How are SEO and PPC Different?

There are two kinds of ways to get your site to be seen on Google, one is search engine optimization, or SEO, and the other is pay-per-click, or PPC. These two formats of promoting your site on the internet search engines are both similar to each other however they are different and in big ways.

How are SEO and PPC different?

• Where they are placed on search engines
• The potential for traffic
• Cost to rank 
• The involvement your site has

1. The first difference, where they are displayed, is the biggest difference that anyone can notice and not just those of us who work with SEO and PPC. See how at the top of the image, the first link has the "Ad" marker? These are links that were paid to be there and thus, are PPC. The links on the right side of the page have this too. In the past, Google had the PPC links where in yellow boxes but they have very much reduced the yellow and replaced it with the "Ad" icon. The links that do not have the "Ad" marker next to them are organic links; they are placed there as the result of good search engine optimization. 
2. Another big difference, the potential for traffic, is a bigger deal for those who work with these two formats as well as those who utilize them. Yes, you get to the first page of Google faster with PPC, however, most people do not actually click on the PPC links. Why? Well, ask yourself the question (if you don't). Likely, your answer has something to do with the fact that the paid ones are not as credible; they are only there because they were paid to be there & didn't earn their place. It's like the guy at work who is management because his dad owns the company, not because he worked hard, you know? Internet users are 5x more likely to click on an organic link. 
3. The third difference, the cost, depends on several factors. Google and Yahoo! manage their PPC costs differently. Yahoo! does it purely on ranking; if you give lots of money, then you'll have a higher ranking. With Google, it depends on your market, competition, etc. They both set up budgets for you and each time someone clicks on your link, that cost per click is deducted from your budget, likely a daily budget. 
4. The fourth and final difference, involvement of your site, is a big deal too. When it comes to PPC, you do not have to really work on getting your site ready; the more clicks you want, the more money you spend on it. When it comes to search engine optimization, you have to optimize your site to get it working. This means having lots of content, title tags, image tags/descriptions, H1/H2/H3 tags, keywords mixed into the content, images, etc. If your site is not optimized when you decide to do SEO, then you'll have your prep work to do. 

If you are interested in doing SEO, then contact Integraphix - an SEO company. If you want to first see how SEO could help you, we can do a free website analysis. 

Why Content Matters with SEO

Content in search engine optimization is not just something you do, it is the thing you do. Everything about SEO revolves around the content. There are several things to consider when talking about content for SEO but we will focus on the big three: keywords, quality, and freshness.

The Hummingbird update that happened was a big change for the search algorithm that Google put into place. There is more focus on keywords now than ever before once the Hummingbird update came; keywords are to be in the titles of things, meta tags, in the paragraphs, your keyword density, etc. However, in regards to keywords, more emphasis is now on what the article is about and how you are using the keywords within all the content.

In the past, Google studied the search trends around the world and realized they had to improve identifications among synonyms and concept grouping. What does this mean? It means you should have both synonyms that are related to your main keywords as well as keywords directly related to the topic. This has changed search engine marketing strategy for every internet marketing firm in Chicago, New York, San Franciso, etc.

What about the article quality? You now have to write articles that are longer and are much more meaningful. Back in the day, you could get away with articles that were only 250 words but now, that minimum has doubled. A lot of websites have seen themselves get hit by Google because they had too little content. Ideally, webpages of 300, 400, 500+ words do well, even some sites with 1500 word articles do well. The most important thing is how well your articles are written; Google likes to see how well your stuff is written since that impacts its search quality.

Fresh content is a big, big deal. If you are unable to create content from your own mind, then you will need some extra help; having content that you did not make up is not only plagiarism but it will also get you hit by the big ol' Google. Online marketing has a focus on creating fresh, fun content for audiences and for good reason. Write on things that other people are not covering, or if they are, take a new spin on it. Always putting up new content to your site will help you quite a bit!

If you are looking for a Chicago marketing company that can help with your SEO needs, then contact Integraphix. 

5 Reasons Why Your Company Needs to do SEO

Search engine optimization is a tool for businesses that can get their name in front of web users whenever they search for things related to that business. However, there are some people who believe it is not worth the time, effort, or money. So why should you not believe those people but rather invest in SEO?

