Wondering if your business needs a SEO company? Some pointers which will help you out

The importance of a SEO company has increased many folds during the past few years due to the increasing number of people buying products and services online. In such a situation, the importance of online marketing and hiring a SEO company to improve search rankings has become of utmost importance if you want to effectively develop your business. If you have a product or service which you sell online or want to promote it online, you must be wondering if a SEO firm is worth investing in. Trust us, it is worth it. Why, you ask? Here are some reasons why hiring SEO services for your business is a good step:

Return on Investment

If your business targets online users, SEO services will give you the quickest return on investment. A SEO company has various methods and knows the techniques to improve rankings in search results. Getting your website in top rankings on search engines will grab the attention of a niche crowd which is already looking for your product or service. Conversion of this crowd into your clients will hence be a quicker process. A professional SEO company hence ensures that you get the best ROI on your investment in SEO services and make a success of your online marketing campaign.

Experience

You don't cut your own hair, do you? You hire a barber, whose specialization it is to cut hair. In a similar manner, it is advisable to hire an experienced SEO company to optimize your website rather than trying to swing it alone. True, it will be more expensive than doing it yourself, as you will have to buy a package from the SEO firm; however, you also need to consider the difference in the end results. A SEO company is an expert and has years of experience in providing SEO services to businesses. It will know exactly what to do to increase business through online traffic.

More Time on Your Hand

Search engine optimization is a time consuming task. If you don't hire a SEO company and take it upon yourself, you may end up spending hours on SEO rather than focusing on your business activities. Handing over search engine optimization to a SEO company balances the scale by giving you time to focus on revenue-generating activities. Moreover, you can rest assured that a professional SEO service provider is taking care of your website and using tried and tested promotional methods to promote your business online.

4 Reasons Why an Experienced SEO Company Doesn’t Guarantee No. 1 Ranking

The millions of people researching online for products and services has lead to a very high interest in online marketing efforts, which includes SEO services to a large extent. If you have a business which targets online users, you must have thought of hiring a SEO company which can boost your rankings online so you can get targeted visitors and increase your business potential. However, with the popularity of SEO services increasing by the day, the number of companies and the competition amongst them has increased tremendously. Due to this, some inexperienced SEO firms are making tall claims of guaranteed no. 1 rankings to its clients. However, the reality is that no SEO company can guarantee search rankings. The following are some reasons you should stay away from SEO service providers who promise high search rankings:

• Experts and search engines warn against guarantees
  
  Most SEO experts you consult will advise you that there is no such thing as a search ranking guarantee. If any SEO company makes such a claim while offering SEO services to you, think again before hiring it. Even leading search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing assure users that guaranteeing no. 1 position on their search engines is not possible, no matter how experienced the SEO company in question is. An inexperienced SEO firm might tempt you to hire them by guaranteeing you no. 1 rankings for certain keywords. These keywords will, in all possibility, be non-competitive ones, which will climb in rankings fast but wouldn’t bring in relevant traffic. You need a SEO company which can focus on your main keywords, improve your website rankings from its current position and bring in relevant inquiries.


• Organic rankings cannot be controlled
  
  The algorithms of search engines are constantly changing and have no fixed pattern. The order of results is changing from minute to minute, so there is no way any SEO company can predict organic search rankings. Experienced SEO service providers hence focus on making the website accessible and visible online so that it attracts the target audience.


• A SEO guarantee is unethical
  
  The most a SEO company can do is give a guarantee for the quality of services it provides. It can also analyze your existing website and make predictions of how much web traffic it can bring in through its SEO services. But SEO companies which guarantee search rankings somehow over-step the ethical boundaries of search engine optimization. Such unprofessional SEO firms will not be averse to using unethical SEO techniques, known as Black Hat techniques to boost rankings fast. Such activities may harm your website more than benefiting it. Avoid such firms and choose a search engine optimization professional after research and inquiries, so that you ensure that your SEO campaign will give your business the best results possible.


• A high search ranking doesn’t reflect overall performance
  
  Before starting your SEO campaign, you need to determine the true reason you are hiring SEO services. Your ultimate aim should be to get relevant web traffic to your business website. Some business owners get so obsessed with getting high rankings that they encourage their SEO company to get a quick solution, forgetting that it might be harmful in the long run. The real performance of your SEO campaign will be gauged only through how much traffic it has managed to get for you that is truly relevant to your business.

A successful SEO campaign will be the result of a slow and steady pathway, planned by an experienced SEO company. Anyone offering ‘instant results’ or guaranteeing ‘no. 1 position on major search engines’ should be treated with suspicion.

SEO services can do wonders for your medical practice

Are you a doctor who has a website through which your patients reach you? Well, you have the first step right. Many medical practitioners ignore the importance of having a website. However, a website is of no use without SEO services, as people will be unable to find it online. Patients are increasingly looking for local doctors as well as specialist doctors on the internet using search engines like Google and Bing. Affordable SEO services from an experienced SEO firm can help your website be found on the first page of search results. Such SEO services will help in ensuring that your website ranks well in the organic search results, which web users trust more than paid ads.

