What this means for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and your internet search results

Millions of people use the internet everyday to do research, find products or services to buy, or look for something local.  Approximately 80% of consumers research a product or service online before choosing to make a purchase offline from a local business and 84% of all internet traffic is referred through search engines.  We type the keywords we are looking for into a search engine, like Google, and select websites from the list given.  Why some sites are displayed before others is merely an afterthought to many web users.  For internet marketers, search engine optimization is a service provided to their business customers who want to increase internet presence and turn site traffic into sales.  In 2009, Google will change the way we search by personalizing results for each person based on their location and search history.

Google’s search results are based on continuously changing algorithms that rank sites based on keywords and link building.  The new personalized search results will be different- they will be based on the behavior and the intent of the individual web user.  Each person will end up with different search results based on their prior search history and their physical location.  Google gets your information through cookies left on your computer after visiting a site and from your local IP address.  The information allows Google to make assumptions about your search.

At PubCon 2008, the Webmaster’s World Search and Internet Marketing Conference held in Las Vegas November 11-14, industry experts spoke about the future of Google and search engine optimization (SEO).  Matt Cutts, a software engineer for Google, spoke about the future of search engine optimization and personalization of search results in 2009.  When he was asked if site ranking is dead, Cutts said, “I’m not sure I would say ranking is dead but it’s not as important as it used to be.  The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings.  They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log.  It’s great if you’re ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn’t help you very much.  The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don’t worry about ‘can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.’ ”

Ranking may not be dead, but it will be considered less important.  The most important way to measure your site’s success will be focusing on site traffic, conversion, and bounce rates rather than where your site shows up in the rankings for specific keywords.  Search personalization will make site traffic more qualified, and although your overall site traffic may decrease, overall sales will increase.  Rich media content will be vital and websites with compelling content and relevant keywords, images, voice, video, and other interactive functions will succeed. 

So what does this mean for internet marketers, business owners, and individual search experience in general?  For internet marketers, this may mean a change in the way success is measured for customers.  It will require better definitions of the ideal website visitor- based on quality, rich media content, and a specific call-to-action to keep visitors on your site and coming back.  The internet is constantly changing and internet marketers have to be prepared to adapt to the changing technology to stay competitive. 

For business owners, this means more qualified site visitors with an improved ratio between traffic and conversion to sales.  The local impact of search personalization will help drive sales to local businesses that otherwise would not have been able to compete with national companies and spammer sites that dominated the rankings for industry keywords. 

The overall search engine experience will improve because we will no longer need to sift through countless websites until we find what we are actually looking for.  Overall website quality will improve as companies will enhance their websites to include more media content and interactive functions to improve visitor experience. 

Google’s personalization should motivate us all to evaluate our existing web sites and make sure:

• content provides the information that the target customer is looking for and is up-to-date.
• the site offers interactive features and different types of media that customers would find interesting.
• the site is easy to navigate and has a call-to-action to turn visitors into sales. 

Taking these steps now will ensure that you are prepared for the new era of information search.

Having struggled many times to provide a short, but comprehensive answer to this question-I decided long ago to use metaphors to help people understand what they are asking.

Asking how much a “basic” website costs is like asking someone how much a “basic” car costs or how much a “basic” house costs.  You’ve immediately got a problem-if you want to know how much a house costs you need to know how big a house you want, how many bedrooms, what part of the country you want to be in, what kind of plumbing, colors, and on and on.  Anyone who has decided it is time to buy a house quickly discovers that buying a house is a process comprised of many individual decisions.  And all of the decisions have to be prioritized-which feature is more important and are some features mutually exclusive? 

It is for this reason that it is rare to find accurate quotes for websites online.  Even honest, straightforward web developers or companies will have a difficult time giving you a specific price or sticking to that price if you, the consumer, aren’t able to make the necessary decisions and stick to them.  A good web services company will walk you through the decisions and make sure that you understand what you are deciding on and what the consequences of your decision(s) will be. 

