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WSpider: San Jose Search Engine Marketing Experts

In our last blog article, we tried to explain the differences (and similarities too) of SEM and SEO as simply as possible.  And it’s true that both of these internet marketing strategies work and work really well when set up and implemented correctly from the ground up.  Are they right for your business?

Another way to look at this is to ask yourself how much traffic you’re getting to your site now.  Is it pretty limited in scope?  How targeted is it?

The first step to any successful search engine marketing or optimization campaign is to begin by analyzing your existing traffic to see where it’s coming from, how much there is, and to determine if it’s working or not the way it ultimately could work.

Next in the process is checking out your competitors too—by looking at their traffic and how well their site is performing in the major search engines for industry topics, we’ll be able to help devise a baseline of good performance and determine a good course of action to achieve traffic goals.

Is your site itself up to snuff?  A high-performance website not only looks great at first sight, but also must take full advantage of behind the scenes search optimization to ensure that it looks just as good in the eyes of the search engines.  The paradox here is that sometimes what looks great to humans is exactly the opposite of what the search engines need and want to see to rate your site highly.  We’re quite proficient at helping our customers achieve both ends here without compromising in either department.

Of course, there are other site components that must be taken into account when it comes to excellent performance too.  Things like having lots of optimized and beneficial content, keeping the entire site fresh and up to date, and making sure your visitors are easily able to navigate throughout the site at the same time.

These are all important areas of focus that go into setting up the right foundation for a true results producing SEO or SEM marketing campaign to work as they should in the first place.  Naturally, this is where we like to begin here at WSpider.

This is all part of our unique brand of search engine marketing that’s been proven to work time and time again.  Yes, it takes time to do all of this, but the potential results are way more attractive than many would ever begin dream of.  Are you ready to take your website to the next level?

SEO Vs. SEM – What’s The Big Difference?

SEO and SEM…It’s easy enough to get these two internet marketing terms mixed up.  After all, they’re both three letter acronyms beginning with “SE” that the experts seem to toss out there left and right in conversation like it’s just not big deal at all.  And yes, we’re guilty as charged of doing this too!

So now it’s time to clear things up when it comes to SEO and SEM, how they’re both alike in some ways, and how they’re totally different in other ways.  Starting at the very beginning, let’s define the acronyms and what they stand for first:

•    SEO – Stands for “Search Engine Optimization”
•    SEM – Means “Search Engine Marketing”

Similar enough, right?  I mean, they do both pertain to internet marketing using the search engines to get traffic to your website.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is the practice of improving and organizing a website and the information it contains to rank well within organic search engines’ results for certain keyword terms and topics and hopefully attract targeted traffic to a website through the practice.  Organic search is simply the portion of the search engine results page that is comprised of free listings as opposed to paid for listings or sponsored ads.  In most cases, these organic search listings are the regular primary listings displayed down the middle of the page (as opposed to the paid-for listings often shown down the side column and sometimes in a shaded box at the very top or bottom of the listings too).

What Is Search Engine Marketing?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is more about the practice of using the paid and sponsored listings and online advertising to bring in lots of optimized traffic to a website.  It’s highly effective because it can be expertly dialed in to produce the exact demographic of visitors required—plus it can be implemented and begin delivering premium traffic almost instantly.  While it does cost to market a website online this way, usually a small “per-click” or per visitor amount at a time, the conversions and sales generated will outweigh the expenses in a successful SEM campaign.

About WSpider Search Engine Marketing

At WSpider.com, we specialize in producing successful and profitable campaigns for our customers using both SEO and SEM.  In fact, in many instances, experience tells us that it’s best to combine the two practices for high-energy online marketing campaigns that are driven to deliver real results.  So if you’re in San Jose, or anywhere in the world for that matter, we’d love to talk to you about our unique brand of SEM and how it could work out for your website.  Please give us a call—after all, answers are free!

Want Quality SEO…Demand Proof

In our last post, we talked about 4 trick questions to ask any SEO company that will almost certainly separate the ethical companies from those just looking to pull a fast one over on you.  And unfortunately, it’s all too true—there are many fly by night players in the search engine optimization market and there are more and more joining the ranks every day.  It’s a wild world out there and you’ve just got to be careful!

So what can you do to ensure you’re working with ethical pros like WSpider?

