I'm in the process of starting an on line business in the
travel industry.

Here is a question I recently asked regarding website optimization:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=506841

I've done a little research since I asked the question and realize
that I may have been to vague by asking for an opinion. 

What I'm looking for is a recommendation of how to most effectively
market my business on line. I'm in the process of working with the web
designers. It's my understanding that It's best to get an SEO involved
at the beginning of the websites development so that the designers can
work with the SEO from the start, ensuring proper site creation for
search engine optimization and Internet marketing.

Can someone offer me as much advice as possible for the above listing fee
($50). What I really want to know is..........If you (the Internet
Marketing/SEO expert) were to be starting an on line business from
scratch what are the steps you would take to ensure that the site was
positioned and marketed for optimal results.

If you feel that hiring an SEO expert is the way to go then could you
either recommend a few, or offer me some tips on what to look for in
an SEO (http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/opt/article.php/823121) and what
I should expect to pay for very good work.

My intention is for this business to be mainly marketed on line. The
site will be quite large (maybe 500-1000 pages), and I'm confident
that a lot of the traffic to the site will come from Internet
searches. So I'm committed to doing whatever it takes to market the
website correctly. 

Ask for clarification if you need more specific information. We can
adjust the listing fee if after clarification the question is easier
or harder to answer.

Thanks.

Hi supersst-ga,

Don't think that traffic from search engines is everything. Search
engines can be very tricky, and not allways are the best option to
drive traffic to a website. I recently lauched a new website (
http://www.distant-rapture.net/index.html ) and my aproach to drive
traffic was very different from the normal SEO (getting most traffic
from search engines). I used another valid methods, like free ezine
ads, expired domain names with built-in traffic, free opt-in mailing
lists ads, traffic exchanges, and more three or four other forms of
promotion to drive traffic for my site. Of course i'll expect that
some traffic will come from search engines, but i only expect that
king of traffic will be only 10% of my global traffic sources. Am I
mad? maybe, but 8hours after i lauched the site, my unique visitors
was a very good number: 1280 unique visitors.
If you need help on this techniques, i'll be glad to help you.

Thanks xanubi-ga.

Since I posted this question I've done a lot of reading on the topic
of SEO and SEM and I'm convinced that on-line companies that have
there sites built from the ground up employing a professional SEM to
help with all aspects of site design, programming, ccopyrighting
marketing etc...will be in a much better position to compete in the
on-line marketplace.

I know that I may be able to do some of this stuff on my own, however,
I think that the ROI would be much better if I hired a professional. I
think the job will cost me around $50,000 based on the conversations
that I've had with SEMs. Should I decided to hire a web designer and
then do my own site promotion the cost would be half that number. I
guess it a matter of piece of mind and ROI. I comfortable spending the
extra cash if the results will be there, and I believe they will.

As for your offer, I'd still love to see your site. I'm also in the
process of registering a domain name so maybe your suggestion of using
an expired name would make sense for my site.

Thanks for your comment.

The price for qualtiy organic SEO services that you mention: $50,000
seems quite exorbitant, contact http://www.peakpositions.com they are
one of the best SEO shops in the business and our website designers
report that they code all pages manually and only charge about
$25,000.

getting organic listings on Google is a time consuming process, and a
process that never ends- you will constantly need to fend of your
competition.  Adwords through Google is more assured, but can be
costly.  If you are going to be in the SEO business, then it is best
that you learn the ins and outs- for the beginner, I would recommend
the book by James Martell, which goes into finding your keywords, etc-
and show anybody how to build a site from scratch.  You need to know
the basics, because most of SEO is simple link building. For large
scale sites, I would look at guys like www.spidersplat.com.

Hello - 

There are many facets to SEO and the search engine continually change
their methods of indexing sites to help prevent the same sites from
staying up in the ranks all the time.

Here are some strategies we have personally used with our web design firm:

1) Google AdWords. This is an excellent and cost effective method of
getting good search results. You set the maximum daily amount you
would like to spend on your key words and phrases. Within the first
month we were getting more client contacts through using AdWords.

