Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with SEO Company India is A Good Choice

Search Engine Optimization, today IS no more difficult as everyone is familiar with this term SEO. Now, most of companies are hiring in-house professionals to optimize the website and rank it on competitive keywords. With the increasing demand of SEO worldwide many companies in India establish themselves as a SEO service provider because they know this industry in India is at a peek and most countries outsource
work to India.

Article source: http://www.pr-inside.com/search-engine-optimization-seo-with-r1645298.htm

SEO Clarify in a Picture

Should be self-explanatory, but here’s the gen: if you don’t invest in content, you won’t get links. If you don’t get links you won’t get traffic – either through rankings or referrals. And if you don’t have traffic you don’t have any money to take as profit or invest in new content.

SEO is an art that touches on all parts of this cycle. Your content has to be right. You have to know where and how to get links. You have to understand your traffic, your site and your customers to monetise that traffic. And of course, you need to know how to measure your outputs.

Read more: http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/seo-explained-in-a-picture.html#ixzz0YysE96sw

Five Worries That Can Blow Your SEO Budget

Many small businesses are at financial dismerits when it comes to marketing their website. Too often they don't have the funds, time, or resources wanted to engage in as much marketing as they would like. Unlike larger businesses with deep pockets, small business often have to rely on do-it-yourself strategies built upon free advice gathered from forums, blogs, and social networking sites.

This gives them a lot to worry about, making convinced they are doing it right and that the results will be all they had hoped for. And hoping it doesn't break their budget in the process.

Worry Money every small business owner wants to get the most value for the money they use on their marketing efforts. Simply put, the ROI must be there. But even with a good SEO and a good campaign outline, you can still break your budget--or leave your SEO campaign ineffective--when you let your worries get the best of you. Worrying about smart things is smart. Worrying about the other stuff, well, that just sets you up for failure.

Here are 5 things you should stop worrying about if you don't want to blow your SEO budget over the top:

1) Worrying about perfection
2) Worrying about getting #1 rankings
3) Worrying about competitor movement
4) Worrying about traffic over conversions
5) Worrying about slow growth / instant success

SEO friendly titles used by BBC

We’ve written here at StuckOn many times about how your page’s Title tag is the most important aspect of your page’s SEO. When you’re writing news stories and articles, the title you choose is essential in writing good quality content that will receive traffic from search engines, and a good title can make or break an article in terms of how many page views it generates.

The BBC is one of the best websites on the Internet for content, with thousands of new pages being added every day. Their website is cross linked thoroughly with relevant news stories appearing on the side of each article, and always ranks at the top of Google’s index for topical searches. However, all of this was done within the restraints of having a tight restriction on the character count for titles to news stories. This meant that the BBC’s content writers couldn’t craft truly search friendly titles for their news… until now.

Article source: http://www.stuckon.co.uk/seo-friendly-titles-used-by-bbc-1379.html

SEO experts: Now Google's a Phone Company, too

Lost in the widespread hoopla over Google's acquisition of mobile phone advertising firm AdMob was the company's concurrent purchase of VoIP provider Gizmo5, which Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling says will make Google Voice a stand-alone service.

Sterling writes that this could put the search giant into direct competition with VoIP market leader Skype, which boasts a worldwide user base of 480 million people. Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals must monitor Google's move into the VoIP market closely, to ascertain what sort of SEO opportunities present themselves once Google Voice goes public.

Article source: http://www.brafton.com/industry-news/seo-experts-now-google-s-phone-company-too-$1340421.htm

NFL, Travel Information to be Integrated with Microsoft Bing results

Although competitor Google still dominates the market, Microsoft continues to aggressively add features to its Bing search engine, most recently integrating travel information and NFL data into natural search results, creating new opportunities for search engine optimization (SEO).

Microsoft announced the additions late last week in a post on its official blog. The new travel functionality will recognize when a user is searching for flight information and respond with a detailed display of departure, arrival, and location data. Certain other search terms will be recognized as queries about the NFL or its players, so that Bing can then display playing statistics or game data.

The new functionality will change the way that Bing handles certain queries, which must be taken into account by search engine optimization (SEO) professionals trying to raise the profile of their websites, particularly in the travel or sports information industries.

Microsoft is not the only search firm updating its content, with Google recently adding social search and a revamped display for detailed results. Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals must work to stay abreast of these developments.ADNFCR-1513-ID-19438503-ADNFCR

Article Source: http://www.brafton.com/industry-news/nfl-travel-information-be-integrated-with-bing-results-$1338271.htm

Have you used Ethical SEO services for your medical practice?

SEO services for my medical practice? But do my patients even search for me online? The answer to that question is a very emphatic YES, they do. You might ask next whether SEO services will help you get a lot of patient inquiries. While patient inquiries are not guaranteed, what is guaranteed with SEO services is that people will start recognizing you and you will be easier to find online. Search engine optimization (SEO) should hence be your indirect tool to develop your practice. After all, visibility and recall is the first step to expanding you practice base.

Thanks to the internet becoming the Yellow Pages for today, patients now search online for local medical practitioners who are located near to them. This is proven by the growing popularity of Google Local, which people are starting to use to search for local services. Medical practitioners who have recognized this use SEO services including ethical search engine optimization techniques, to ensure that they are the first ones patients find when they search online for a local doctor. For example, if you are a general physician in Boston, you will want to be found when people search online for a general physician in Boston. But if you have not used SEO services for your website, you will lose out to other doctors who have.

One doctor who started his practice recently started with a website and significant SEO services. Within just a year of starting, the website has become his most important patient-getter. He has an online appointment scheduler and regularly tracks the number of patient inquires he receives through search engines. The website is getting him 60% more phone inquiries that of phone and references put together.

Being a medical practitioner, you will be very busy to take up the details of search engine optimization for your website yourself. You hence need the help of a professional with experience in SEO services. An experienced SEO consultant will ensure that your website meets your goals, whether it is maintaining a professional reputation or getting new clients. There are SEO consultants who specialize in SEO services for medical practitioners. If you are unsure of how to make your medical practice more visible online, take the help of such a SEO consultant.

A SEO consultant will also be able to supplement the main SEO service with add-on services like article and blog posting, link exchanges, on page and off page optimization etc., all of which affects a website’s rankings on search engines. Moreover, if you lay down your website goals for the SEO consultant, he/she can work accordingly and show you the progress reports periodically. This way, you can hand over all SEO activities to a pro, yet have an idea as to what is going on.

Internet has become too big a medium to ignore. So even if you have a strong medical practice, SEO services are a must to uphold a strong, positive reputation online. Look for a reputed SEO consultant who can help you make a strong online presence and benefit your medical practice.

Article source: http://www.thecitywire.com/index.php?q=node/6657

Blackhat SEO Attack Against

Tricky Issue of Duplicate Content and Google

Being a full-time online marketer means you have to keep a close watch on how Google is ranking pages on the web... one very serious concern is the whole issue of duplicate content. More importantly, how does having duplicate content on your site and on other people's sites, affect your keyword rankings in Google and the other search engines?

Now, recently it seems that Google is much more open about just how it ranks content. I say "seems" because with Google there are years and years of mistrust when it comes to how they treat content and webmasters. Google's whole "do as I say" attitude leaves a bitter taste in most webmasters' mouths. So much so, that many have had more than enough of Google's attitude and ignore what Google and their pundits say altogether.

This is probably very emotionally fulfilling, but is it the right route or attitude to take? Probably not!

Mainly because, regardless of whether you love or hate Google, there's no denying they are King of online search and you must play by their rules or leave a lot of serious online revenue on the table. Now, for my major keyword content/pages even a loss of just a few places in the rankings can mean I lose hundreds of dollars in daily commissions, so anything affecting my rankings obviously gets my immediate attention.

