International Search Engine Marketing Blog

Many people will check their websites’ Page Ranks (correctly written as the trademarked one word: PageRank) this Monday morning and see the first update in nearly half a year. Keep in mind that this will have little impact on any website’s search rankings, whether the site is an international one or based in the United States. However, the number does serve as Barometer that measures that value of external links pointing to a website and educated website owners should have concern if their site’s PageRank drops. That is why this morning; many people will smile, while others will frown.

The fact of the matter is that PageRank (PR) is updated on a continual basis. However, Google has increasingly lengthened the amount of time between updating the PR displayed on their toolbar. The basic reason is that Google derives little benefit from updating the PR shown to the public.

SEO and SEM firms find this number quite valuable as it is one piece of information they can use when attempting to increase a site’s rankings within the search results. All else equal a link from a page with a higher PR is worth more than a link from a page with a lower PageRank. The fastest and easiest way to determine a page’s value is to look at the PR displayed by Google’s toolbar.

Since Google does not like anyone influencing their search results and most certainly does not want to make it easier for someone to do so, I hypothesis that is the primary reason why Google updates the PR displayed on their toolbar less and less frequently.

Keep in mind, the toolbar PR number is simply the one displayed and not the value used by Google on a daily basis. That said, why do such a large number of people care about this all illusive number? One reason is that people do not realize that the PR number is not updated in real time and simply associate the value of a website by the number Google displays on their toolbar.

The other reason site owner’s place such a high importance on PageRank is that a website with a higher PR is viewed as more valuable to other webmaster’s and search engine optimization experts. Often, SEO experts are willing to work harder to obtain a link from a higher PR site than one with a lower ranking and as a result there is a symbiotic monetary value associated with a site’s PageRank.

Those who are in the business of obtaining SEO friendly links are those most impacted by this recent update. As mentioned previously, many people will smile, while other will frown. Those smiling will obviously be the owner’s of website’s that have a higher PageRank since a large portion of the web community will consider their site more valuable. The converse is true for those site owners who now have a lower PR.

G. Chen, kindly contributed to the following post:

Let’s take a look at the SEO formula one step at a time to solve the equation that consistently riddles many marketers and web designers: what are the elements needed to effectively harness the power of SEM? One major element of SEM is content, as it has a strong relationship to effective advertising and the success of any campaign, whether international or local.

We know that SEO is an important part of SEM, and it is important to utilize the proper keywords in order to achieve the highest possible return on a search engine marketing investment. The SEO piece is relatively simple with a local site, which has a limited number of phrases that a marketer wants to target. After the marketer has selected the website’s keywords, obtained relevant links, and achieved the desired rankings in the search engines, that SEO component of a search engine marketing project simply needs maintenance.

All that said, marketers all too often fail during the keyword selection process. People are continually utilizing the search engines more and their search terms become more specific. Fewer people simply type “cell phone reviews,” but rather search for a more specific phrase such as “cell phones with international GSM coverage and G3 network.” More than ever, selecting keywords that consumer actually type into a search engine box is critical to driving targeted, quality traffic to a website.

However, keyword selection and the other pieces involved in SEO are only part of a SEM project. Although offline, a picture can paint a thousand words, this is not always true online. For example, graphic intensive sites may look impressive, keeping a simple design with the content a person is look for is crucial. Web designers and marketers alike must strike a careful balance between text and graphics in order to create a website that delivers a high return on investment,

Utilizing an effective mix of content and graphics allows marketers to obtain a higher ROI for their websites. While top search rankings are always important it is vital to remember that at the end of the day all the top rankings in the world are meaningless if visitors who reach a site leave it immediately. The right mix of content and graphics, combined with the careful placement of both, can lead to a truly effective search engine marketing campaign. Properly balancing these factors is ultimately what separates a SEO company from a SEM company.

