Consider a recent study by the good folks at Yahoo. They found that one in five page views on the Internet goes to search. Then consider your own behavior when you’re looking for information online. You use a search engine of course and the first links that you are likely to click on are the ones at or near the top of the search engine results page. The aim of search engine optimization is to get your site listed as close to the top of the search engine results pages for the keywords that are most valuable to your business. Simply stated, your Web pages rankings in search results are determined not by people, but by complex algorithms that evaluate the words and pictures on the page, how they are placed in relation to each other as well as who links to your pages and also who your pages link to. Search engine optimization is the process of first making sure that your pages are understood by the search engines and then taking additional steps to boost their rankings.
Good news. There's a lot you can do by yourself, and if you're reading this, you're at least considering it. As a pathological do-it-yourselfer, I get the desire to do so. There is a boat load of information available about SEO, some free, some not, some reputable, some not. For the determined, I’ve provided resource links to solid sources of information that are good places to start. The questions you have to answer are, "do I really want to do this myself" and "what is my time worth?" When my wife and I gutted our house I learned that I could do a passable job mudding drywall joints. Then I discovered that a pro had more knowledge, great tools and could get it done better and faster than I ever could have. Can you do it yourself? Yes you can.
The answer is no. You will come across some some firms who say they can guarantee it and they may get you there ... for a while. Ask them how they do it. Chances are they are doing something that qualifies as "black hat SEO" using tools such as link farms that could ultimately end up costing you in the long run. Search engines, Google in particular, can punish you for this practice, among others. Don't make an enemy of Google. Monkey Jump Media is strictly "white hat". No shady practices. Nothing I won't tell you about.
As part of search engine optimization of your site, I'll want to make some changes to the text and to some of the coding behind it. I know wording matters, so we'll discuss any major wording changes I propose before I make them. In many cases, I can make the changes that need to be made on your site myself. In some cases, if your site is built in Flash or Silverlight for example, I will suggest changes and your designer may have to make them.
It's unpredictable and depends partly on the magnitude of the effort and the state of your site now. Even after the changes are complete, you may not see significant improvement for from two to six months. If your site has lots of room to improve, you'll likely see some results more quickly than that. Part of the service I provide is education and providing you with the tools, figuratively and literally to monitor, maintain and improve your search engine rankings.
I'm easy to reach. Feel free to email me at , call me at 206.755.7322 or go right ahead and schedule a meeting.