So the whole tricky issue of duplicate content has caused me some concern and I have made an ongoing mental note to myself to find out everything I can about it. I am mainly worried about my content being ranked lower because the search engines think it is duplicate content and penalizes it.

My situation is compounded by the fact that I am heavily into article marketing - the same articles are featured on hundreds, some times thousands of sites across the web. Naturally, I am worried these articles will dilute or lower my rankings rather than accomplish their intended purpose of getting higher rankings.

I try to vary the anchor text/keyword link in the resource boxes of these articles. I don't use the same keyword phrase over and over again, as I am nearly 99% positive Google has a "keyword use" quota - repeat the same keyword phrase too often and your highly linked content will be lowered around 50 or 60 places, basically taking it out of the search results. Been there, done that!

I even like submitting unique articles to certain popular sites so only that site has the article, thus eliminating the whole duplicate content issue. This also makes for a great SEO strategy, especially for beginning online marketers, your site will take some time to get to a PR6 or PR7, but you can place your content and links on high PR7 or PR8 authority sites immediately. This will bring in quality traffic and help your own site get established.

Top Positions in the Web's Largest Article Directory

Another way I combat this issue is by using a 301 re-direct so that traffic and pagerank flows to the URL I want ranked. You can also use your Google Webmaster Tool account to show which version of your site you want ranked or featured: with or without the www.

The whole reason for doing any of this has to do with PageRank juice - you want to pass along this ranking juice to the appropriate page or content. This can raise your rankings, especially in Google.

Thankfully, there is the relatively new "canonical tag" you can use to tell the search engines this is the page/content you want featured or ranked. Just add this meta link tag to your content which you want ranked or featured, as in the example given below:


Anyway, this whole duplicate issue has many faces and sides, so I like going directly to Google for my information. Experience has shown me that Google doesn't always give you the full monty, but for the most part, you can follow what they say. Lately, over the last year or so, Google seems to have made a major policy change and are telling webmasters a lot more information on how they (Google) rank their index.

So if you're concerned or interested in finding out more about duplicate content and what Google says about it try these helpful links. First one is a very informative video on the subject entitled "Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues" which is presented by Greg Grothaus who works for Google.
Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!

Another great link is this page from Google Webmasters Support Answers by Matt Cutts. It has a lot of helpful information, including a video on the Canonical Link Element.

In yet another post, Matt Cutts discusses the related issue of content scraping and advises webmasters not to worry about it. This is a slightly different matter, other webmasters and unmentionables may use software to scrape your site and place your content on their site. This has happened to me, countless times, including when my content has been reduced to scrambled nonsense. Cutts says not to worry about this matter as Google can usually tell the original source of the material. In fact, having links in this duplicate content may just help your rankings in Google.

"There are some people who really hate scrapers and try to crack down on them and try to get every single one deleted or kicked off their web host," says Cutts. "I tend to be the sort of person who doesn't really worry about it, because the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, it's going to be you that comes up, not the scraper. If the guy is scraping and scrapes the content that has a link to you, he's linking to you, so worst case, it won't hurt, but in some weird cases, it might actually help a little bit."

As a full time online marketer I am not so easily convinced, I mainly have pressing concerns about my unscrupulous competition using these scrapings and duplicate content to undermine one's rankings in Google by triggering some keyword spam filter. Whether in fact this actually happens, only Google knows for sure, but it is just another indication, despite the very detailed and helpful information given above, duplicate content and the issues surrounding it, will still present serious concerns for online marketers and webmasters in the future.

About The Author

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools. If you liked the article above, why not try this Free 7 Day Marketing Course here: Marketing Tools Copyright 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Google Wave hi-jacked by Black SEO campaigns

Google Wave will be available next Wednesday to 100,000 developers and Google Apps customers. However, cybercriminals have already take advantage of the launch by starting black hat SEO campaigns to turn interest in Wave into a computer infection.

Traditional SEO campaigns boost a Website’s ranking in search results using relevant keywords. On the other hand, black hat SEO campaigns have the same goal, but they use a different method. These campaigns flout search engine guidelines about acceptable practices, like prohibitions on the misuse of text and page elements.

On occasion, these campaigns also embed malicious codes in a top-ranking Web page and redirect links to their own pages.

For Google Wave, its search terms have produced a list of search results that included malicious Websites.

Websense, an online security firm, has been tracking down these black hat campaigns on the Google Wave.

As narrated by Thomas Claburn of Information Week: “Google knows that cybercriminals track popular search terms religiously so they can use those terms to hijack searchers. And it watches closely over its index using automated and manual methods to remove links leading to malicious sites. Chances are that the sites spotted by Websense have already been removed by Google. But it’s almost always playing catch-up.”

article source: http://www.lastclicknews.com

Google Wave hi-jacked by Black SEO campaigns

Google Wave will be available next Wednesday to 100,000 developers and Google Apps customers. However, cybercriminals have already take advantage of the launch by starting black hat SEO campaigns to turn interest in Wave into a computer infection.

Traditional SEO campaigns boost a Website’s ranking in search results using relevant keywords. On the other hand, black hat SEO campaigns have the same goal, but they use a different method. These campaigns flout search engine guidelines about acceptable practices, like prohibitions on the misuse of text and page elements.

On occasion, these campaigns also embed malicious codes in a top-ranking Web page and redirect links to their own pages.

For Google Wave, its search terms have produced a list of search results that included malicious Websites.

Websense, an online security firm, has been tracking down these black hat campaigns on the Google Wave.

As narrated by Thomas Claburn of Information Week: “Google knows that cybercriminals track popular search terms religiously so they can use those terms to hijack searchers. And it watches closely over its index using automated and manual methods to remove links leading to malicious sites. Chances are that the sites spotted by Websense have already been removed by Google. But it’s almost always playing catch-up.”

article source: http://www.lastclicknews.com

Basics of SEO Keyword Research

Would Your Company Be A Good SEO Client?

Organic links – the ones that just happen are typically driven by things like public relations, brand awareness, unique content, existing exposure, and social networking. In competitive markets, some aspects of the evolving SEO field should be baked into the core of the company’s DNA. When you get interviewed, you have to know to ask for links. If you are in competitive markets and are operating at scale, it is unlikely that you will have your SEO be your contact point for all media relationships.

Profitable client projects

Some client projects are a slam dunk; where after a half hour of research, you see opportunities (including site structure, page titles, on page optimization, competitive research, and content ideas) that guarantee a multi-thousand percent ROI. SEO is the most explosive and has the highest returns when there is an already successful company that is in the game, but has not given a second thought to SEO.

All of the footprints (customers, customer interactions, customer lists, word of mouth marketing, organic links, a traffic stream outside of search, etc.) that comes along with having a successful company, works as a foundation which helps the SEO efforts boost the site even higher into the search results. As a bonus, those existing footprints on the web are also the hardest for competitors to clone. Once you have them, you have a lasting competitive advantage.

It is easier to take a website from page 2 or 3 of the search results to the top than it is to start building from scratch. In fact, many of the smartest SEO practitioners are willing to launch a site that is half done just so they can get it a few links and get it aging. Google likes old websites, so that is what we should give them.

Brutally ugly client projects

Conversely, the worst websites to work for (especially as client projects) are those which are not unique, those that are brand new, and those that tend to be thin on content. Why? These sites have no footprint on the web. And if they are to build one, it often requires aggressive push marketing, and is moving counter to the trend in search. Matt Cutts recently went so far as making a video recommending not trying to rank a thin ecommerce site.