What is the most effective method of marketing a U.K. company to a U.S. audience? The answer to this depends largely on the product or service that one is marketing. Nevertheless there are a few basic ideas to keep in mind when advertising on the internet. Many of these same considerations can also be applied to international search engine marketing between other country pairs.

There are large differences in the way search engines, such as Google, position websites within their results pages based upon the user’s location. As an example, search for the phrase “seo services” without the quotations on google.com then search for the same phrase on google.co.uk and notice the vast difference in the results displayed. Take a look at the two screen shots further below to view images from when I conducted the search. Now the important question is why does this happen?

There are both SEO principles to remember and general marketing considerations such as proper linguistics. A fairly obvious factor is a websites’ domain extension. U.K. companies should obtain a .com extension, whereas United States businesses should acquire a .co.uk extension.

Of course it is not as simple as purchasing a new domain extension. On on-page consideration to keep in mind is that of duplicate content. While it is understandable that a company will want to relay the same basic message to both countries, it should not use the exact same copy. A company should rewrite copy to avoid any duplicate content penalties.

Off-page factors to keep in mind are largely related to link building. When conducting a links building campaign that markets to the U.S., a United Kingdom company should obtain links from websites headquartered in the United States. Properly, conducting a links campaign in this manner can even avoid the need to obtain a new domain extension.

Linguistic issues are also important to remember. A perfect example is search engine optimisation, which is the correct spelling in the United Kingdom, and search engine optimization, which is the correct spelling in the United States. While there is only a one letter difference, this spelling differential can impact how visitors view a website and how the search engines rank a website. Few United States businesses or people want to conduct business with a company that is unable to use the countries’ linguistics. To me it shows that a company marketing to a U.S. audience did not take the time to even use the United States spelling. Of course the converse holds true to U.S. companies looking to marketing to the United Kingdom.

Understanding your audience is essential. This posts contains only a few of the important ideas to keep in mind when marketing services or products to an international audience. Nonetheless, these ideas are an excellent initial checklist for those companies advertising abroad.

Oftentimes, I am approached by new companies that are just starting to build a presence on the internet. Many times business owners view a website as a business card - a requirement. These individuals are entirely correct in that a website is needed for a business to establish and maintain a professional appearance. However, just as a business card has little value if it is never handed out, a website has little value if nobody knows that it exists.

Understandably, prospects do not always have the budget to spend five digits to build a website and market it with the assistance of a search engine optimization company. Not surprisingly SEO and SEM take a backseat and are noted as advertising that is needed, but not required at the moment. SEO is then put off until later or added to a wish list of tasks to be completed. I suggest taking a different mentality.

While a business can certainly accomplish more with a $10,000 budget than a $500 one, there are many instances where a basic website can be built and marketed without an enormous initial investment. I find myself reminding prospects that it is much less expensive and better for their business to build a website with the search engines in mind than to go back and revise a website that is built without considering search positions. On many occasions, initially building a website that is search engine friendly, costs the same as creating one that does not take the search engines into account.

As the owner of Agilis Marketing we, I constantly encourage our clients to never overpay for any service. This holds true regardless of a company’s size. It does not matter if your company is large or small, nor whether it services an international market or a local one. Overpaying for services will quickly eat away at a company’s bottom line. This is one reason we suggest Lunar Pages when selecting a hosting company. They offer a reliable, robust, and competitively priced hosting package. It is also the reason most of our clients use Google Analytics. The program is free to use, contains valuable information, and is simple to add onto a new or existing website. However, there are services that are worth the premium charged. One key to a successful internet marketing campaign is to spend money smartly. The same maxim holds true throughout business and life in general.

With all this said, what is a new business owner to do? Research. Find the best company that charges a reasonable price. Stick with that company so long as the firm delivers as promised, but be willingly to leave if they do not. When hiring a company to build a website, make certain they have your business’ best interests in mind. Any website company, which fails to incorporate SEO considerations into the development of a new website, either does not have its clients’ best interests at heart or is not insightful enough to fully understand the importance of search engine marketing.