You own a website? You want to nail that sacred first page placement on Google’s SERPs? There are a lot of people who will describe lots of ways to achieve that goal, but the reality is that there are only two ways to get there with anything approaching a reasonable investment. The first is SEO. The second is pay-per-click advertising.
SEO
If you’re reading this and you don’t know what SEO is, how the heck did you end up here? SEO means “you make your website look good to Google so that they’ll give you a high ranking on relevant searches.” The two basic sides of SEO are on-page and off-page. On-page SEO means working the keywords your targeting into your page in as many places as possible, from the Title metatag to the simple text content of the page.
Off-page SEO is the heart of most SEO companies’ days. It involves making sure that as many different websites as possible point to your website. The more popular, the more relevant, and the older the websites that point toward yours, the higher your website will rank. SEO can take weeks or months to start ranking your pages (depending on the level of competition for your chosen keywords), and has almost no ‘instant’ returns — but once the returns start coming, they keep coming almost indefinitely with very little spent to maintain that level of traffic.
PPC
Pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising is in many ways the opposite of SEO. In PPC, your website ends up as one of those “sponsored links” on Google’s searches. If someone clicks on that “sponsored link” and gets successfully through to your webpage, you pay some small amount of money. Provided you can convert enough of those visitors into sales, you can more than pay for that small cost and make a decent profit for yourself when all is said and done. Unless you hire a professional PPC management team, it can be fairly hard to turn a profit from PPC marketing; it’s a very complex marketplace.
PPC’s traffic is instantaneous. You don’t pay unless you get a visitor, so if your conversion rate is good enough, it’s virtually a sure thing. On the other hand, you never get to stop paying for PPC marketing. Unlike SEO, paying for a year of PPC leaves you with nothing except the profits you made during that year.
Which route to first page placement is right for your business? That depends on a lot of factors, of course. Ask your SEO company about the details behind each and come to a decision you’re comfortable with.
36 thoughts on “The Only Two Routes to First Page Placement”
Hi, I had a baby at the end of last year, I’m a single parent and I’m considering applying to start university for September 2009, by which time my baby will be nearly 2. (I’m 20 now). I was going to study Fine Art at university (I had a place) when I discovered I was pregnant last year, but I withdrew as didn’t think having a baby half way through first year was such a good idea! Now things have settled down and I am contemplating returning to my studies, we are doing fine financially at the moment so I don’t want any lectures about how I should have had a baby after university – I am providing him with a perfectly good and stable life – but I have always dreamed of being a teacher and I think the life I could present him as a teacher would be even better. So I want to hear from anyone who has gone through the university/college with baby/child experience, especially single parents (or people who’ve seen close friends do it) and tell me how you managed and if it was at all possible…
…all I know is that I’ve seen my friends who are mostly in second year struggling with exams and coursework and I just wonder how people manage that and still be able to provide their children with the care and attention they’ll need. I know plenty of people do it but I’m just wondering how? I don’t want people advising me that I should go to uni later – I want to do it now as it’s a 4 year course and it will already overlap with my son going to school and I want the most part of his school days to be more stable than they would if I were a student. I’ll make the decision when to do it and whether I should go through with it. And I don’t want anybody who hasn’t done this or known somebody who’s done it to answer casting judgement on my life – only people who know what they’re talking about please! Thanks 🙂
Thanks for all your advice so far 🙂
Sorry if my initial question sounded a little defensive it’s just I half expected to get a load of people for bashing me having a baby young before uni etc. as a lot of people seem to get on here, so it’s nice to have proper answers 🙂
Fortunately childcare while I’m actually in uni won’t be a problem as my grandmother has agreed to help out with some of it and I should be able to afford the rest. And as for the drinking thing – I know, I do get a bit wistful sometimes that I’ll never have the ‘student experience’ but luckily I got a lot of that out my system when I was younger and I’ve already come to terms with the fact I can only go out as a one off occasion as opposed to regularly like I used to so that shouldn’t be a problem!
Anyway thanks again it’s good reading your stories and giving me the confidence boost I needed!
I have been using a Hitachi IDE HDD which is of 80GB capacity.It worked fine before two days.I fornatted it and installed Windows XP SP3.N still fine.Then yesterday I turned on my PC and the HDD didn’t detect.So I entered into BIOS options and selected the BOOT tab there It didn’t show my HDD.So I connected that HDD in my father’s computer.Then also it didn’t boot.So I again entered the BIOS menu.There it has shown my HDD device name as PATA: !!?????aaaadasd like some special characters.The device model also was like this special characters.There is no problem with my motherboard and no problem with my IDE cables cuz I’ve checked it using different IDE cables.I didn’t drop that HDD down.Plzz help me out quickly.
My PC Specifications,
Processor:Intel Pentium D 820 2.80Ghz
Motherboard:Inter D102GGC2
RAM: Transcend DDR2 533 Mhz
I’m in high school Planning to go to college and get a master’s in Criminal Justice(not sure yet). I’m interested in being a investigator in a law enforcement agency, and I was wondering the requirements? I have a good GPA, currently taking taekwondo and know three languages (English, Russian and Spanish). Is there anything I should prepare for? I also can’t decide if I should get a criminology or law degree.
Thank You
I currently have a set of alpine 240W component front speakers and a pair of Sony tweeters with an in-line crossover installed to a Phillips headunit. I don’t feel like my components have enough ooomph and the sound is mostly dominated by the very good tweeters.
Am I needing a low pass filter for my components, an amp or maybe better speaker cable or speakers?
Thanks for your help, will readily chose best answer.
i want to be a nurse when im older and hopefully if im good enough become a doctor. i live in hertfordshire , UK, do i have to go to university to become a doctor or medical school, i dont know where any medical schools are in the UK. or could i just work my way up ?
is nursing classed as medicine ?
no because it is called medicine.