For more information http://searchengineland.com/would-your-company-be-a-good-seo-client-24778

Why is SEO Important for Your Business Site?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and link building are basic precepts of marketing online. The two ensure high rankings in fashionable search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The importance of SEO

On the World Wide Web, nothing is more significant than SEO to business sites. Organic optimization is crucial for the success of on-page and off-page optimization. SEO components include: content writing, keyword building, link building, HTML code optimization, etc.

In order to get higher rankings, a website needs to have suitably-related keywords.

After that, it needs the right Title tag, Meta tags, heading tags, Alt tags, images, and keyword phrases.

For more information http://www.lastclicknews.com/why-is-seo-important-for-your-business-site-10367.html

Search Market to Get Another Engine

HP, along with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, is working on an engine to make online search more meaningful

Last year, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Labs initiated open research grants to dozens of universities worldwide. One such grant was given to the Computer Science Department of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B).

Professor Soumen Chakrabarti and his group at IIT-B used this grant to work on a new search engine which would trawl the web to provide relevant answers to queries. Their efforts are yielding results.

The IIT-B team has already created billions of annotation links between a 500-million web page corpus and millions of entities known to Wikipedia. The data is being churned on 42 high-end HP servers with over 350 gigabytes of RAM and over 150 terabytes of disks, donated by Yahoo. HP Labs and Microsoft Research have provided additional research funding.

To be successful, any search engine needs a robust mechanism that indexes web pages. At any given time, there are millions of web pages on the internet. For instance, Google has over 8 billion pages indexed and over 1.1 billion images. Add to that an efficient crawler which basically connects servers across the world wide web and across servers.

In case of the HP-IIT-B machine, the mainstay is annotation, indexing of annotations alongside ordinary text, and supporting a query language that can combine categories, annotations, quantities and regular text in creative ways, typically ending with evidence aggregation. The key to moving up in the search value chain, according to Chakrabarti, is to add semi-structured knowledge to the unstructured corpus, in the form of type, entity, category and relationship annotations, to index these annotations along with the text, and open up search application programming interfaces (APIs) and query languages to probe these indices and aggregate the resulting knowledge.

For more information http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/search-market-to-get-another-engine/368255/

SEO Can Help Build Online Presence

At this point, almost every company realizes they have to have a web presence in order to compete in the 21st century, but just being online doesn't help if people can't find you. But by using search engine optimization (SEO) and other techniques, practically every business can see improvement in their bottom line.

In a post for MediaPost's Performance Insider blog, Angela Hribar, chief sales and marketing officer at GlobalSpec, says there are a number of steps companies can take to improve their online presence - including creating original content.

Hribar says companies should put things like white papers and technical articles online which can help build the company's reputation as an industry leader and expert in its field.

She also says that businesses should consider using search engine optimization (SEO) to draw traffic to their site.

"Search engine optimization (SEO) can draw more attention to your company's webpages by helping them rise higher in search engine results for specific keyword searches," she writes. "Determine how SEO can best fit into your marketing strategy without too much strain in resources."

Companies might also want to put content on their site as it appears to draw more traffic than sites without it. According to figures gathered from Hitwise UK, content-driven sites got 73 percent more traffic than their ecommerce counterparts last month.

Article source: http://www.brafton.com/industry-news/seo-can-help-build-online-presence-$1320419.htm

SEO Expert Willie Crawford on 4 Sneaky Tricks

Maria Gudelis interviews SEO Expert Willie Crawford as he unveils four Sneaky SEO Tricks that drive traffic to your website on Wednesday, August 19th at 3 pm EST. The radio show will be recorded so if you miss it you can still listen in at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Maria-Gudelis/2009/08/19/4-Sneaky-SEO-Expert-Tricks-That-Get-You-Traffic-with-Willie-Crawford

In in online interview, Willie Crawford said: "I’ve been in business online for over a dozen years because he is so successful at generating massive free traffic to his sites. I’ve done this primarily through generating lots of "content" - mainly articles.

Your customers go online looking for solutions to their problems. When you have lots of content scattered across cyberspace, your customers find what you’ve shared, read or listen to it, and then click through to your site. They arrive at your site pre-sold on YOU and ready to buy your products. It’s as simple as that"

SEO Expert Willie Crawford further said: "This has worked for over a dozen years, and continues to work great today. The only changes have been that now multi-media (video, and audio) are a very necessary part of the content mix"

Another attack takes down Twitter Site

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack has taken down Twitter for the second time in a week.

While the attack only stopped services for around half an hour, the outage is still a concern and will only heighten fears that the service is under-investing in its security systems.

Twitter gave no explanation for the attack in a blog posting.

“We’re working to recover from a site outage and will update as we learn more,” it said.

“Update (12:17p): We’re back up and analyzing the traffic data to determine the nature of this attack.”

The first attack is now thought to have been the work of Russian hackers looking to silence a pro-Georgian commentator. Since the outbreak of hostilities between the two countries there have been continued online attacks.

“The good news is that, unlike last week's attacks, Twitter was back up-and-running in about half-an-hour. So kudos to them for managing to avoid too much disruption for millions of their users,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology correspondent at Sophos.

Article for more information: http://www.crn.com.au/News/152742,another-attack-takes-down-twitter.aspx

Run If You Hear These 5 SEO Marketing Statements

In August 4th 2009 Tuesday’s five Marketing Misconceptions That Need to Change post, Will covered some of the misguided statements we hear from clients. If I only had a nickel for every time we hear those types of statements….

In the spirit of fairness, I am determined to defend the marketers who make these types of statements. Here’s what Will left out - often times these misguided comments originate from an agency, consultant or service provider that the company has put its trust in. So let’s look for some warning signs.

If you hear your agency, consultant or service provider make any of these five statements, consider running.

1.) Hi, I’m Mike from XXX National Directory/Search/Ad Network Company, and I am a Marketing Consultant with the company. I am here to help you build your marketing plan.

RUN! FAST! Nothing against these folks (really), but selling Yellow Pages or even a “boxed” pay-per-click solution does not make you a marketing consultant. It makes you someone that is trying to sell Yellow Pages or a “boxed” pay-per-click solution. There’s nothing wrong with selling. God knows we all do it in some form or fashion, but please don’t try to mislead people by calling yourself a marketing consultant.

Clarification: If you are in fact interesting in purchasing what essentially amounts to an advertising package, by all means engage with these folks. Just don’t expect to get any marketing strategy advice out of them.

2.) If you choose us for your SEO project, we can guarantee multiple top 10 rankings on your targeted keywords.

I thought these people had gone away, but it appears they’re back in full force. And I can’t blame clients for listening. When someone tells you they can guarantee results, it’s hard to ignore.

That being said, let’s all say this together: SEO is not a quick fix, set it and forget it solution for driving traffic . The best SEO strategies I’ve seen involve a long-term commitment to the creation of relevant content, building that content in multiple formats, and finding multiple distribution channels for that content.

I am guessing there are companies that make an SEO guarantee and do follow through on it. I am also guessing that those guarantees are made on keywords like “patent attorneys that also handle divorce cases in reston virginia”.

3.) You really can’t afford to wait on addressing social media. We should build out your presence on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter right away.

Stop. Please. We all realize that social media is important, even though it’s getting a bit crowded. Like anything else though, you shouldn’t build anything if it doesn’t fit into a more strategic plan.

Some of these groups will bait you with the promise of thousands of Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or LinkedIn connections overnight. Great. Go ahead and recruit thousands of followers, all of whom could care less about your message. They’re following you because they’re trolling for followers as well. And the followers/friends/connections you do want? You’ll turn them off quick with the hundreds of meaningless updates you’ll have to post to accumulate all the meaningless followers.

Build a social media strategy. Make sure it ties back to your overall marketing strategy. Then join, listen, learn, and eventually execute. It’s that simple.

