Since stating my new blog, I have been forced to go back to basics. For proper SEO, I need to go back to some tasks that I had already done for my static site. As I delve deeper into marketing on the internet, I am fascinated by all of the information that I find, much of which seems to contradict some other piece of data that I had. Rumors seem to fly from one blog to the next about what is happening in this medium. Some of these rumors just seem to be based on misunderstanding terminology. I thought it might help some novices like myself to go over three marketing strategies on the internet with the terms as I understand them.

A PPC campaign stands for pay per click. You put your ad up through a service. Once someone clicks on your ad, you are charged based upon the value assigned to that keyword which brought the visitor to your ad. For example, they search for the phrase “Realtor in Houston”, and you indicated that Realtor is one of the keywords to be used for showing your ad, the firm will take the value assigned to the term Realtor and charge you for it. The most popular PPC campaign is Google's Adwords. Pleas note one little fact, Google receives the most search traffic, but most people using the site go for the organic results (the non-ads). Microsoft's Live Search has very little traffic in comparison, but its user click on ads more often. This type of marketing may not generate many leads, but it should be part of your internet strategy. However, you should take the time to study these ads before rushing out to start your own campaign. Fortunately for us, Yahoo has come to our rescue. Yahoo has produced a guide on developing the best PPC campaign. If you are interested in this 43 page pdf file, go to this site to find out more about it along with download instructions.

There has been a rumor floating around that if you are not part of Google's Adwords or AdSense, you site will not rank or position well in Google's organic results. First, a clarification on a term that I see misused. AdWords is the program for you to create an ad to be shown. AdSense is the program which allows you to display ads from other advertisers on your site. I think the rumor is bunk. My static site and blog have done well without Adsense, and I only have AdWords for my static site. Recently I did choose to display ads on my blog through AdSense. I did not do this because I felt that I was going to make some big windfall of income. I did it because I figured that I might make some money to cover expenses for the site. An interesting twist occurred though on the day that I started displaying ads. My site traffic more than doubled. Is this specifically do to AdSense? I cannot really be positive, but I think there is a correlation, so this has been a strange SEO strategy that I found.

The last basic means to increase site traffic is through text link ads which are bought. You may have heard of “link juice”, creating back links, or other means to have your site noticed. I had the impression that paying for a link is not seen favorably by Google, but according to some marketers, buying a link through a reputable firm is fine. These links are called text link ads. If you go to this site, you can download a pdf file which will explain how these links work.

Of course, content is king. If you are driving people to your site, you need to keep them there with easy navigation and good articles, but these SEO methods can help you out. You may wonder about displaying ads though. What if your competitors ads are displayed? Well, the visitor is on your site. You need to make it clear to them that you are the best option, with an easy means of contacting you. I feel that I can compete with any inspector in my area for service or price, so if they go to a competitor through my site, then maybe they were not the customer for me.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck