Your stats show the Googlebot is visiting your site.  That is a good first step to getting listed and ranked.   A client asked us the other day if it makes a difference to Google if you have the www in the web address or can leave it out.  

The webmaster tool provides this answer:

The intelligence built in to search engine crawlers is fantastic and impressive to say the least.  Each search engine that is crawling and indexing your site will likely follow the Google example to some extent.

The important thing to get correct is being consistent.  Promoting your site and getting backlinks is important. If you are not putting any time or money
into your sites it should be no surprise that few leads result.  If you are going to use www in promotional materials etc.. then always use it in print,
online, in videos and on your apparel.

Nice,  Google released a new feature called Google Instant.   While we thought something was wrong with our browser it was really the dawn of a new way to search.  Ajax programmers gave us super fast magical features for our websites and Google uses a lot of Ajax in it’s products. 

Google Instant requires no training or plugin, just go to www.google.com and start searching for something like dfw marketing and result choices instantly come up.  This for us has the initial effect of seeming like to much blinking and forget about your adwords on the side.  Your eyes won’t keep up as the body keeps changing while you type.

So the cool thing is to use backspace.  This feature lets you glance results and might make it easier to get the relevant information you were looking for.  Use backspace on the fly and see the results change in the body not just the search drop down which was cool when that first started appearing also.  This will affect SEO and adwords although Google has stated that no changes to the search result process was made.  

This will change how we interactively search.

The Com Scores* are out and the findings show Google is still the top search engine with 65% of all searches.   This is up .5% from the Summer 2009 report and after some traffic previously included is no longer part of the totals. This means they are actually stronger even though the report shows Google stayed the same at 65%.  Yahoo still at #2 position with 20% of search traffic has fallen to 16.9% losing ground to Microsoft at #3.   Ask and AOL follow with under 4% of the market.   Should you dismiss AOL in your search engine marketing efforts?  Not if US traffic is important.  Many loyal, long time AOL users rely on the portal service which also includes “enhanced” Google results.  

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not included in the core search numbers.
** Due to a change in the URL structure for certain Google News & Video searches, a portion of searches previously counted were excluded. comScore estimates that these searches were responsible for a reduction in Google’s Core Search share of approximately 10 basis points or 0.1%

Is getting search engine optimization in 2010 what a small business should do? Will it really help get more customers? Is it effective at finding localized consumers?

The answer to all of these questions is Yes. The market is still down, lucky it is recovering but companies out there are still struggling to stay afloat. DFW companies have to make difficult decisions every month as far as advertising and promotional needs to keep them either selling product or service. And this is precisely the reason that this year SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is important. Search engine optimization provided by companies like 1 Call Service offer other companies a way to increase viable leads at a reduced cost compared to other forms of traditional advertising. A company that has more viable traffic is likely to make more sales as more arrive at the site because they found what they where looking for.

An example could be if you’re looking for a local lawn service, so you do a search and see what comes up. The higher you are on this list the most likely you are to gain the traffic. If your site is the one they end up on then you may have just made a sale.

The Dallas metroplex map and surrounding areas represent a large advertising market spread out over several hundred miles. So how can SEO/SEM (Search Engine Marketing)help narrow the field if you are just looking for local customers? SEO/SEM experts all across the county know about the important of localized services and searches, all of your major search engines are also now local aware. These experts can tap the potential of these search engine getting you the local results your looking for, be it a specific area such as Carrollton, or Plano, or a wider range such as Dallas or Ft. Worth.

1 Call Service SEO/SEM professionals will detail out your starting point, and formulate a custom list of improvements to be done to your website, along with getting information on what your specific SEM goals are. With this they can go to work and soon you can start to see your results. More calls, more walk ins, more product off the shelves, what ever your business needs are; money spent on SEO is money well spent in 2010.

Search engine optimization has become the weapon of choice for small companies to compete.

Traffic is shifting to the web

SEO for short, is what people search for along with SEM which is short for Search Engine Marketing.  One would think that traditional advertising is dead but that is far from true.

Mail, email and websites are all viable methods of marketing. To twitter or not is not the question. The fundamentals are much lower than the high level question of precisely where to market.   DFW marketing recently came across a company providing search engine marketing with a single focus of buying links called linkbacks and they never even see the stats of the website they are promoting instead relying only on the link tracking of the service they use to buy the back links. Fortunately we educated them to some basics and they will be more successful as a result.

Tip Time: If you signed up for SEO or SEM and the marketing company has not asked for access to your stats fire them right now! Do not waste another dollar or try to educate them because they should be educating you.

Tip Time: Before you signed an agreement was a specific measurable goal discussed? Something to think about..