Now here is the basics of Internet Marketing and Promotions:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Search Engine Submissions
• Link Building
• Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Blogging

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is simply taking a web site and making it rank well for certain key phrases on search engines. How do we do this? By arranging and formatting site code - including Meta Tags, content, and the site structure to maximize keyword density and frequency. Confused yet? Don't be - read on.

When someone conducts a search on the internet, say for example someone is searching for "red shoes". Search engine spiders start searching through all the contents of all the web sites (indexing), looking for "red shoes".

These search engine spiders “read” web sites in a very similar way to humans. They process all the text, consider the links, navigation, page titles, meta tags, and alt tags on images (among other elements of the web site), analyzing each part to decide the relevancy of the site as a "whole". The only thing the search engines can't do like us humans, is see all the pretty pictures. So if you have a web site selling red shoes, and all you have are pictures of these shoes, it may look beautiful, but there is no way for the search engines to find you.

That is why when we optimize a page for the search engines, we have to describe what search engines can't see within the back-end coding. These descriptions are hidden from view to everyone except the search engines, (and webmasters of course) and allows the spiders to better understand what your site is all about. This is a win-win situation. It provides the people conducting the search with more accurate results, at the same time, getting you a better, more targeted exposure to your prospective customers.

We use special software to analyze your web site and compare it to the top ten web sites in your industry. But how do these guys get to the top of the search results? Well, there is no magic. It takes time, hard work and perseverance. But if a web site does get into the top ten, they are doing something right!

We will conduct an in-depth analysis based on your web pages and the web pages of your competitors and generate personalized recommendations for you based on our findings. Now since this is only part of the whole internet marketing plan, this will not guarantee you the top ten spot, but it will give you a definite advantage with the search engines.

When you submit your web site URL to a search engine, you basically ask the search engine spiders to visit your web site and to evaluate it. If the search engine spiders cannot find anything useful on your site, they won't list your web site, or it will be listed on position 16,569 or worse. With a listing on that position, you are not very likely to get any visitors.

The underlining point we are trying to make is, it doesn't make sense to submit your web site again and again if it isn't search engine ready.

We do submissions on a monthly basis, any more frequently and you may be considered a spammer trying to flood the search engines. What this does in reality is once a month we tell the search engines to visit your site again because you might have new information that was not there before. And if you do, in fact update you web site on a regular basis, your web site be more likely to get a higher ranking with the search engines.

And the "quality" here generally means three things:

• Links must be relevant to your site's theme
• Links should come from other high ranking sites
• Links' anchor (clickable part) should target your keywords

Some people believe that the more links there are, the higher your ranking will be. However, that is only partially true. The search engines (and those that program them) are not dumb. They are used to search engine spammers trying to cheat their way into getting a high ranking. Because of this, the search engines are not just looking for the number of links that point to a site, but the quality of those links as we just outlined above.

Let's go over this again, the idea behind link popularity is that the more quality pages that link to your page, the more important your page is and it, therefore, deserves a higher ranking than it would otherwise have. This is one of the most important factors that help ALL search engines (not only Google) to determine your site's relevance for a search phrase.

Some engines simply counted the number of links coming into a page (inbound links), but Google took the idea a step further. Each inbound link comes comes from a page which itself has inbound links. The more inbound links on the linking page, the more important that page is and, therefore, the more important the link to your page is.

So Google gives more weight to inbound links from important pages that it does to inbound links from lesser pages. They call the idea "Page Rank".

What happens next is very important, and often misunderstood.

• The search engines evaluate the search request and display the results based on the order of importance. This does not cost you anything. Your web site comes up if it is deemed relevant.
(shown on the left of the diagram below),

• While others are simply paid advertisements from companies willing to buy their way to the top using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising.
(Shown on the right)

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising gets you visitors that have typed in a search term that relates to your business.
Keep in mind that you can choose exactly what search terms you want to advertise on, and if you wish, narrow your advertising to a selected geographical location. You don't pay to show up on that results page, but only pay when a searcher actually clicks on your ad. You control the maximum you are willing to pay per click and what your monthly budget is. So it generally comes down to deciding how much you can afford to spend for each one of your site visitors, rather than whether it's worth doing at all.

If you are still undecided, maybe this will help. If you are just starting out, have a niche business, and you get creative with your target keywords, this can be a truly a terrific venue for you to get fast return on your investment. The best part, is that you don't have to do it alone. Our professionals are here to help you every step of the way.

Blogs are the current craze of the search engine marketing world. They are the natural link attractors, easy to update with new content and tend to draw quality traffic more quickly than traditional web site pages. That's why many online business owners are so intrigued by them and are looking to learn more about how to get started. Contact us if you want to learn more about blogging or any other part of the Search Engine Optimization process.