Gervais Group, LLC – Internet Marketing & SEO Company

Search engine marketing, as a subset of search engine optimization, can be broken into a six step process. Whether website owners decide to take all six steps on their own or bring in a professional SEO company to assist on the project is usually a decision based on a multiple of factors including time, resources, and the level of expertise required. Whether done in-house or by an SEO company, the six steps are as follows:
1) Research your keywords – Keyword research is the foundation of all successful SEO endeavors. Defining keywords and keyphrases can determine where the opportunities exist, help to avoid overly competitive ones, and will go a long way toward the success of your search engine marketing plan. If you are unsure of how to do it yourself hire an SEO company to do it for you. It’s that important
2) Find a domain name that is search engine friendly and then register it – Having a domain name that utilizes the main keywords that will be on the site will drive targeted traffic and score relevance points with the search engines. A little creativity may be required to get what you want but it will be worth the effort. Also be sure to go with a domain that has the .com extension due to its status as the quasi default choice for websites. Once the name is decided, be sure to buy and register it.
3) Determine a marketing budget – Defining your marketing budget will determine the direction of your search engine marketing plan and how it will be executed. For example, if the marketing budget is going to require operating on a shoestring, marketing options might include setting up a presence on the social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Other activities could include the creation and submission of blogs, articles, and press releases. A larger budget might allow for outsourcing the work either in part or in total to a professional search engine optimization company.
4) Content creation – Created content serves three purposes; marketing the site, capturing visitors at the site, and converting them from visitors to consumers. This content must be of high quality across the board to have the best chance at driving and monetizing traffic. It should also be created on a consistent basis to keep visitors interested and to let the search engines know that the site is constantly growing. Content creation, submission, and optimization is often outsourced to SEO companies due to the time and skill required for its successful implementation.
5) Develop additional revenue streams for the site – Selling advertising or allowing for advertising to be placed on a site through program such as Google’s AdWords can add additional streams of income to your site. Other revenue generators might be affiliates programs which carry products and/or services related to those already being sold on the site. The advantage of affiliate programs is that billing, collecting payments, and shipping are all done through a third party. Setting up referral arrangements with other on and off-line businesses can generate substantial revenues as well.
6) Re-investing revenues back into additional marketing – Once the site begins generating revenues, be sure to make a commitment to re-investing a portion of them into expanding your marketing effort. The reinvestment amounts may be small at first, but adding and expanding successful marketing efforts will start to grow revenues at an increasingly faster rate.
These are the basic steps toward building successful search engine marketing campaigns. All search engine marketing strategies should be designed with an ultimate objective of driving targeted visitors who are likely to convert into consumers at the site. Unless the site is targeted toward driving micro-niche oriented visitors, the best results are most often achieved when professional SEO consultants like the Gervais Group handle the work load. For more information, visit www.GervaisGroupllc.com or call (770) 529 2262

The best of the search engine optimization companies, when creating on-site content, develop text which is balanced between two types of viewers; the search engine spiders and visitors to the site. This balanced approach is absolutely necessary, as any content that is written without it risks losing one or both sides of this combined audience. In terms of the content presented on each page of the site, it is vitally important to remember that its objective is to quickly capture and ultimately convert visitors. The following activities can work to opposite effect, alienating visitors who click the back button and then never come back.
1) Overloading page content with keywords and keyphrases – Page content which is overloaded with keywords provides for a disjointed reading flow and a generally unpleasant user experience. Poorly written content also decreases a site’s professionalism and credibility in the eyes of visitors, making it less likely that they will stay on the site and eventually make a purchase. Cramming excess keywords in the copy doesn’t really even work with the search engines either. While slightly more effective at a time in the past, the sophistication of search engine spiders allows them to see this practice for what it is; a sloppily done grab for visitors.
2) Taking a guess on the best keywords and keyphrases for your product and/or services – Guessing on what keywords are going to prove to be relevant to your potential consumers isn’t necessary or advisable. Keyword research, as done by an experienced search engine optimization consultant, can define which keywords will provide maximum return by resonating with visitors which drives them to, and keeps them on, a website.
3) Catering to search traffic using awkward keyphrases – Much of what drives visitors away from a site relates to user experience, meaning that if they’re having a bad experience, they’re likely look elsewhere. Piecing together awkward keyphrases to generate search traffic is just another way to present poorly written content that will deliver a dismal return and send visitors packing. Even if the strategy works to drive some traffic, visitors most likely take a dim view of it once it is seen in context.
4) Catering to search traffic using misspelled keywords – Using misspelled words in the page content to drive traffic typically does more harm than good because visitors won’t know that the errors are intentional. They are much more likely to assume that the site has been assembled by amateurs that haven’t heard about “Spell Check” yet. Additionally, spelling errors will diminish any branding, trust building, or credibility efforts.
5) Using keyphrases in the same manner throughout the text – Repeating keyphrases throughout the content in the same way is a sure way to convince a visitor that the content was written by a third grader. For example, if the keyphrase is “little orange cars”, starting multiple sentences with “Little orange cars are…” isn’t going to capture your visitor. An SEO company can usually come up with many different ways to put the keyphrases in context while maintaining the flow of the content.
6) Ignoring your sales process while writing copy – Page content must both capture and convert visitors. While there may be some visitors that are so eager to buy that they will do anything to get a product or service, most visitors are not going to be quite that eager. For the vast majority, a site must have a process that leads visitors toward conversion in as simple a manner as possible. A major part of the on-site optimization, as done by successful SEO companies, is intended to build a clear path for the visitor from landing to conversion.
7) Taking a shotgun approach to your keywords – Shot gunning every keyword into all content has a much better chance of confusing visitors than converting them. The problem with taking a shotgun approach is that most visitors arrive at a site looking for assurance that they have come to the right place and that getting what they want will be relatively easy. If their search related content and keywords are not easy to find they will most likely assume that what they’re looking for isn’t there or that it’s too hard to find. The content on the landing page for the visitor should instead be very closely related to the search terms that brought the visitor in the first place to let them know immediately that they are in the right place.
Setting up a site with high quality content that captures and converts visitors can be much more difficult to execute than it sounds. For this simple reason, it’s often advantageous the hire a professional search engine optimization company to handle the complexities of on and off-site SEO. One such company is The Gervais Group, a team which has specialized in search engine optimization strategies since 2001. For more information, please visit www.gervaisgroupllc.com or call (770) 529 2262.

