International Search Engine Marketing Blog

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are not the same. Rather SEO is a one part of SEM. SEO focuses on top search rankings, which are certainly important in any internet marketing campaign whether local or international. However, SEM takes search engine optimization to the next level. Instead of focusing entirely on high search positions, a SEM campaign encourages individuals who click on a website’s link to then contact the website’s owner or purchase a product or service from the site.

Many website’s have top positions in the search engines, but still fail to achieve any meaningful return on the investment spent in obtaining these top rankings. The same companies or individuals who own these websites oftentimes hired a search engine optimization firm in order to achieve these results. Even after spending all that money, little or no return on investment is seen. 

Not surprisingly these marketers will call the SEO firm they hired and unfortunately a common response is, “We did our job. Take a look at the rankings, the rest is up to you” or “We have another package you may want to consider purchasing…” I cannot count the number of times a prospect has told me such a story or one analogous to this.

What is a webmaster or marketer to do? Fix it. It does not matter the size of your campaign or if your target demographic is local, national, or even international. The positive news is that anyone who already has top search rankings is one step closer to owning a profitable website. I suggest taking the next step and follow through on the efforts of the previous SEO company. Devote resources to take your site to the next level and start monetizing the traffic obtained from the high search position. This could include doing the work on your own or hiring a company such as the one I own to help with your efforts. Either way additional time is needed to make the site profitable. 

For those who have yet to hire a marketer or SEO company then my best advice is to learn from others who did and remember there is much more to internet advertising than a top listing in Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Search engine marketing takes into account these other considerations. 

Typically a search engine marketing campaign includes SEO. However, that is all that is in common. There is a reason most people visits the first page of a website then hit the back button on their browser. There are thousands of items to keep in mind regarding the design and content of a website, all of which influence whether a visitor will stay on the site or click away. One of the more common reasons visitors leave a website is that it lacks something to grabs the visitors’ attentions and there are no calls to action of any type. Another typical reason is that a page does not meet the visitors’ expectations.

Fortunately, marketers and webmasters do not have to guess. Installing a comprehensive analytics program is oftentimes a smart starting point. This way visitor browsing habits are tracked and marketers can modify a site based on data rather than assumptions. What one should modify based upon this data requires a whole new blog posting. One of the key takeaways from this post is to remember that while SEO is important, it is only part of a well thought out search engine marketing campaign.

How many get rich quick ideas or internet marketing schemes have you heard of? Likely, many more than you can count. How many of them have worked for you? I’d be amazed if you can name even one. Almost everyone who is not rich wants to become rich, quickly and in as little time as possible. The fact of the matter is that rarely happens. Wealth oftentimes takes time, perseverance, and savvy. The same is true with SEO and SEM.

Who wouldn’t want their website to appear as the number one listing in Google for a competitive phrase, with no wait time? An effective SEO campaign can achieve top search rankings, but in almost all instances, it will not happen overnight. Search engine optimization and marketing take time. As any internet advertiser knows, it takes time to develop a strategic outline, conduct proper research, perform the needed work, and then still more time is required before the results of all the above efforts are reflected in the search engines.

The positive news is that those who are patient can achieve wealth with a properly executed SEO campaign; simply do not expect it to happen instantly. Top search rankings can generate an enormous amount of traffic for a website and significantly increase a site’s revenues. Wealth and obtaining it through SEO can and does happen.

While this post is about SEO, please keep in mind that it is still only part of a search engine marketing campaign. Website owners who generate the highest levels of income realize this.

The SEO Elite website is full of positive reviews about its software, claiming quick and easy website promotion through the use of its automated program. SEO Elite professes their software can assist websites in obtaining top search engine results for less than $200. No matter the product or service a site markets, or whether advertising to an international or local audience, the company claims its software can achieve top search results for its users.

This is a simple sale to many marketers since the cost of the product is only a fraction of the investment associated hiring a professional SEO company. Why not give SEO Elite a shot? With all this hype and praise why should internet advertisers be cautious when using this or any such program?

For starters it is a strict violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines. The use of SEO Elite, or any other automated program with grand claims of improving a website’s search rankings is prohibited by these rules and could even result in Google completely removing a site from its index. See for yourself, by going to Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other major search engine and type in “Google Webmaster Guidelines”. After clicking on the first result, read the information carefully. Notice that one of the guidelines specifically states that webmasters should avoid using automated programs. Well, this includes SEO Elite.

Still, as a smart marketer, it can be hard to ignore all the accolades surrounding SEO Elite. There are countless websites that praise this software as a means to help with an international, national, or local campaign regardless of the competitiveness of the keyword space. Keep in mind the biases behind many of these articles and web pages (including this one). SEO Elite has an affiliate program that rewards and encourages webmasters to persuade individuals or companies to purchase their software. In fact, SEO Elite pays webmasters a 50 percent commission on each referral that results in a sale. That is an enormous commission and the primary reason why there are numerous sites promoting the software.

I caution all advertisers to be careful. While the idea of top search results with little effort and investment is nice, rarely is it possible. There are reasons why professional search engine marketing companies exist and why companies use them. Similarly, those who choose to promote sites internally spend countless hours working hard to achieve top rankings.

