Search Engine Optimization

Tips for selecting right SEO Company

Sometimes back I decided to engage a good SEO Company that will handle the optimization of my web site. Although I’m aware of some of SEO process but I wanted get this job done by an expert SEO company which can offer me guaranteed result. It was not an easy task for me to find the right SEO Company. I have to do a lot of research on the Internet to narrow down on a single SEO Company.

But a few weeks ago, a friend asked to refer an SEO firm to him. Naturally, I gave the name of the company doing the SEO task for me. But I told him not to trust my judgment completely. He can still look for other companies, so he could have a lot of choices. Then a thought came to me. I’m sure there are other web site owners out there looking for SEO companies to handle their site’s promotion. I’d better blog about this to help them find the right firm. So, I collected some tips to finding the right SEO company. Here they are:

Tip # 1 - First thing first - Where they rank on Google?

Before you even start interacting with SEO companies the first and quick check you have to do is to check where they rank on Google. If you find them not listed in top 50 for main keywords such as SEO, Search Engine Optimization etc then they are not worth even slight of attention.

If a SEO company is engaged in advertising their own services via PPC (Check the right side of Google for advertisements for any keyword searches such as SEO, Organic SEO etc) then they are the worst. If a SEO company can’t rank in top 50 on Google for the same services which they claim to be expert in then they are just absolute waste of time.

Tip #2 - Guaranteed Services

There are SEO companies which offer service and there are SEO companies which offer Guaranteed SEO Services such as Guaranteed Google Top 10 or top 10 ranking on Google, Yahoo and MSN. If a company can’t guarantee the result then they are not worthy. You should always select a SEO company which can offer you guaranteed SEO Services within a given time frame.

For those companies which offer guaranteed services you need to be careful in checking what kind guarantee they provide, do they provide money back guarantee, do they offer top 10 ranking in a given time frame and other initial checks.

Background Check

Just because a company has the “best” word in its name doesn’t guarantee proficiency and efficiency in its work. Search Engine Optimization is composed of several piece of work, each having its own role to perform in improving a web site’s performance. I recommend that you look into the skills the company excel in to determine the benefits it will offer to your site. Don’t get easily convinced of the promises they say in their name.

Tip # 2 - Services Offered

Each Search Engine Optimization company has its own specialty. You need to check which kind of services a SEO company offers. The areas in which a SEO company can be specialized can be Pay Per Click advertisement, Organic SEO, Search Engine Marketing, SEO or SMO. Some of SEO companies also offer offer all services as a package. It is important to choose the right company that specializes in the service you need. If you choose the wrong company, your site’s performance and ranking would suffer.

Tip # 3 - Client and Portfolio

Before engaging a SEO company, check on their experience and portfolio. The best way to do this is to ask them to show their past results. It is very easy to check any SEO work done on the Internet. Check out their sites for quality of contents and keyword placements. Take a look at how the sites were designed as well. A quick look at the search engine marketing for the sites ranking would be a good idea as well. If their past clients were successful and well optimized, they would do the same to your site.

Most of the companies, specially the outsourcing companies, will not reveal their portfolio. Basically this is a typical strategy adopted by outsourcing companies to hide their nonexistent portfolio. Ignore such companies at once.

Tip # 4 - Support

The best SEO companies are those which connect you directly to experts rather than connecting you to clueless sales/marketing department who have no knowledge of SEO at all. If you see that you are getting engaged by sales/marketing team and wasting your time then ignore such companies at once.

Ensure that someone answers the phone or replies to email when you contact a company. If someone picks up when you call or replies to your email right a way, you’re in the right track. If they don’t respond immediately, that is a sign to move on. If they can’t answer you right now, what more when you are doing business with them already?

These are some tips I want to share with you. If you have the time and money, it’s better to arrange for a meeting with the internet marketing company you want to hire to learn more about them. This way you are sure they know what you want done.

Tags:
Guaranteed Google Top 10 Ranking, internet marketing, Organic SEO, Pay Per Click, PPC, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Company, SMO

Does Google top 10 ranking guarantee high traffic

Does Google top 10 ranking guarantee high traffic?

It is a question which is is always hot and a bone of contention among Internet Marketing gurus.

There is no clear cut answer as the Google top 10 ranking is tied to keywords. You may rank in top 10  for some of keywords but not for all. So the question really lies in the niche keywords.

