Calgary Web Designer Jenn Armour | Info Architecture + User Centric Web Design + Online Marketing + Social Media + Ideas

Search engine marketing and optimization

Having been fortunate enough to contract with an SEM and SEO company early in my design career i was able to learn fundamental SEM strategies and implementations. This came to be an important distinguishing feature in my ability to understand web project development from a business perspective. A web site can appear professional and pretty but if it is not found organically by targeted visitors it has no value to the company. This is a very common complaint.

There are several ways to go about implementing SEO and SEM. If you are a one person business with a web site you could utilize the Internet to learn about and implement your own search engine marketing techniques. Many small business owner’s will do exactly that. What needs to be understood ahead of time is that successful SEO and SEM practices require a great deal of persistent, on-going effort and maintenance.

Alternatively you can hire a specialized SEM company. These services will cost you almost as much as the development depending on the scope of what you are looking for.

Ideally from both a budget and a time perspective it is wise to get the development/design company or the freelancer to integrate best SEO practices into the project life-cycle. It is important to note here that there is quite a large difference between SEO best practices and SEM / SEM strategy development. The latter includes alot more than just fixing a few meta tags. Basically think of SEO as on page optimizing and SEM as outside of the web site altogether. For example pay per click advertising is SEM.

Because most of search engine marketing has to do with ‘words’ specifically ‘key words or key word phrases’ it would be wise to have your freelancer incorporate the necessary research and strategy into the information architecture development phase of the project. As well as any other content driven marketing strategies including social media.

SEM Services

All good search engine marketing programs must start with an in-depth understanding of your online marketplace, the competitive pressures you face and careful consideration and selection of highly relevant target keyword phrases. We work closely with you and your team to fully understand your competitive environment and your online marketing goals and objectives and then execute tactics which may include:

• Analysis of current web presence and existing status in primary engines.
• Competitive analysis.
• Strategic keyword phase selection.
• Building of optimized search rich landing pages based on phrases.
• Content modifications and/or creation of additional content.
• Managed Paid-Placement (also called Pay-per-click) programs.
• Recommendations to improve upon the indexability of your web site.
• Link-building services to increase the quality and quantity of links to your web site.
• Building your online brand and visibility via social media.
• Web analytics installation and configuration to track your results on a monthly basis.
• Detailed ranking reports and conversion data.