 What is SEO?
Your website is devoted to particular topics and content. Of the millions of Internet users are those who are looking for your type of content via search engines. SEO is all about helping these folks find your website.
Search engine optimization is the science and art of crafting a website that search engines such as Google can readily find, evaluate and list so that users can reliably find websites relevant to their needs. Since search is text-based, developing a site with keywords that users actively utilize is, well, key.
A site can be optimized for world-wide searches, but it also can be optimized for local or regional search, in Atlanta, for example. At Qiigo, we focus on helping companies reach audiences that are relevant to their business needs, whether that audience is on the other side of town, or the world.
The difference between SEO and PPC
SEO delivers organic or natural search results that are listed for free. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) on the other hand is paid advertising. Your clickable ad may appear in search results (with Google, ads appear under the Sponsored Links heading) then users enter a keyword you have selected and bid on. When users click on your ad, you pay for the click at the rate you've selected.
"We boosted our Google rankings with Qiigo SEO. Alongside this effort, they helped us set up a PPC ad campaign. Both worked, but the free listing consistently outperformed our paid listings, even as we refined our keywords and ads."
-- Jane Client, XYZ Company, Atlanta
A peek inside SEO methods
There are anywhere from 143 to 197 checklist items that go into optimizing a website. We may employ many of them, but there are 3 "buckets" these items fit into:
• Content
• Crawl-ability
• Back links
Content, content, content -- As location is to real estate desirability, so content is to websites. We look at your site's content from every angle, because the search engines love well-written, well-planned pages designed to engage those who click on them. Good, relevant content packs a lot of SEO punch. We ensure that your content is great and contains the proper keywords in just the right amount (aka keyword density) to grab the attention of search engine crawlers. Speaking of which...
Crawl-Ability -- Call them crawlers, spiders or robots, search engines "crawl" the Web with applications that find, evaluate and index websites. How friendly a website is to the process helps determine its ranking in search results. Ensuring that your site is well built, makes content easily accessible and uses elements such as JavaScript and Flash appropriately are all part of our SEO process.
Back links -- A back link is a link on another website that points back to your site. Think of it as a business references from a colleague. Search engines smile upon back links as evidence that third parties regard content on your site as worthwhile and relevant. We work to build meaningful, relevant back links as part of our SEO strategy, including links on hugely popular (and growing) social media sites from Facebook to Twitter to Digg. Back links on social media sites:
• Leverage other people's SEO value to boost your SEO value
• Are referrals that can generate traffic to your site
• Are free
Results, results, results
As we always explain, SEO is part science and part art. It requires applying proven, best-practice techniques to your website - and fine-tuning to keep pace with ever-changing technology and human culture/psychology/habits.
At Qiigo, we generally achieve improved ranking results for our clients in the first month of implementation for easy keyword terms, and see improvements in about three months for more difficult keyword terms.
Why Qiigo for your SEO?
You want a fair price, a firm you can trust and verifiable results. As our clients attest, we deliver on all three points.
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