Unlike some years ago, there is a lot of business happening online. Doctors and medical practitioners cannot afford to ignore the web traffic which may come their way with the help of affordable SEO services. If you are, say, a general practitioner in MA, you would want your name to come on the first page of search results of "general practitioner, MA" or "MA general practitioner". Search engine optimization from an SEO firm ensures that your name figures on the first place. Various kinds of studies have shown that people do not go beyond the first page of search results; it will hence be good for your practice if your website figures amongst the first few search results.

Even if you are an established doctor, who doesn't need new patients, good ranking in search results can boost your reputation. You can control what people find when they search for you online. You can also attract referring doctors if your website is found quickly online. There are many SEO firms today which provide services especially to doctors and medical practitioners. These firms provide affordable packages for their SEO services, and can help you meet any goal that you have through search engine optimization.

A good technique before starting your SEO services package is thinking of terms through which your patients may be looking for you. The SEO firm you hire can then focus on those terms and integrate them throughout your website, increasing its chances of being ranked on the first page of search results. You may have various goals you wish to achieve through SEO services: you may want to get new patients, establish a reputation or attract the attention of other medical practitioners. A professional SEO firm will help you achieve these goals as well as provide you with an affordable SEO services package.

Look for SEO firms providing affordable SEO services for medical practitioners, as they will know which SEO techniques work for the medical industry. Once you find an experienced SEO service provider, sit with them for a detailed session on what you want to achieve with search engine optimization of your website.

Want To Hire A Professional For SEO Services? Some Pointers To Recognize Bad SEO Companies

Choosing an SEO company which will give its best to optimize your website is not an easy task. You have to select out of a flood of companies out there, which are vying for your attention with "guaranteed rankings" blaring from its promotions. If you are looking for SEO services from a professional SEO company, you need to make a head start by eliminating all the fake SEO companies, which don't have experience but try to portray themselves as experts at search engine optimization techniques. For all you know, it might be a teenager hooked onto his home PC, looking for some work in his summer break.

If you are looking for affordable SEO services, you will already be aware of what you want in your SEO company. But you also need to keep in mind what your SEO firm should NOT be. If you are aware of what not to look for, it will help in eliminating the bad companies out of your list. We have listed down some traits of an inefficient SEO company, which you need to be aware of before you go on a hiring spree.

• Too-Good-To-Be-True Claims

Most unethical SEO companies do not hesitate to make tall claims about "guaranteed search rankings" and "instant No. 1 positions" on search engines. If you think that any claim about search engine optimization sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Professional SEO services take a long time to take effect, but the result is long-lasting. You need an SEO company which has a proven track record with other businesses and can ensure that you get the most effective SEO services for your business.

• Spam Techniques

It is a well known fact that back links do a lot for search engine optimization. Some inexperienced SEO companies try to get back links by spamming blogs or other websites with links. Back link development is a tedious and time-consuming task, which should be done carefully by any SEO firm. So if the SEO company offers thousands of back links as a SEO service, run in the opposite direction!

• Directory Posting

Do not, in any circumstances, agree to directory posting as your main SEO service. SEO companies offering such services do not have enough knowledge of ethical SEO techniques which bring real value to your website. Directory submission can be done by anyone, and you do not need an SEO firm for that. Look for a company which details proper search engine optimization techniques and explains to you how it will work for your website.

• Black Hat SEO Techniques

In their haste to offer "guaranteed rankings" on search engines, many unprofessional SEO companies use Black Hat SEO techniques. Such techniques may bring instant results, but in the long run, may get your site banned from all search engines, as they are not part of the accepted practices in the search engine optimization field. Some Black Hat techniques are keyword stuffing, invisible text, creating doorway pages, misleading content etc. Question the company about some of the techniques it uses for SEO services and you will have an inclination about whether it uses the right ones or not.

You will be able to spot such bad SEO companies easily if you keep asking them open-ended questions. The answers they give you about their SEO services will give you an insight on whether the techniques they use are the right or wrong ones. Getting the right SEO firm is a time consuming task, but it is worth the effort in the end.

Why Experienced SEO Consultants Do Not Guarantee Search Rankings

With the importance search engine optimization has attained in the past few years, the number of SEO consultants offering SEO services has also increased. This increase in service providers has brought along with it a plethora of tall claims like guaranteed no. 1 rankings, which continues to perplex organizations seeking SEO services as well as those providing it. But the fact remains that search rankings cannot be guaranteed. The following are four reasons why you shouldn't believe SEO consultants when they promise guaranteed rankings:

• Search Engines Warn Against Guarantees
  

Any search engine, be it Google, Yahoo or the Microsoft's recently-introduced Bing, is unanimous in their opinion that guaranteeing a No. 1 position in their search engine is impossible. SEO consultants who guarantee search rankings are actually looking to hook less-informed clients. Such consultants cleverly sign a contract for SEO services guaranteeing rankings for certain keywords. They then go on to select and work on non-competitive keywords, which may quickly climb in rankings, but may not get in relevant web traffic. Search engines hence warn organizations to specifically avoid SEO consultants who guarantee rankings.



