Posts Tagged ‘SEO Testimonials’

Using SEO and PPC – What You Can Get By Using Both

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

SEO vs. PPC? — Wrong Question As pay-per-click (PPC) ad prices continue to rise and margins continue to shrink; larger corporations have already begun to increase their organic SEO spending. But for SMBs exploring the possible advantages of an SEO investment, there is a uniquely frustrating challenge: The inability to estimate the results of SEO– and the time it will take to realize them– makes a sound cost/benefit analysis elusive. The popular misconception that PPC and SEO are the “fast” and “slower” versions of the same thing complicates the evaluation process even more. Without a clear understanding of how SEO is implemented, it’s impossible to identify, much less, quantify, the wide-ranging benefits of the SEO process. Within small to mid size businesses, the impact can be profound. The paid advertising model is exactly what it says– advertising. Search engine optimization is not. While search engine prominence is the most widely recognized goal of SEO, that’s far from being the only business value it delivers. How Quality Web Content Boosts Local Retail Sales Consumers have spoken. They want information– and visit 3-5 websites looking for it before they buy. There’s also ample evidence to show that shoppers who search online before making offline purchases spend more than those who don’t. In a recent study by TMP Directional Marketing, the leading local search and yellow pages marketing agency, 60% of the consumers surveyed said they first go online for conducting a local search. The research showed 82% of local online searchers follow up offline with an in-store visit, or phone call. Of these, 61% made purchases. PPC can effectively deliver the traffic, but optimized website content is what, ultimately, drives the sale. Since content development is at the heart of SEO, it makes good business sense to leverage both. SEO Step 1: Competitive Analysis Even though shoppers have expressed their desire for information, millions of retailers still don’t know what to provide– or where to find it. Here’s where SEO can help. The first step in SEO, competitive research, will expose the minimum level of information required in a given market– and the maximum that’s being offered. Typically (depending on industry) you’ll find: • Product comparisons • User reviews • Upgrades, features, and updates • Manufacturer recalls • Software tools (calculators, etc.) If you want to learn more about Search Engine Optimization or SEO, read through the following articles: SEO For Your Business Success, SEO Elements, Internet SEO For Your Success

How to Select The Ideal SEO Service

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of designing or altering a website so that it will carry out optimally in regard to being ranked in search engine results that are associated with specific keywords or keyword phrases used by individuals who are searching for information on the internet through the use of a search engine. Some website owners strive to do their own search engine optimization while others opt to use an SEO service to optimize their website. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Let’s take a look at the purpose of search engine optimization, the pros and cons of doing your own search engine optimization versus hiring an SEO service, and the questions to ask when considering an SEO service to accomplish your search engine optimization. The point of search engine optimization is to obtain a desirable position in organic search engine results (this means getting a good listing in the search engines without paying for search engine advertising). There are a number of techniques that SEO service providers use to optimize a website and to secure desirable search engine ranking. Getting ranked on the first three pages of search engine results is highly desirable because the majority of internet users use the search engines to find what they are looking for and they don’t usually browse through more than three pages of results. Getting an organic search engine ranking is awesome due to the fact that you don’t pay for the listing (just for the SEO services to get the listing), so there are no ongoing fees and in effect, it is free advertising that is really dynamic. The benefit of doing your own search engine optimization rather than contracting an SEO service is that there is no upfront cost for getting your website ranked in the search engines. The disadvantages, of course, are lack of expertise in the field of search engine optimization and the time that may be spent on the optimization process. On the flip side, the main advantages of using SEO services is that you have access to expertise from individuals who are experienced in search engine optimization and using an SEO service may be more time efficient for you. The disadvantage of using an SEO service is the initial costs involved in search engine optimization and costs associated with ongoing monitoring of the search engine ranking and adjustments to the SEO service’s plan and to the website. If you are looking for SEO Solutions or any kind of diversified SEO Solutions or even SEO Solutions articles for you to read – then you are at the right place.

