What am I paying for each month?

So you’ve come to the realization that hundreds of thousands of consumers are looking for products and services online every day. You’re ready to start with an Internet Marketing firm. You have done your research, interviewed companies and made your decision (or are close to making a decision), but you still have two lingering questions; “How exactly does search work?” and “What am I paying for each month?”

No matter how much information you have gathered it is still difficult to truly understand what exactly is happening on a day to day basis with your SEO company. That is to be expected because, let’s face it, this is not your field of study.

Google has released a wonderful video that explains what actually happens when you hit that search button. Essentially the major search engines, we will use Google as an example, instantly start searching their thousands of databases to track down the closest possible result. Google is comparing sites to hundreds of factors like; “How closely does the content on this page match the search?”, “How active is this website?”, “How long has this site been around?” and “How many people around the web are talking about this site?”. All of this happens within a fraction of a second.

Now if you notice, some of those factors can be manipulated by an Internet Marketing company, and some can be not. You will also notice that a lot of those seem like a onetime thing. Which brings us back to our original question, “What am I paying for each month?”. Directly, you are paying for the answer to Google’s question “How many people around the web are talking about this site?”.

The process of answering this question is  known throughout the industry as link building. Essentially link building is manufacturing conversations online that boost the popularity of your site. The more popular you are, the higher you show. This is what each company that is on the first page  is currently doing, and what each company that wants to be on the first page must do.