• Search Rankings Constantly Fluctuate
  

The ordering of search results is likely to change every few minutes; even if you search for a particular keyword and then hit the refresh button, the order of the results may change. Experienced SEO consultants hence stay away from guaranteeing any position on rankings, preferring instead to focus on bringing in relevant web traffic and making the site more popular with regular visitors. Although SEO services are associated with search rankings, improved rankings are the end result of a lot of hard work, and even after best efforts, cannot be guaranteed.



• Ethical Problems with SEO Guarantees
  

What SEO consultants should guarantee is the quality of SEO services they will provide. They can also evaluate your site and guarantee an increase in web traffic. But search ranking is something there is no guarantee for. SEO consultants who give such guarantees sometimes compromise on the ethical issues related of search engine optimization. They use Black Hat SEO techniques to boost the site rankings, which are considered unacceptable in the industry. A hasty job and unplanned steps may cause more harm to your SEO campaign than benefit it. It is hence wise to chose SEO services from those consultants who don't give guarantees but slowly and steadily work towards bringing in relevant traffic and slowly improving search rankings.



• Search Rankings Do Not Reflect Overall Performance
  

This is something each organization needs to understand before launching its SEO campaign. SEO services should not be hired only for getting a good ranking in search results, but for getting relevant traffic towards one's website. Real performance of the SEO consultant can be judged through increase in relevant web traffic and not only rankings. Sometimes in the obsession of getting a website in the leading position, an SEO consultant botches up the job and more time is spent thereafter in repairing the damage done.

If you want to plan an effective SEO campaign for your organization, stay away from SEO consultants who offer "guaranteed No. 1 position" and "instant improvement in search rankings". Professional and experienced SEO consultants focus on getting relevant traffic, which is the purpose of search engine optimization in the first place.

Hire A SEO Company To Make Your Business Website SEO And Social Media Friendly

If your business website is not found on the search engine results, you are liable to lose out on a lot of revenue simply because there are a large number of people looking for your products and services online. Not being searchable means that customers cannot find you and hence cannot buy from you. In such a scenario, it is important to not only make your website SEO friendly, but also to integrate various social media tools into it for greater benefit. A professional and experienced SEO company can help you make your website SEO and social media friendly, which will give important visibility to your website and ultimately to your business.

Search engine optimization is an evolving field and it is now not enough to use simple SEO tactics. Social media is coming of age and is becoming a major tool in helping people find the websites they are looking for. It is hence important to make a website social media friendly as well, so that people can find your website on a real time basis and recommend it if they like it.

'Search engine friendly' simply means making a website that is easy for the search engines to find and index for search rankings. A SEO friendly website makes it easier for search engines to give better search results as well as helps organizations make their products and services available to people looking for them. In addition to optimizing the site, making it social media friendly is recommended by SEO experts, as it is the newest medium of informal marketing today. Both these tasks can be completed easily by hiring a SEO company which is skilled in the tricks of the trade.

A SEO company makes a website SEO and social media friendly in the following ways:

• Content
  

The content on the website is very useful for making the site both SEO and social media friendly. Fresh and new content is always appreciated by both search engines and users. A professional SEO company optimizes the content for popular keywords and maintains its density so that search rankings can improve. If the website is updated with fresh and unique content, it will become popular amongst visitors seeking fresh, new and relevant information. This content, when popularized through social media like Twitter, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Digg etc. can make the website very popular amongst users. Many SEO companies offer content writing services which can be availed of by business organizations.



• On site
  

A SEO company uses many on site tools to make a website SEO and social media friendly. An SEO firm optimizes keywords, adds new web pages, makes internal and external linking etc. which helps improve search rankings for the website. For making the website social media friendly, SEO companies add tools like blog links, RSS feeds, forums etc. to the website so that visitors can interact with the company and recommend products/services/offers that they like.



• Off site
  

Off site tools used would include bookmarking, link exchanges, directory postings etc. which are used by SEO companies for search engine optimization.Such promotions help the search engine crawlers find the website easily. Some SEO companies maintain multiple blogs for clients for maximum exposure and popularity.

Using the services of a SEO company can make your company search engine friendly and findable on the search results. Hiring a SEO company for making your website SEO friendly and social media friendly is the best bet for making your website visible and popular amongst users.

3 SEO Services that your Business Can’t Afford to Miss

Millions of people use the internet everyday to search for your products or services. Search engine optimization of your website ensures that your products and services are easily searchable by potential customers. SEO guarantees the visibility that is needed to bring your company's product and services to the attention of customers. After all, if your customers can't find you online, how will they buy from you? However, Search Engine Optimization is a complex process which takes a lot of time and dedication to learn. If you need to give your complete attention to your business and do not have the time to learn the entire SEO process, you would do well by hiring a SEO company providing professional SEO services.

Even after making the decision to hire a pro, your role is not over. Many SEO companies offer SEO services at dirt cheap rates. Don't be misguided by such prices; such companies may just cover directory submission or link building as their main SEO service. Steer clear of such SEO consultant and look for an experienced and reputed SEO company. Your website needs a search marketing partner rather than just an optimization company. Partnering with an experienced company is a sure-shot way of making your SEO project a success.