I am interested in becoming a paralegal. I see online courses, classes at “colleges” that offer career studies( everything from massage to personal trainers) and some community college options. For those in the legal profession, where would you suggest?
I am trying to get my web site noticed, I have cutting horses, stud service,boarding and training available. I am new to the online business world and would appreciate some sound advise! Thanks
How much the cost of advertising on the main page of the site yahoo for size 300px x 250 px? how to ad? whom should I contact to tide the ad? The design is already made by me
I want to take IT branch there!! 🙁
shud i drop 1yr for prep for iit or aieee or shud i join ipu college wat abut it placements…and campus environment…wat about comp sc course(b.tech) in ipu…
and is it possible to put a background for your yahoo 360 page?
I am trying to place an adsense ad on an html page. I want it to be at the top left, but when I place the adsense code, all other elements get pushed down below the ad. Help?
I am doing a business plan for a school project, and I need to know how much I am going to spend for advertisement.
Thank you.
i.e. I don’t what for what I am doing on page one to affect the placement of the content of page two.
I am revamping a website with an OK Google ranking to try and improve page rank. I run the site with PHP with SE friendly links (no query strings). The base-names of the URLs were “index.html”, but I can call them anything, and I need to know if I have some of the pages marked as “index.html” and other named “video_dvd.html” that bring up the same page will be considered SE spam. Example:
http://www.site.com/catalog/122/index.html
http://www.site.com/catalog/122/video_dvd.html
http://www.site.com/catalog/122/video_dvd_featuring_widgets.html
All three of these links would go to the same page, as the PHP only reads the ‘catalog’ and ‘122’ part of the URL to lookup the information from the DB. I’ve kept things uniform by having the same types of links on one page (for example, the index page has index.html links, and the product directory has the ‘video_dvd.html’ links.
Is this type of SEO kosher for Google and the like, or should I keep one uniform link for each page?
Ok. I run the website http://www.mytrueconnections.com and I need to boost my placement in the Google index. What is the best way I can boost my Page Rank and please be specific and detialed. Ill appreciate it tons.. ; )
can any body explain me the page rank and how its effect a website ranking
i’m interested in taking the advanced placement program, but my school does not offer it so i have decided to study it myself!!! can i do that??? and if so how? do i need a tutor???
thank you
Hi,
I’m an italian student and I’m looking for a company in which I could do an internship as press office assistant, pr assistant, event organiser or similar…Can someone help me? I won a scholarship so I don’t try a company that will grant me a salary
A friend and I are having a discussion about car seat placement. She says that a car seat can go in the front passenger seat. I am sure it is not safe. Can you help me find more info to inform my friend? Thanks.
how can i add a google adsense search code in my hub pages and how can i increase my revenoue with hub pages can any body tell me the clear way to increase my revenue
i took my placement test last week.
i got a 72 reading
87 writing and
66 math
College Placement Score Guide:
Writing Skills
0-23 level 1 elementary
24-77 level 2 college
78-100 level 3advance
Reading Skills
0-67 basic reading
68-100 college reading
Mathematics (pre- algebra)
0-26 math fundementals
27-100 intro to pre algebra
i was told that if i wanted to enroll in a selective program- i needed to have my reading and writing as close to 100 as possible.
for the program i want, Vet Tech- my advisor said there are only 60 seats and they get around 300 applicants.
Is there any material i can get to boast my score in reading and writing, math does not apply for selecting?
I am wondering how I can add more Beatles pictures to my yahoo! 360 page? I am a person that likes to switch things around alot, so I’d like to have more pictures to choose from. Please help?! Thanks
I’m a little confused about pen names. I assume you use your real name when giving contact details and your pen name when saying who the novel has been written by, but which do you put in the heading that appears at the top of each page?
Also, does it matter if the page number is at the top of the page or should it be at the bottom?
iam studying in jeppiar college,aeronautical engineering b.e,could you please tell me that where will be its placement..?pls guys help me soon as iam much confused about it..
My homepage is distorted…the pictures seem crunched, and the ads that were on the right side of the page, are now below the “sites” column. How do I fix this?
ROP – Run of Page, Run-of-page.
If you work in advertising and understand what this has to do with the placement or frequency of adverts, love to hear your response!
Does anyone know anything about page design…. I’m in publications at school right now and i dont know what the frick I’m doing
not in the album, but on the page =]
I have idea how to insert page numbers in Microsoft Word. I have tried using page breaks and stuff but I can’t get it wot work. The problem is I am working on a thesis in which I want to give page number as below:
No Page number to front page.
Page numbers to first 4 pages in Roman format ( I, II, III, VI….).
Then after the roman numeral pages normal pagination starts but with different placement. Therefore, page 1 (bottom of page). The rest of the chapters pages will be in the upper right hand corner. A new chapter would bring page x at the bottom, and so forth. Help please!
I am paying $140 for first page google placement but I never find myself there, the company that I am paying is now accusing me of being the reason “loosing my rank” as they say that I am the one that is responsible for looking to often, is this true or are they scamming me?
I think that it would be more convenient to have the Mail block of information in the middle of the page and the Featured block to the right of the page. I want to switch these two.
I just got a MacBook Pro, but I don’t have a work processor installed on it yet.
Should I get Microsoft Word, or buy Pages off the app store?
Explanation of answer too please.
How do I place a program I made in visual studio to my web page?
The placement test says that I am to be placed in Russian 301. Does that mean that I am excused from the 4 semesters of a foreign language? Must I take Russian 301? Do I get credit for any of the previous courses? On a page about placement testing it says you could get 4 or 8 hours if you place high on the foreign language placement tests, but the results do not mention anything. Thank you.
or it must me at the first pages?