Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi everyone,

I`m sure this has asked, but wanted to get opinions on what I should do for SEO.  My site is about to go live and I was thinking about Yahoo! Search and Google Adwords.  First off...my business is an advertising / marketing service for home sellers who don`t want to go through a realtor.  My fee includes a nice color listing on the website and a professional yard sign and also advertising of site in local newspaper.  This in on the Oregon Coast.

I want out-of-towners to find my site.  I have a modest budget and have five or six search terms that I want to use.  What do you get more for your money in your opinion?  Adwords or Yahoo!?  Or should I divide my budget between the two.  Thanks for any help.

Ryan Phillips

ryan.phillips@oregoncoastfsbo.net

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Ryan Phillips www.OregonCoastFSBO.net Sell Your Home Today....The FSBO Way

Hi Ryan,

I`m pretty new to it myself, but I tried Google Adwords and am currently using Overature (Yahoo) because I was not getting the results I wanted with Google.  I signed up with Overature and after 3 days my site was getting listed #1 or 2.  It`s easy to use their bid change option.  I prefer to do it on my own daily, but they give you the option of automatically being the highest bidder.  I`ve found that you don`t have to be the highest bidder on Yahoo to get listed on the first page of the search. 

Maybe you could try splitting your budget between the two.  Also, the customer support is great with Overature and their manual is very well written and easy to follow.

Good Luck,

Vicki

Hi Ryan - just a quick point of clarification, SEO refers to `search engine optimization`, which describes the methods of building your site so that it can be indexed in all the major search engines, with an eye toward strategically using relevant keywords so that your site might rank well in what are called the `organic` search results in Google, Yahoo, et al.

Those positions in the search results pages, and the resulting clicks, cost you nothing once you`ve achieved that status.  Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing are the paid listing options both of those search engines offer, so that you can pay for placement within those same search results (with the ads running along the right side of the screen, or in some cases at the top of the search results in a clearly defined advertising box).

I would say that, given your market and the specific niche you`re targeting, you should consider doing both search optimization and search advertising to promote your site.  As Vicki points out, you can be up and running with some search advertising extremely quickly, and be driving traffic to your site the same day - with the added benefit that it`s very trackable, and thus easy to test and refine.

But given the fact that your target market is Oregon real estate, I would imagine there are competitive openings in the organic search results that would provide an opportunity for your site to rank well in the natural search results.

Just touching back on the advertising, I would advise starting with both Google and Yahoo; set a similar budget, start your campaigns, and then evaluate, test, refine, evaluate, test, refine, evaluate...you get the idea.  You`ll probably find there`s a distinct difference between the traffic and results you receive from both engines.  Different keywords might perform differently in the two engines.  The demographics of their users differ, so it`s not unlikely one will outshine the other, but you won`t know until you test it - please let us know how it goes in this forum!


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chuck fuller

This is pretty cool, since I just started freelancing as an SEO writer. I`m totally fascinated with the level of constraint and the highly mathematical structure required for this type of writing. I don`t charge much because I`m learning the process to apply to my own and my friend`s site.

SEO writing isn`t at all "simple." One thing I learned is that there`s a precision balance between how many times you use a key phrase, in what context, and how it`s surrounded by other content. Nobody knows the algorithms the search engine`s (SEs) use, so it`s an analytic problem. But if you use the phrases the wrong way, the SEs toss your site for being Spam.

Lots of people think writing is a simple thing, anyone can do it, and why should they hire someone? That`s fine, I`ve got plenty of stuff to write, so I don`t much care if I get hired. I say that because I have nothing in particular to promote, and I`m not looking for work. But I would encourage you, if you`re noticing the level of traffic to your site, and your visibility on the SEs to see about hiring someone with real expertise in optimization.

Yes, the following is a plug, only because SuN is partly about just such advertising, but take a look at Net Site Marketing. At least it`ll give you some help in terms of why you`d want to get involved with specialized knowledge. It`s like a whole new kind of word puzzle, and I find it engrossing. :-)