When it comes to internet marketing, traditional web site optimization (SEO) still stands as the holy grail, but an increasing number of small and medium sized business owners, facing the prospect of high SEO fees, are just now beginning to turn to an alternative promotional method that is generating consistent and quantifiable results at a fraction of the cost.The cost of SEO, at least when it comes to highly competitive keyword phrases, is prohibitive for all but those with deep pockets.
Matt Hocken, of Interactive Marketing, Inc., estimates that one can expect to pay upwards of $50,000 - $100,000 a year to secure top ten Google placement for a highly competitive keyword phrase like life insurance or debt consolidation and thats obviously out of the question for the small to medium sized business, Ron Scott, Fast Track SEOPs senior publicist reports.
Even the cost for placement using less popular keyword phrases can be high.
A Houston publicist recently paid $5,000 to get her website optimized for a small number of obscure keyword phrases that Overture reports are cumulatively generating fewer than 200 inquiries a month. Not told that 50-75% of those searches are being routinely conducted by webmasters, SEOs, and website owners checking the current status of their websites, shes now wondering if shell ever recoup the expense, Scott says.
So whats the alternative Pop-ups Pop unders Banner ads Email Not hardly.
Unlike an organic search engine optimization program that can take months and even years to start showing results, internet press releases start generating interest the day they are published.
A properly optimized and distributed press release will typically generate 50,000 - 100,000 actual reads the first week it goes on line, says Scott.
According to Scott, unlike traditional press releases, 98% of all internet press releases are read by consumers and B2B prospects.
Originally, press releases were the exclusive domain of the Fortune 500 and were directed to the mass media, but not any more. Small and medium sized businesses have discovered that they can deliver their messages directly to a broad (national or international) or highly targeted (local or regional) audience on the internet and, thereby, eliminate the tedious process of media placement, he says.
Scott points out that the value of an internet press release promotional strategy doesnt stop there.
Press releases can also be optimized for organic search which enables those who find their newly published websites residing in Google purgatory, the opportunity to secure top ten rankings in a week or less, Scott says.
To illustrate the value of the internet marketing strategy, Scott points to a release he prepared and distributed on behalf of a little known manufacturer in New Zealand.
The first 30 calendar days, it generated 133,686 reads, drove over 25,000 visitors to their website, and generated 100s of inquiries from B2B prospects all over the world, he says. Since that sampling taken at the beginning of June, the release has generated an additional 42,443 reads and a commensurate level of traffic and inquiries.Its the gift that keeps giving, he says.
Has traditional web site optimization outlived its usefulness
For most of our clients it has, Scott says.
To introduce business owners to the comparative value of an internet, press release promotional strategy, Fast Track SEOP offers free, online introductory webinars four days a week. The company, a full-service internet public relations firm, has developed an online training program that enables business owners to manage their press release promotional campaigns in-house. To learn more visit
I designed a website once for streaming audio, this was the key word I was to use streaming website audio, this sounds like a good key word phrase or is it!
When it got onto Google it made number one, wow I thought I should get lots of hits with this I got a grand total of 0 hits, why do you think that was
Its all to do with supply and demand only around 135 people typed these key words in and the demand is around 620000 websites doing the same thing.
When you pick your key words there needs to be a good demand for those key words. You can get lots of software that will look this up for you.
Spend time looking up key words that work else like me you can have a very good website all keyed for these words and get 0 hits.
I started to think it was the design of the site, words like FREE page ranking would seem to be a good key phrase but the demand is 0 for this, humm this sounds a good phrase and so did 1650000 other website designers, so because I have looked up the phrase I now no not to spend hours designing a web page for this phrase.
Your website needs to be relevant to the phrase your using, If I type into Google Website promotion I expect to get sites for website Promotion, not a cook book!
This is why Google do what they do, they spider your web pages and the key words are taken, these are from bits like the page title area, tags, links, hyper links and even the text that comes up when you hover over a picture.
Google also look to see the number of good links that point to your website, think about putting your url in your signature in any forum you have joined.
Key words need to be common and there needs to be a demand have a look at Nichefinder or some other software that will look up this information, it will save you months of time and work.
By Brian Hart