I’ve attended some luncheons ( like the Perfect Wedding Guide’s Luncheons in Houston and NACE Wedding Trends Luncheon also here in Houston) and networking meetings lately and always the question comes up… How do you  rank so well on the search engines. Do you pay someone to do that? no. Are you paying per click? no. So how do you do it??? I wish there was a simple answer I could give, but there isn’t. If I say SEO, then I would have to explain what SEO stands for, which is not the most exciting topic, I guess. But it ends up being the what the conversation turns into.

I am considering putting together a workshop for the Houston wedding vendors that may be interested, but I have to make it a limited amount, like 20 or 40. That’s pretty hard considering that the Houston Bridal Extravaganza claims to have over 600 vendors at their show!!! That’s not counting the ones who cannot make it to the show.

I’ve gone and recapped what are the steps that I took in getting into the search engines and then making sure I rank high for the search engine terms that I am going after. As well as WHAT to do with the traffic once it is on your website…

Most people think that; “Oh well, I have a website already, I’m done with my online marketing…” In reality, building a website is the very first step of your online marketing life…

Next you have to drive traffic, after you drive traffic you must compel them to contact you, after they contact you, you have to have a selling system and after they are sold, you must put them into a different category so that they don’t continue to receive your sales material.

This is what is called in the online marketing world as an funnel system. And the sole purpose of your funnel system is to try to get as many potential customers to the top of your funnel and get them to go through it completely.

It’s a funnel because you may start with, let’s just say 100, and in the end you will end up with 3, which in marketing a 3% conversion ratio is really, really good.

So if you are not getting a lot of online prospects, then guess what, you have to make sure more people can find your website or that you can send more people to your website so that the number of people that convert is much greater!

Which makes sense. Let’s continue to assume that your website is converting 3% of your total visitors.

If you send 100 people to your website and you are converting at 3% then you only get 3 clients.
If you send 200 people to your website and you are converting at 3%, well you now have 6 clients.

So that means that the more potential customers that come across your website, the more clients you will have. Agreed? Good.

So how do you get more potential customers to your webstie?

Well, some ways may be to include your website on your business cards and fliers and pass out a whoooooole lot of them to a whooooole lot of people.

Sound expensive? Yes but there may (or may not depending on whether or not they are well classified potential customers, simply handing out business cards to just anyone will do you no good) be a good Return on Investment (ROI) and in the end it may be worth it. But one thing is for sure, you have to spend a lot of money upfront.

Another option would be to put your website on all your magazine advertisements and other forms of media that you may advertise in. Again, it involves spending money up front and again could be very expensive. Most magazines start their rates at over one thousand dollars for a 1/4 or 1/8th of a page. $1,000 Dollars!!!! Yikes.

I am not saying that passing out business cards, fliers, or even advertising in magazines is bad… It’s actually a good thing…

but….

What if there was a way that you could advertise absolutely for free and you would have to pay NOOOO ONE!!?? EVER!!??

Sounds like a dream? an unreachable dream?

That’s what I thought back in 2004 when I first set my eyes in being at the top of the search engines.

Guess what, it’s not impossible, it’s not a dream…

It’s easily achievable by anyone that wants it bad enough…

For the last 5 years I’ve enjoyed the traffic that Google.com, Yahoo.com, and MSN.com send me for free.

All I had to do was learn a few steps, repeat them a few times, and viola, 5 years later, I’m still at the top of the search engines…

Feel free to see for yourselves…

(Website Name is www.fhpentertainment.com)

1. DJ in Houston #2 Position in Google Results
2. Houston Wedding DJ #1 Position in Google Results
3. Bilingual DJ in Houston #1 Position in Google Results
4. Wedding DJ in Houston #2 Position in Google Results

Now there are Hundreds of Search Engine Keywords that I have targeted. The above are just a few so you can get an idea of what you should be using as your keywords. And realize that I only used Google for 2 reasons: 1. It is the hardest one to rank for and 2. EVERYONE uses Google (Ok, not everyone just 70% of the US as of June 2008).

So again, maybe I’ll have a Workshop or Seminar in June sometime, but I really would be interested in knowing how to rank well for your targeted keywords.

Please let me know by submitting your name and your email address on the upper right hand side of this page… Right where it says… “Subscribe to our Newsletter”

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As you can judge by reading this blog, writing does not have to be your strongest point…

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