Mentioned below are the 3 main SEO services that you need to ensure your SEO company provides for your business website:

Keyword Research
This is a crucial part of your website optimization process. The company providing SEO services will know how to research thoroughly regarding the keywords associated with your company, products and services. Ask your SEO company to research on the keywords commonly used within your industry, either by your customers or by competitors. Only after such research can the SEO company start on the optimization of your website. Keyword research is not a simple task and a lot of time and effort goes into it. Once the appropriate keywords are decided upon, a compelling copy including those keywords needs to be written so that your website can be found by search engines. Check with your SEO company on whether it offers content writing services which include your primary keywords. Allow only a search optimized content pro to write a highly keyword-optimized content for you.

Website Upgrade
You may have had your website designed by an expert web design company but your website also needs to be checked by your SEO company. Your SEO services should include in-depth analysis of your website by SEO experts so that search engine optimization tools and techniques can be used at the site's backend. Your website may need to be upgraded with new pages or sub-domains with the objective to improve search rankings.

Search Engine Rankings Reports - Keyword rankings and Website traffic report
Increasing your search engine rankings to get targeted traffic is, of course, the main reason for you to hire services of a SEO company. Make sure that your SEO consultant not only helps you with notching up your rankings but also with bringing in targeted traffic to your website. Some companies promise traffic but only end up getting spam traffic which is useless for your business. Make your goal clear to your SEO company and ask for keywords rankings update along with a website traffic report which will help you assess your websites SEO performance.

In addition to the above 3 SEO services, you should also make sure that your SEO company doesn't utilize any underhand methods to increase your search rankings. Black Hat SEO techniques may not only get your site penalized, they might also result in your site being banned from the search engines.

Increasing the online visibility of your website is easy, once you hire an expert SEO company and utilize the 3 main SEO services mentioned above.

6 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Mistakes you Should Avoid

Having completed your website and seeing it live might make you heave a sigh of relief. But don’t relax just yet; search engine optimization of your site is required to make your site more visible on the web. Putting up your site without SEO is like putting up ad billboards at a place with no visitors; it doesn’t bring the focus on your business or attract visitors. So, while gearing up for your search engine optimization campaign, you need to be aware of some major mistakes which should be avoided at all costs:

1. No Links
   Search engines give a lot of importance to the relevant links to your site; it shows that other sites trust your site. If you do not have quality links in place, your site’s ranking will be affected. Relevant link building should be done as part of search engine optimization which can help get your site a better ranking on search results. Check with your SEO expert if he/she provides link building services along with SEO services.
   
   
2. Keyword Stuffing or Keywords Cloud
   This is a big ‘no-no’ for search engine optimization. Many SEO experts with half-baked skills, in their eagerness to increase keyword density, stuff website content with keywords. This is a big mistake. Ask your SEO expert to optimize your content sensibly. Make sure that your site has meaningful and original content. A keyword-stuffed site might turn up good on the search results, but visitors leave the site the moment they notice the keyword stuffing; they realize that the site will not give them any useful information. Give your SEO expert the responsibility not only of getting your site on a good rank in search results but also of maintaining it with sensible content that attracts visitors to your site. You need to research for optimum keyword density or get advise from the right SEO consultant.
   
   
3. Black Hat SEO Techniques
   Search engine crawlers or robots, as they are called, are smart enough to recognize Black Hat search engine optimization techniques, which are unethical means to get ahead in the search rankings. If you try to deceive the search engines by putting up copied content, invisible text stuffed with keywords or page cloaking, they will ban your site. Organic SEO is the only safe and sure method of gaining good rankings on search results. No qualified SEO expert will advise you to go for such unethical SEO tricks. And if they do, run in the opposite direction!
   
   
4. Shabby Site Structure
   Your website’s structure is important for search engine crawlers to index the content and relevant pages. So if your site’s structure is in disarray, your search ranking can get affected. Make sure that your site’s structure is clear and understandable so that the crawlers can cache relevant content and rank your site higher. Also keep in mind that a few search engines prefer xml sitemaps to html ones. So make both available.
   
   
5. Images or Flash Instead of Interesting Content
   Putting important content in flash or images is a big mistake for search engine optimization, and should be avoided. Search engines cannot read content in images or flash, so if you put keyword-optimized content or product information in an image or flash presentation, crawlers will be unable to judge relevancy of information. Instead of flashy presentations, try to keep your site up to date on the latest information about your industry. Relevant and fresh content is good for search engine optimization and can boost rankings. If you are interested in putting up images, go for static ones and give them relevant image tags.
   
   
6. Omitting Important Keywords from Title, Description and Meta Tags
   Don’t ignore the importance of keywords in the title, description and Meta tags of the site. SEO experts will tell you that search engine optimization without keywords in the backend is useless. Search engines sort through description, title and Meta tags to decide the relevancy of the website; the tags tell search engines what the website is all about. Including keywords in the Meta tags is the most important aspect of search engine optimization, without which search ranking will not improve.
   