A good starting point is really asking plenty of questions.  Begin by using your best judgment and looking for SEO experts that are not just willing to take your money, but are also willing to take the time to carefully explain what they are planning to do to make your site rank better and why they follow these steps.  Here at WSpider.com, we’re always willing to take the time necessary to help you fully understand the ins and outs of white hat organic SEO…it’s a win-win for all involved. 

Ask for proof of results achieved.

It’s never a good idea to rely on guarantees in this field of technology.  After all, all too often, those that guarantee specific results or search engine placement improvements have no way to back up their blind promises.  But you can (and should) ask to see how the company’s search optimization strategies have worked out for other clients.  We’re always happy to share our results—we’re very proud of them!

At the same time, reviewing results and optimization strategies that have worked in the past is also an ideal time to go over things that have been learned in the past, hurdles that have been overcome, and other relevant knowledge earned from long-standing experience.  This is another area that separates the professionals from the fly by night services out there.  True professionals will have plenty of success stories and antidotes to talk about, and most likely, a successful example that is even very similar to your specific case.

Again, it’s always a good idea to know who you’re working with.

Your website is one of your most important marketing tools.  You can use it to drive traffic like never before with predictably successful results when optimizing it correctly.  The thing is, it’s just not worth the risk of working with someone found from an online ad that has zero experience and no proven history of successful results on the web.  Make sure you take the time to get to know your search engine marketing and SEO professionals.

4 Tricky SEO Questions You Should Ask First

Unfortunately, there are lots of SEO (search engine optimization) companies out there just eagerly waiting to get their hands on your money—with no real intention of helping you achieve the results you need when it comes to optimization.  Here are 4 questions you can ask that should help reveal the true intentions of any optimization service:

1.    How do you plan to build my site’s link popularity?

There are good ways to build link popularity and bad ways.  Good ways include naturally developing new backlink opportunities by doing things like blogging, submitting articles to article directories, arranging link exchanges with reputable sites complementary to your niche, broadcasting PR articles, actively participating in social media, and so on.  The thing about these good ways of link building is that it doesn’t all take place suspiciously at once—but rather gradually over time (a positive thing in the eyes of the search engines).  Using techniques like spamming hundreds of blog comments or forums, or using so-called link farms is a sign of black hat (bad) SEO.

2.    How will you optimize my web page’s description Meta tag?

Believe it or not, there are actually people out there saying that a web page’s description Meta tag no longer matters any more, and therefore it’s not worth wasting any time on.  This couldn’t be further from the truth—even Google offers specific advice for how to best use the description tag, which is a sure sign that it still matters where it counts.  There even times when the search engines will use your page’s Meta description word for word as part of the search listing.  SEO companies that say they don’t bother with the description are likely the ones that do absolutely nothing (other than collect your check).

3.    What kind of results will you guarantee?

It’s true—many SEO firms actually guarantee first place search engine results.  If this is the case, be certain to read the fine print, because doing this is either and out and out scam or there’s some creative catch worked into the policy. Bottom line is there’s no legit way to guarantee specific results (unless they’re just taking a pure speculative gamble, which no one operating a reputable business is going to do).  Guaranteed improvement in rankings—sure.  But guaranteed specific results are a sign that something’s wrong.

4.    Can you get me priority Google submission?

If you browse through the sales copy of a bunch of SEO companies, you’re quiet likely to see a few bullet points offering customers priority submission to Google.  But here’s the thing—there is no such thing!  First of all, Google will generally find and spider your site automatically, even without submitting it.  And if you do choose to help the search engine find your site by submitting to the search engine, you should know that they only have a single submission form that’s used by all—no favors or “priority” submission available.

WSpider, a full service search engine marketing company based in the center of technology, San Jose, CA, always strives to take a holistic approach to actually helping you achieve maximum results without the gimmicks.  Give us a call today to learn more about how we’re different than the rest!

When To Avoid Web Graphics

When it comes to achieving maximum optimization for your website, it is just a bit unfortunate that graphic aesthetics can sometimes clash with the on-page search optimization of the website, but there are a few things that you might want to consider in order to appreciate the very best results possible.

First, we should backtrack for just a second and make it clear that graphics are certainly not bad for optimization—in fact, when used correctly, they actually help site optimization.  But sometimes using graphics to get just that certain stylized look achieves its purpose of eye candy while making the site much more difficult for both visitors and search engines alike.  An example?  Certainly…

Using Image Files Instead Of Properly Marked Page Headings

Sometimes web designers will use graphical components on the page to separate one section of content from another…or sometimes, they’ll use the graphics in place of the page’s main heading even.  They will often use text headings written within in the image file to achieve a certain font or style that might not always be available by coding it into the page textually.