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Thinning budgets and a slow economy have lead to budget cutbacks at many small to medium sized business. This, in turn, can justify the rationale to shop for the cheapest search engine optimization company available. The hook is set, for many web-based business owners, when they get a low-ball search engine optimization bid that makes the same promises as other bidders for the work, at a fraction of their prices. Feeling great about “steal” they got on their SEO campaign, these owners sign with the low-ball bidder and start anticipating their front page ranking on Google, which “should be done within forty eight hours”. The first sign of trouble usually shows itself at about the same time when there is no sign of the website on the front pages of any of the search engines and the hired company isn’t returning calls. Where this company might succeed in getting something close to the front pages is with a long keyphrase which has no chance of driving traffic. The good news is that avoiding these unfortunate circumstances is relatively simple process when one knows what to do and what to look for. Here are five ways to tell when you might be dealing with one of the bad guys in search engine optimization:
1) Take a look at the page rank of the SEO company that is bidding for your business. While search engine optimization companies exist in a very competitive space, the company that wins your business should rank in front pages of the search engines. Unethical SEO companies simply won’t be found when searched for by potential clients.
2) Watch for a company that promises or guarantees front page results. The only guarantee here is that they will not be able to back up their claims. The algorithms used by search engines to rank website pages are known by very few people, even at the search engines themselves. For that reason, a company that guarantees rankings is just telling a prospect what they want to hear in order to separate them from their money.
3) Initial contact comes in the form of an unsolicited email or from a call center. A relationship which starts with a spammed email is doomed to failure, as is one that starts with someone reading a sales script at a call center. The attention, skill, and experience required for successful search engine optimization will simply not exist at a company which initiates contact in either of these manners.
4) Watch for ridiculously low bids, especially when the deliverables are similar to a group of much higher bids. A front page ranking requires time and effort which costs money. A company which claims they can get a front page ranking for a low one-time fee or for a couple hundred dollars per month is either not doing the work or employing unethical or black hat practices. The ramifications here range from a waste of money to being de-listed by the search the search engines, which effectively puts a site out of business whether they knew about the practices or not.
5) Be wary if the company does not list a street address. The lack of a street address either means that the operation is either too small or doesn’t want to be found by their clients, probably for good reason. Run away as fast as possible.
A legitimate search engine optimization company will have years of experience, a list of satisfied clients, and proven search engine results. Additionally, a legitimate SEO company will not hesitate to tell the truth in terms of how much a successful campaign will cost. The Gervais Group has been delivering successful results for their clients for eight years. For more information, visit wwww.gervaisgroupllc.com or call (770) 529 2262.

As competition increases for the rankings on the front pages of the various search engines, the importance of getting search engine optimization and keywords right has never been greater. Whether you are doing your own optimization or have hired an SEO company, the following are some SEO tips and ideas to get your search engine optimization efforts off to a great start.