A lot of people believe that search engine optimization is a do-it-yourself exercise but the fact remains that a professionally trained and experienced SEO expert can drive results faster and better than you. Consider the SEO expert as your marketing partner and see for yourself how your website is turned into an effective marketing tool for your business. A professionally managed site will be much more effective than the trial and error methodology for SEO you will undertake on your own.

5 Search Engine Optimization Myths

Despite the rising importance of search engine optimization for higher search rankings and increased targeted web traffic on your website, one finds many prevalent myths about SEO. If you are looking to hire a SEO consultant, being aware such myths will help you make an informed decision. Mentioned below are the most prominent myths related to search engine optimization:

Myth # 1 - Reputed SEO Consultants Can Guarantee # 1 Search Ranking

Let’s put this on record: No SEO consultant or company can guarantee # 1 ranking in any of the search engines. This is because the search engine algorithms are constantly changing and companies like Google and Yahoo also frequently change the techniques for rankings. The SEO consultant does not have any direct control over the results of the search engines and therefore the only thing he can do is update your site according to the constantly changing search algorithms. No one besides the search engine companies themselves can claim to know the complete algorithm; guarantees for # 1 position are hence impossible to give. Instead of looking for a guaranteed # 1 position, you should concentrate on search engine optimization for your website in the best possible way. Hiring an experienced SEO consultant, however, can improve your website ranking considerably. Checking out the previous projects of the SEO consultant may help you select the right one.

Myth # 2 - Only the Home Page needs to be optimized for Good Search Rankings

Many business owners believe that if they write keyword-optimized content for only their home page, their work is done. This is a big mistake for website optimization. In any search engine optimization campaign, each page of your website needs to be optimized for their respective keywords. Search engine crawlers or robots are likely to visit any page of your website randomly. Experienced SEO consultants will advise you that if all pages of your website are keyword-optimized, your search ranking will get a huge boost.

Myth # 3 - In-house SEO is Cheaper than a SEO Consultant

In-house SEO experts are actually a costlier option to hiring a SEO consultant. A company providing SEO services has a whole team to dedicate to your project. Rather than spend space, time and money on hiring one in house SEO help, a SEO consultant is cost-effective, efficient and experienced to handle all your search engine optimization requirements.

Myth # 4 - Once Top Search Rank is Achieved, Search Engine Optimization Can be Stopped

Search engine optimization is not a one-time process; it’s an ongoing one. Once top search ranking is achieved, time and effort should be spent to retain that ranking. There are thousands of websites competing for top ranking in major search engines and if you stop search engine optimization, they may overtake your website ranking. Your organic SEO efforts should also be bolstered through additional efforts like blogs, articles and newsletters and paid means like Pay Per Click etc.

Myth # 5 - PPC is More Effective than Organic SEO

If your search engine optimization is for a short period, say one to four months, Pay Per Click is a good option for you. However, if you want high visibility for a longer term than that, organic SEO is the way to go. Also remember that web users have long ago figured out the difference between sponsored ads and organic results. They trust organic searches and find them more useful for relevant content. So organic SEO efforts should never be replaced with paid means; they are the best way to grab the attention of users.

Having put all these SEO myths to rest will hopefully have cleared some of your doubts. If you are aware of these facts while hiring an SEO consultant, you will be able to hire the most suitable one and get ahead with your search engine optimization campaign.

Promote your Website with SEO and Social Media Marketing in 5 Easy Steps

If you’re an established setup or a startup company heavily dependent on your website and internet marketing to sell your product/services, you need to pay close attention to search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. Both can be a crucial factor in the success of your business. When combined with social media marketing, SEO can create a strong online presence and can attract loads of targeted traffic towards your website.

Social media marketing, till a very short time ago, was a relatively unknown term. It has exploded on the online arena recently as a means to reach the millions of prospective customers who look for information online. Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are becoming popular means of social media marketing for businesses. Some time ago, we covered the topic of using social media marketing as a tool to reach target customers. Some of the highlights from that post were:

• The concept of Social Media Marketing has exploded into the business scenario recently as the best way to communicate with target audience as well as for Search Engine Optimization. It is the most popular concept in vogue for internet marketing today.
  
  
• Compared to the millions of consumers businesses can reach through the internet, traditional marketing methods can only reach a limited number of people.
  
  
• Today companies, in addition to website optimization and SEO, are embracing social media marketing to reach its consumers.

Let us now move on to the 5 steps through which you can get great traffic to your website.

Drive Traffic to your Website through Search Engine Optimization

Once you have designed and developed your website, it is important to make it visible to the online users. In addition to having great products and services, you will need Search Engine Optimization to popularize your website. One simple tactic for starting SEO for your website is having a keyword-rich domain and integrating those keywords in the titles of your web pages. All you have to do then is to use the primary keyword and keyword phrases in the content you put up on your website. If your content is new and interesting and has a decent keyword density, the search engines will find you. After you optimize your website, you can consider other options like link building and paid forms of advertising like Pay Per Clicks etc. If taking care of all these details sounds tedious, you can hire a SEO expert.