When done by a good designer, this almost certainly always looks fantastic.  The thing is, the search engines (and many accessibility features) rely on actual text headings and titles within the page to understand what is what—and what is important.

A very popular and effective SEO technique is to use your page’s targeted keywords within these headings and sub headings.  It’s also a good idea to use heading tags within the code like <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and so on.  If you don’t have much experience with HTML web coding, this might be going in one ear and right out the other, but here’s why it matters:  using graphics instead of properly marked page headings throughout the body of your page disallows all of these very important site optimization benefits!

Here’s The Good News…

You can absolutely receive all of the search optimization benefits of using text headings and still have the good looking graphics too.  The key is to simply use both.  Sure, the design will have to take this cooperative strategy in to account to avoid “overdoing it” or ending up with a cluttered, overly busy look.  But it can definitely be done!

Let us help you come up with a great concept for your next website!  At WSpider, it’s always our goal to take a holistic approach in designing sites from the ground up—making sure they look great and are search friendly at the same time.

It’s Saturday Morning Question & Answer Time!

Today, we’re going to take a look at a few “newbie” questions when it comes to making more successful websites.  Here goes…

How much traffic do I need to make my website successful?

Unfortunately, there’s really no one-size-fits-all answer to this common question.  For some high-conversion rate sites, 20 unique targeted visitors stopping by each day is enough to keep things plenty busy.  For other types of websites, the traffic counts would ideally be in the thousands of visitors per day range.  It all depends on your site, its goals, and its niche.  If you’d like, we’d be happy to help you put together a plan based on your site’s unique needs—just give us a call here at WSpider!

Search engine marketing—what does this term actually mean?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is taking a high road approach to marketing a website using several different online marketing components together combined to create a more balanced traffic driving approach.  For example, components like organic search engine optimization (SEO) and a pay-per-click ad campaign (PPC) could be combined to create a high-performance, high conversion rate search engine marketing plan.  We actually specialize in putting together comprehensive SEM plans at WSpider.

What else can I do besides search optimization to bring more visitors to my site?

Starting with a solidly optimized base is always a good idea—after all, you wouldn’t want build a new house on a shaky foundation, would you?  After this aspect is under the belt, the next thing to do is develop a plan to create ongoing niche content for your visitors and for the search engines.  The more targeted content you can create, the more visitors you’ll attract through each of the subjects covered in the content.  And while it does take time to create lots of quality content, the best part is that once it’s done, the results tend to be very long lasting.

I’m thinking about starting a new website for my business—where do I start?

First and foremost, when starting a new website, it’s very important to define your ideal outcome.  In other words, what goals you would like the site to accomplish.  For some businesses, the desired outcome might be to have simply an online presence to serve as kind of a brochure or business card.  In other cases, the goal will be to create X number of new leads per month.  Still another common goal is to create an e-commerce store and attract buying customers.  Every website will have its own unique purpose—and before ever beginning to develop a new site, it’s vitally important to know the exact purpose it will serve first.

Have more questions?  Just give us a call anytime—we’re always happy to help!

Building A Blog Into Your Website Opens Doors

Don’t fall fool to some of the so-called experts out there, who in the age of Twitter and social media, are saying that blogging is all but dead.  Sure, in the world of tech gurus and social media socialites, those that started off as prolific bloggers are now using other outlets and offsetting the frequency of how often they blog.  But for the average Joe out there seeking to open their doors to more and more on-target web traffic, the list of reasons to blog goes on and on!

Sites with blogs built in get exclusive access to Google Blog Search.  That’s right, those without blogs simply do not get to play in this game.  And actually, it’s not much of a game—getting listed on the blog search engine for your blog posts’ topics is practically automatic if you’re not doing anything (like black hat SEO) to scare Google away.  Bottom line:  no blog, no free listings here.

When set up correctly, your site’s blog can actually point incoming links back to your site.  Having the benefit of “two sites in one” means each component of your web presence can help build the link popularity of the other.  There are several reasons why you would want to do this, and also several reasons why you might not.  But if you’d like, give us a call here at WSpider.com to talk about it.