And one more thing, and I know this will be painful for some “social media gurus” to hear. Social media is NOT a necessity, nor is it necessarily effective, for every business and business category.

4.) We know you think of us as a print design shop, but just last week we added capabilities in web design and development, search engine optimization, pay-per-click management, email marketing, social media…oh, and we can also handle your dry cleaning if necessary.

Wow, just last week huh? So you must have hired an entire new team right? Nope. Acquired a company that specializes in those areas? Nope. Formed a joint venture with a web marketing agency? Not so much.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with trusting a marketing service provider that has done you right over the years and who is now claiming to offer new services. Just make sure you probe a bit or execute a small trial project before diving in head first.

5.) You shouldn’t cut back on your marketing/advertising spend in a recession. As a matter of fact, I was reading in Business Week (or insert another referenced publication) that the companies that spend MORE during a recession end up as the top brands years later.

So your client just laid off half his/her staff, notified remaining staff that salaries and bonus levels have been frozen for the time being, cancelled plans to open the new office in the commuter-friendly downtown location…and you’re going to bring the “increase your marketing spend” message?

Don’t get me wrong. Increasing marketing spending may be right for certain companies; we’ve even seen a few of those up close and personal in the last few months. But the first move - as an agency, consultant or service provider - should be to figure out how to spend your client’s marketing dollars more efficiently.

Article source: http://web2.sys-con.com

Five Easy but Powerful Ways to Use Google Analytics

First of all - what is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free analysis tool which gives you information on where your website visitors are coming from, which pages they visit, how long they stay and a lot more. There are plenty of paid stat counters available which present data in different ways, but Google Analytics is one of the best, and it is free.
One can over-analyze or under-analyze any website. Some people spend too much time checking stats, analyzing, and planning, and don't spend enough time writing good content and getting new readers to their blogs.

On the other side of the pendulum, you could go on week after week, blindly publishing content and flailing along with offsite promotion, without seeing what results your campaigns are getting, which type of content is the most popular for your visitors, and which traffic-generation techniques are getting the best results.

I find that the best times to check stats are when I don't have a lot of time to do a more intense project, or when I am a bit too tired to do anything more "heavy." Sometimes just before I go to bed at night is a good time to check into what has been happening between my visitors and my websites' pages. I can browse and poke around in my Analytics account and learn quite a lot - even with minimal energy.

Here are five simple and powerful ways to use Google Analytics:

1. Find out which of your website's pages are getting the most traffic, and optimize those pages.

If you are running ads on the pages, make sure they are properly placed and updated. If you are linking to affiliate products, make sure your links are up-to-date and that you aren't missing any links, or new products which should be there. If you are using that page for some other purpose, such as to generate subscriptions or whatever the case may be, make sure that the page is laid out as well as possible. This can be helpful if you have a large website which has a long "to do" list and many things to optimize or tweak. By just starting with the most heavily-trafficked pages, you will get the maximum results from your efforts and also know where to start.

2. Find out which referrers are generating the most traffic, and continue any actions you have been taking to generate traffic from those referrers.

For example, if you see that Twitter is generating a large amount of targeted traffíc, you can expand your activity on Twitter. If you see that your article submissions are getting new visitors from article directories, you can make a note not to drop those out - or possibly step them up. Conversely, if you see that you have been spending time/money on a traffic-generation method which is not getting very far, you can stop wasting your time on it (presuming you have given it time to take effect).

3. Find out which keywords you are ranking the best for and see which ones you can "push to the top."

If you had a website on dogs, for example, and found that you were ranking at #30-#40 on Google for many keywords, but ranking #11 for, lets say, "dog chew toys," you might want to work on increasing your rankings on dog chew toys and focus more of your SEO efforts on this term (of course there are other factors you would consider as well, such as the searches and competition for this term). Climbing from position #31 to #20 will generally not get you a huge improvement in traffic. But climbing from position #11 to position #3 almost certainly will. Focus first on keywords or key phrases that have the best chance of ranking high in the near future, and then move on to the others.

4. Find out which pages keep your visitors' attention for the longest.

If the average visitor on Page A stays for 5 seconds, while the average visitor to Page B stays for 150 seconds, the likelihood is that your visitors find Page B's content more interesting than Page A's.

5. Look at the graph of your bounce rate.

This tells you how many people left your site without visiting a second page. Depending on the website and the page, this may be a good or bad thing. But if you have a blog or a content site, it is usually a good sign when people stick around to view more of your posts and content before they leave. If your bounce rate increased or decreased after you made a certain change, you can opt to revert that change (if bounce rate increased) or keep it (if bounce rate decreased). For example, if I changed the theme of my Word press blog and then noticed a date-co-incident jump in my bounce rate, I might consider changing it back :) This statistic can be used in many ways - it will depend on the nature of your blog.

For more info login to http://www.google.com/analytics/

Yahoo/Microsoft deal may modify future of SEO

july 30, 2009 it was announced that Yahoo and Microsoft reached a deal that could give Microsoft almost 30 percent of the search engine market, and according to at least one expert, this will change the search engine optimization (SEO) landscape.

While the deal still has to meet approval and will likely take some time before Microsoft is handling all of Yahoo's searches, SEOmoz's Rand Fishkin says the deal will have some positive and negative effects on both Yahoo and Microsoft in regards to search engine optimization (SEO).

For one thing, businesses should put at least some effort into search engine optimization (SEO) for Microsoft's Bing as it is likely to have at least a 15 percent share of the search engine market, according to Fishkin.

Fishkin writes that implementing a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for Bing would be a good idea because of the increased "richness" of its results.

"Bing's results are, by default, 'richer' than those of Yahoo and Google. Although Yahoo will be controlling the user interface on their end, it's likely much of that 'richness' will make its way into the Bing results inside Yahoo," he wrote. "Bing also surfaces only the top five results for many queries, meaning a higher concentration of clicks on those top results."

Although Microsoft and Yahoo say they expect the deal to be completed early next year, there still may be some hurdles the companies need to pass as many in the industry expect the Department of Justice to take a hard look at the agreement.

Article source: http://www.brafton.com/

Search Engine Visibility’ Designed to Find Your Web Site Noticed

Search Engine Visibility walks users through a step-by-step process to make their internet site search engine friendly. This not only makes a search engine more possible to index the entire site, but to help get the Web site better in search engine rankings.

Lots of our customers want to know how to rank higher in web search engines? Said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. So we formed Search Engine Visibility. This tool gives you real tactics and sound advice about Search Engine Optimization - without having to pay big bucks?

Search Engine Visibility lets users optimize their site by defining keywords, analyzing keyword and tracking content performance. Search Engine Visibility also provides top 10 SEO Checklist, Which helps identify normally made mistakes and techniques on how make a Web site stronger.

Search Engine Visibility also provides a video tutorial and other instructive materials which help users understand the search engine optimization process. Once a Web site is optimized, users can submit their Web site to the most regularly used search engines on the Internet.

SEO Students Ruffle their Stuff for Koreans

Students of SEO is Martial Arts in Dalton were a little more excited than usual for their demonstrations on Friday. That’s because they were performing taekwondo in front of an international audience.

The world famous Korean National Demonstration Team was in town for the second time in as many years to perform in support of Master Ju Hyon Seo’s Sidekick Against Drugs fund-raiser at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center.

The SEO is demonstration teams — the Little Tigers (3-5-year-olds), the B (beginners) and (elite) teams — took center stage in front of about 200 people, including the Korean Team, to support Whitfield County’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) and the Family Support Council.

Members from Lee’s Taekwondo in Chattanooga also participated.

The event not only gave SEO students a chance to see some of the world’s best taekwondo artists, it also allowed them the chance to perform for the Koreans.