Blog about Subjects Close to you

Blogs have become the informal way of connecting with the customers for many companies. They serve the dual purpose of making the company visible online as well as scoring points with the customers. Setting up your own blog is a simple and free process. You can get your own blog set up and ready for posts in three clicks on blogger.com, a site owner by Google. Updating a blog frequently and consistently with interesting information can help you interact with customers and gain a valuable insight to their likes and dislikes. With this feedback, you can improve your products or services in accordance to the taste of the customers. Optimize your blog posts a little for search engine optimization and voila, your blog will assist you in not only online community building but also driving valuable web traffic to your site.

Use the Social Media Network

As said before, social media marketing is the emerging trend to reach out to customers of all types. With millions of users hooked on to social media sites such as Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. these websites are a great way to make your own network of dedicated followers. Create an attractive profile on one of these websites and keep friends, family and business associates updated on what’s happening in your business. Links of your business website on these profiles will also help in Search Engine Optimization for your website.

Make your Network and be Helpful

Just making your profile and posting updates is not enough to popularize your business on the social media network. You need to interact with other users, ask questions, and in some cases, answer them. Such interaction will give you crucial feedback which can be integrated into your business. Only if you give users some useful information and be helpful to them will they be interested in what is happening with you.

Keep Updating your Website with New Features

Lastly, keep updating your website with unique features which will interest the users so that they keep coming back to use them. Regularly updating your website also helps with search engine optimization and helps better search ranking of your website.

These 5 steps of search engine optimization and social media marketing will help you create a strong web presence and impression on your potential customers. But it is also important to remember the basics: people want great products or services for reasonable prices from a knowledgeable and trustworthy vendor. Having an ideal combination of these factors is a sure-shot way to success.

Use Social Media Marketing to Improve your SEO Ranking

Do you know that some of the biggest companies are asking their marketing departments to spend more time on websites like LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook etc? If the statistics of 2008 are to be believed, the online social media commands the highest time and attention of youngsters today. The young generation loves it as it is an innovative way to connect and communicate with people all around the world. People’s social as well as professional communication is undertaking a change as they discuss everything from Oscars to Obama on websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace. Social media is hence a new category of internet which is a huge crowd-puller. Brand marketers use it as a source for targeted marketing to put across their messages, get feedback on their brand and sales promotion campaigns.

The concept of Social Media Marketing has exploded into the business scenario as the best way to communicate with target audience as well as for Search Engine Optimization. It is the most popular concept in vogue for internet marketing today. With even the smallest businesses going online and tech savvy for a better reach to their consumers, this is hardly surprising. Compared to the millions of consumers businesses can reach through the internet, traditional marketing methods can only reach a limited number of people. Companies, in and SEO, are embracing social media marketing to reach its consumers.

What Social Media Marketing is…

The term “social media” is given to the collection of online mediums through which users communicate on issues they are interested in. The most popular social media are said to be websites like LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook etc. These websites have forums created and maintained by users, rather than the company itself or its employees. Social media marketing is a way of utilizing this vast network of social media for marketing purposes. Initially used as a tool for interaction, social media is now looked upon as a medium by businessmen to get their message across to their target consumers. Also known as “social internet marketing”, “social network marketing” and “social marketing”, this concept is becoming a preferred tool for businessmen looking for publicity. In essence, social media marketing combines the word-of-mouth publicity with the millions of internet users. It is used for various purposes like increasing online presence, inbound linking, brand awareness and positive feedback from consumers.

How it Works…

Social media is based on conversations between people of the things they like, with recommendations being passed along if they come across anything interesting. If you have a blog with regular postings of interesting topics, you can promote them on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook etc. If users like your blog, they will pass it along to friends. This way, the information about your company gets passed along by users who like it, to people in their contact. There is a level of trust established between the two users, hence when one recommends your blog to another, it works better than any advertisement ever can.

But your work is not limited only to submitting your blog. After submitting your post at these social bookmarking sites, you need to interact with users with similar interests as yours. You can start building a network by checking out other posts, commenting on them and interacting with the person who has posted that blog. It would be a mistake if you keep on submitting your blog post and expect others to find it. By popularizing your blog this way, you can get inbound links as well as brand awareness for your business. The inbound links, in turn, will also improve your SEO ranking through organic SEO. In addition to blogs, you can also give links to interesting websites and updated information on various issues.

The key to making social media marketing work is generating interest in the content or topic being covered. Quality content is always stressed on, but it plays a vital role in the success or failure of a social media marketing campaign. Users browsing the social bookmarking sites are looking for innovative, new and interesting content, which they then will pass on to their friends. If the content on your blog is uninteresting or old, it will not spread to other users, and they will eventually stop following your blog.

Who Can Use SMM…

Not only large business houses with a pool of resources to dedicate to marketing, but smaller businesses are also starting to use social media as a marketing tool. We hence hear of food vans using Twitter to let followers know which area they will be touring this month, while established banks and others have introduced interactive blogs to let users know of its history. Any business with an internet connection can utilize SMM for business development. It is a better option to putting up ads online and is better accepted due to the creditability of recommendations made by known people.