Blogs are trusted by your customers.  Visitors are often a little bit skeptical about a website’s sales copy.  But provide them with an ongoing dialogue packed full of details and inside information about how you do business, and you’ll build more and more trust with each new blog post.  Visitors love to see your unique voice—and blogs are the perfect way to establish this form of ongoing dialogue on your website.

Bloggers are a friendly bunch (most of the time).  Think about it like this…most websites are not going to just freely link to your site’s sales copy or squeeze pages without incentive—usually in the monetary form—to do so.  Those days are simply over.  However, other blogs and sites will shoot a link over to your blog or your latest blog post that really hits the spot in their eyes.  Because blogs are known to share information freely, the attitude towards sharing link love between blogs is much more open than in other cases.

As a search engine marketing company, what we do best at WSpider is taking a holistic view of how different website ideas—both on site and external—can work together to make your site more successful than ever.  Blogs are a major part of any big picture website strategy!

Avoid These 5 Online Business Mistakes At All Costs

Running an online business comes with a fairly steep learning curve.  It’s easy to mistakes, but it’s also quite easy to fix them online.  Are you avoiding these 5 online business mistakes at all costs?

1.    Not Allowing Visitors To Contact You

One of the first things any visitor will do when they’re trying to determine if you’re a legit business or not is to check out your website’s contact page details.  It’s fair to be skeptical when doing business online—you’ll probably admit that you do the exact same thing, right?  Anyway, the lack of a contact page, or a having a contact page completely devoid of any information other than a feedback form, is a surefire way to scare visitors away.  The more details you can provide here, the better!

2.    Having A Broken Site

No customer wants to struggle and fight a hassle just to sort through your online business’s website.  Broken pages or links tend to give visitors the impression that a website owner is just not all that serious about keeping shop—and therefore not likely to be very serious about doing good business either.  Little website glitches can often be fixed in just a quick hour of a pro web developer’s time.

3.    Running An Online Business On A Painfully Slow Server

Is your website taking more than a blink of an eye to load up in the browser?  If so, the chances are likely that a slow web hosting service is to blame.  Many folks are surprised to learn that they can switch to a much faster and much better quality web host for even less than they’re currently paying for snail slow service.  Being a slow loader is not worth the risk of losing a potential customer.

4.    Running An Unsecured E-Commerce Site

Setting up a security certificate with the ability to encrypt your customer’s transaction details does require a small amount of additional time to establish.  And it does cost a few bucks more than using a shopping cart without a secure connection.  But in today’s web environment having a security certificate is a must for any e-commerce application—your customers are looking for it.

5.    Over Paying For PPC When You Could Be Receiving Free Organic Traffic

Are you paying a hefty sum every month to keep your PPC (pay-per-click) ads going and delivering traffic to your site?   If so, do you feel that you’re still getting a good balance of free organic search traffic to your site as well?  It’s okay to do some PPC, but if PPC is your only source of traffic, you’re almost definitely missing out on what optimizing for organic search can offer you.

Fortunately, there is quality professional help and advice easily accessible for those seeking to step up their online businesses to the next level.  As a knowledgeable search engine marketing firm based in San Jose, CA, WSpider has expert answers to your questions—please just give us a call at anytime and we’ll be more than happy to discuss whatever happens to be on your mind when it comes to your online business!

Lessons Learned: Wrapping Up The Web Writing Series

This is the last post of our ongoing web writing blog series.  Soon we’ll be able to move on to tackle new (and hopefully exciting) topics, but for the time being, we need to review and highlight everything we’ve talked about over the last couple of weeks.

Web Writing Series Intro: Your Complete Guide To Web Writing
In the first installment of the WSpider complete guide to web writing, we talk about tackling the subject of web writing head-on with the intention of helping all the new and upcoming website owners and developers out there produce compelling and successful copy for all aspects of the web.

Lesson One:  What Makes Web Writing Different From Print?
It’s a good question—and a really common one too—what does make writing for the web different than writing for print?  In this post, we dig right in and take a look at the major obvious differences…

Lesson Two:  Embrace The Space!
Ever heard of letting the eyes breathe?  Sure, it sounds like an oxymoron, but when you think about it, there’s definitely some truth behind the idea.  Overwhelmed or stressed eyes—especially when they belong to the visitors of your website—almost always equate to a click away from the site to something less overwhelming.

