I know where to find the source code for a site. What I don't understand is what exactly it is and how do you make your own better?

Anyone who can explain this to me I would be grateful!  In fact, if you are ever in my area I will bake you a chocolate cake!

Thanks in advance,

Mel (leah)

When you say 'source code for a site' are you thinking of what you see when you do menu > view source?

This is called HML - it is a mark up language.

You use tags to mark up plain text.

Web browsers, like internet explorer, read this and turn it into a graphical website

maybe.  I say maybe because I got a call from an Internet Marketing Company last night and they talked about the source codes and how hey could make ours better and get us into the search engines at a much higher ranking, guranteed or our money back within 4 months.  This sounds like a good plan but the cost is the problem and so I thought if I understood the source coding better I might be able  do it ad save us that money. 

Or, is the only way to move up in search engines is to hire a company to do it or free clicks or paid clicks? 

It is all so confusing!

Mel

WOW... I can't imagine what the source code ( html page coding) would have to od with getting better rankings? I would be most intersted in hearing more about this 'marketing company' - have a URL? I am on a quest to Stop the SEO Madness - so please do tell me more about these folks would ya...

Anyways, ranking in search engines gets harder depending on the competitivenes of the term(s) you are targeting. You can;

a. learn SEO from a variety of sources - http://forums.site-reference.com/topic/ … Link-Fest/ and apply your knowledge to your site

b. hire a company to do so. This is obviously the more expensive route. Hiring someone depends if you have the time to do it yourself, or would rather pay some one and spend your time developing the business.

Most reputable SEO providers aren't what most folks would consider cheap. You see, ranking a competitive term ( or a program including long tail terms) can take anywhere from 6-12 months. Most of us aren't going to work for that period of time for a few hundred bucks. Thinking that you will rank for profitable terms for $200 is unreasonable...

Once upon a time, on-site optimisation could secure high rankings; keyword density, content length, internal linking structure, etc.

Now it's more about off-site optimisation. True, it helps to have keywords and phrases in the content of your pages but it's links from other sites that really get the SEO juices flowing.

Depending on the market you're in i'd split the online marketing budget differently between SEO and paid-advertising. If the money is there then build a really good site and use google adwords (learn to use it to your advantage as well). A few link drops here and there can help too.

The post that dave mentions is a pretty good resource for SEO stuff.

The company you describe could be taking you for a mug....

www.internetadvancement.com


that is the company who called.  Said they did a lot of businees with SOP owners.  And of course they tried to sell the highest priced package.

I will look into what you guys have suggested.

(thanks for the URL ..yummy yummy)

May I ask if you have even established how you want to go about marketing the site? The main 2 avenues are;

1. Paid search marketing - known as Pay Per Click

2. Organic Search marketing - also known as SEO (search engine optimization)

... and I suppose the other obvious question is; What is your marketing budget?

We all have a threshold as far as what we are willing to spend on a given venture ( yer budget). It is a matter of spending it as wisely as possible.

Well, I am not sure.  The man, our partner, who owns the site, has found that what he was told he was buying was not what he got.  He is working with them to find out what we are supposed to do in getting into the search engines per as he was told.  I personally think, (and this is just me) that he didn't get what he paid thousands of dollars for.  Seems to me that it is going to be costly to do any type of marketing.  Can't afford the paid per click thing and the budget is not at this time.  I have gotten us into some search engines for free, but we all know how that works.  Click, click, click until the cows come and go home to no avail!  I have tried purchasing some clicks to try that out, which was really cheap, but not sure how that will work out.  We are getting flyers out this weekend (I think) here in our local area, which we hope will generate a lot of business.  I have also gotten us into the local.com and the craigslist.com, so will have to wait to see what happens.  I recently found out about the linking our website with others but not sure how that works yet.

I am not sure why anyone would want to pay for something that they should be able to do themselves, providing that they know how.  And certainly not another 2000. grand on top of what he already spent plus 150 a month!  I just don't get it.

Let me know what you find out about the site that contacted me.  They seemed legit, but heck if I know, for I am just a small town, southern girl, who is enjoying all the wonderful new things that she is learning.

Mel

Oh, I can tell you they are FULL OF IT…. I simply wanted the URL so I could rant on their pathetic asses.