10 Reasons Why You Should Get an SEO Advisor

Friday, September 18th, 2009

It crosses every webmaster’s mind anytime they see an ad or an email for search engine marketing. Many small business owners wonder what they’re missing by not doing it. So should you hire a consultant? Search engine traffic make up at least 85% of all traffic to a website. So of course, search engine optimization is very important. But what, if any, will be the consequences of doing it yourself? Would it be beneficial to a website owner to hire a professional SEO consultant, or just plod along and hope that they are doing it right? This is a valid dilemma to face, and I will show you why it should be an easy decision. There are ten reasons why hiring them would be to your benefit. 1. Time Search engine optimization takes great amounts of time. Research, linking strategies, directory submissions, and page analysis alone are hugely and painstakingly time consuming. Do you, the small business owner, have the time required to give search engine optimization your full attention? Or do you need to be spending your time elsewhere; such as running your business? An SEO consultant has the time to dedicate fully to your project. That’s what they do. 2. Writing Copy Many webmasters, when beginning to design a website, concentrate on design, graphics, and a lot of the fancy code to make a website pretty. Many webmasters write their content copy almost as an afterthought. What actually generates listings in the search engines is what your website has to say. When a potential visitor is searching the web, they use words to find what they need. So you need words to get your site in those search engines. And this means writing content-rich copy. Your website text should be the most important aspect of your website, and not last on the list. Yes, people are visually stimulated. Search engine spiders are not. In fact, all spiders only take into account the text on your page. A search engine spider cannot read what useful information you may have put into an image or into a video. And relying upon that ALT tag to get those spiders to understand what is in your image is quite an illusion. Lately, some of the spiders are skipping the ALT tags altogether, as a few unethical webmasters and SEO companies have tried to manipulate this area of a webpage with keyword stuffing. (Keyword stuffing is the needless repetition of a keyword or keyword phrase in order to get higher ranking on search engines.) It only takes a few bad apples to ruin the entire barrel. I’m not telling you to completely disregard the ALT tag, but if you rely solely on this to get a search engine spider to understand what your page is about, you will fail. So if text is so important, why would you place this at the bottom of your priority list? A good SEO consultant has the experience with what content is relevant to your site, and just how to say it. Sometimes, an SEO expert will even outsource this job to a professional writer. This makes complete sense, as this is the most important aspect of any website. If you are looking for SEO Solutions or any kind of diversified SEO Solutions or even SEO Solutions articles for you to read – then you are at the right place.

Hire an SEO Firm or “Cook” for Yourself?

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Chances are, you went out to eat sometime in the last few weeks. Why? Maybe you don’t like to cook. Perhaps you like having food brought to you while you relax. Perhaps you were in a hurry. Maybe your cooking skills are limited to heating a frozen dinner in the microwave. Perhaps you’ve found a place where you really like the food. Whatever your reason, you chose to pay for a professional to do something you could probably, with some effort, do yourself–prepare and serve you a meal. In my work with search engine optimization (SEO), I’ve heard several people say, directly and indirectly, that it’s basically a waste of money to hire someone to do SEO for your website, because “anyone can do it.” Let’s look at that idea for a few minutes. Here are some reasons why, just as you would choose to eat at a restaurant, you would choose to turn SEO over to a professional. 1. “Anyone” can’t do it. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people’s cooking skills are limited. Marcia’s greatest culinary accomplishments may be boiling an egg and making macaroni and cheese out of a box. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. But if she wanted to impress a potential client or business colleague with a nice dinner, she wouldn’t put herself in charge of meal preparation. The same goes for SEO. If you know something concerning keywords, and what a “title tag” is, and that having links between your website and other sites is useful, that’s great, but that knowledge doesn’t put you on par with a professional, any more than boiling an egg makes Marcia a chef. SEO professionals use up lots of time learning and testing strategies to improve a website’s visibility. Not tricks like invisible keyword stuffing (which will get a site banned from search engines), but real stuff like: • how visitors use a website • what pages are popular and why • what searchers are looking for • what search engines are looking for • whether using new technologies helps or hurts or does nothing • whether version A or version B of a page brings in more visitors • how to allocate money in a pay-per-click campaign (where the numbers and competition are always changing) If you are looking for SEO Solutions or any kind of diversified SEO Solutions or even SEO Solutions articles for you to read – then you are at the right place.