Lesson Three:  How Long Should My Web Content Be?
How long should your web content be?  Now this is a good question.  Short and sweet or extended and jam packed full of detail—which is it?

Lesson Four:  Keywords—The Structure Of Writing Successfully For The Web
Know what the number one method of optimizing written web content is?  If you guessed “keywords,” you’re absolutely correct!  In this post, we look at what keywords actually are and how to best use them in web writing.

Lesson Five:  How Do You Write Landing Pages That Actually Work?
Landing pages are often the most important pages on your website.  After all, they’re designed from the very beginning to attract topically-relevant traffic from the search engines, track that incoming traffic, and ultimately, to guide searchers through the process towards becoming your customers or clients.  The challenge comes in actually writing landing pages that work.  This post reveals a few tips intended to help make the process a bit less intimidating.

Lesson Six:  Want To Know How To Write For Your Blog?
In many everyday cases, using a blog to fill in the gaps between existing web content—and taking an “artistic license” to write whatever and however you want on the blog is okay.  But this is not the case for those looking to build a traffic-driving, professional website, using the blog as a highly beneficial site component.  In this post, we talk about how to write effectively on a blog.

Lesson Seven:  Insiders’ Guide To Writing For The Article Directories
Writing articles and submitting them to popular online article directories has proven to be a very reliable way of building traffic to your own website.  Here’s how…

Lesson Eight:  5 Tips For Writing Your Next Online Press Release
Thinking about using an online press release strategy to help boost your organization’s exposure and link popularity online?  Done right, writing an online PR can be an invaluable tool.  Here are 5 tips to help you get started…

Lesson Nine:  Know How To Write Effective Sales Copy?
There really is an art to writing effective sales copy—but the good news is that it’s one that almost any web writer can pick up in short time with a little practice.  In fact, many folks even find it to be practically second nature.  Here are a few simple guidelines to help you get off on the right path…

Lesson Ten:  A Simple Guide To Writing Better Business Emails
In this lesson, we take a moment to talk a little bit about writing better business emails.  After all, email correspondence is quite important to any online business.

And Few Web Writing Frequently Asked Questions And Answers:

• Web Writing FAQ Part One
• Web Writing FAQ Part Two

Any additional web writing thoughts or questions?  Please just let us know here at WSpider.com!

A Simple Guide To Writing Better Business Emails

Over the last couple of weeks, during our WSpider web writing series here on the blog, we’ve talked extensively about good ways to write your site’s web content, blog posts, sales copy, PR articles, and beyond—but sometimes knowing how to write for the web goes further than the “on the page” copy.  Today, we’re going to take a moment to talk a little bit about writing better business emails.  After all, email correspondence is quite important to any online business.

Would you be surprised to learn that oftentimes the best business emails are written in a very conversational tone?

It’s true…just like many other kinds of web writing, writing every day correspondence via email offers the freedom to tone down the formality.  Sure, there are some case where you’ve just got to maintain the utmost of a professional edge—you’ve always got to use your best judgment when determining the tone in each and every case.  But most everyday emails to clients, customers, and business partners simply work better if you just “talk” through your written email just like you would on the phone.

Next up—keep it short and sweet.

Don’t overdo your emails.  Because everyone is increasingly busy—and it’s a well known fact that almost all of us have inboxes that are practically pouring over with new messages to be sorted through—it’s never a good idea to write long emails for no certain reason.  Say what you’ve got to say as quickly as possible while still getting the point across (out of respect for your recipient).

Which brings us to the next point…write for easy, clear comprehension.

Make it as easy as possible for your recipient not only to get through your email in short order, but also for them to really grasp each point you make.  Think about it for a moment.  When you’re scanning your inbox, do you read every last sentence of every email?  Most don’t.

A natural way to make sure your topics are understood is to use bullet points and lists as often as possible.  Always use a clearly identified subject line and start a new email thread when changing the subject.  Also, if you’re covering multiple topics that are inevitably requiring different follow-up threads, it might be a wise idea to send separate correspondence for each topic.

Finally, use your signature faithfully.

It might seem like overkill and like it’s overdone, but setting up an automatic signature block (containing all of your contact information) to post at the end of each and every email you send is very practical and helpful.  It’s always easier to respond to an email when there’s no contact lookup required…remember, the more steps to replying, the less likely a timely reply is going to happen.

Talk To You Soon!