1. SEO works. Unless your company is a huge company that has throngs of followers and can have people visiting your website because it simply exists, then your company needs SEO to show people your website exists and that they should go to it. When you are a small to medium sized company, you will see that people will not find your website unless you do SEO. If you sign up for Google Analytics without SEO, check out what your Google Analytics says after just a month or two of doing SEO, you'll see a difference. With SEO, your link can appear as the first link under the paid links (Google Adwords), people trust the organic links (where yours will be) over the paid links. 
2. It will work for a long time. Looking at how search engines function and continue to change, it has been shown that search engine optimization will not stop being a worthy investment anytime soon. As long as there are keywords and links on the internet, SEO will be a force on the internet. It will also work for a long time since SEO is like a train; it takes a little bit of time and effort to gain traction and chug along but once it does, it goes for a while. 
3. It is cost efficient. Compared to the cost of other kinds of marketing, including internet marketing, paying for SEO is much more efficient since the pricing is lower yet your results last longer. 
4. People use the internet for research. When someone is looking to install a home sprinkler system so their lawns get consistent watering, they are going to look for a company on the internet that services their areas. When they see your organic link up there and think, "Hmm, I'll check them out" guess what, they will check your site out! Once they do and they decide you're a worthy company to contact or not, they'll make the next move. Of course, you'd have never gotten the chance if you didn't do SEO. 
5. The competition is doing SEO too. If you have competitors, which you do, then you will be outshined if they are doing SEO and you are not. They will be in a position to be seen by the internet and your site won't even be listed on the internet, according to search engines. 

Putting time and effort into organic SEO is a worthy venture for any company that is of small, medium, or even large stature. Very few companies are able to have a dominating presence on the internet without any SEO assistance. 

Why Use Google Analytics

If your company does search engine optimization then you should be using Google Analytics. Now, this post is not a push or plug for Google but rather helpful advice for how you can understand if your SEO is working, how well, and what you can do to make it better.

When you use the analytics, you can see how many people visited your site for a specific period of time , how long they visited for, how many pages they viewed, how many got to your site through organic means or through directly putting your URL into their web browser. These are great tools to see how how well your SEO is working.

However, another great reason to actually analyze your efforts is to see how people are getting to your website. Are they getting to your site through the keywords that you have been using? If so, which ones? These are questions that get answered if you use Analytics.

Are people getting to your site via computer or are they looking at it through a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet? If they are using mobile devices more, then your site will have to be mobile-responsive so mobile users are able to view your site effectively; otherwise, they may scoot away from your site quickly, raising your bounce rate.

Are people in the area your targeting with your SEO looking at your site? You can find that out with a look at your analytics.

The bottom line is that if you are going to do search engine optimization, then it would be foolish to not monitor that and see how things are working out. Blindly hoping the efforts are paying off could be a waste of time and money.

3 Things That Can Harm Your SEO

SEO has a lot of components to it and each one is essentially as important as the other parts because they all contribute important aspects to successful SEO efforts. If you do not do all of the different components currently, your SEO will suffer. However, there are three things that harm your SEO without you really even realizing it. Well, until you read this blog post.

1. Not having fresh content. Not having fresh content when you write things like blogs and articles, as well as your website content, means that search engines will not like you. If you don't have original content, then that means you copied it from somewhere else and that is plagiarism and a big no-no to search engines. What will happen? You will be penalized by either have bad rankings and even getting your website blocked. Believe it or not, copying content you wrote but for something else counts too; did you have a great article that you think would make for a wonderful blog post as well? Well, you can reuse it but you'd better change the words and rewrite it or you'll be in some trouble. Trust someone in the search engine optimization business who does blogging, search engines know when you do this. 
2. Having a slow loading site. People expect websites to load in less than a second. So what if your website takes 5 seconds to load, or worse, 10 seconds? In the grand scheme of things, waiting 10 seconds for something like the internet to load and getting upset is ludicrous, but it is what it is. So how does a slow website harm your SEO? Well, the point of SEO is to get your website more exposure and get more people to visit your website; if your site takes too long to load, people give up on it and leave. People giving up on your site does not accomplish the goal of SEO; in fact, it raises your bounce rate which can harm your ranking chances. 
3. Poor navigation of the website. This can harm your SEO because if a search engine crawler has trouble moving around your site, it will not send a favorable report back to Google, Yahoo, whoever, and it will not look good for you. Also, if people have trouble, navigating your site, they won't return and that won't be good for you either. 

Take a look at these three things when analyzing your site and its promotion. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Integraphix - a Chicago marketing company and we'll be glad to help you out. 

9 Easy SEO tips

Search engine optimization can be a tricky, tricky business since things are constantly changing. Google likes to change the rules on doing SEO and normal people do as well by changing what they search and how they do it. So how do you know if you're doing SEO that is quality and will be noticed by the search engines?

