Organic SEO:Patience for Long Term Ranking Results
By Daria Goetsch of Search
Innovation
When does long term SEO show ranking results? It
takes time for optimization to produce targeted traffic
to your website. Organic SEO requires time to take
effect, just as it takes time for your web pages to start
showing up in the search engine results.
Clients regularly ask me about the timing of a search
engine optimization campaign and when those results
will be seen in the search engine listings. A long term
marketing campaign based on search engine
optimization takes time: patience is the name of the
game.
Optimization Timeframe
SEO's timeframe depends on a number of factors. Part
of this involves the accuracy of keyword phrase
choices: is the keyword phrase one your visitors would
use to find your product or website? If your keyword
phrases are targeted to your audience, you will gain
optimum results. Did you use Paid Inclusion and/or PPC
services? The best combination for success involves
using a combination of SEO, Paid Inclusion and PPC
services. If you do not use Paid Inclusion or PPC, using
organic SEO only, it takes more time to achieve results.
Paid Results
When you use Paid Inclusion or PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
bidding, your results show up sooner than traditional
SEO. Paid Inclusion submissions state the time-frame in
which your page will be indexed by the search engine
robots when you sign up for services. PPC bidding
results show up as soon as searchers start clicking on
your PPC ads. This type of search engine marketing
requires an annual budget to renew Paid Inclusion
submissions and payment per month for PPC click-
through costs. If you are paying too much for your PPC
services, organic SEO combined with PPC often helps to
keep the prices down for the paid service. By
generating additional targeted traffic on those costly
terms you may be able to bring the bidding prices down
in your PPC campaign or even eliminate some keyword
bidding.
The timeline given for paid submissions means the
search engines are generating income through this
process. Paying for results also gives you a guarantee
the listings will be relatively stable in the database.
Paid Inclusion submissions will always take precedence
over free submissions because the company makes
money from Paid Inclusion. For this reason most search
engines will implement free search engine submissions
over a longer period of time than paid submissions.
When using SEO without the paid submission choices,
the process is the same but the optimized pages take
longer to be processed into the search engine
databases.
Organic SEO
Organic SEO works differently. The best reason to use
organic SEO is that it is a low-cost method to promote
your website. It can take up to three to six months to
see the full results of optimizing your website,
especially if you are only using organic optimization.
The plus to an organic approach is that once you
optimize your pages, the main part of the work is done.
You may tweak your keywords and text here and there,
but unless you completely re-design your pages, you
have what you need in place to begin drawing in
targeted traffic. Continue checking your ranking status
and reading your log statistics, especially for new
keywords visitors are using to find your website.
When using free submissions, expect a three to six
month wait before seeing most of the long term results
showing in the search engine listings. If you build on a
link popularity program and have links pointing back to
your website, the search engine robots will find your
website through the links, eliminating the need for free
submissions. Look at it this way: you pay once for
basic optimization and over time the results improve to
optimum level. You don't have to keep paying for this
service because, unless search engine databases drops
your free submission pages (which is not often these
days), you will be visible and present to the search
engine users when they search on your targeted
keyword phrases. Over time you should see a
progression in your ranking, depending on how
competitive your keyword phrases are.
Budget SEO
What if you can't afford Paid Inclusion or PPC services?
Organic SEO is a great way to increase targeted traffic
to your website over time. If you do not have a budget
for Paid Inclusion submissions and PPC programs,
organic SEO will give you good results if you are willing
to wait instead of gaining immediate results. Combine
organic SEO with plenty of good content and a solid
link building program for optimum results. Remember,
the search engine listings may entice visitors to come
to your website, but you must give them a reason to
stay once they arrive. Build your content to keep your
new visitors at your website.
Patience Pays Off
Organic SEO is "common sense" promotion. Not a lot of
fancy bells and whistles, and it takes time. The addition
of good navigation, good content with your keyword
phrases throughout the pages and topical sites pointing
links back to your website equals long term success.
Practice patience when going organic for your SEO
campaign. It may take time but it will be worth the long
term results you reap.
Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine
Marketing Consultant for Search
Innovation Marketing, a Search Engine
Promotion company serving small businesses. She has
specialized in search engine optimization since 1998,
including three years as the Search Engine Specialist
for O'Reilly & Associates, a technical book publishing
company.
Copyright © 2003 Search
Innovation Marketing All Rights Reserved.