Colton Mantooth performed with SEO is elite demonstration team and was excited to show off his training of the past eight years, which has earned him a second-degree Black Belt.

“Knowing their abilities and knowing how well they can perform, it does put a little bit more pressure on you,” said Mantooth, who enters his senior year at Northwest Whitfield and hopes to start his own martial arts school in the future.

“You know you have got all these other people watching, but you’ve also got a professional team that does this for a living and travels around the world performing. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s also motivation because they’re people we can look up to.”

Seo, who helped fund the Korean Team’s trip to the United States, believes students watching professionals at work provides an invaluable experience for them. The Korean Team consisted of 14 members, plus a director, professor Kim Jung Heon of Yong In University in Yongin City, Gyeonggi province, South Korea.

“Taekwondo started in Korea,” said Seo, who is from Korea and was also a member of the Korean Team for five years after training in sparring for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. “The reason I do this is I want my students to see where this art came from. All these members that come here are highly trained.

“And it’s a cultural experience for my students as well. Team members stay at some of my students’ houses and they get to learn the Korean culture.”

The Korean Team’s performance impressed Paxton Bennett, who has been a student at Seo’s for 2 1/2 years and has earned his red belt.

“It is really cool to see all that they can do,” said Bennett, who enters seventh grade at Westside Middle School. “I try to compare our stuff to their performances and it can help you work on your technique. I want to see if I can reach their abilities.”

While SEO students were impressed with the Koreans’ performances and intrigued by the cultural aspect of the event, Kim said the feeling was mutual for him and his students.

“SEO teams were very impressive,” Kim said. “Last year we were here and practiced together for about a week and they were not at as high of a level as they are now.


Article Source: http://www.daltondailycitizen.com

Five Important Factors When Choosing an SEO Company

A lot of companies get so baffled when attempting to hire an SEO firm that they simply give up altogether and don't hire anyone. Part of the problem is that they simply don't know whom to trust for this service.

Trust is always a tricky issue, and one that is sensitively charged based on our individual experiences with others as we navigate through the maze we call life. In SEO, trust issues are further magnified by the fact that there's no one-size-fits-all solution, or one method that all SEO’s use to bring targeted traffic to their client's websites.

Here are 5 factors that all businesses should weigh when choosing their SEO firm:
Does the SEO firm set realistic expectations about what they can and can't do, or do they simply promise the moon? Smart SEOs under-promise and over-deliver, so watch out for those that do the opposite.

1. Does the SEO Company have a proven record of achievement and not just for long-tail keywords? Be sure to check references to learn whether the SEO firm actually improved their clients' bottom line in some way.

2. Does the SEO agency provide recommendations for making your site better than it currently is, or are they trying to do things to it that will normally make it worse for your users? This one sounds crazy, but a good portion of SEOs think that it's all about the search engines and not the users, and make bad decisions accordingly. Never, ever, ever let an SEO company do something that you feel worsens your site's overall serviceability or readability.

3. Does the SEO consultant tell you what they're doing and why they're doing it, or do they just want you to blindly trust them? This one should set off a major red flag if you ever encounter it. Sure, you don't need to know every last detail or to micromanage your SEO campaign, but your SEO should be able to explain their reasoning for why they want to do the things they recommend. If they can't, or if their answers don't make sense, then run (don't walk) to the nearest door!

4. Does the SEO Company use only automated methods to achieve their goals? This isn't necessarily bad; however, you need to be aware if this is what they're doing. SEO is very much an art as well as a science, and because of this, creativity should always play a big part. It's very difficult to be creative when everything you do is based on a numbers game. Just keep that in mind!

5. Like trusting a friend, a dentist, or anyone else, determining whom to confidence as your SEO partner should not be taken lightly or rushed into. Educate yourself on SEO as much as you can before you decide.

Get to know the SEO vendors you're thinking of hiring, ask them lots and lots of questions, and most of all use your gut and your own common sense to determine if you'll be a good fit. If you are unsure, then keep on looking. There are plenty of SEO fish in the sea, and there should be a few who use the methods you believe in, who are within your budget, and who will work hard to help you accomplish your website goals!

Article source: http://www.isedb.com

SEO can Work for Generating Local Traffics

Although many companies begin using search engine optimization (SEO) to help increase their national - or perhaps international - visibility online, some companies are only concerned about attracting customers in their neighborhood, something experts says is much easier.

As part of its Website Remedies feature, CNNMoney.com gathers a number of experts in an attempt to assist businesses looking for help with their website. Its most recent piece focused on North Carolina-based law firm Conroy & Weinshenker which is looking to boost local traffic.

Pamela Swingley of California-based Savvy Internet Marketing says there is a lot of focus on local search at the moment and notes that creating search engine optimization (SEO) content for local traffic is simpler than trying to lure people from across the country.

"Attracting local search traffic is much easier than optimizing a website for a national or international audience". "Local search is starting to really heat up."

The experts say Conroy & Weinshenker should expand their content to help increase their search engine optimization (SEO). The news provider also suggests that the site update its news site at least once a month. While this can have the benefit of increasing SEO, it can also be of assistance to prospective clients.

Many local companies saw an increase in search engine optimization (SEO) earlier this year without doing anything to their websites when Google made local search the default setting for result pages.

Article source: http://www.brafton.com

The top 5 SEO guides

As a SEO professional the majority of my time is spent correcting the SEO errors and mistakes made by my customers. The art of effective SEO optimization is convoluted with many variables, and although you can Google SEO optimization and find literally thousands of results on the subject with tips, tricks, and strategies; until you remove all unfriendly SEO code your site is doomed in gaining prominent placement on the SERPs.

1. Avoid the use of flash, DHTML, and internal java script. These coding practices offer slick visual enhancements, but are some of the biggest SEO killers. Search engine spiders see flash objects as big chunks of empty web space because there isn’t an effective SEO method to tag them to be crawled by the spiders. If you are using flash for photo slideshows then convert them into pop-up pages and reinforce them with keyword rich content and anchor text.

DHTML and link roll over effects bloat the html coding of your website and remove the important “alt” and image “title” tags which help to further weaken your SEO ranking potential. The best menu linking method is “text” based links with keyword rich anchor text. The same goes for internal java scripting this coding just pushes your relevant content down further into your code and slows the search engine spiders crawling your site. Convert your internal scripts into external .js applets and drop them in a folder in your site.

2. Non-unique, duplicate, or non-relevant content. Your websites content should be fresh and always match and relate to your sites niche. If you are selling party supplies then it would be a bad idea to have pages or content about bowling balls. Duplicate or redundant content is a big no-no as well; part of the Google PR algorithm is based on fresh relevant content.

3. Keyword stuffing and hidden text. Google and the other major search engines view these practices as spamming and can get your sites sandboxed (dropped so low on the SERPs that no one will ever find it!) or banned altogether. Keep your keyword density to no more than 5%, and never use hidden text.

4. Poor Meta data. Your Meta data is the information that tells the search engine spiders what each page of your site is about and how it relates to your content. Research your keywords and phrases and always a unique keyword rich tile for each page, avoiding stop words like “and, or, the, if, it, were”. Keep you title to 57 characters or less. Your description tag should be short and no longer than a sentence or two. Your keyword tag should always have your primary keyword first, and that keyword should also be in the first sentence on your page content. Don’t bloat this tag with dozens of keywords; this will only hurt your ranking potential. Use no more than 10-12 per page and build landing or gateway pages to promote additional keywords.