1. Put your keyword in your domain. When you obtain a domain name, make sure that your keyword is in your domain name; search engines like to see this. 
2. Put your keyword in after your URL. This is the part of the URL that comes after your domain such as www.mywebsite.com/seo-tips-for-you instead of keeping it generic. Why does this matter? It matters because you have to allow search engines to know what pages are talking about before they get past the URL. 
3. Put keywords in your title tags, Meta descriptions, H1 tags, and web copy. When you have title tags on your site (which you have to have!), meta descriptions, H1s, and web copy, make sure you place your keyword(s) in there. You want the search engines to find things they like when they view your site. They like to see keywords. However, do not do keyword stuffing; this is when you stuff your content with keywords so much that it is overwhelming for search engines. 
4. Don't forget to optimize images on your site. When search engines crawl through your site, they will know if you have images; if the search engine can't determine what the image is, it will not care about the images. Make sure every image is optimized with a description. 
5. Build internal links. Your website will have more than one page and your blog will have more than one post; with these different pages and posts, make sure you create links between them. Have links on pages that connect to other pages or posts and vice versa. Search engines like to see that you have "alternate routes" on the highway that is your website. 
6. Make your site known to search engines. Just creating your site means nothing. You have to submit it to search engines! Submit your site to directories as well. 
7. Make your site easy to navigate. Search engines and people hate sites that take 10 years to navigate. If your site is not so easy that a new visitor can figure it out instantly, then your site will not get much traffic. 
8. Have good content. Your site needs to have content that is appropriate for your topics and that there is enough of it. Make sure your content is not copied or you will face big penalties from search engines. 
9. Get on social media. Have a company FB business page, twitter, YouTube,Yelp, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, blog, etc. Now, which ones you choose matters to reach your target audience so do your research. Chances are Facebook and Twitter are going to reach everyone but as far as what else to add, that's where research will help you. 

Just so you know, if your business has a brick & mortar, then add Google Maps to your site. Search engines and people love seeing this on your site. 

If you are looking for a search engine marketing firm, the contact Integraphix - a Chicago marketing firm. 

Integraphix is a leading Chicago Marketing, Advertising and Creative Agency creating strong brand identity and marketing strategies with our unique mix of advertising, graphic design, web design, and internet marketing expertise. We give free consultations. 

The Importance of Website Audits

If you do search engine optimization, then you have a website. Since you have a website, you should look at how it is doing and how SEO is affecting your website. How do you do this? There are two programs that you should have (in addition to others but we will focus on two) that can tell you how

your website is doing.

Using these two tools below will help you truly analyze how your website is performing and how it can be made better or if you have done everything right. If you want your website to be successful and not get penalized by search engines, then you are going to have to do website audits on your site. Admittedly, doing one can be scary, especially if you haven't done them before, because you may find that you have a lot to fix. These are not only helpful and necessary if you do SEO but also if you do web design because you want to know what to do during your designing so your site or your client's site perform well; if they perform well because of a great design, you will look good, real good.

The first program that you should have if you do SEO, whether for your own site or someone else's, is Website Auditor in the SEO Powersuite package. What does Website Auditor do? This tool looks through an entire website and shows all the structural parts of the website which includes things like the pages, site errors, validation, and much more. You can see things like your Google Page Rank, Alexa rating, where links are from/where they're going, any site problems, warnings/red flags, anything you want and need to know about your website.

The second program you should utilize is Google Analytics. This will give you measurements of how many people are visiting your site, where they are from, how long they look at your site, how many pages, how they found your site, etc. Anything you need to know about who looks at your site, you can find out.



If you are looking for a search engine optimization company, hire Integraphix - a Chicago marketing company.

Why Should I Do Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization is a marketing aspect that many people do not consider when trying to increase their brand awareness. The truth is, search engine optimization is something that the majority of small companies need to utilize if they wish to gain notoriety in the small business world. Search
engine optimization is not the newest form of internet marketing but is certainly not the oldest; due to this factor, there are still companies who can be skeptical about why they should utilize these services.

But what are some concrete reasons for why a small company should do SEO? There are a few reasons.

1. The first reason small companies should do SEO is because of how many people ignore the paid search results. According to 2013 data, studies showed that approximately 94 percent of people ignored the paid search results and opted for the organic search results. Why is this the case? Well people tend to trust referrals from friends and those they know; despite not truly knowing the people who also like the organic links that you see, it is as if you do. See, the mind recognizes the popularity of the organic results and the fact that those links are ranked so well because they are genuinely good and have earned their place in line. When we see the paid links, we generally recognize they were bought and did not earn their place there; consequently, we do not trust that the paid links are genuinely helpful. They might be complete garbage but are only there because that company laid out the money for top spot. 
1. Think of it this way, do you trust a commercial or your best friend's referral when learning about a product? While you might trust both, you will most likely trust your friend's words more since you know they are not being paid to endorse or speak well of the product; they genuinely like it and want to tell you about it because they think you will like it as well. 
2. The second reason for SEO is because of how many people do not go past the first page of results on a search engine. When people search for something on the internet, they know that the best links come up first. When someone is searching for a helpful link, they will scan the first page in-depth, but fewer than 30 percent of people actually go to the second page. After unsuccessfully finding the link they want, most people will simply try a variation of their original search until they get something that is suitable. 
3. The third reason for SEO is due to the fact that small companies who do no sort of SEO do not rank well with search engines. If you read the first two reasons, you will see why this is a problem. A search engine will not rank your site well if it does not see the effort to appear as a good site, essentially. 