SEO a Scam? The Truth About the Industry

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

I frequent many SEO and Web Marketing forums on a daily basis and every so often there is a debate about the SEO industry and ethics. After being involved in a number of these debates, it has become really obvious that the main problems are the facts that no two SEO companies are alike and there is no unified methodology. It’s very hard to make statements about the industry as a whole because it’s controversial what exactly ‘SEO’ is. Mix in the fact that most SEO companies keep their method and campaign strategies secret and we have a situation where every company is completely different with very different results. Fact 1 : There is no unified SEO methodology. SEO is actually defined by wikipedia as a process of improving traffic from SERPs to a site. Of course, HOW they do that is the real question and causes the debates. Fact 2 : The effectiveness of an SEO campaign depends on the site structure, site content, keywords, methodology used, and how popular the site is. A site cannot just rank for any random keyword. SEO is also not voodoo. It is logic, problem solving, and Web marketing mixed together. If your site provides no value to users, it almost certainly won’t rank. Fact 3 : Some ‘SEOs’ do search engine optimization and some do search engine manipulation. Of course, it is all marketed as SEO. Unethical optimization provides results at any cost and is always short term (usually ends in a banned domain name). Ethical optimization opens up the site to the search engines and provides long term benefits. Fact 4 : The majority of SEO companies get paid whether or not your site gets any rankings. Unfortunately, this is the case with the industry. Most SEO companies implement A, B, and C and move on to the next client. Expectantly, the site ranks. If it doesn’t, they always have more clients. Fact 5 : Most SEO companies use both ethical and unethical inbound linking strategies.To maximize profits, it is very common for SEO companies to buy bulk links from India, links on spam/scraper web sites, or sell large directory submission packages. It is also common for SEO companies to place huge amounts of the contract into inbound linking to make up for the poor quality of the site optimization. I don’t think it is fair to characterize the industry as a whole without figuring out what is wrong with it and how SEO companies can prevail over it. So how accurately do we determine what is good and bad about the industry? I have now been involved with the Web for over 10 years and, purposely, with the SEO industry for almost 4 years and I’ve seen the inner workings of major SEO companies and worked with clients who had been burned by their previous SEO campaigns. Combined with several Web postings and forum debates talking about the same basic problems, I’ve compiled a list of the most common issues. If you are looking for professional link building or for professional link building experts or if you want to read professional link building articles – then you are at the right place.

RSS Feeds and Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

In few ways RSS is pretty much identical to HTML, the language in general put in place to create websites. As is the case with HTML, webmasters opting for traditional search engine optimization techniques when creating an RSS feed will come to know that their RSS feed is getting additional publicity and interest. Below mentioned measures can go a long way in optimizing an RSS feed for search engines: 1.) First and foremost, the title should consist of pivotal search terms. In simple terms, the title should be up to the mark and not misleading, while still pinpointing keywords. In an idyllic scenario, the title should generate curiosity among the readers to read on, not mislead them. 2.) Secondly, it is of utmost significance that you display RSS feeds properly. Theoretically speaking, majority of webmasters display their feeds as content on their website. Remember to use PHP, ASP or HTML when displaying a feed, as this can lead search engines to spider the contents of the feed displayed. On the other hand, if you are using a template to display feeds, it is advisable to use header tags to emphasize the appearance of the Channel Title and Item Titles. It is significant pointing that few search engines weight header tags with more significance. 3.) Get accustomed with the concept of internal & external Links. According to experts, within a feed you should always opt for the full path of any links, keeping in perspective that other sites may syndicate the contents of the RSS feed. In addition, links that are not local to the site should be open in a new browser. This process though not specific to search engines but it will play a prominent role in keeping visitors on your site. 4.) Link text should pinpoints keywords. There is no denying the fact that the text used for incoming links will give a boost to the site in terms of helping it in contextually defining the keywords that the site appears for in the search engines. Keeping that into account, it is quite obligatory to use keywords in any link text that roll back to your website. 5.) Concept of My.Yahoo and My.MSN. This is very clear-cut to implement but often overlooked by publishers and webmasters. In theory, the quickest way to have an RSS feed spidered by Yahoo or MSN is to include the feed on a personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. You just need to register an account on the respective search engines. Then comes the subsequent step of customizing the home page to include your RSS feed. This is normally been implemented by inserting content and listing the URL to the RSS feed. Normally, within 1-2 days the feed’s contents will be spidered and indexed by Yahoo and MSN. If you are looking for professional link building or for professional link building experts or if you want to read professional link building articles – then you are at the right place.