A Word of Caution…

The message that you want to convey to people in the social media is not controlled by you, but by the users. People are just as likely to complain about a lousy product as recommend it if it was good. It has to be a 2-way interaction, with you giving out useful information in order to get a positive feedback. If the delicately-balanced trust of the users is shattered, they might spam you out of their circle or give you negative feedback.

Social media marketing is a tough concept and requires a lot of time and effort to become successful. It takes time and commitment to develop contacts, trust and respect with the online community and the results are obtained in a long term. If you don’t have the time to put into social media marketing, you can hire an SEO expert or SEO consultant to maintain your online presence through social media marketing.

Your 4-point checklist before hiring an SEO Expert

Everybody is talking about the recession around but nobody has a clue as to when it will improve so we can get a clear outlook. As a business owner you must be wondering if you will be able to slug it out this year. There are two situations here: you have to continue bringing in new business in order to survive and on the other hand, you have fewer resources to dedicate to it. Hence, bringing in the right kind of business is critical. If you are thinking of going for Search Engine Optimization for your website, you need to consider many factors when you select the SEO Service Provider. This is because of the fact that there are many SEO experts in the market, and you need to find the one that suits your requirements the most. Consider the following 4-point checklist which will decide the amount you will spend on your optimization campaign:

Design of your current site

Here’s the deal: if you have a site which was made some 8-10 years ago at a cheap rate and there have been no updates since then, the search engines are not going to be interested in it. You should have been constantly updating it with keywords and SEO-friendly features besides undertaking some high volume search promotion to obtain a good ranking with the search engines. This is in case you didn’t get the job done properly the first time, and the SEO services provider will have to work doubly hard to improve your current site. In case your site architecture is built well, it will cost you lesser to get your job done.

Experience of the SEO Consultant/firm

There are SEO services available at $15/hour, and there are those that charge $200/hour. If your SEO consultant has a lot of experience behind it, it is bound to believe it is worth a better price per hour than somebody who has started off. You need to judge which skill set you want working at your SEO campaign, and decide you budget for SEO accordingly.

Services Opted for

There are many services offered by a SEO consultant, and you need to decide which out of those the requirements of your business are. The more number of services you subscribe for, the higher your cost is going to be. In order to judge which services you require, you will need to have an in-depth knowledge of your business, its drawbacks and the areas that require improvement.

Keywords

It’s simple: if you opt for a few keywords, the charge will be less, whereas if you opt for hundreds of them, you will be charged more. Time taken to optimize many keywords will be more, hence you will be charged more. But always insist for organic optimization so that your site continues to show results even if your SEO term is over with your consultant...

Clash of the Titans: SEO vs. PPC, which is better?

As an SEO consultant we have come across this question several times: Which online marketing strategy is better for businesses: Search Engine Optimization or Pay per Click marketing?

A very simple answer would be: Depends on the end results you expect from your online marketing strategy. Let’s get down a bit more into the details to understand this dilemma.

When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine, this is called "pay-per-click" (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). One of the highest recognized PPCSE is Google Adwords. Pay-per-click search engine advertising allows you to quickly leverage search engine traffic by "bidding" (paying) for high-value keywords related to your product or service.

In the other corner we have "Organic" or "Natural" search engine optimization (SEO). Generally speaking, organic SEO consists of optimizing your web pages to enhance their position in the naturally occurring search results. Organic SEO consists of On-page and Off-page optimization.

Organic SEO as an internet marketing strategy requires patience, but the rewards when reaped are plentiful. Although organic optimization is not the first choice for many (depending on the brand and business model) organic search does have inherent benefits that are unparalleled by sponsored or paid advertising tactics. The benefits and results last for longer period.

As per the latest stats on marketing budget spent versus the results :

SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets. Surprising?

One of the major reasons for quick adoption of PPC strategy is that it is very similar to traditional paid advertisement strategy and business owners can manage such campaign on their own. Whereas SEO requires a pre-requisite set of skills to ensure your website reaches the top rankings on search engine search through various on-site optimizations and off-site organic search engine optimization strategies.

Another reason why businesses, prefer PPC is that they have better control over the entire program and they know exactly how and where their dollar is spent and results for each dollar spent, can be seen through subsequent Ad words report. They also do not have to change their tactics each time the search engines change their algorithms, which can prove a real headache, especially for those who are only interested in quick, short term results. Organic SEO might seem like too much of work, with absolutely no guaranteed results for short term goal seekers.

While a PPC campaign can deliver leads with relative ease, it can be a big money drain and has no real longevity -- once you stop shelling out the cash, the website traffic goes away. SEO and link building require a lot more creative effort, but can have more sustainable results. It also allows a business to target a larger base of users, as most studies reveal that 75 - 80% of searchers click on organic listings as opposed to paid listings.

As time goes on, web surfers are less prone to clicking PPC links on the right side of Google’s results or in the top sponsored links section. Why? In the past web surfers didn’t understand the difference between sponsored and non-sponsored links. Now web surfers are much more net savvy. The result is that a growing number of web surfers will click on non-sponsored links on the first page of results because they think: if that site made it into the top ten without paying for it, they must really be the best sites.