5. Always use “alt”, link, and header (H1, H2, Etc) tags. Each image and hyperlink on your site is meaning less to the search engine spiders if it isn’t tagged with relevant keyword descriptive phrases. When tagging your menu links never use tags like “click here” etc. always be descriptive. Your content needs to be user-friendly first then SEO friendly. Avoid long paragraphs. Use bullets and numbering to summarize and break up long text. This will make your key points stand out to your web visitors and to the search engine spiders as well. Always use header tags to highlight important information. A trick I always us is I start of using the H2 tag at the top of my pages and use the H1 tag further down. It seems that almost every SEO tech starts off with the H1 tag and this has caused the major search engines to give less weight to the H1 tag as a result. This doesn’t mean it is useless, but when used second or third I have noticed better results.

There are so many important strategies in achieving top ranking on Google and the other search engines, but by getting back to basics and making your site SEO and user friendly, you will have a clean web pallet to work with and build upon.

Keep your site filled with fresh relevant content, avoid “Black Hat” and deceptive practices and keep your pages easy to navigate and informative and you site will gain higher SERPs long before those who disregard or do not follow SEO best practices!

Article source: http://www.examiner.com/

Google set to wage OS war with Microsoft

Google Inc.'s entry into the operating system business poses the strongest long-term threat in years to the dominance of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software, according to analysts.

Google last week announced that it would launch its long-anticipated operating system, based on the open-source Linux kernel and built around its Chrome browser, sometime in the second half of 2010. The new Web-centric operating system will be dubbed Google Chrome OS.

Though analysts agreed that the Windows hegemony is safe in the short term, Google has the financial muscle, engineering might and industry clout to survive a long-term battle with an industry powerhouse like Microsoft.

"Google doesn't need an operating system to support its revenue stream," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. "They have lots and lots of revenue from their advertising bread and butter. That means they have [the] staying power that's critically important in this market."

Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner Inc., said that Microsoft is unlikely to ignore the threat to Windows. "Microsoft, after all, is one of the more paranoid companies around," he said.

He added that Microsoft is unlikely to be adversely affected by Chrome OS in the short term.

Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment on the Google announcement.

Analysts did note that Google must stick to the long, complex grind of developing an operating system if it wants to be successful in that business.

Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst at Nucleus Research, said that in recent months, Google has shut down or stopped supporting several products, including Google Video, Google Notebook, the Jaiku microblogging service and the Dodgeball mobile social network.

"They pick something up, get excited about it and work on it until they find another shiny new object they want to play with," Wettemann said. "My feeling is that Google needs to stop announcing things and instead execute on completing them."

Nonetheless, the Chrome OS plan has attracted the support of several top PC vendors, including Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo Group, Acer and Asustek Computer.

Article source: http://www.computerworld.com

SEO Success: Sign Of A Healthy Corporate Culture

Flatter and more-responsive organizations. Working on SEO is like taking your Web site to the doctor: a good SEO consultant will tell you what you have to do, but the hard work is up to you. Companies that listen and respond will do better than companies that justify, finger-point and go on the defensive. Healthy companies look for ways to improve; dysfunctional companies offer reasons why improvement is impossible. Companies that refuse to do the heavy lifting required to whip their site into shape generally are equally negligent in other areas of their business.

Better communication channels. SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together toward a common goal. This approach is well within the comfort zone of healthy organizations, but totally foreign to dysfunctional ones. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. SEO is not a one-shot tactic. In the most competitive categories, it's a full-out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt-covering will inevitably sink in the rankings.

Healthy community connections. The new era of digital communications requires companies to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with their community of customers. Great companies do this instinctively. Bad companies put up huge corporate communication barricades, keeping the angry hordes at bay. Because much of this dialogue happens online, these dialogues tend to generate reams of content and links. Raving customers generate link love; angry customers generate link hate and reputation management problems. A company that can effectively engage in conversations with customers will find a natural lift in organic rankings is often the result.

Efficient execution habits. Companies that keep a clean house do better organically than companies that keep skeletons in the closet. Both approaches are symptomatic of the company's overall approach to business. Highly effective companies constantly upgrade systems and infrastructure, both in their organizations and their online presence. They invest in best of breed tools and technology. And they are able to quickly prioritize and executive as the landscape shifts. Again, a clean technical online infrastructure makes SEO much, much easier.

Executives that "get it." C-level executives who make SEO a priority realize that the marketing landscape is shifting quickly. They've been paying attention to customer behavioral trends and have committed to being proactive rather than reactive. This usually indicates well-placed intelligence gathering "antennae" and feedback loops. It also indicates an executive who isn't hopelessly mired in "old-boy" thinking and outdated command and control management models.

Corporate pride. Content might not be the sole king anymore (SEO is more of an oligarchy now) but it's still part of the ruling class. Great cultures tend to engender pride that naturally precipitates an explosion of content. People blog about where they work, people tweet and product managers enthuse verbosely about what they're working on. All of this generates great, searchable content online.

Companies get the SEO rankings they deserve. I'm guessing that if you asked any SEO consultant in the world, they'll tell you their favorite clients are the ones that are the easiest to work with: clients who listen, are proactive and for whom continual improvement is a religion. Based on what I've seen in the past decade, this attitude extends beyond the SEO team (indeed, it has to) and permeates the entire culture. There are those who game the system and gain undeserved rankings, but more and more, "organic" rankings are just that: rankings that come from the very nature of the company and how they conduct themselves in the marketplace.

article source: http://www.mediapost.com

Six SEO Blogging Tips

As the web expands beyond more traditional means of getting traffic via search engine optimization and paid advertising, social networks and related data management services should become an important part of your online search marketing strategy. Learning how to use blogging can help you create authority, connect better with your customers and lift your visibility in the search engines.

We know that search engines are making changes to accommodate for shifts in the marketplace, as well as a more internet-savvy community. We can see this by the way the top search engines change results and test those changes on the user community. Google's universal search layouts, for instance, embed data from video, news and podcasts in the natural search engine results. Additional services, such as personalized search, are available that allow for search engine results swayed more toward user preferences or behaviors.

Universal search results represent an issue for search engine optimizers since less screen real estate is available for traditional text listings. You may find your listing pushed off the first page if you aren't watching and executing better than the competition. Social media optimization is something you should look into now, if you haven't already.

Blogs are a great first step. WordPress is a popular option that has an open source development community and several cool and powerful plugins. You get an RSS feed infrastructure and a place for embedding not only text content, but also video streaming and audio podcasts.

To take full advantage of social media optimization, here are six things you should do:

1. Set up your WordPress blog.

If you're running a business and want to start building your own authoritative blog, I recommend using a trusted hosting partner like GoDaddy.com. It takes about 10 minutes to set up. Apply for a Linux-hosted account, since WordPress isn't compatible with Windows. Unless you have a unique domain set up for this, I suggest adding the blog as a directory of your domain: your-site.com/name-of-blog-with-keywords. TypePad and the Movable Type blog system are other free services. Blogger.com--Google's platform--is free, and Yahoo! Small Business has a variety of options to select from as well.

2. Add content.

Add a blog post once every week or more to start. Frequency is important to search engines, and users will come to expect regular updates. When you add content, make sure you add the tags and category. Tags and directory structures help show the search engines what your post is about. To get ideas for content, look up article directories EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. If you copy the entire text, include the author's bio box and be aware that Google may catch you for duplication of content. A better way is to start with the article ideas, change the content and make comments about the article, while still referencing the original author.

If you have more money than time, have someone from RentACoder.com, Elance.com or Guru.com write it for you. You can also look into private label rights articles, but watch for duplicate content there, too. eBay has a lot of these types of articles available, but try to make them your own. If you're in the B2B arena, you hopefully have good marketing and information-based materials you can reinvigorate for your blog.

3. Manage RSS feeds.

RSS is an easily tracked and managed XML-based file structure that allows compatible web systems to read the data. Get an account with Technorati.com and update them with your site feeds--also known as pinging. You can also use FeedBurner.com and OnlyWire.com to help distribute content and PingOMatic.com and Pingoat.com to alert systems that you've made a new post.

