blog

SEM, PPC, SEO and all that stuff... is it worth the hassle?

posted by: Alex  /  03 August 2008

"If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Shows how little Ralph Waldo knew about business!

Every company, however good its products or services, has to elbow its way past a myriad of competitors to get in front of prospects. And today, that takes dedicated electronic marketing techniques.

Exactly what is SEM?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is all about connecting anyone who searches for information relevant to your brand with the information they are seeking. If you don't, your competitor will.

It is about making your brand highly visible within the search engines to attract new prospective customers.

PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) are methods of placing your product or service in front of prospective online customers when they are in BUYING mode.

PPC is a form of paid advertising, using sponsored listings with a search engine or a partner site. You pay a fee every time your advert is clicked.

SEO means your web pages have been evaluated by search engines as being highly relevant to specific search terms. As a reward, yours will appear amongst the top sites, above all the thousands of competitors, for those search terms. The search engines make no charge for this.
In short the PPC method is immediate (you could launch a ‘paid for' listing today) but less trusted by prospects. SEO takes longer to achieve, but gives prospects more reassurance, so in all a far better proposition.

High ranking is king

Research shows that, unless your brand appears amongst the top 10 in the listings, yours is considered an ‘also ran' brand. Get into the top three and yours is perceived as a mega brand.

Put us to the test!

Go to Google right now and type the words:
• " Drainage". You will see that our client is top out of more than 2 million sites.
• " Mexican Food" - top out of 400,000 sites
• " QS site support" - top out of 50,000 sites
• even something as esoteric as "Flour for homebaking" - top out of more than 50,000 sites

"Top ranking guaranteed" - Buyer beware

Sadly, there are many charlatans in the field of SEO, all offering instant rankings. If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true.
Fivesite has earned its reputation because we work hard and long at site optimisation. We always use ethical methods, so you can be confident you will never be in Google's bad books (it is said that even BMW were black listed for a time).

You can be confident that we will achieve high rankings that are sustainable. Rankings that deliver more prospects to your door and more profit to your bottom line.

To find out more contact us on 01234 292222.