As a Chicago marketing company, Integraphix Inc. knows all about internet marketing and especially about SEO. If you are considering SEO for your business, give us a call at 847-537-0067, visit our site,  or email us at info@integraphix.com. We give free consultations and are a full-service Chicago marketing firm.  

          

Big Changes Coming to Google for SEO

So, there are plenty of changes coming to the search engine optimization world, Google will be releasing an update to Penguin. This one is called *drum roll* Penguin 2.0! Shocker. BUT, it is important for you to know what this means so your site does not get hit, or if you're an SEO consulting company, then your clients' sites. Google promises that this update will be a real trouble-maker.

A big deal with this change is the update's ability to shake down all the SEO on the internet and crack down on any spammy and poor quality links. What this means is that you will have to check your site's links by performing an audit. Even if you think your links are good, do not assume, do an audit on your site's backlinks and links. Avoid links that are attached to SEO inspired sites, like backlink farm sites, and things of the like. Also try to avoid links with contrived anchor text, or anchor text that has been beaten to death.

What you will want to do is to build a list of all the backlinks you have for your site on the internet, you can do this by using SEO SpyGlass. Next, look to see what links you have that are still active and what links you have that are dead, remove the dead ones. Third, look for any questionable links that are tied to your site, ditch them ASAP; check for the domain IP, domain age, Google page rank, Alexa rank, and external links. Fourth, look for links with suspicious anchor text because this kind of goes along with the notion of questionable backlinks and using overly optimized keywords/anchor text. Fifth, look for any poor backlinks to your site with your own eye, maybe the SpyGlass missed something. And lastly, Talk to webmasters about removing the bad links.

This blog will hopefully help you avoid poor rankings due to poor back links but there is more you can do, for a complete run down, do a Google search of the new update and see for yourself. We will make it through this update!

Don't Rush to Change Keywords

If you do search engine optimization, you know about keywords. Keywords are your backbone for search engine optimization. They are what get you noticed by the world on the internet. Keywords are the things that people type into the search engines and why your material on the internet and your website become relevant to the people using those keywords. The only problem is that many people are eager to change the keywords and try to be innovative.

The thing about keywords is that they have to establish themselves in reference to your website. So, for example, you use "Dentist in Chicagoland" as a keyword for your dentist office, this keyword has to become associated with your website, according to the search engines. If you change your keywords too often, then the search engines don't like it and your rankings will suffer.

Keywords can stick around for a few months or even longer so you don't really have to worry about them having a short expiration date, they aren't like milk. Think of them more like juice.

If you do not know how to choose a keyword, well there is a science to that. Keywords are often 2-3 words long. one word phrases are called short-tail keywords and they make up less than 30% of searches on the web. Phrases longer than 3 words are called long-tail keywords and make up gets fewer uses with each additional word. The longer and more precise the keywords are, the sooner you will get increased traffic. It is easier to optimize a site and rank for a unique phrase with little competition. The longer and more precise your keyword is, the fewer visitors you will get, but the more targeted your traffic is. The narrower the search term you target, the greater part of visitors convert to actual customers.

When choosing keywords, you want to make a list of keywords to choose from. They must pertain to what you offer or sell. To help you, you can use the Google Keyword Planner tool. You can use more general keywords or more specific like "Chicago Instrument Shop". What makes it more specific is the addition of "Chicago".

How do you pick the best keywords? Good question. You will need to calculate the Keyword Efficiency Index, or KEI. This index show you how good a keyword is for bringing traffic to your site. You will want keywords with high KEI. There are three components to KEI and they are: relevance ( how closely your keyword is related to what you offer to your customers. You can rank the relevance in terms of excellent, good, or poor). Another component of KEI is the search volume (this is how many queries are made for a keyword per month). The third component is competition (how many websites try to rank for this keyword- generally, all sites that have the same keyword as you are your online competition. The fewer websites that are optimized for the same keyword, the better KEI).

As a Chicago marketing company, we do all sorts of internet marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, blogs, web design, and more. We know all about keywords and how they work and how to use them to someone's advantage.