Search Engine Optimization Versus Pay-Per-Click by Chris Walker
Many people do anything and everything to get traffic to their website. But
what are actually the best ways to get traffic to your website? Well, I decided
to narrow it down to two strategies: SEO and PPC. People tend to use one or the
other, but throughout this article I want to discuss the benefits of both and
why you should use both methods to your advantage.
Lets kick things off with SEO...
When building the pages of your website, you must choose targeted keywords that
represents your website's theme (remember to make sure your keyword appears
high on the page, preferably within the first 100 characters--the spiders love
it). Search engine optimization is the way you present those keywords to all
the search engines. With seo, you are basically optimizing your pages to make
sure that all the search engines know what your pages are about (optimizing
your pages also ensures that you will be listed as high as possible on the
search results pages for your keywords). Since we want to optimize our pages so
that the search engines can find our keywords easier and faster, we must write
pages that include the following:
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Keywords in all of the title/meta tags
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Keywords in text links
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Keywords in headlines
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Keywords body text
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Keywords in description
Don't spend too much time rewriting all of your pages to get everything
perfect; just do the basics and let your powerful content take over.
Content and links
are the most important factors in SEO
Content:
You are going to need good content along with relevant keywords.
Content is, by far, the most important element in search engine optimization.
When visitors arrive to a website, they expect to find what ever they are
looking for. If you don't have what they're looking for, they will quickly
press the back button and find answers on another site. With that being said,
search engines judge human reaction to your website. They look at how long
visitors stay on your site; if they link to your site; and how many pages they
go through on your site. If you rely too much only on getting clicks on search
engine results pages and not focusing enough on content, you will suffer in the
long run.
Your main goal should be to build quality content that you know your visitors
will love. When you have quality content, everything seems to take care of
itself:
You will have your visitors publish you RSS feed
You will receive plenty of one-way incoming links from people who like your
site and decide to link to it (very important)
Once the engines see good human reaction like this, you will rank higher and
higher for your keywords (remember, if you want your keywords to show up
faster, you must use the right keywords: relevant, low supply, and high
demand).
Lets not forget, at the end of the day, the search engines want websites with
high quality content that are relevant to the keyword/phrase a person has
entered.
There is no need to over analyzing your site to perfection; just make sure you
have enough on page hooks so the that the search engines can know what your
pages are about.
Links:
Your site is only as good as the amount of quality incoming links
Inbound links helps the spiders get to, and crawl, your website. You need
quality inbound links... search engines measure the amount of quality links
coming into a site over time. If you don't have a high enough link popularity,
the search engines will occasionally drop you. One way to get some quality
links is to link exchange with similar themed websites.
While we pay attention to all aspects of SEO, we must not forget what
determines the quality of a website. Search engines measure the quality of your
pages by human reaction; that is why exchanging links with relevant websites is
still important. When you exchange links with another relevant website, the
search engines know that someone thought highly enough of your website to
request a link exchange. When you link with a site that is related to yours,
the search engines give your site more points. Links coming into your site
helps give you a high ranking for your keywords at all search engines. This
will, in time, increase your page rank--ultimately increasing your traffic. One
way links...
The only two other ways to get links is to either buy them or have people link
to your site automatically. Search engines are starting to penalize people who
buy links to artificially boost their page rank; so I wouldn't try this at the
moment. Buying links is risky business; doing it might cause your website to
get banned from search engines.
The other incoming links you get are when people like your site and
automatically one-way link to it. This how you should get most of your incoming
links. And this brings us back to high quality content: If people love what you
have written (whether it be in a forum, one of your articles, or your website),
they will have no problem linking to your site.
Pay-per-click advertising...
The next type of traffic were going to look at is pay-per-click traffic. While
search engine optimization is more of a slow and organic process, PPC
advertising allows you to receive instant traffic. The only downside to this
kind of traffic is that you have to pay for it. So what you want to do is get
the best return on investment you possibly can.
If you are going to use pay-per-click advertising please stick with Adwords.
Google Adwords is the biggest, and by far the best, PPC service available.
Using it, you are able to have scalable results instantly. When you use an
Adwords campaign to promote various products and services, you will know what's
working and what's not working right away. So the goal is to use Google's
Adwords advertising service to test your products and your websites to see what
makes you money and what does not.
A novice might think all she has to do is bid on a few keywords to use in her
PPC campaign and pay every time someone clicks on her ads that show up under
"sponsored links" on the search engine results page for those words. You get
great feedback instantly; sounds simple enough, right? But there is so much
more to it than that. If you don't run your Adwords campaigns properly and
track your results, you won't be making money; you will be losing money...
fast. So the key here is managing your campaign.
Adwords is kind of difficult to figure out at first; anyone who has ever used it
will tell you that. The PPC market is super competitive (and even more so for
the niches that generate the most money) and the only way to have success is
to...
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Learn how to write relevant ads
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Keep a close eye on your competition
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Do some extensive keyword research
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Learn how to target ads
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Learn how to create adgroups the right way
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Learn how to bid
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Learn how to avoid using overpriced terms
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When and when not to use the content network
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What to have on your landing pages
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Advantages and disadvantages of direct linking
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How to choose the right products
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And much more
Bonus Tip:
Use PPC advertising while you wait for your free traffic
The best way to take advantage of Adwords is to use it while you apply your SEO
strategies. Because SEO is organic, it can take a while before you receive free
traffic from the search engines. PPC click can bring you traffic in the mean
time. When you start receiving loads of free traffic, you can then cut back on
your campaign spending. If you use this strategy for all of your websites, you
will always have traffic coming into your site.
I honestly believe you should use both methods (SEO and PPC advertising) to get
traffic to your site. People tend to use one or the other. But why not use
both? Instead of waiting months for the free traffic to kick in, you could be
getting scalable results using Adwords in the meantime. Just be sure to work
within your budget.
Building traffic, writing for your website, marketing your website, SEO, PPC,
traffic building strategies
About the Author
Chris Walker is the owner of:
http://www.ultimate-home-business-advice.com.
Get all the best advice on great home businesses that really work. Gain
access to essential tips and Subscriptions. You can distribute his material on a
non-exclusive, royalty-free basis, while he retains full rights to his work.
You can use his article as long as you do not change any of the content.
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