For example, from their services page they offer;

“Ongoing monthly submission programs to the major search sites (AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask and others) plus Internet Advancement's partner network totaling over 5,000 different search engines, directories and Internet sites to give our clients the most exposure possible”

tsk tsk tsk… this is simply BAD SEO otherwise known as an SEO Myth …. He he

Let’s look at the TOP OF THE LINE plan;

•    “Ideal for companies with moderate to heavy search engine positioning competition
•    Monthly submissions to over 5,000 sites on the client's behalf
•    Warranties 28 top 25 listings on any the top 50 search sites
•    Warranties 600 targeted visitors over 4 months (an average of 150 visitors per month)
•    $3000.00 set-up + $149.95 monthly submission fee ”

Submitting to 5000 sites; There are really only 3 search engines we worry about. – Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live - and there is no reason to SUBMIT to them. Second, the rest are probably directories which a bunch of monkeys can do for various services ranging around $20/100 directories. I wouldn’t want to submit to 1000 useless directories it would make a mess of your Link Profile.

28 Top 25 listings – I probably have 100s of top 28 rankings… but that doesn’t mean they are terms that actually bring traffic. I’d rather have ONE top 10 ranking on a ‘money term’ than a 100 useless rankings that bring no traffic. No traffic means no business. Ranking for useless terms mean no ROI (return on investment) – your boss would know how important that is.

‘Warranties’ 600 visitors?? What is that? It’s not a guarantee and really… let’s look at the numbers;
600 visitors x 2% conversion rate x net profit ($20) on $50 item = $240 .. it I can’t see how U can rank for any term that would bring much of ANY traffic in four months ( competitive terms generally take longer).
So we are paying $3000 + 4 months @ $150 = $3600
Where is my ROI??? How do I get my $$ back and show profit????

The main point here is that they have shown ignorance of simple SEO practices and I can’t see how they could really achieve anything that would show a positive return on the money spent.

For example I made a post the other day on my Blog called - 'Your SEO Sucks' .....   I am currently ranking #1 for ' your SEO sucks ' and #6 for ' SEO sucks'

....heck there are a couple Top 10 rankings on Google for ya.... and I did NOTHING to get them in only 3 days.

Will they EVER bring any traffic that converts in any way?? Or any traffic what-so-ever??? Not likely..... so just because U have a Top 10 ( or 28 whatever) doesn't mean much really...looks good on paper...

I once targeted ' business developer ' which I rank #4 from 320 000 000 results and ' internet business development' which I am #1 out of 482 000 000 results.... wanna know how much traffic that get's me?? Sweet fish-all ..... so obviously conversions on those terms is NOTHING .... simply time wasted and a learning lesson from my old days....... Not all target terms are created equal.

Feel free to have yer partner get in touch if he doesn’t want to have some one learn how to do things… I can certainly have a look at things and let U know what you should be spending and where.

The main gig is that we want to research terms that will get an eventual positive return on the investment. Spending money on marketing that goes into the negative.. is a recipe for failure. It is not as simple as grabbing some keywords/terms out of thin air and ranking for them.

Who did U spend $$ on in the first place for SEO?

Who did U spend $$ on in the first place for SEO?

That was very informative and I appreciate it too.  WE do not spend any money for any SEO or maybe it came with the package, I am not sure (I just designed the site and I am suppose to run it).  I don't think we were aware that we should.  Don is going to have to talk with the people over at SOP and see what they have to say about all this search engine stuff.  I do know a couple of weeks ago they gave him a list of search engines that he could manually put our site in, claiming that as part of the deal that he got.  Seems to me that it is just common sense to go to google, yahoo and msn and input your site into their engines.  Am I wrong in that thinking?

Leah

Mel1962 wrote:

Who did U spend $$ on in the first place for SEO?

That was very informative and I appreciate it too.  WE do not spend any money for any SEO or maybe it came with the package, I am not sure (I just designed the site and I am suppose to run it).  I don't think we were aware that we should.  Don is going to have to talk with the people over at SOP and see what they have to say about all this search engine stuff.  I do know a couple of weeks ago they gave him a list of search engines that he could manually put our site in, claiming that as part of the deal that he got.  Seems to me that it is just common sense to go to google, yahoo and msn and input your site into their engines.  Am I wrong in that thinking?

Leah

Totally wrong as I mentioned. That would simply let them know U exist. Ranking for keywords and getting a site indexed is primarily (not exclusively) about building backlinks (popularity).... simply telling them (submitting) that U exist doens't mean much.

We want to RANK in the search engines for the targeted terms that will bring traffic ( ie; visitors). Most search users don;t go past the first 3 pages of results so we want to be there at the VERY minimum. Since everyone else in your marketin is looking to accomplish the same thing, it's gonna take some work.

There is no point submitting to a search engine if you won't rank for a given term. The act of actually doing SEO on a site will ensure that your site get's indexed. SO the act of submission is pointless... we get on with the SEO work and let that take care of itself.