* Do a deep dive on keyword research – Keyword research is both the most important and most overlooked aspect of search engine optimization. This research is critical in that it will govern all SEO activities that follow it by providing insight into to the most optimal keywords and phrases on which to focus during an ongoing SEO campaign.
* Check the field – Part of keyword research is aimed at analyzing where competition exists and finding underutilized keywords which are generating traffic with nominal competition. These keywords are considered to be the “low hanging fruit” and are normally incorporated into the early stages of a campaign to develop traction as quickly as possible.
* Develop quality on-site content – Whether provide by you or through your SEO company, quality content is king. This is the content which will play a vital role as you build your brand, customer trust, and credibility so it has to be professionally presented.
* Set up your landing pages – Set up your landing pages so that a visitor who has arrived immediately finds content relevant to the keywords they used to find you. This is the capture aspect of on-site optimization, intended to let the visitor know that you have what they’re looking for and encouraging them to go deeper into your site.
* Develop quality off-site content – Off-site content can come in the form of blogs, informational articles, press releases, etc. Like your on-site content, this material must be of the highest quality possible considering that your off-site content will be the first impression for many of your visitors.
* Convert, convert, convert – Once a visitor has been captured, the next step is for conversion. Develop your content to encourage your visitors through your site’s sales process. Your site should be built to make this process as convenient and seamless as possible.
* Test and analyze – On and off-site activities should constantly be analyzed to make sure that the process is working at its optimal capability. This analysis should include traffic generated from keywords, visitor tendencies on the site, and a host of other measurable activities which can indicate weak points both on and off of the site.
* Have patience – The rewards from even the most expertly executed SEO campaign can take a while to develop. Committing and staying with the process will deliver benefits that will be well worth the wait.
* Know that instant gratification is available (For a price) – Sponsored ad placement and Pay per Click advertising can buy some real estate on the front pages of the search engines while you wait for organic results. An experienced search engine optimization company can integrate these ad campaigns with your organic search efforts for maximum effect without killing your budget.

The measurability and transparency of internet activity combined with the experience of a seasoned SEO company can result in a search engine optimization campaign which delivers a great return on investment. The Gervais Group has been coordinating these kinds of successful SEO campaigns since 2002. For more SEO tips and information, visit www.gervaisgroupllc.com or call (770) 529 2262.

The field of search engine optimization is can be divided into three categories; the professional SEO companies, the newcomers, and the do it yourselfers. Each of the levels of expertise can be categorized by skill levels, resources, and experience which translate directly into how successful the end result of an SEO effort will be. Unless directed at a completely un-served micro-niche, any SEO effort will require a defined process, resources, and the skill to see it through to a successful finish. Here’s look at the three categories and the likely results from each:

* Do it yourselfers – This category is populated with two types of search engine optimization people; those that are on their own for budgetary reasons and those that assume that SEO can be accomplished using their existing skill set. In many cases, those who are operating with limited budgets get better results than the existing skill set group simply because they need to maximize the results for each dollar spent. This group will often use grass roots campaigns to begin developing revenues and then direct some of that income toward outsourcing the work to an SEO company due to affordability and the time commitment required for SEO campaigns.
* Newcomers – The field of search engine optimization draws new people looking to “put out a shingle” on a daily basis. These newcomers are usually small (1 to three employees) operations with skill sets which can vary widely. There are a handful of potential problems in dealing with a newcomer including the lack of any track record, determining their level of expertise, and their daily work load. Regardless of skill level and track record, if a two man operation starts getting busy, current clients will suffer in terms of level of service and SEO activities due to the fact that the company is now spread thin with limited resources and not enough time in the day to do everything. It’s common in these situations for a newcomer to take on a new, high paying customer who requires putting everything else on the back burner or outsourcing the work of existing clients to an unknown entity.
* Professional SEO companies – Dealing with a reputable SEO company is, by far the best way to ensure a positive outcome for your search engine optimization efforts. These companies always have track records, satisfied clients, and a set protocol for developing SEO strategies, regardless of the type of business. This protocol always starts with keyword research, a step neglected by a high percentage of do it yourselfers and newcomers. The primary goal of the research is to define the keywords which will provide the best return on investment. On and off-site optimization practices are then determined from the results of the initial keyword research and the strategy is put into motion. With keywords in place, the work then revolves around the labor, time, and resource requirements of implementing a successful strategy. A professional SEO company will always be able to describe the process in detail with realistic goals and objectives. Of the three options, working with a reputable SEO company is usually the most expensive choice, but the ultimate outcome in terms of return on investment, targeted traffic, and conversion ratios are typically much higher.

Dealing with a reputable search engine optimization company can literally make the difference between success and failure. SEO companies, like the Gervais Group, which can provide past client successes and present search engine results are much more likely to deliver optimal outcomes than those new to the field. For more information, visit www.gervaisgroupllc.com or call (770) 529 2262.