SEO. Search engine optimization. SEM. Internet marketing. Keyword research! You’ve heard the buzzwords and seen the effects on the Web. Maybe you want to know why Uncle Bob’s Widget-Wrangling Emporium uses the same phrases to describe its wares over and over again, or why an errant Google search dumped you into a wasteland of nonsense text and wacky links. Our blog has some answers (we’ve written a lot of material for beginners), but it’s high time we tackled the big question behind it all: How do people start an Internet marketing campaign?
The best answer we can give is to talk about our process: how we help businesses increase their online profile. Let’s break it down into steps:Â
Site Analysis and Internet Marketing Consultation
Once you contact us, the first thing we do is provide a free initial consultation. We analyze your web site according to a number of criteria, including:
- Titles: Good titles tell searchers what your site is all about with a quick scan – and tell the search engines too.
- Coding: If your site isn’t coded properly, it’s hard for search engines to log information and link you to relevant searches.
- Content: Good SEO increases a site’s organic appeal. That’s a fancy way of saying that it should be easy for real people to read and understand.
- Other Stuff: We look at your site from several angles – including a few that aren’t typical of the wider SEO community.
Deep Consultation
If our free consultation session sparks your interest, the next step is a deep consultation session designed to spark your marketing campaign. A GILL Media representative asks you detailed questions about your needs, expectations and key business information. You should be able to do it all in about half an hour – but that little bit of time goes a long way. This is where we learn your basic keywords, blogging needs and marketing aspirations
Research
Deep consultation creates an “information seed.†Extensive research grows it into a comprehensive strategy. This is what we study:
- Keywords: This is the meat in the SEO sandwich. We analyze your suggestions and create new keywords, putting them through several tools and a firm organic eyeballing before we decide if they’ll make the cut. Good keywords are popular, but not too competitive to build a better search rank around. Plus, we want some less-searched long tail keywords backing the front-runners.
- Competition Profiles: We study your competition’s keywords, backlinks and search positions. Sometimes we even discover competitors you didn’t know you had.
- Search Page Composition: we take a close look at the 1st pages of every search based on your keywords. Are positions filled by Wikipedia articles? Government sites? Black hat SEO sites? This helps us fine-tune keywords.
- Again – Other Stuff: Our research combines automated and organic tools. We moderate raw numbers with the art of creating appeal. If you leave “soft†aspects out of the equation you won’t get quality backlinks – because the best ones come from interested, human agents who like your site.
Strategy, Analysis and Ongoing Consultation
With research in hand, we develop a strategy for the month, quarter and year. We send you a report detailing your custom SEO and Internet marketing strategy. This package may include blogging, link development, PPC advertising and web site adjustments, depending on your needs.
Once you approve, we execute your plan, monitoring traffic and search results to measure its effectiveness. It’s a dynamic campaign; we adjust it whenever new data inspires a change. We provide monthly updates by phone, and quarterly written reports that detail how far you’ve come.
We Don’t do Black Hat
GILL Media isn’t a “black hat†Internet marketing firm. That means we don’t use hidden links, scraping, splogs and other tactics that are either unethical or annoying. Black hat tactics are a great way to get your site banished from Google, which is kind of the opposite of search engine optimization. Why take a stupid risk?
A legit Internet marketing campaign uses an electronic medium but it’s about people – they’re the ones who spark leads and spend money. A white hat, organic SEO process is the way to go. Contact us to find out more about it, starting with a free consultation.
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