So what are niche keywords? Niche keywords are those keywords which are searched quite often and which are the nightmare for any SEO experts

Take the example of keyword Laptop which is one of the most searched keyword on internet. On average Laptop keyword attracts about 16,600,000 (16.6 Million) searches in a month. This figure is for Google alone and you can extrapolate this figure to find out approximate value on Yahoo and MSN as well. 11 million searches per month gives us about 553,333 daily searches on Google alone.

If you rank on no. 1 on Google for Laptop keyword then you are guaranteed to get at least 300,000 hits per day which is mind boggling.

To conclude just being on No. 1 on Google can attract a lot more traffic for niche keywords than what you could get by any other way of internet marketing, online advertisement, web promotion print media advertisement all combined together.

However getting into Google top 10 for niche keywords and retaining this position is not an easy task but it is certainly worth a lot. With increasing popularity of Internet it is becoming on of the dominant advertising platform and in some countries, such as UK, it has already surpassed traditional advertising methods.

Just being on Google top 10 or top 10 ranking on Yahoo and MSN might not always guarantee a very high traffic. Converting the visits into sales is another challenge which is worth paying more attention.

A poorly designed web site or irrelevant content might distract visitors and thus draining all your effort in Search Engine Optimization.

A combination of Google top 10 ranking, web promotion, good web design, relevant content and well organized layout is guarantee to pay off.

Tags:
Google top 10, Guarantee Google Top 10 Ranking, internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Promotion

How to write an attractive SEO copy

Before I put up my own site, I did a couple of freelance writing for several companies. It was for online web sites, so I’m pretty much aware of the rules in Internet Marketing or SEO copy writing when I started my site. For some people writing online contents can be hard. But it’s not really different from writing for catalog, brochures or television. The same rules apply—it should be written well and informative in order to attract attention.

From my experience, I can say that the only difference of online copywriting to others is reader retention. Reading from computers can be a bit difficult. If a copy is lengthy and the idea is vague, readers won’t stay long in the stay. That is why it’s important for web contents to be clear and concise.

As I always say, the key to effective copy writing is keywords. The right keywords and their placement are important to Search Engine Optimization. You can’t just stuff keywords in all places. It will only confuse search engines when crawling your web site. The main reason for putting the keywords in the content is to guide Internet surfers to the products, services, or information they seek. So, to ensure that surfers will find your site, the right keywords and modifiers have to included in its pages.

Also, target only for six to eight percent keyword density in your pages. Nothing more or your site will be labeled as spam by search engines. In my site, I try to use one main phrase and several variations of it in the page. This way I make the most of the keyword in my page without messing the copy.

A good copy must also be easily readable. Remember that you only have 3 seconds to catch the attention of your readers. So, you need to say what you want to say quickly and clearly. Give your readers a reason to stay by giving them what they need to know right away.

It’s also a good idea to structure your content carefully. Don’t keep the paragraphs too long. Lengthy paragraphs are uninviting and boring to read. Use the right fonts as well. Don’t make it hard for your visitors to read your copy by using too big or too small fonts. If you want to see if your site looks inviting and user-friendly, look at it like a first time visitor. Ask yourself, am I enticed to search the site more? Did I understand what the site is all about right away? Or does the site need more information?

The bottom line is that a good SEO copy is what sells a site. My website promotion activities would not be very successful if not for the carefully written content in it. It’s not simply the images or graphics that sells my site. It goes together with good copy writing, and of course good search engine marketing. But it’s the copies that do most of the job. I create a win-win situation for my visitors and me with the contents I place in my site.

Tags:
Interent Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Copywriting, SEO Writing, Web Promotion

SEO Myths

Similar to people and culture, Search Engine Optimization do have myths as well .I was looking through an SEO forum once when I came across a post that asks if web sites need to be updated frequently to optimize traffic. My first thought was, of course because the World Wide Web is constantly changing, web sites have to the updated to keep the content fresh as search engines like fresh and frequently updated content.

There was a post in that thread though that says frequent updates in web sites increases its crawl rate but not its ranking. If the site doesn’t need change, its best to leave it untouched. This frequent web site update was one of the few myths I found out upon searching the web. There are others more.

Here are they:

Myth # 1. Submitting your URL to search engines is a must.

