Welcome to our SEO Handholder for Newbies. Here you will discover how exciting SEO might be for your company. Many people are not really aware of what SEO is exactly, and don't quite understand why they should want SEO and be willing to pay a monthly bill for it.

SEO means "search engine optimization" and its what you do to appear higher in the search results at google,yahoo and bing, and others. At the time of this writing, Google has 90 percent of most european markets, and has well over half of the US market, so everyone knows Google is the 400 pound gorilla in the room here. SEO means organizing your web site and your web presence, as well as optimizing. Optimizing means choosing your words wisely and effectively and accurately presenting your significance and pertinence.

ORGANIC SEO and PPC
There are 2 basic types of seo, paid search and organic search.

Organic listings are the main free listings, that people trust, that we all click every day. PPC or "pay per click" are those paid ads you probably never click. Well, obviously millions of people DO click them, but the free listings will always be more trusted on the dominant search engines after all, each one wants to make the customers happy, they want to develop a rich and relevant set of listings on page one for your search query, otherwise, they can lose their customers when they find they can't find what they need with your search engine, they'll try another one! It is in the best interest of the search engine to develop and maintain TRUST in their free listings. Who is going to be most trusted, like the YELLOW PAGES once were? There is a certain objectivity that is expected from free listings I think. Whoever provides the best most satisfying and fruitful results, should ideally win the war. Some people say Google has such a major head start, the others won't be able to catch up, but it remains to be seen. In our view, all the search engines are important really, even some really small ones (like local search sites). It may very well be that Google, Yahoo and BING/Yahoo will all be around for a very long time, and this diversity is important for a vigorous economy. In any case, they're all very busy working hard on their search engines, and millions of people use each one every day.

Paid search means you pay for every click you get on a paid ad. Google has them, Yahoo has them, Bing has them, Facebook has them, Myspace has them, everybody is offering paid advertisting with various differences in their plans.

A very common question is: Will I see results quickly? Answer:

Could be a month to see dramatic results, could be a year. Depending on your company name, and our keyword selections, and the competition involved in the market, the time to achieve page one really does vary. Then getting to #1 on page one also takes a certain amount of time. Every campaign will involve a strategy and tactics based on your site, your market, your keyword selections and many other factors.

It really depends on your site and your company. Some companies I just know I can get them on page one for lots of untapped keyword markets probably in a few months, other companies I know Its going to be a full scale world war basically forever. Between those 2 extremes, is usually where half our clients are but if I feel very confident, you will know it. I'll consider your proposals, regardless of the difficulty level, but I will be sure and let you know from the start, how confident I am for short term and long term goals for your specific markets. After I have done some research, I can let you know how excited I am about it. I think if I don't really believe in your project and company, I won't be able to do it, so it really depends on my assessment of the scenario. If anyone promises you specific positions in the search engines, over night, be very wary of them. Nobody can say for sure where you will show up in the serps, but a good SEO will diligently chip away at it, until you are ranking well and an experienced SEO can tell how tough your market is and what its going to take to prosper in that market.  Two things it definitely takes for sure is time and effort, doesn't matter how many friends you have on myspace, but for the BING search engine, it DOES count how many LIKES you have on facebook which can help your ranking in Bing

SEO is a very fast growing and fast changing field, which is part of the fun for me. You can be sure that Google, Yahoo and Bing/Microsoft are going to be around for many many years to come, and each of those is a world in itself.  In addition, new software tools and techniques are introduced almost daily, as well as major updates to every sub system involved.  As you can see, the field of SEO is vast and ever changing, and for me, a fascinating world of wonder and delight.  Like a great big puzzle box, it can also be overwhelming at first, but if I accept you as a client, you can enjoy watching your web site listing climb up the charts in the search engines, and learn as we go.  My clients seem to have fun with it too, my favorite ones do.

I hope this introduction to the world of SEO has been enlightening and will be helpful for you in your business and marketing plan.