Professional Search Engine Optimziation Copywriting Services – What They Are, And What They Aren’t

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

When you type the words “seo copywriting” into Google, thousands of articles and provider websites come up. But how many of them are truly useful? Is seo-friendly copywriting the standard ? Are all copywriters now seo-savvy? In truth, if you are looking for a professional seo copywriter, you’re going to need to shop around. There are thousands of seo optimization firms that masquerade as copywriters – which can put them in the lead as far as search engine saturation and rankings. SEO optimization indisputably brings in the traffic to your website. Without it, you’d be lost in the never ending ocean of websites. It’s tempting to hire an seo firm to simply set up your keyworded content, submit your website, and let it go. This is a sad mistake for online businesses to make – once the traffic is delivered, they lose sales. A healthy dose of marketing awareness is the true goldmine when it comes to seo-savvy copywriting services. Look at the work of some of the top seo optimization firms. Do it now. Google ’seo optimization’. SEO firms tend to be rather wordy – they’re pressing the limits of search engine ratios. They know that as an seo firm, their goal is to get a website into the top of the search engine results. Once they’ve done that, they’ve completed their job. They aren’t there to write sales copy or think of a catchy, brand-building slogan. They are there to help you feed machines – not brains. Unfortunately, an seo firm just doesn’t have the marketing savvy to create website content that draws in the essential components of marketing: emotional draw, a compelling message, and an irresistible offer. Would you ask an seo optimization firm to write your print brochure? Help you plan a script for your tv commercial? Would you ask them to compile a media kit for potential investors? Of course not – that’s not what they specialize in. SEO optimization companies specialize in communicating with search engines – not people. If you are looking for the “sell factor” – that’s where good copywriting comes in. A techie that knows how to blanket a website in keywords doesn’t specialize in creativity and ingenuity. That’s bad for you because those are the things that make your products stand out, increase your response rate, and drive sales. SEO optimization firms rely on keyword saturation – an often complicated algorithm that checks to see how many of your keywords are being read by Google. Keyword saturation is a great tool to tinker with search engine results – but it’s not necessarily the tool you want to exploit when you’re trying to persuade consumers to truly connect with what you’re offering. (And connect with them in such a way that they come back for more.) If you are looking for professional link building or for professional link building experts or if you want to read professional link building articles – then you are at the right place.

Don’t Interfere With Your SEO Company

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

The average search engine optimization company is in high demand, and with rising pay-per-click costs and growing exposure of SEO in the mainstream media, this is unlikely to soon subside. Regrettably, many organizations that willingly embrace SEO as a marketing tool also unknowingly sabotage the efforts of the search engine optimization company they have chosen. What follows is a list, by no means complete, of some of the most common errors made by companies that can harm their SEO efforts. Demand Rankings with No Changes to the Site It is a common postulation that search engine rankings are determined by a magical formula rooted largely (or almost exclusively) in technology. In reality, long-term search engine rankings are generally achieved through an equal mix of technology and updated website content. An ethical search engine optimization company will usually turn down work when told that under no circumstances can any of the visual elements or content of a site be changed. It is mainly a site’s content–from the text to the images–that allows search engines to determine what that site is about. That same content also helps other sites and directories to decide whether or not a site is worthy of a link (and link popularity is, of course, a major factor in rankings). A lot of companies do not want to hear this, especially after they have paid a sizable amount of money to a web designer. The bottom line? That site built entirely in Flash for which you spent $50,000 is not going to achieve high rankings for a variety of phrases without substantial changes that will allow its content to be indexed by the engines. The truth hurts sometimes–but so can the cost of lost opportunities. Update the Website without Consulting Your Search Engine Optimization Company A very common and innocent slip-up can have disastrous consequences. It generally happens when a webmaster is updating a website, perhaps simply adding a press release or uploading a graphic. Accidentally, the webmaster saves an older version of the site over the new version, removing many of the elements that the search engine optimization company had added to achieve high rankings. This can result in a loss of positions for which the search engine optimization company, of course, is blamed. If you are looking for professional link building or for professional link building experts or if you want to read professional link building articles – then you are at the right place.