This is an old school SEO rule. It may have worked years ago, but today it’s no longer necessary to submit sites to search engines. If you start external link building then your web site will be automatically indexed by search engines sooner or later. However it is necessary to submit your URL to at least Google, Yahoo and MSN. By submitting your URL to Google and Yahoo you can take advantage of their tools such as Google Webmaster Tool, Yahoo Site Explorer etc.

Myth # 2. The more times the keyword is repeated, the higher the web site will rank.

Now, this is something you need to look into. Search engine uses different algorithms that have different factors for ranking sites. The best keyword density would be 3-15%. Any higher than that and the search engine will penalize your site. This measure was adopted by various search engines to stop spammer spamming the keywords.

Myth # 3. Put hidden links in your pages to rank higher.

Stuffing hidden links in pages will only get your site penalized or worst banned. Some search engines will label your site as spam and keep it off its pages for good. The links in your web site shall be in same colour as background colour of pages. This is considered as spamming, specially by Google.

Myth # 4. Contents need to be 250 words at all times.

I used to follow this rule in the past. I made sure that all contents in my web site were 250 words in length. When my friend saw what I was doing he told me I was following a silly rule. Short copies or long copies rank well in search engines. So, it doesn’t matter how long my copies are as long as it is incorporated with the right keywords. It is the quality of relevant content which counts. You may not necessarily have all the pages in your web site with 250 words. A typical example is contact us page which would be hard to populate with any content than your telephone numbers and e-mails. But for pages which are informative try to have as much content as possible.

It is also good idea to spread long content into additional pages and provide navigation to these pages from each other.

Myth # 5. Adding meta tags will help rank your site.

Meta tags used to be very important element in the past for indexing and ranking which is no more the case. However still there are search engines which give importance to meta tags such as keywords and description.

I would recommend to have at least keywords and description meta tags on all of your web pages which shall be relevant to the pages and shall not be spammed.

There are people who go on saying that meta tags are completely redundant which is not the case.

There are just some of the many SEO myths that I have compiled here. They are all not true all the time, but some sites claim that these myths have work for them. If you decide to follow these myths, test it many times first. Remember, they may not always work. So, be careful in practicing them.

Tags:
Search Engine Optimization

Flash and SEO

Flash in websites is suicide. That’s what some fellow website owners said to me during one of our coffee get-together. I know there are a lot of things I don’t know in internet marketing, but how can movies, pictures, and images be bad for a website. I’m sure they would catch my visitor’s eye and linger more in my site. Plus, it would make my otherwise static looking pages look more interesting and inviting. Walt Disney does it in their sites. So does my favorite fast food chain. They sure don’t rank low in the search engines. Why can’t I do the same to my site?

Well, my colleagues say flash can tamper the sites ability to rank in search engines. If the use of flash is not moderated in the site, the page that has it would look invisible to search engine crawlers and all my SEO work would go in vain effort would suffer. However, there are sites where the use of flash is not only appropriate but needed, like Disney and fast food web sites. These sites practice some techniques that would make their sites rank in search engine despite the use of flash in their pages. Now that’s what I’m interested about. I’ve been thinking of using flash in my jewelry site for sometime now and I can surely learn a lot from Disney.

Here’s what I learned from my colleagues about using flash.

The lesser the better. They said to use less flash in my pages and to place them in sections that would attract attention. They warned me though not to place it in the ads section. The reason is many surfers easily tune out a page that has a lot of flashing because they associate it to advertisements. Now, if I put my important message through flash in these sections, my readers won’t see my message and leave my page immediately. So, point number one, less is better. Second, put it in the right places.

Now third, they advised me not to put flash in most of my web site’s page. I need to keep its size to the minimum for easy opening of the page and pick up of my message. There are still Internet surfers who still use dial up. If I put huge space for the flash, it’ll take them a long time to open my web page. That’s a waste of their time and a lost of customer for me.

Lastly, it’s better if I leave the important information on my site in the html of the page. I need not use the flash to tell everything about my page. I can use it just to enhance and highlight my product. Good point. This way I don’t compromise the SEO of my site.

Now, I have yet to see if flash would work on my web site. I’ll work on it today and see if I can influence my site’s surfers to turn into buyers through the “flash”ing images in my page.

