings that page will occupy on a given day. The good news is that the page will always rank well.
The search engines change their algorithms from time to time. If today's rule, for example, is that just the right combination of text in the title tag will make or break a site, and you know this is true, then all you have to do is to tweak the title tag to fit within that rule, and you will automatically rank very high. Today.
Suppose that tomorrow, however, that rule is changed. Suppose that now the most important factor that the search engines use to rank a site is the content of the meta Description tag. All the work you went to yesterday to fix the title is now useless. All of your attention is now focused on fixing that description tag.
Clearly, over time the focus of the search engines will vary. The best way to deal with this is to not deal with it! This means that rather than tweaking a site one way today and another way tomorrow, the best way to approach optimizing a page or a whole site is to not try to beat the system. Instead of trying to "psych-out" the search engines, why not add value to the site? A "common sense" approach to search engine optimization, looking for long term results, is the way to go. When you try to help a site rank better by making it the best it can be, everybody wins.
Buy Keywords!
We've received reports from several clients who have purchased keywords from so and so company for $200.00 a year per keyword. Simply type in the keyword in the Address bar of your Internet Explorer browser and your web site will automatically come up. Note that the person browsing will need to use the browser Microsoft Internet Explorer and must type the exact keyword phrase in the Address bar. The chances of that happening is not very high in numbers. Here's what else they forget to tell you:
Viewers have to download an Internet Explorer Address Bar Editor software patch to make the ad work on the users browser. That is if they even want to download the software and install it. With today's rampant security threats, it is doubtful that users will download this patch and install it without hesitation. Also, note that they are using and modifying a proprietary software owned by Microsoft therefore, they are violating its End User License Agreement (EULA) which Microsoft has already filed a lawsuit against such companies who offer such service.
Pay-Per-Click
It is true that you can purchase specific keywords and phrases to drive traffic to your web site and if these keywords and phrases are used and entered onto a search box at major search engines i.e. Yahoo or Google, your web site can be prominently displayed on the first or second page of the search results, provided you are willing to pay for such ranking but you don't have to pay until they click on your link. This is what they refer to as Pay-Per-Click accounts. We recommend that you purchase these keywords and phrases directly from major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, just to name a few. There are many out there but the biggest and the very best are these three aforementioned major search engines. In our opinion, the only way to make sure that you are dealing with legitimate internet marketing companies is to deal with the search engines directly rather than a third party provider.
30,000 Web Pages
I personally got a call once asking me if I wanted to be high up on search engine results. Naturally, I said, "Yes, of course. How?". She went on to explain that they have a software program that will instantly create 30,000 web pages with all of my selected keywords on it repeated over and over and all linked directly to my web site. I went on to ask "How much?" She said its on sale right now for $1,800.00. If you don't act now, it will go up to $3,000.00. Naturally, I said "no, thank you."
Why did I say No? Whenever you hear a pitch on Search Engine Marketing, the best thing to do is ask for details on how they intend to go about it - just like what I did in this example. Then proceed to ask yourself "if every web site owner does the same thing, how would it affect the Internet as a whole?" Well, the answer is obvious. If everyone buys into this proposal, the internet will be full of junk web pages and it will become harder and harder to find any information on the web. Some Internet Marketing Companies do not care about such thing because they are only after profit - what happens beyond that is someone elses problem. They have no ethics and or moral value or any obligations to the Internet Community or to anyone else for that matter which is quite sad. The bottom line is they are hijacking the search engines capacity to provide relative results. Its trickery at its best. From a technical standpoint, the marketing ploy might work, maybe for a short while, or not at all. This type of guerilla marketing does not have a positive contribution to the long term life of your online business. If we fill the Internet with these empty junk web pages, then you are only contributing to the demise of the Internet and of your online business. We need to protect the quality of online content by contributing to it without the need for self-advancement
The way to increase your Search Engine Ranking is by adding relevant information to your web pages on a regular basis - weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. Don't let your 8-12 web pages just sit there while its content become stale or out-of-date. Add to it. Update it from time to time with client testimonials, industry news, express your professional opinions on how to do things better, safer and profitably without hurting the environment, people or the world as a whole. Do it right from the start and do not cut corners. By hiring unethical marketing companies, it might mean the end to your online business.
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