SEO Fable – SEO Is Complex

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

The first legend I would like to center on concerning search engine optimization is the myth that revolves around the notion that search engine optimization (SEO) is complicated. I am constantly interested in the reasons people give for certain thoughts and I have heard many regarding how complicated search engine optimization (SEO) can be – especially for non-seo professionals. But I must say that I have not found this opinion to be true regarding search engine optimization. I do not feel that search engine optimization (SEO) is complicated. I know a lot of people who have achieved great search engine rankings using SEO, including myself, and most have stated that using search engine optimization on their websites was not complicated. At times some stated that depending on what they were doing it took time to complete the SEO work; but seo being complicated – no. I tend to feel that if individuals have an average quantity of computer knowledge and skills and they have good SEO information that they can use to guide them through the SEO work process, they will not have any problems about search engine optimization. Basically, it is not search engine optimization that makes SEO work difficult; it is the lack of access to good information concerning SEO that can make search engine optimization (SEO) appear to be much more tricky than it actually is in all honesty. SEO work can take time to complete depending on the level of detail involved; but it is not brain surgery. Now can anyone do SEO? – the answer is no; however, the people who would have trouble doing SEO work are the same people who would have trouble completing a large diversity of computer related tasks. Generally, if an individual can operate a computer well enough to follow instructions to install software, they usually can complete seo work successfully provided they have good instructions and information. Search engine optimization work is not as simple and/or as quick as adding a few meta tags; but search engine optimization is not practically as hard and time consuming as you might have been lead to believe from prior discussions and/or from information you have read concerning SEO. I feel the main reason that some people portray search engine optimization (SEO) as being complex concerns the amount of money that is generated directly and not directly from the utilization of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization (SEO) is a multi million-dollar industry. Great organic(free) search engine results factually help generate billions of dollars each year for website owners and search engine optimization is a beneficial technique in helping to attain those organic(free) search engine rankings. It is no wonder with billions of internet sales and advertising dollars available on a yearly bases that search engine optimization (SEO) which can provide an individual or company a competitive edge in the ultra high pace internet world will attract a variety of opinions, ideas, supporters and detractors. Moreover, through a combination of perception and reality that highlights search engine optimization as a key to increasing internet sales, search engine optimization is a very popular topic for decision makers within many companies and frankly if these individuals along with the general internet community can be convenience that search engine optimization is complicated then many of these people will decide to outsource SEO related services, hire search engine optimization employees and/or contract consultants to total their search engine optimization work. Thus, money is a key player in how search engine optimization is portrayed in the media, inside the seo industry and at large within the broad internet community. If you are looking for professional link building or for professional link building experts or if you want to read professional link building articles – then you are at the right place.

Proven SEO Guidelines

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Introduction – If you are still learning about search engine optimization (SEO), you are probably a bit confused about the difference between on-site and off-site SEO strategies. On-site tactics are more straight-forward for the beginner and are almost certainly written about the most. I thought I would write an article and cover what I’ve learned. This pool of SEO knowledge comes from working with about 10 clients and another 10 personal web sites over an 18 month period. To anyone with an SEO background, there are certain basic on-site SEO tasks that any web master, business owner, or Internet Marketer needs to be aware of. These include the following major components: 1) Title Tags – The title tag in your HTML meta code is the tag that tell the browser what to display in the title of the window at the very top of the screen. Because this text is so visible to the user, Google likes to rely heavily on this text as a clue as to what your page is about. As a result, it is a really significant SEO strategy that your title tag be filled with keywords that are appropriate to the content of the web page. Furthermore, you really don’t want the same title tag on every page. This is not good for SEO. Instead, you want to have different keyword phrases in your title tags that properly identify the theme of that particular page. Keep in mind, you are trying to help the search engines easily digest your content. That’s essentially what SEO is. You want to aid them in their understanding of what this page is really about. 2) The first H1 tag – Similar to the title tag, Google will look at the first H1 text to appear on your page as a strong signal as to what the page is about. Use it wisely. Once more, you want to place keyword phrases here that are thematically related to what the information on the page is conveying to the end-user. 3) The name of the page itself – As you name your pages in your web site, use plain English as much as possible for SEO. You will notice that WordPress uses this extensively in their blog software. This is no accident and WordPress is considered the best blog for SEO. For example, http://example.com/?On-Site-vs-Off-Site-SEO-tactics&AID=22 will perform much better for SEO than http://example.com/?AID=22. Why? Because there is descriptive text in the longer version of the page name that helps the search engine know what the page is about. A lot of people have written about issues around “dirty links” and SEO (links including system variable data such as AID=22 in the example above). I think it is better if you can design your system without any variable data at all. It just takes this SEO issue away. And it’s just easier for the search engines. It’s also easier for the end-user. However, there is no problem promoting pages via SEO with variable data in the links. I’ve been able to make both fly using the same SEO tactics with no problems. The search engines are smart enough by now to administer through that variable data. Just make sure your plain English is in there. If you are looking for professional link building or for professional link building experts or if you want to read professional link building articles – then you are at the right place.