Tags:
internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization

On Page/Off Page SEO

Search Engine Marketing has long replaced the traditional marketing method we have been used to. Radio and newspaper ads have now been replaced with online advertising. Although traditional marketing is still widely used to reach the masses, technology has revolutionized the way businesses are promoted these days. With the convenience these state-of-the-art technologies offer, advertising has never been the same.

Essential to Internet Marketing is SEO. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to the manner web sites are optimized or promoted to allow search engines to easily spot them. If you have a flower shop you want to promote online, optimizing its website to a great extent will help it land on the top pages of search engines. There are two kinds of SEO: on page and off page.

On page SEO is the content unit of the website. This means organizing and developing good contents on the site that would allow the search engine to easily find your page when a surfer is asking for the topic you have in your site. On page SEO requires several conditions to ensure that your site is search engine friendly. Here are some of them:

• Make sure to put unique contents in every page of your site.
• Remember not to overstuff keywords in your contents, or else search engines will penalize your site.
• Arrange the meta tags correctly
• Check that the links inside the site are complete.

As the virtual market grew larger and larger though, it became more and more difficult for search engines to differentiate sites. For instance, a search for “aircraft” would result to millions of pages. So, as On page SEO grew complex, Off page SEO was used.

Off page SEO refers to the things done to a website after it has gone live to increase traffic to it. The best why to do this is to build links. The more your site’s link ups, the better the SEO ranking. It may sound easy to do, but building your link popularity requires a lot of hard work and patience.

There are several ways to build link ups. First is through article marketing. You create a good quality and unique article, and submit it to different directories on the Internet. There are lots of directories on the web, some of them have high PR. If you get accepted in these sites, that would be a good way to increase your own page rank.

Another is by looking for websites who are willing to add you to their site. If you get lucky and find a site that has high PR, again that would be a good chance for you to increase your site’s traffic. You can also join forums. You can advertise your site through the signature that would appear in your every post.

On page or off page, both SEO type will help bring guaranteed traffic to your site. So, plan smartly your web site and make it as search engine friendly as possible.

Tags:
internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Common SEO Blunders

Almost all most successful businesses can be found in the web today. With the introduction of Online Marketing years ago, many businesses who are hard-pressed on time and money, turn to the virtual market to promote their businesses. From online flower shops to online schools, the World Wide Web is teeming with all kinds of businesses. But to be successful in the virtual market, business owners need to know and understand the pros and cons of online marketing and SEO. It’s not all about putting the site online and leaving it to prosper on its own. It’s about using the right Internet Marketing techniques for high PR in search engines.

So, let’s say you are already part of the virtual world. Your website is up and live. It was designed with the best web designers, taking into consideration the Internet user’s need in mind. The site is pleasant to look at and easy to navigate, but no matter what you do promote it, it just won’t climb up the search engine rankings? Something is definitely wrong with the SEO technique you applied.

In the virtual market, despite efforts of making websites as searchable as possible, there is always the risk of making mistakes. These mistakes, when not properly addressed, can cost you huge amounts of money and leave you with a wounded pride. Let’s take a look at the most common SEO mistakes that you need to avoid.

1. Wrong keyword use. Copywriting is an important part of SEO. Informative and keyword rich contents must be placed in your site’s pages to optimize search engine ranking. The right and most frequently used keywords in searches must be found in the site. But don’t over use the keywords. They must only be placed for a number of times and at the right positions in the body of the content. These keywords will either make or break your Website Marketing. So, pick and place the keywords carefully.
2. Wrong Title Tag use. The title tag is the HTML code that describes the site’s content. Often placed at the top left part of the browser, the tag helps the search engine show what your page is all about. It is important that the title tag is brief, descriptive, and includes your page topic. Never stuff it with too much keyword to avoid getting your site penalized and thrown at the bottom of search pages.
3. Poor site maintenance. Internet Marketing is a continuous job. Almost every year, new techniques in website promotion are introduced. If you don’t get your site updated, it can end up at the bottom pages unnoticed. This would surely not earn you money for your site.
4. No backlinks. If your site has no backlinks to good sites, especially high PR sites, how could Internet surfers find you? Backlinks are the easiest way to get noticed in the web today. Without it, it’s like having no one to vouch for your credibility, reliability, and good service.

Take not of these mistakes and try to avoid them. If you want to increase your site’s traffic and your sales, stay out of these SEO blunders.