4. Promote your blog.

Always leverage the search engines when you can. Conduct solid keyword research to find out what people are searching for within your niche. Use the Overture search tool and look for longer keyword phrases rather than starting with the most competitive keywords. Include these keywords in the titles of your posts.

If you're active in the online community, visit related forums and other blogs to exchange dialogue and links. Make sure to tag everywhere and try to get a listing on Digg.com, as well as del.icio.us, reddit.com and MySpace.com. Educational content, such as "how to" articles, tend to be very popular.

5. Leverage podcasts and videos.

Podcasts are a simple way to provide more detail and personalization around your company or service. The MP3 format can easily be streamed for listening on the web and from your blog. You can podcast your files and even manage them via iTunes. You also can stream video into your visitors' homes and let them watch it on their Apple TV, a recently announced product.

6. Optimize your WordPress blog.

A blog should be optimized for users, search engines and income, in that order. A professional-looking blog is important. Look for clean sites--a white background works well--at the WordPress Theme Viewer site. Some of the themes are less SEO-friendly than others. Add a form to capture names and e-mails to build your e-mail list. For SEO, change your permalinks to this custom option: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ and enable the customizable permalinks. This is a search-engine friendly URL that's commonly used.

As I mentioned earlier, WordPress has a number of powerful plugins to consider. Here are some to start with:

Google Analytics--tracks everything on all pages
Chicklets--an array of social media tags for your users, including RSS reader icons
AdSense Deluxe--for publishing ads on your site
Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress--creates a sitemap for your site
Akismet spam filtering--filters link spam from blog comments; requires WordPress API key
SEO Title Tag--easy optimization of title tags across your WordPress blog
Ultimate Tag Warrior--incorporates the tag name into title pages on tagged pages
Podpress--everything you need for podcasting
More plugins are available at the WordPress plugin directory.

After you're set up, follow the basic rules for long-term success:

Do not use Black Hat SEO--unethical techniques--to stuff keywords and duplicate content in your blogs.
Provide value through quality content. If you're selling something, don't be pushy. Try to provide educational and constructive comments on products, services and competitors.
Use the chicklets you see on many blogs, including a big button for your RSS feed, so visitors and search engines can easily get to your data.
Place strategic AdSense components to generate money for yourself, while still providing value. Don't feel bad; big companies do it, including news outlets like CNN. Match the text and color with the layout of your site. Over time, you may get a check from Google.

Article source: http://news.alibaba.com

Small and Medium IT Companies reap benefits of online Networking Sites

While looking up the profile of a prospective client on LinkedIn, a business networking site, the salesperson of a small and medium IT firm found that he had a Twitter account. The salesperson followed the client on Twitter, an online messaging service, and messaged him about the company. On a working day, in 15 minutes, the salesperson got a response: “Get back in touch with me.”

“There is a culture today that respects an online connection,” says Narasimhan Mandyam, CEO, PK4 Software, a Bangalore-based firm that deals with on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) solutions, narrating this incident.

One way small and medium (SME) IT companies can benefit from this culture is to get into the social media space for marketing. Given the current economic scene, the online space is a cheaper marketing option. But despite the cost advantage, there is a debate on whether to latch on to the social media bandwagon or not.

Understanding lacking

Many SME IT firms do not have a clear understanding of what online marketing is, says Mr. Mandyam. “We believe in an equation – pay X amount of money for an advertisement and get Y returns. But, the value of a discussion in blogs, online forums, or Twitter has to be understood in a larger context.”

Marketing on social media is different from traditional media as it follows a “pull model rather than a push model,” says Suresh Sambandam, founder and CEO, Orangescape, a software product firm. Rather than selling your company, you share ideas and knowledge, and people come to you if they find the information useful. This, in turn, benefits the company.

To see these benefits, you have to cultivate relationships. There is value in looking beyond your work, and providing thought leadership in your area of work, says Gaurav Mishra, CEO and Founder, 20:20 Web Tech, a social media research and analytics firm. “When you form a readership in that area, you can make connections with more people.” For a small services company, to be able to build relationships with 10 potential customers is huge, he adds.

Honesty pays

Being honest about what you and your company stand for is important, says Mr. Mandyam. “You cannot create an image that is not you or your company.” This is something which many SME IT firms have difficulty understanding.

If companies are apprehensive about the uncontrolled flow of information, they could have guidelines for social media in place, says Arvind Muthukrishnan, manager-business development, UST Global, an IT services firm, who is also a social media consultant. It is also important not to spread negative information about your competitors; it could backfire.

But, for SME IT companies, rather than controlling information, a better strategy would be to evolve an open culture, says Mr. Mandyam, tying it back to his stress on the need for honesty online.

Marketing through social media is measurable, says Mr. Muthukrishnan.

There are a variety of tools and metrics. But, to use these metrics, companies need to define first, what their objective is.

article source: http://www.hindu.com

Go Straight to Google for SEO Truths

Matt Cutt’s video series is worth watching.

There are a lot of half truths in the search engine optimization industry. So it’s refreshing to get an inside take from Google’s traveling search guru, Matt Cutts. I recommend watching his video series on YouTube.

As you know, I don’t usually recommend watching videos. But Cutts “cuts” to the chase (sorry, couldn’t help myself), answering the question in the first 30 seconds of each clip and then explaining his answers. Here are some of the questions Cutts answers in his videos:

-Should I use hyphens or underscores as separators in URLs? (A: Hyphens)

-How much does a domain’s age affect its ranking (A: Nothing really now, but this might matter in the future. Google filed a patent on this, but as of February this year it hadn’t implemented it.)

-Is redirecting a large number of domains suspicious? (A: Not necessarily. Google redirects a bunch of typos.)

-Does the position of keywords in the URL affect ranking? (A: Barely)

-Why does Google index blogs faster than other sites? (A: It may index them faster, but it may be just the blog index.)

Article source: http://domainnamewire.com

SEO is the Good way to Generate Online Sales, Forbes

The best way for marketers to generate sales online is to start with search marketing techniques, according to a new study from Forbes.

The study reveals that 48 per cent of marketers believe that search engine optimization (SEO) was the best method for generating conversions online.

More than one-half of marketers with budgets up to £1 million agreed. For both small- and large-budget marketers, site or page sponsorship and SEO were considered the most effective ways to build a brand online.

The next-most-effective conversion tactic for smaller marketers was e-mail and e-newsletters, followed by pay-per-click and search ads, behavioural targeting and page sponsorships.

For larger marketers, the list of effective online tactics was nearly the same, except search and e-mail were flipped. Pay-per-impression ads were also more effective for larger marketers.

To build, maintain or change brand perceptions required different tactics, however. Pay-per-impression ads came next on the list for big spenders, while the more budget-constricted focused on e-mail newsletters, pay-per-impression and viral marketing.

In anticipation of the end of the recession, marketers are changing their spending priorities in the six months after March 2009 to feature more viral marketing, SEO, behavioural targeting and pay-per-click, according to the study.

Jon Smith, head of Aedgency Cashback said, “Smith said, "Search Engine Optimisation takes time and effort, but the rewards of a successful strategy are more customers, more revenue and dominance over your market.

"Web users seldom search beyond the first results page and if you don't have at least one of the coveted twelve positions you can bet your competitor will have. From this perspective, investing in effective SEO is business critical."

Article source: http://www.utalkmarketing.com

Hard Web site Design & SEO Clients

Most of us have had the client from hell but we often don't like to talk about it. There is a Google Webmasters Help thread which takes us through one client from hell.