Please help spread the word about SEO Elite and other automated programs by sharing this article with a friend or letting others know about it. My goal is for this page to show up in the Top 10 search results when individuals type “SEO Elite” into the popular search engines. By doing so, those researching the software can learn about the program from a site that is not promoting it.

PageRank (PR) is a term that is tossed around frequently but fully often misunderstood. There is much more involved to calculating a website’s PageRank than the number of links pointing to it. Furthermore, there is much more to International SEM than Google’s PR number.

PageRank is Google’s method of calculating the authority of a particular webpage. Simply because a website has a PR of 7 does not mean it will show up highly in the search engine results pages for any particular phrase, but rather it indicates that there are other authoritative links pointing to the site.

Notice the use of the word “authoritative”. It is oftentimes much better for a website to have a few links coming from pages with a high PR than hundreds from web pages with a small PageRank. PR is calculated on an exponential basis. A rank of 3 is ten times better than a 2, and a rank of 4 is ten times better than one 3, etc.

A little known secret is that all this and much more detail is available free at the United States Patent and Trademark Office Website. Simply conduct a patent search using Google as the assignee and anyone can view the patent pertaining to PageRank and other factors that impact a site’s search engine’s positions.

Obtaining a link from a site with a high PR, does not itself, ensure improving in the gaining a higher position in the SERPS. Relevance is critical here. A link that comes from a site highly relevant to the topic one is marketing may prove extraordinarily valuable.

Take for example a website that sells gift baskets, all else equal, a link coming from a page about cell phone ring tones will be much less valuable than one coming from a page that has information on gift baskets. It is important to keep the relevancy factor in mind when determining the value of a link from any particular website.

Google has a trust ranking systems as well. Even if a page has a high PR a link from it may prove to be virtually worthless.

Remember PageRank is only one of the pieces in a complex puzzle. When all these pieces are fitted together properly, an effective international search engine marketing campaign is the result.

Still, it is important to know about as many pieces of the puzzle as possible. I urge all readers to take the time to perform the research necessary to create an effective links campaign. Read the Google patents and make certain a site is relevant before trying to obtain a link. Keep in mind that this post contains but a few of the many linking considerations to take into account when promoting a website.

Future posts will contain information on a few of the pitfalls and tricks to watch out for when working on a links campaign. For instance, the PageRank displayed in the Google toolbar is not always the actual PR of a site. Webmasters can also employ a variety of other tactics that may prevent a search engine from spidering a link. Stay tuned to our blog for the latest SEM news and strategies. Readers are always welcome to ask me questions about this article or SEM. Please simply ask for Brent in the comments’ section of the contact form.

I am putting out a call to all experts in the SEO and SEM industries across the globe. If you help companies on a daily basis with search engine marketing then please use our contact form to request authoring privileges. As an extra incentive I will gather 100 quality backlinks for anyone accepted into the program and after contributing three posts. I want this to be beneficial and well worth the time. Additional incentives will be provided to those who continually contribute.

I am looking for a variety of specialists in the industry. Since this blog focuses on international internet promotion, SEO experts from outside the U.S. will receive first consideration. Specifically, I am interested in talking with professional from India, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and France. However, experts from the United States that consistently assist companies abroad are welcome to participate. Also, anyone with hands on search engine marketing experience is welcome to apply.

This blog will become the source people turn to when looking for the latest trends and information on international search engine marketing. Although new, I am already starting to heavily promote the blog and it is reflective in our analytics data. BOTW, natural search engine optimization, and other referral sources are delivering an increasing higher number of new visitors to the blog on a daily basis.

All blog posts must contain 250 words or more, be completely original, and topically relevant. Spots are limited and authoring privileges are granted on first come first serve basis, so long as the individual requesting posting rights has sufficient expertise and writing ability. Please include links to sample writings when submitting your information. I sincerely thank all applicants who have an interest in contributing to the international search engine marketing blog for applying. All the best and I look forward to the possibility of working together to create a truly unique and authoritative information source on the internet. Please click here as a first step to becoming a contributing author at our international SEM blog.

The top search experts know that links are a measure of popularity and that not all links are created equal. It can be relatively simple for a person to spot a paid link and discredit it, but much more complicated for Google’s algorithms to pick up on one.

I must give credit to Google for discounting many paid links that do exist. Furthermore, I have faith that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the other search engines will discover additional ways at detecting paid links versus links that a webmaster or site owner adds because they are truly of value to a page’s topic. With all this in mind why do local national and international search engine marketers continue to pay for links that are destined to become worthless? For starters, the smart ones don’t, they skip these links entirely. As for everyone else, lack of knowledge is the only reasonable conclusion that I can form. Let’s take a look at a specific example that contains a mixture of free and paid directory links.

Info.vilesilencer.com has a listing of directories that are “search engine friendly” and encourage these same directories to place the logo below back to their directory list.

I seriously question the SEO friendliness of these links. It is only a matter of time before Google realizes these directories for exactly what they are; an artificial way to build link popularity. Since they are all networked to each other it would not be difficult for Google to massively remove them and adjust its algorithm accordingly. My best advice is to stay clear of all the directories on this list. Adding a site to these directories might help it temporarily and may never hurt it permanently; I sincerely doubt these listings will improve a website’s search engine positions in the long term.