SEO & Your Business

A Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)B y : To d d C a r d i n a t S p o t t e d F r o g D e s i g n

Specialty Answering ServiceThe SEO Model For Our Clients

3rd largest Answering Service in the U.S

Multiple “offices” throughout the US

Growth entirely due to SEO / SEM

Spotted Frog Design

Providing SEO services to businessesEffectively using your website as a marketing tool

Eliminate advertising expenses

Lead generationIncrease prospects & sales by generating natural traffic to your website

On page optimization & design to increase visitor to prospect conversion ratio

Using website as a closing tool

Strong design principlesDesigning website to maximize potential of every visitor & search engine “spiders”

Provide solid corporate identity

Yellow Page Advertising

Area specific telephone booksThe yellow pages were (and still are) broken up into several geographic locations aimed at targeting residents of specific areas (i.e.

King of Prussia / Norristown, West Chester, Abington / Jenkintown, etc.)

Industry specific headingsIndustry specific directories allowing user to find business or professional under appropriate heading (i.e. Accountants, Real Estate,

Funeral Home, Insurance, etc.)

Advertising priorityLargest most expensive advertisements placed first. Non-paid local “courtesy” listing appear after any paid advertisements

Costly – but worth it?

The Internet

Why businesses need websitesEnhance corporate image

Useful tool for existing clients and prospects

As a sales & marketing tool

Search engines ruleMost website visits come from traffic generated by top 3 commercial search engines (Yahoo, Bing, Google)

Google

Most popular search engine62% of internet users utilize Google as their preferred search engine

320 million searches per day in the United States

2 billion searched a day worldwide

How people use GoogleTo search for information & answer questions (i.e. What is the population of Pennsylvania, How many career homeruns did Mike

Schmidt hit, etc.)

Search for instructions such as how to fix the engine in my car or how to get rid of my dandruff & bad breath

To find goods or services either locally or nationally

Search Engine Market ShareGoogle holds a “pole position” in search engine

rankings with 64% of all internet users and billions

of daily search queries globally.

Yahoo & Bing (formerly MSN) take the number 2

and 3 slot in internet user popularity with 28%

combined and 17% / 11% respectively.

AOL holds 4% market share of all internet searches

with results powered by Google.

Ask.com retains 3% market share.

All other SE’s (AltaVista, HotBot, Lycos, RedZ, etc.)

combine for 1% of all internet searches.

64% 17%

11%

Google Replaces Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages have become instant recyclables

Consumers turn to Google for goods / services

Non restrictive search methodology

Reach a broader audience (local / national)

Websites need visibility – Enter SEO & PPC

PPC AdvertisingHow Google makes their money

Countdown billing with

daily / monthly

advertiser

predetermined

spending limits

Competitive terms

can be costly (in 2010

Lemon Law $66.15,

Laser Hair Removal

$68.00, Life

Insurance Quotes

$22.15, etc.)

Click Fraud.

Estimated 50%

average clicks by

prospects compared

to clicks by

competition

PPC is an internet

advertising model

used on websites &

search engines

where the advertisers

pay only when their

ad is “clicked”

Advertisers “bid” on

keyword terms with

no ceiling giving the

most prominent

position to the

highest bidder

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Organic searches are not charged per click

Making content visible to search engines

(SE)

Proper design for end user and SE’s

Boosts rankings so content will be seenOnline environment increasingly competitiveDistinct competitive advantage

SEO Strategies

Relevant inbound links from authority websites.

Press releases, articles, opinions used to make website an authority in its given field.

Social media strategies including social bookmarking, Facebook, Twitter, and others.

Utilizing blog posts to convey message and boost search engine rankings.

Carefully written website copy to engage search engines & capture keywords for

ranking.

Changing code structure of page to make it easily “spider-able”.

SEO Do’s & Don’ts

No SEO is better than bad SEOImproper optimization can penalize & permanently damage your website & have it pulled from the search engine index.

Your website is not your business cardVisibility is more important than appearance.

SEO as an ongoing projectCompetition will always be at your heels

Search engines change the rules and keep evolving

Embrace the Internet & SEOConsumers will continue to turn to search engines; harness the vast potential of internet marketing.

P l e a s e v i s i t o u r w e b s i t e t o l e a r n m o r e a b o u t t h e s e r v i c e s w e p r o v i d e .

© 2011-2012 Spotted Frog Design | This presentation was created by Todd Cardin.