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- Is Your dog hyper and out of control?
- Inexperienced dog trainer may make problems worse
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- Social Networking: How the Verde Valley Business Directory can help your business
- The Myth of Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings
- User Guide Introduction
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- Social Networking: How the Verde Valley Business Directory can help your business
- Private Equity in Trouble: How Sweet It Is
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The Myth of Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings
07/24/2008 - By David Hoschouer Search Engines
Search Engines
Today there are allot of companies on the Internet who promise that if you give them lots of your hard earned money, they will give you top rankings in the search engines. Buyer Beware!!!
Let's Cut To The Chase
Everyone wants to be on page one of all the search engine results (SERPs). After all, the higher a websites rank the more potential it has to make money. However, just because we want to be on page one of Google's SERPs, does not nessarily mean we will be one of the results. Lets think about Search Engine Results objectively: no matter who we are or what we do, we are typically challenging thousands or millíons of other web pages in our niche, for the keywords that we hope will make get us trafic.
Lets comparing Free Listings and Pay Per Click (PPC) Listings
Those who wish to rank in the organic search results need to employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques in order to improve their rankings. There are literally hundreds of SEO companies specializing in helping their clients climb in the free search result listings, however, SEO is a very time-consuming process that require specialists who have the actual knowledge and skills in "manipulating" the search engine results. What does Google have to say about this practice and its accompanying industry? Those who wish to employ paid search listings (PPC), which can frequently be much cheaper than getting to the top of the organic listings, will utilize one of the following services:
* Google Adwords
* Yahoo Search Marketing
* 7 Search
* ISEDN is a bit different than the other search advertising networks. First off, they do not charge a fee for each clíck. Instead, they charge a quarterly placement fee. Also, instead of representing one large search engine, their ads appear on 225+ smaller search engines who the mojority of internet users don't use.
Free listings are indeed the best if you can get them. They deliver free traffic to your website, often for years. On the other hand, given the cost of developing free rankings, it often makes more sense to pay a little bit each month for PPC search traffic, rather than having to pay thousands per month just to break into the top few pages of the free search results.
Some Real-World Perspective
To get your website into page one of the organic search results, can be a daunting process. To put this into perspective, I ran some popular keywords through Google to see how many search results would be found. Here we go:
* travel - 1,410,000,000 results
* homes for sale - 96,000,000
* real estate agents - 78,100,000
* credít report - 51,700,000
With 1.4 Billion pages in competition for page one results in Google for the word "travel", and 72 million pages struggling to be seen in Google for the search term "real estate agents", is it any wonder that the people in many industries are struggling to be seen online? The bottom line? You and your competitors are struggling to be at the top of the search results, and unless you have extremely deep pockets, it's not going to happen. With that having been said, there are some industries where getting to page one will take an investment of millíons, and then there still "No Guarantee" that 's it's going to happen.
There are some Pay Per Click programs available that are somewhat cost effective. Again it is best to have someone who specializes in how PPC programs work in order to get the best results. Feel free to contact me for more information.
Forget Expensive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques and PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!
At the end of each day there can only be ten websites on page one of the free search results. On the other hand PPC lets anyone who has some money to spend get on page one of the search results. Depending on your bank account and your business model, SEO or PPC may be the answer to getting people to visit your website and to buy what you are selling. Nevertheless; when all is said and done, what matters is for you to get your advertising message in front of the people most likely to buy what you are selling.
The Alternative? Article marketing! Get your sales message in front of the people most likely to your products or services by writing an article. You can submit free articles in the articles section of the Verde Valley Business Directory, as well as a host of other free article submission directories out there on the web. Case in point. You are reading an article that I have written, to speak to those people who are looking for ways to advertise their business onlíne. And at the end of this article, you will see what is called a "resource box" or the "about the author information". The resource box, at the end of this article, is my advertisement for my business. You too can advertise your business in the same manner.
If you reach the end of this article and you read my resource box, then I will have succeeded in getting you (someone in my target audience) to read my advertisement. If you use the link in the resource box, then I will have succeeded in getting a potential client to visit my website. And finally, if you buy my products or services, then my website will have accomplished its purpose - to turn its visitors into buyers.
The interesting truth is - and few people will point this out to you - if you clíck the link below and visit my website, then you will have reached my website without actually passing through a search engine to get to it. That is the beauty of article marketing - you can use this advertising model to reach your target audience, regardless of how well or how badly you rank in the search engines.
Here in the Verde Valley we have a way of not having to deal with search engine ranking. How? By creating our own Social Network. Verde Valley Business Directory is striving to just that. Instaed of searching through page after page of search results, who may or may not have the content you seek, wouldn't it be easier just to have a main website who had every Verde Valley business listed with all their information, including a links that businesses website?
Conclusion
There is only one company who can promíse you top rankings in Google, and that company is Google. Although Google could assure you top rankings in their search results, they won't do it; not for any amount of money. So when you see some other company making in-the-sky promises about how they can "guarantëe your search engine rankings", get a solid grasp on your wallet and run...
About The Author
David Hoschouer is the Director of Operations of the Verde Valley Business Directory http://www.verdevalleybusinessdirectory.com and Verde Valley Online http://www.verdevalleyonline.org. He builds websites in his spare time.
