Search Engine Positioning (SEP)

Search Engine Positioning (SEP) is one of the most often overlooked aspects of Web design and promotion. Most Web designers create your site, add a few keywords to the META tags of each page, and think that's the end of it. Or even worse, they use one of those awful submission services that submit your site to "thousands of search engines".

SEP as a Promotion Tool

With many businesses now realizing that banner ads are not as effective as once thought, they need new ways of promoting a Web site. SEP techniques are basically what are used to try to attain a high ranking in search engines based on certain keywords or key phrases. SEP is a relatively inexpensive - while at the same time highly effective - way to drive traffic to your Web site.

Submission Techniques

As mentioned earlier, many services will offer to submit your site to "thousands of search engines". This can hinder, rather than help you. In truth, there are just under 2 dozen search engines that really matter, and a very few of those have the majority of searcher traffic. (Most of those "thousands" of search engines exist mainly to gather email addresses for "spamming" purposes.) Many of the most important search engines will automatically reject automatic submissions. Proper submission techniques are important for gaining a good ranking in a search engines.

SEP Service Plans

Proper SEP techniques are most effective when designed into the site from the beginning, but an existing site can also be modified to be more SEP friendly.

ScottMedia offers 3 basic SEP service plans for different business needs.

Bronze:

The Bronze SEP service plan is automatically included whenever a new Web site is created by ScottMedia.

• Optimize pages to be search engine friendly.
• Add client supplied keywords to proper areas of the site. (Note: this is not only META tags, but in many other areas of the page.)
• Basic submission to search engines.

Silver:

Silver plans include all services offered in the Bronze plan plus:

• Work with client to develop effective keywords and/or key phrases.
• More detailed submissions.
• Work to develop link popularity (increase the amount of links on the Web to your site using various means.)

Gold:

Gold plans include all services from the other plans plus:

• Active monitoring of the Web site's rankings in the major search engines.
• Continuing analysis of the Web site's log files in order to further modify the pages on the site for higher rankings.
• Analysis of competing Web sites.
  

Note: Individual business needs can vary, so pricing of these plans can vary as well. Each plan starts with a base price, but other factors, such as condition of the existing site, (ex; sites with images as text) can influence the price. In many cases, it may be better for you re-build the site. As mentioned above, the Bronze plan services are automatically included in every new site.