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Dear Reader,
Seasons Greetings! I hope you all had an
enjoyable holiday season and recovered well from your
Christmas celebrations.
My husband and I spent the day sleeping in, having
ham on toast for breakfast, extricating the cat from
the Christmas tree, unwrapping bad gifts from well-
meaning relatives, over-indulging in the Christmas Feast
and having to take a nap mid afternoon. All in all, an
enjoyable day! And of course, being Down Under, the
weather put on a great show, with a typically gorgeous
New Zealand Summer day of 25 degrees celsius. Just
perfect for sitting out on the deck with a glass of
bubbly, watching the boats sail by. But, it's back to
business as usual now *sigh*.
This month's newsletter features an excellent article
from SEO expert Daria Goetsch about the need for
patience when planning your "organic" search engine
optimization campaigns.
Our newsletter sponsor this month is the fast-growing
Gimpsy Directory. Don't miss their special
anniversary offer for guaranteed site inclusion.
Enjoy this issue and remember to visit our daily
Search
Engine News Blog for the latest industry news and
gossip.
Till next time - wishing you high rankings...
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| Google Expands Language Support for AdSense | | |
 Last week, Google announced the introduction of
expanded language support for
AdSense publishers.
This expansion includes dedicated email support and
account pages in French, German, Italian, Japanese,
and Spanish. New applications to join the AdSense
program can now be submitted in any of these five
languages or in English. In addition, provided that
pages comply with Google's Terms and Conditions,
AdSense ad code can now be placed on pages with
content in any of these languages.
Existing AdSense advertisers can now view their
account information and receive technical support in
five languages.Blog version... | | |
| LookSmart UK to Shut Down | | |
 LookSmart has
announced the impending closure of their UK
business early in 2004.
According to a company spokesperson, the
announcement is a direct result of MSN's recent
decision to end their partnership with LookSmart in
January. An FAQ on the LookSmart UK site
states:
"Following MSN's decision to end their relationship
with LookSmart as of 15th January 2004, we have
reached the conclusion that we will be unable to
operate profitably in Europe next year. We have
therefore decided to close our office in London in early
2004."
LookSmart UK advertisers are being advised that
although their listings won't be shown on MSN UK after
mid January, they will continue to be seen on the
LookSmart UK site for "the time being", with no click-
through charges after that date.
LookSmart's other international offices in Australia, US
and Japan apparently remain unaffected and open for
business. But the question is, for how long?Blog version... | | |
| Google Says "No" to Drug Advertisers | | |
 Google recently
declared that they
will no longer be accepting unlicensed pharmaceutical
dealers as advertisers on their search sites and partner
sites.
The announcement follows similar moves from Overture
and MSN in an attempt to crack down on unlicensed
prescription medication sales over the Internet that
breach drug regulations set down by the US federal
government.
All existing and future pharmaceutical-related AdWord
ads will be verified by a third party hired specifically by
Google for the task.Blog version... | | |
| Sponsorship Notice | | |
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To celebrate our first immensely successful year,
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| FindWhat and Espotting Delay Merger | | |
 The proposed merger between pay-per-click search
engines FindWhat.com and ESpotting has
come to a grinding halt this week. The two firms have
come to a mutual agreement to postpone the merger
deadline for one month, taking it from 31 December,
2003 to 31 January, 2004.Blog version... | | |
| Search the Printed Word With Google | | |
 Thanks to Google, you can now search the printed
word. Google Print BETA was
launched last week
and enables searchers to browse the contents of
offline books via keywords, just like regular web pages.
To use the service, simply go to Google and type
in 'print.google.com' followed by your search topic.
Results will feature a tag reading "BOOK - BETA".
Clicking on these links will take you to excerpts from
related books, plus links to retail sites from where you
can purchase them, e.g. Amazon.com, Barnes &
Noble and Books-A-Million. Despite the links
to retail sites, Google claims it does not profit if users
buy a book as a result of a search.
The content for Google Print BETA comes from
thousands of books, individually scanned by software.
However the idea is not a new one. Amazon.com
launched a similar "search inside the book" feature a
few months ago. Amazon's version is thought to be
extensive, featuring some 120,000 titles from 190
publishers, or 33 million pages of searchable text,
whereas Google has not yet revealed the number of
titles indexed by their service.Click here for a full text/print version of this newsletter... | | |
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