Intrillion Frequently Asked Questions
Have A Question About:
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
SEM
1. Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing Services are becoming increasingly more vital to business success.
- 99% of internet users utilize search engines
- 1.4 million searches are performed world wide every minute
- Over 50% of searchers click on the first paid ad position
- Search Engine Marketing investment has increased from $109 million to $7.3 billion over the past 8 years
Sources: iProspect, Marketing Sherpa, comScore and eMarketer
2. What is an Organic or Natural search engine listing?
The terms Organic and Natural are interchangeable. These are the search engine listings that appear for free in search engines. Search engines use algorithms as well as quality weighting on editorial and content to determine how to rank and order these free listings. Positions within the organic / natural listings are not sold and may not be purchased. It is solely up to the discretion of the search engine to include a website in its organic / natural listings.
3. What is the difference between an Organic and Paid search engine listing?
Organic listings are the free listings that appear in the main portion of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). There are typically 10 organic listings on a SERP. Paid listings can appear at the top, right-hand side and sometimes bottom of a SERP around the free listings. Typically there are 2 paid listings at the top and 8 paid listings on the right-hand side of a SERP depending on the number of advertisers for a specific query. The position or rank of a paid listing is determined by the maximum bid amount and quality score of an advertiser’s keywords.
4. What is the market share among major search engines?
According to comScore in April of 2008 the share of searches among major search engines in the United States was as follows:
- Google = 61.6%
- Yahoo = 20.4%
- Microsoft = 9.1%
- AOL = 4.6 %
- Ask = 4.3%
SEO
1. What is SEO?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It is the act of making the website a search engine friendly so that search engines spiders can easily crawl the site. The end result is that your site is easily defined for the search engine spider to determine your site's relevancy in regards to its content.
2. Can I do this myself?
Yes, it can be done on your own. But would you rather have your house build by someone who has built hundreds of homes in the past or someone like yourself?
3. What type of impact will this have in my rankings?
Your site should eventually reach the top of the rankings for your keywords if properly done, and effectively maintained. Depending on what your website's business proposition is, it will determine how fast is your success.
4. How long until I see results?
If it is a new site, results should begin to appear within 120 days. If your site is already well established, results should be expected within 30-60 days.
5. How soon until the search engines pick up the newly optimized site?
Depending on your marketing strategy, your site can be picked up anywhere from 2 hours to 4 days. This means that the search engines have found your site.
6. Does the way the site is coded determine the cost?
Sometimes. Normally if the site has bad navigational structures, sloppy coding or a dis-organized file structure, it should be expected that your site will need more attention in order to become properly optimized.
7. What happens during the optimization process?
File naming conventions, site copy and page title reviews are just scratching the surface. There will be many subtle changes to the site.
8. Why does it take so long to complete the process?
Proper optimization takes place on a page by page basis. Depending on the size of the site, it will determine the length of time needed to complete the task.
9. How much should I expect to pay?
This is usually determined by the effort needed to get the site optimized. Some determining factors are if the site is static, dynamic or if they have the ability to be edited by end-users.
10. Any flags to watch out for?
One very obvious sign is any company that "guarantees" a #1 ranking in any search engine, or claims to have an "exclusive" relationship with any of the major search engines.
11. Why is SEO important for website marketing?
99% of internet users utilize search engines to find what they are seeking. 50% of those users either find what they are looking for or abandon their search after page 1 of search results. 80% do the same after page 3 of search results. This is why it is important to make a website SEO friendly. If search engines can not find or read a website they can not index the website in its database. Without being at the very least indexed a website will never show up in the free listings of a search engine. Being indexed alone is not enough however. Good SEO allows a website to make its case to search engines as to why it is the most important regarding specific keywords. Search engines rank websites for specific keywords in order of what they feel is important.
12. How does SEO lower long term online marketing costs?
SEO allows a website to communicate its importance regarding specific keywords or topics to search engines. Effective SEO can help a website to rank highly in the free (organic) listings of search engines. With 99% of internet users utilizing search engines, high rankings in search engines can bring a tremendous amount of free traffic to a website. Free traffic is just that: FREE.
13. What kind of results can I expect from SEO?
It is typical to begin receiving results within 6 months from the time of SEO implementation. In some circumstances SEO may take longer than 6 months to take effect. Keep in mind these first results are only the beginning. Website rankings for organic listings rise slowly in search engines not quickly. It is a long term but necessary solution if a business is planning on being in operation for the long term. SEO is also not a cut and dry or guaranteed practice. It is impossible for any SEO expert to guarantee a number 1 ranking in a search engine’s natural listings. Following best practices is crucial to SEO. Using tactics that search engines deem to be malicious can get a website banned from those search engines. Be wise in choosing an SEO expert.
Social Media Marketing
1. What is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
SMM involves promoting content in various ways to social media users, in attempt to increase traffic and exposure. SMM can involve developing content that targets social media users, building a network of other users, requesting votes from others, and anything else that involves getting votes and traffic from social media websites.
2. What is the difference between SMM and Social Media Optimization?
The term Social Media Optimization usually doesn’t include the act of promoting content through such methods as requesting votes. SMO involves creating the right content and setting a website up to be friendly to social media users, but doesn’t go as far in terms of promoting the content.
3. If social media traffic converts poorly, why is it worth my time?
If your intent is to directly sell products (or something similar) it probably is not worth your time. In this case there are other things you could be doing with your time that would likely create better results. However, in most cases social media marketing is worth your time because of the exposure, name recognition and branding opportunities that it presents. In addition, it doesn’t cost anything to promote content with social media (unless you hire someone for this purpose), and there are other benefits, such as increased search engine traffic through link building, and the opportunity to gain new subscribers.
4. How much traffic can I expect to get from social media?
The amount of traffic you can get is all over the place. You may get nothing, or you may get 100,000 plus visitors. Generally, major social media sites are capable of sending several thousand visitors, while smaller social media sites may send a few hundred or less. While this traffic is significant, it’s not the end of the story. Pages that draw a lot of inbound links are also likely to rank well in search engines, which can lead to tons of on-going traffic as well.
5. Why are Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization often mentioned together?
Many SEO experts also offer SMM services, and in most cases it is primarily for the purpose of link building. Search engine rankings are heavily influenced by inbound links, and one of the best ways to build links is to leverage social media.