How hard do you have to market a website?

[Tyner Lawn Service]

I've read alot about putting the key words out there but have any of you gotten instant response when you first fired up your website or do you need to market your web site in many places? Thanks for any info.

[walker-talker]

I am sure those that had sucess with their website will probably tell you that when it comes to a website, nothing is instant. SEO takes some time. I am currently taking a course on it and loving it. I may see some results this year, but I am more planning on sucess later. What I do today is just not enough time for results for April.

[Turboguy]

I think most have to put some effort into it but I didn't do anything with mine except put a link in a few other of my websites and a week later I was at the top of all the search engines.

[betterlawnsandlandscaping]

I think most have to put some effort into it but I didn't do anything with mine except put a link in a few other of my websites and a week later I was at the top of all the search engines.

could you be a little specific

[Turboguy]

I can try. I have several facits to my business so when I put my website up I just put a link on those and on the hydroseeding association list of hydroseeding contractors and when I checked the search engines a week later I had about 2 or 3 of the top listings. That was on Google, Yahoo and Bing. The only ones that were up there with me were the yellow pages and the hydroseeding association listings that send people to me anyway (about 60 jobs a year).

I do think I am pretty good at SEO and having good meta tags and optimizing my site. Sometimes I have listed my sites on a lot of directories and search engines but did not in this case.

My main point is that if you have relevant content the search engines want to list you and will find you as long as you give them any way to find you. I am dealing in more of a specialty than some of you are so I don't have the competion.

The main point I think I was trying to make is that the better the search engine results are the more people will use that search engine. If google started to output garbage then people would switch to Bing or Yahoo. If you have a site that is the best thing anyone could find for their particular search the search engines would prefer to have you come out on top.

[Tyner Lawn Service]

I guess what I am needing to know is if you put your www.com address on all your ads,cards signs etc plus your phone # has anyone noticed a larger interest in getting ahold of you for info? I know some people seem to like the idea of first looking at a website before they call or if you are sending emails to many business and companies that have websites do they respond better? Thanks

[steveparrott]

I guess what I am needing to know is if you put your www.com address on all your ads,cards signs etc plus your phone # has anyone noticed a larger interest in getting ahold of you for info? I know some people seem to like the idea of first looking at a website before they call or if you are sending emails to many business and companies that have websites do they respond better? Thanks

The answer is 'yes', according to recent Pew survey (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-Product-Research/Findings.aspx), 58% of all Americans conduct product and service research online. Among Internet users, 78% conduct such research online.

With this in mind, we need to understand that many smart consumers aren't just satisfied with finding your website; they are doing comparative research. It only takes a few clicks to go from your website to the next similar company's website. Since they may only be willing to spend a few minutes on each site, first impressions are super important.

Also, if there are review or portal services (like Service Magic and Angie's List) available, they may look for your company there.

Overall visibility is also an important factor. If a user types in "Lawn Services Houston" for example, will your site pop up in the Google AdWords space and the Google local results, and elsewhere on the page? And, if the user types in a different set of keywords, will you still come up with the same frequency? The best Internet marketers employ many techniques, including optimizing each page of your website for a different set of keywords.