2) Overture Keywords. A lot like AdWords, but we found that their
system did not really allow you to set a daily limit to how much you
wanted to spend and it quickly got out of hand with some of the
phrases we had chosen! Still, pretty cost effective in the grand
scheme of things.

3) Yahoo Regional Directories. Once you are able to get your site
indexed by the Yahoo Regional Directories, I think you stay in there
for good! We've been in there for years now and continue to get
clients who found us through this directory. (And it is free to submit
your site)

4) Keywords / Description / Alt Tags / Title Tags / Page Content. All
the big SEO companies rely heavily on these 5 things - all of which
are contained in the code of your web pages. However, with a little
research, you could do these yourself (or have it done by your web
designer). A few great tools to help you with this task are: Overture
Keyword Selector Tool
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/), Google
Suggestion Tool (://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en), Meta
Tag Analyzer (http://www.iboost.com/tools/meta_tag_analyzer.htm), and
Keyword Density Analyzer (http://www.keyworddensity.com/).

The main benefit to hiring a professional SEO company is that they
work for you to constantly update your keywords, etc. and submit your
URL to search engines. They know exactly how many of each keyword to
use, etc. And this is often a service worth paying for if optimization
is a real concern in your industry. A good SEO company will also stay
up on what the search engines are doing and change their tactics
accordingly. They will also never use an "illegal" tactics that could
get you banned from the search engine. Be wary of companies that
"guarantee top 10 placement". I recommend
http://www.submitsolutions.com.

5) Online Directories. Submitting your website URL to free online
directories is a great avenue of promotion. One way you can find
directories is to use Google or another search engine and type in
"(type of your business) online directories". Some that come up may
ask for a small amount to list your site. If they do, you should
always contact them and ask them for more information such as how many
unique visits their directories get per month to see if the price is a
good value.

6. Open Directory Project. http://www.dmoz.org The ODP is one of the
main sources the the Googlebot uses to find new websites. This is a
human-maintained directory - meaning that when you submit your URL, an
actual person reviews your submission to decide if the site is
appropriate, etc. It may take some time to get your site indexed by
the ODP, but once it is, you should not have to keep sending your
links.

7. Blog. Having a Blog on your website is a great way to attract
visitors to your site with fresh content. And the search engines love
content rich blog pages. There are free services out there such as
http://www.blogger.com, http://www.blog-city.com,
http://www.livejournal.com and many more that allow you to sign up for
a free blog. Of course the best way to blog to have the blog
"software" actually installed on your site. This is something your web
designer/programmer could do for you. I highly recommend sBlog
(http://servous.se/) as a free php based Blog script (you will need
php and a MySQL database installed with your web hosting service to
run this).

8. Submit to Google and Yahoo. These two are the top dogs in the
search engine world and both still accept FREE submissions. For Yahoo,
you must go through the categories until you find the most appropriate
one for your website. For Google,  you can go to the following URL to
submit your site: ://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

9. Print advertising. Many companies forget that print advertising is
still a very valid way to get visitors to your website. Although this
can get costly, even having your URL printed on your business cards,
letterheads and envelopes is considered print advertising.

10. Be the best you can be. It sounds simple, but a lot of people get
so wrapped up in SEO that they neglect the quality of their website.
Remember that your website reflects your business and should offer a
professional, high quality appearance and useful content. No matter
what your business is, your visitors will be more inclined to stick
around or make a purchase if your site is easy to navigation, has
useful information, and looks professional.


I also highly recommend visiting Site Pro News
(http://www.sitepronews.com) and signing up for their free newsletter.
They have the most up to date info on SEO.

I hope you found this helpful.
Sherry Holub
JvMediaDesign.com

There are a lot of companies that can help you. Look for a tidy
methodology and "organic optimization" experts. You can spend a lot of
money purchasing Search Engine Results, and still not get properly
targeted traffic to browse your site. The idea is to attract searchers
who are trying to find your product, not just people browsing the
internet. It doesn't matter how much traffic you attract if none of
them are customers.

Have a look at http://www.internet-reach.com