Lately, I’ve been hearing more chatter about optimizing image tags as part of SEO. Many are suggesting renaming your image files to match some of your targeted keyword phrases as long as they relate to the image and the alt-image attribute matches the filename as well.
Listen in for my thoughts on this tactic during a quick 50 second podcast.
If you’ve read much about Zing and some of the work we do, it goes without saying that we’re a marketing firm. What we’re going to touch upon today is three of the better ways to increase website visitors. Two of them are ways that you can begin immediately, and the other takes a little time to reap the benefits.
Search engine marketing (SEM) and an e-mail signature can be implemented within the next five minutes whereas organic search engine optimization takes a little while and is more of a drawn out process. Let’s talk about each briefly.
Organic search engine optimization is a process of elevating a website within the search rankings of the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN by determining which keywords are searched for most then “optimizing” sections of a website for those keywords to attract more qualified visitors. Part of the optimization process includes link building (external sites that link to your site), content generation and improvements (mixing in targeted keywords in an intelligent fashion within online content), developing a sitemap for your site, and focusing meta tag data on a solid mixture of profitable keywords. A reputable search optimization firm will openly share their practices with you so be leery of those that refuse to do that along with those that guarantee top rankings—search engines are dynamic by nature so it’s nearly impossible for an external source to promise a certain ranking unless that source is the search engine itself (no search engine provides SEO).
Search engine marketing (SEM) is frequently referred to as pay-per-click (PPC), and many organizations utilize paid ads on search engines to attract the type of traffic to their websites to fuel business growth. Pay-per-click ads are generally the ads (sponsored listings) you see on the right side and sometimes at the very top of search results pages (SERPs).
An e-mail signature at the bottom of every piece of e-mail you generate or reply to can boost traffic to your site with little to no management on your behalf. People are naturally curious, and you never know which piece of e-mail generated may become “viral” and spread through people forwarding it and having their friends forward it. It’s a simple addition to your marketing efforts that can pay tremendous dividends. Try not to abuse it by being long winded—keep your e-mail signature short and sweet for easy consumption.
There you have three ways to draw more visitors to your website. Do you utilize each in your current marketing mix?
The SEO Pricing Comparison Guide produced yesterday has already been updated as there has been quite a bit of demand for it already. The guide now reviews pricing for 50 of the top SEO firms across the globe and has pointers for selecting an SEO partner along with an explanation of the typical pricing models SEO firms utilize.
Hopefully it becomes a highly referred to resource. If I can answer any of your questions, please visit our contact page and shoot me an e-mail. I’d put my e-mail address on here, but spammers have been blowing me up. 
Or better yet, register to receive your copy of the guide and send me some feedback on it.
Interesting presentation by Vellyslav Petrov I stumbled upon just now:
I just finished creating an SEO Pricing Comparison Guide that should help any business looking to improve their search engine rankings get a better feel for what the more reputable firms charge for SEO services.
The guide currently contains 35 of the world’s more reputable SEO firms along with their pricing. It also talks about the 7 most common pricing models and 7 keys to selecting an SEO partner for your business.
To download the guide, we only ask that you register. It doesn’t cost anything, and it could really make a difference in your search marketing budgeting and outsourcing efforts.
