Kansas City SEO Company Announces New Local Small Business SEO & SEM Program - Kansas City Website
The recession has shifted consumer behavior. Now more than ever, people are comparison shopping from home and work, scouring for deals and local service & product providers. We are witnessing this change first hand. This transformation is further evi
Online, March 7, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Kansas City - Today, Kansas City Website Design announced a new Kansas City SEO program for small and medium sized businesses in the KC metro area. These methodologies and techniques are often referred to as SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing). Successful SEO means that a business achieves a top keyword ranking without having to pay Google, Yahoo or Bing a "pay-per-click" PPC fee. The company reports that its small business clients have experienced a surge in website based sales, so the company has decided to expand the SEO & SEM offering throughout greater Kansas City Metro.
Kansas City Website Design released the following statement: "Local SEO search engine marketing is a game changer. The recession has shifted consumer behavior. Now more than ever, people are comparison shopping from home and work, scouring for deals and local service & product providers. We are witnessing this change first hand. This transformation is further evidenced by substantial new investments that Google, Yahoo & Bing have made into local search engine features, and by the rise of newer local and hyperlocal Internet companies such as Yelp, Groupon, neighbortree.com and many others. We are helping to launch a new generation of local businesses and entrepreneurs that are now able to grow (or start) their businesses in a recession by expanding their geographic territories, reducing their marketing & sales costs, and most importantly by taking market share from established businesses that do not have an online SEO strategy."
Kansas City Web Design goes on further to say "This new program was prompted by the success we are having with our current clients. We have been hearing over and over that our services are helping businesses grow, and in some cases, even saving businesses from bankruptcy. We felt that it would be important to offer these cost-effective services to other local Kansas City medium, small and new businesses."
In terms of Kansas City SEO companies, Kansas-City-Website-Design.com offers the following tips and guidelines when selecting researching KC metro SEM & SEO service providers:
1. Proof of Success (Yes!). Make the search engine optimization provider show you examples of their clients' successes. True SEO service providers should show results in 3-6 months, and SEO domination within 12 months. We have many examples, in fact all of our clients have had SEO local market domination within 12 months.
2. Test the Kansas City SEO Companies Own SEO Rankings (Yes!). For example, our primary business is Kansas City Website Design. If you go to Yahoo.com and type in "Kansas City Website Design" you should see us at or near the top. Same with Yahoo.com. With Google, we are usually ranked 1, 2 or 3. Our site is only a year old, so these are excellent early search engine ranking positions.
3. References: (Yes!). Ask for references, and make the calls! All good Kansas City SEO companies would love for your to call their clients.
4. Conflicts of Interest (No!). Make sure your Kansas City SEO consultant provides you with limited exclusivity! Kansas City Website Design gives service exclusivity for up to two primary service lines as long as the client is a customer. This is IMPORTANT - some SEO firms help you achieve top rankings, and then either solicit or are solicited by your competitors.
5. Error Free Coding (Yes!). Make sure your website is coded properly, and make sure your SEO service provider's website is coded properly. This is easy, simply go to W3C (validator.w3.org) and test your website - if your site has many errors and warnings, your SEO and website development companies have some explaining to do.
6. Best Practices Coding (Yes!). Code your website in CSS and XTML Strict. This is the "gotcha" that affects almost all small business websites, and the owners usually have no idea. This is what is "under the hood" of your website. Most companies will give you sloppy coding, riddled with errors and short cuts, because it's cheap and fast and you will never know the difference. Do you have a website? Again, go to W3C (validator.w3.org) and find out if anything has been swept under the rug - Google doesn't "see" any of your fancy website design, Google reads your site as lines of computer code. Proper coding makes your website cleaner, faster and much more SEO friendly.
7. Black Hat SEO (No! No! No!). Black hat SEO are practices that the major search engines deem as "illegal". While some newer black hat or gray hat SEO techniques and methodologies can work temporarily, most will get you penalized or even banned from the major search engines. Being banned means that your site can never be found in any search engine. Make sure that your Kansas City SEO consultants show proof of white hat SEO methods.
8. Pay-Per-Click PPC Schemes (No!) A popular scam is for some SEO companies to collect a monthly fee, then open a Google or similar pay-per-click adwords account, and charge you for something you can do yourself. While legal and common, this is an EXPENSIVE, low ROI method that does not help your true search engine rankings. As soon as you stop paying, the pay-per-click or "PPC" stops immediately, while natural or organic SEO rankings have staying power and generate much more traffic.
9. Affordable (Yes). Depending on how many products or services you offer, or how many geographic areas you service, monthly SEO fees are reasonable and should not cost more than the "low to upper three digits". Good SEO will pay itself back many times over, allowing you to cut your marketing budget and possibly even reduce sales staff (or increase their productivity). Beware of one-time SEO fees with guaranteed results, that usually indicate a scam or Black Hat SEO.
10. Business Background & Training (Yes!). The best Kansas City SEO firms and SEO technicians in general have training in business. Our staff includes proven entrepreneurs with business undergraduate degrees and MBA's. Our SEO consultants will study your business and frame your content and SEO strategies around your physical business. Most website design companies and SEO technicians are technically trained or artistically inclined, but lack the training and experience to apply business concepts into search engine optimization and search engine marketing (SEM) plans.