So, having said that, here is a discussion of pricing for the only elements that are required for any website:

• Domain Name- these are available through many vendors you can find on the web.  Typically, puchasing one domain name will be under $10 a year.  They must be continually renewed however, or someone else can buy it when your registration expires. 
• Hosting Server- as with domain names, there are many, many thousands of vendors online that sell hosting space on their servers.  This will be where your web pages actually physically reside.  Some sites offer free hosting, but you usually have to buy something else with it or you can’t have your own domain name and branding on the free hosting site.  The lowest you will pay for ordinary hosting will be under $10 a month.  Depending of the features and services you want to include with your web site, you can pay many hundreds or thousands of dollars a month (e-commerce, databases, and other features add to your hosting cost).
•  Web Pages- here is the tricky part.  Web pages are simply computer files.  Creating them is free and anyone can do it if they know HTML, or if they have web design software.  There are many types of web design software now that let you create your own pages without having any technical or design background.  Some of these software packages are free with hosting, or can be downloaded inexpensively online.  So, if you are confident in your design ability, you can easily create your own pages. 

My experience however, is that creating a web site for little or no cost is not beneficial to your business.

One of the problems is that it takes time- time many small businesses do not have to spare.  In addition, design experience is often underrated or underestimated by people who have not wrestled with graphics or text.  There are entire industries founded around the study of how human beings process information and on what works on the web and what doesn’t.  With websites multiplying rapidly everyday, it has become more and more difficult to make your web site stand out, get noticied, and get traffic.  Usually, the cost of paying someone knowledgeable to design your pages and your site for you will pay for itself.  Do you want a cheap site, or do you want an effective site?

What can you expect to pay?

Some web services companies will quote you a per page price, or will give you a standard price of $500 or something similar.  These are unrealistic models of pricing web sites, unless they spell out exactly what you get for that price.  Typically, you will find that your choices are extremely limited by that kind of pricing structure. 

If and when you decide to pay someone else to design your site, what can you expect to pay?  This is even trickier- because although most companies will base a price on an hourly rate (low-end novices will charge $35-50/hour, high-end and overpriced “consultants” will charge several hundred per hour), there will be all sorts of deals and extras that are possible.  Any feature that can be a part of a web site can be sold at a discount if the web services company is a reseller for other vendors.  For example, for a programmer to develop a proprietary database for you, it might take 100 hours at $100/hour.  If a web services company buys a database package, they can resell and set it up for you for say $500, but then you will still need time to “populate” the database- another hourly rate. 

So beyond domain names, hosting, and web pages, what other features does your site need?  Beyond the three basic features, the options multiply very rapidly.  E-Commerce packages will cost somewhere between $400 and $2000 for just the software and don’t include the time it takes to set it up. 

If you want to add a blog or podcasting, or RSS feeds, there are incremental costs for those as well. 

I recommend establishing the budget for your web site first, then prioritizing the purposes and functions your web site will serve before you consider talking to a developer or your web “team”.  If you know what you can spend and what you want the site to do, it won’t be as difficult to find someone who can meet your needs.

Quality Considerations 

So, back to the initial question of this writing- let’s focus on the word “quality”.  The dictionary gives one definition of quality as a “degree of excellence”.  And what makes a web site excellent?  It must be easy to use, it must provide options, information, and have features people want.  It must be visually compelling and the whole thing has to create the desired action in the viewer.  It must be searchable, flexible, and quick-loading.   It has to do well in the search engines and it must be reliable.  

When you look over all those “qualities” ask yourself if you or someone on your team has the time and the experience to make sure your web site does all those things.  If not, work on a budget- you will want to pay someone to develop a quality web site.  Plan to spend a little time going over the features and pricing with your vendor or team.  The decisions are difficult and therefore you should do some work up front to make sure you get the site you need for the price you can afford.