Just A Drop In The Bucket?

[TheLogo-Mat.com]

I can't say that I know too much about SEO but I've gotten the impression that there are more effective ways to get traffic to your site. I just haven't figured out quite what they are yet!

As far as I can understand you can setup your site with certain "keywords" so the search engines pull your site up on the top (or close to ) the top of the list.

In a field like mine, graphic design, there are thousands of other sites that I'm sure would use the same "keywords" to see their site at the top of the list. There is really no way to say that just because their or my site ranks top that the person searching for the service isn't get the best of the best. Make sense?

Is there a service out there that ranks business on their service alone? Through customer reviews and ratings?

If such a service is out there let me know. I know my company would be number one!

[greg1343]

There maybe web sites out there that rank companies like yours. Do some searching and see what comes up. A legitimate ranking site will not usually automatically list you or ask you for money to list you. Ignore any site that wants a link exchange.

Regarding SEO here's a short article that kind of put's it into perspective.

Finally, regarding key words. Try to find unique and uncommon key words that define your site. Even though they may not be the most popular key words there will still be a large number of people typing them in. If you can rank well on the more unique words then you will get traffic. Trying to rise from scratch on a common key word will be an exercise in frustration.

[seg_cost]

Good question!

but I have no idea about SEO companies...But few of the websites have got top positions even though those site doesn't have any good content on.

[Logan]

Try to find unique and uncommon key words that define your site.

That's the "trick" to me and just about any seo I know when starting out with an optimization campaign for a business within a competitive area. Realize, there are different levels of "competition" out there. At the extreme end are areas like gambling and web development/graphics,etc is a very competitive area. You are right that you are in a difficult area. For starters, realize most 'smart' seo's won't spend their time competing for "search engine optimization" because of the resources that it takes. I have experiences in this area, so even with seeing it happen often times the weight of the resources (time, money, etc) it takes could provide a better return using other marketing tactics. So, if you are inherently in such a competitive area in search then it is important first to figure out other ways to market your business that generate revenue to keep things going. If you don't, and only focus on search ... or even focus too much on search versus other areas ... you (probably) won't get the result and your ship will sink quickly. So the first step is to get marketing working in other non search areas so you can afford the next steps.

If you are serious about getting there, the quality of your work will matter. But google and other search engines rank your site primarily based on the keywords optimization and linking. They don't look to see if your logos are good. Graphics mean zero to the search engine, but they of course will heavily influence your visitor experience.

To start your search engine campaign, go back to the beginning and decide you are going to target less competitive keywords. There are variations, even in competitive areas, that you can target and substantially increase your odds of having some success. For example, most can target their local geographic area (West Palm Beach Chiropractor) with a lot of success. You don't even have your location on your contact page. That doesn't provide assurances to visitors that you are a real person, but also the search engines can't even rank you for logo/graphic work in your local area because you don't include your location keywords. City, state are common.

As you start to rank for the long tail keywords, you will get some leads and more momentum will build. As you get more exposure, that in turn means others will be more likely and so forth.

Three basic principles -

The more exposure you get, the more likely you are to get further exposure because of that

Everyone starts small

The more words in a keyword phrase the more likely that visitor will convert

One truly important learning experience with all that said. Sure, these competitive keywords have a lot of traffic. But the conversion rate is very small also. usually these are people who start searches broad and refine their searches further adding words. Those long tail words you target initially. If you just target the very competitve words and ignore the most important and best converting long tail keywords you may end up wondering why you did that still. Target the longer phrases and your odds of success will be much higher, you will get more exposure to build to the more competitive words and you will have many keywords converting much more solid business VERSUS a single competitive ranking that is likely to shift frequently and if it falls... you are out of business.

takes a lot of persistence.

[randykirk]

All good advice, but at the end of the day you may need more than this. Are you desiring to capture local business (4 or five surrounding cities) or national. If local, use Google Maps Local Business Center. go to key phrase SEO Consultant Los Angeles to see where I sit. Then there are a number of simple out of the box ways to get position in a local market. YouTube, Flickr. MySpace, etc.