If you read through all 60 or so posts, you will see how hard this web designer is working to make this client happy. The designer tells us that the client was very happy with the design, and everything. But when the client didn't see their site in Google, soon after it was launched, the client was extremely displeased. The designer, who was not an SEO, came to Google Webmasters Help to help get the site listed.

The designer learned from professional SEOs and Googlers that the site was done fairly search engine friendly and that over time, the site will be indexed and ranked in Google. But it wasn't soon enough. The designer added more and more SEO changes, such as an XML sitemap, removed some flash, added some links - but it wasn't fast enough. The client then found the Google thread and threatened the designer that they would sue him. So the designer gave the client his deposit back and took down the web site.

Guess what? A day later, the web site showed up in the Google index, only to return an empty site. And now, I am sure it doesn't show up anymore.

We probably all had clients like this. If not, read the thread and you can learn lessons from this.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Article source: http://www.seroundtable.com

Should you engage an In-House SEO Manager or Outsource?

During these tough economic times companies everywhere must make some difficult decisions when it comes to how they spend their money. The hiring of new employees is a very fragile and gentle topic for most businesses right now. There is no exception when it comes to SEO. Many companies always ask themselves whether they should hire an outsourced company or an in house SEO manager. Both have significant advantages and disadvantages.

In House Advantages:

There are many advantages to having an in house SEO manger. Some are the obvious like convenience to be able to speak with your SEO person regarding new projects at almost any given moment. You also know that this person is 100% onboard with your companies project at all times and you don’t have to compete for their time and attention with other companies. You can assure yourself that there will not be a conflict of interest with another client in the same industry.

In House Disadvantages:

Some of the disadvantages to hiring a full time SEO manager for your business are that to get someone that really knows what they are doing you will have to shell out a considerable amount of money for a yearly salary including benefits. Chances are in this economy a business can find a very reputable marketing firm for a fraction of what they would have to pay a full time employee. If you find the right firm it will cost you much less than having to hire a full time internet marketing manager.

Outsourcing SEO Efforts Advantages:

The costs of outsourcing SEO efforts would be much less leaving most businesses to be able to use that additional money trying to create new business in other ways. Also a business has the flexibility of trying out a different firm if the current one does not work out. If an in house SEO manager doesn’t work out the costs to let that employee go and rehire a new one are much higher.

Outsourcing SEO Efforts Disadvantages:

One of the biggest disadvantages to outsourcing your SEO efforts is that you are out of touch with your account manager handling your SEO. The ability to walk into their office and get a meeting together to brainstorm new ideas doesn’t really exist. That person might also be managing a handful of other clients as well so the amount of attention spent on your account is going to be much less than if you had an employee in house.

Article source: http://www.promotionworld.com

How to Select SEO Services Company in India

In the last 2-3 years many new SEO companies have mushroomed in India, providing cost effective seo services to their customers. In this whole galaxy of seo companies some are authentic, while others are not. A novice owner of
the website has a little knowledge of the technical jargon involved in the SEO, and sometimes can get into trouble.

To choose any seo company/firm in India, you need to do a study the Credentials of SEO Company that you are interested in hiring By Checking Following:-

1. Check the Rankings of the SEO Company by searching for the Most Competitive Keywords like SEO India, Search Engine Optimization India, SEO Company India, Search Engine Optimization Company
India, Seo Services India, Search
Engine Optimization Services, India Seo Firm India, etc., If they aren’t there in top 5 for the above keywords they ain’t worth your time and money.

2. Check the Google Page Rank (Popularly Called PR) of the SEO Company’s website, Any SEO Company with a Google Page Rank < style="font-weight: bold;">SEO Certifications, Following are the two Certifications that hold the maximum weight age

o Google Qualified Adwords Company (Only 9 SEO Companies in India have this Certification)

o SEO Certification from seocertification.org holds a high value as well

If your SEO Company performs well in all the above tests, then please go ahead and hire them as they would be worthwhile.

Article source: http://www.pr-inside.com

How to Apply a Blog Hub Strategy in Your Small Business Marketing

Blogs are all the rage right now, and rightly so.

They are very versatile and easy to manage, compared to a big Website.

They offer a place for people to comment and share insights.

And they look good! Well, most of them anyway...

But perhaps most important, for a small business owner, is the blog's potential for making money.

In the lines that follow, I outline the basic strategy for creating a Blog Hub, which can then become the center of your small business's online marketing efforts.

A VISITOR-FRIENDLY SPACE ON THE WEB

Blogs are some of the most visitor-friendly places on the Web.

Why?

Because they are non-threatening.

When people think of a blog, they don't think about getting a sales pitch.

They think about receiving information.

Your blog's first and foremost job is to gather folks together (think of your blog as a virtual meeting place for the people you reach out to in your business) and provide them lots of information, along with an opportunity to interact with you and other visitors through comments.

That's what they expect when they come, and you don't want to let them down, right?

Moreover, along with the great information you provide, people will (thanks to the Blog Hub Strategy) look for an opportunity to take the next step and do business with you.

THE BLOG HUB STRATEGY AND YOUR "FEEDER SPOKES"

So once you have a blog in place, you need to start to get visitors to it, so it won't just be a ghost town. Remember, the search engines will take some time to find you, so if you just rely on your content to get search engine attention and visitors, you might have to wait awhile.

With your blog positioned as the center or "hub" of your online marketing efforts. however, you can start feeding your own traffic in.

And you do this by adding "spokes" in the way of feeder sources that bring you visitors.

These feeder spokes are such things as links from your social networks, links from your article bio boxes, links from forum posts, links from other blogs, links from your other websites, etc.

Your blog is the starting point for people to really get to know you personally, since it's the part of your social media sphere that offers you the best opportunity to not only establish your identity as a businessperson, but also to show off your expertise.

MAKING YOUR BLOG "STICKY"

A blog with high quality content is what used to be and still occasionally is referred to as a "sticky site."

This means that people will bookmark you and come back at regular intervals, most commonly when you post new content. Having good content is an integral part of a Blog Hub Strategy, since your content is why people come visit you in the first place.

Plus each time someone comes back, your relationship with them is cemented further. That's why you absolutely MUST post regularly to your blog if you want to use it as any kind of a sales and marketing funnel. By posting regularly to your blog, you feed your visitors' hunger for information. The Web is an information medium, after all. People are starving for good information on tons of topics.

You then need a way to follow up with people. This is normally done through email, rather than through your RSS feed. Utilizing the Blog Hub Strategy as a marketing tool means using your blog to make money, and the best way to make money from your readers is to follow up with them by email at regular intervals with more great content and an occasional irresistible offer just for them.

You also need to implement monetization features on the blog itself. These features include things like paid advertising, links to sales pages for affiliate offers, reseller offers, and products or services you provide personally.

Try not to do any heavy selling within the parameters of your blog itself.

IN A NUTSHELL...

Here then is a quick rundown of the 4 central tenets of the Blog Hub Strategy from a marketing perspective:

1) Send visitors to your blog via social networks, links in directories, links in your article bio boxes, links from your other websites, and anyplace else you can think of.

2) Post plenty of solid, informative content on your blog that will demonstrate your expertise in your business field and that will also help people. Don't feel like you are "giving away the farm." You can never give away too much. Giving away valuable information will only endear you to people more, despite what some naysayers might say.

3) Have a way to capture visitors' email addresses so you can follow up with them by email with your offers, updates, general news, and just to keep in touch.

4) Monetize by selling advertising and by having links in sidebars to sales pages where people can click through to and thus have the opportunity to purchase from you. Try not to do any heavy selling within your blog posts.

The Blog Hub Strategy is a formidable marketing weapon and is not being used to its full potential by most bloggers, which is why many of them are not making much money.

It is a highly effective and profitable strategy!

Article source: http://www.seo-marketing-articles.com