Organic SEO is fine if you;

1. Have a product that you can dedicate 300-750 words to describe its value.


2. Can exhibit supporting materials images, references and materials that emphasize the products benefits.


3. If you can shroud it in essentially keywords consumers might use to find it in enough frequency, that it can leverage a high-ranking organic search result.
   
4. If you are patient enough for 2-6 months to hold out for long term sustainable results

If you have a product that has a high price point, where there is some wiggle room for how much you are willing to spend to keep the cost per sale within bounds, then by all means pay per click advertising is a viable solution.

At Analytix Solutions our SEO experts will suggest a marketing plan only after analyzing your goals and what results you expect from your online marketing. During tight credit crunch it is advisable to increase reliance on free organic SEO strategies rather than PPC. A hybrid plan (combination of SEO +PPC) is another alternative for those who seek quick results and suffer from very poor rankings, as SEO will ensure with time regular traffic builds for your site, while PPC will bring serious buyers to your site through banner ads, to get the ball rolling for your business. Once SEO tactics picks up, the budget spent on PPC can be minimized and then totally withdrawn, if required.

Beauty of search engine marketing lies in the Flexibility & Control it offers which is very difficult to achieve with traditional marketing tools. Finally, the selection of best online marketing strategy is obviously upto you....

Are you a reasonable SEO client?

There is lots of confusion when it comes to what should you expect from your search engine optimization program. Generally clients are disillusioned and dissatisfied when they have overblown expectations while hiring SEO services. This could happen when either the SEO Vendor has misrepresented what services they will offer in order to close the deal faster or when the clients are themselves not sure what goals they aim to achieve from their SEO exercise.

Understanding what reasonable expectations to have as an SEO client will help to resolve many such conflicts. Read below the factors that should be strictly considered in order to be termed as a reasonable or an understanding SEO client:

Increase in rankings: This is the basic result for every SEO plan. You need to select the relevant keywords you want top rankings and ask your SEO consultant to start cranking to bring it to top. But remember to check whether you chosen keywords are too highly competitive. If so, results will be slow in trickling down. If your site is brand new, again you need to give reasonable time to your SEO vendor. Ask your SEO expert to provide a basic research report on your sites current state, competition for your keywords and industry scenario before mapping out how soon you want to get that top 10 rankings.
Increase in traffic: This is another result which as a client you are justified to expect. The point to remember here is obsession with traffic can blindfold you to the real target. Increasing traffic with no noticeable change in output is useless. Emphasize on quality rather than quantity. Tell your vendor what type of traffic you want to visit your site and what action you expect those visiting your site to take. Be very explicit and clear in your goals from visitor. You can judge this by understanding the visitors surfing trends and the amount of time spent on your site.

Increase in conversion rate: This is most desirable result client should expect when hiring an expert SEO. Be sure to define how you measure conversion. Is it conversion when visitor fills your contact us form or inquiry form or is it when they subscribe to your newsletter or email or when they fill membership form or when they buy from your online portal? Define what conversion is for you and be sure you are on the same page with your SEO specialist when explaining this.

Increase in ROI: Last but not the least you can only continue with your SEO project if the return on investment is more than the cost. Every investment needs time to start giving returns. Be sure to give your SEO pro the time they need to get the program up and running.

SEO is gaining tremendous importance and scope with the current market crisis that has forced a lot of businesses to slash down their marketing budgets. SEO is a great alternative as it is quite cheap compared to spending large amount of dollars on advertising. The results are measurable compared to traditional marketing. But like any other marketing activity, remember to make relationship as a center of focus. You need to give support, co-operation and help required by your SEO vendors to help you get what you want. SEO plans fail when a client gets unreasonable, demands too much too soon, does not follow the changes recommended by SEO pro and pulls out too quickly before results can begin flowing.

How SEO can help you combat recession?

There is a severe economic downturn which cannot be denied. As small business owner it is very essential to be totally prepared to hold the fort and ride this downturn with effective strategies for survival and growth.

Besides following the commonly given away practical advises such as decreasing your debt, decreasing your expenses; increasing your savings and practicing frugality in your business and personal life I would advise to capitalize from your existing customers and convert maximum of prospects into customers. They can definitely ensure your survival. If you’re running a traditional set-up with not much of technology put to use, you surely need to open up that client directory you used to maintain few years back and start calling up them and promote your services with some healthy discounts.

If you own a good website, you should surely launch some good promotional offers that can help convert your prospects into business. You would also need a good marketing plan as whatever your blowout offer may be; it’s no use if you do not have sufficient website visitors to read about it.

Check out for Search Engine Optimization program. It’s the right antidote needed to get your internet marketing done within a small web marketing budget.

If you plan to pop-up any further question SEO related questions for me, like how, why, what, when, etc. here’s few further facts from me:

• With SEO, you can get your website placed on top rankings of major search engines. This gives your website better visibility, more number of visitors and an extended chance to reach out to your prospects before your competitors.
  
  
• SEO will help to turn your website into an online shop by increasing traffic and improving conversion rate. Hiring a professional SEO expert can deliver good results.
  
  
• Organic SEO is free of cost and delivers results for a longer period of time compared to any pay-per-click advertising options. Hire a SEO consultant to kick-off your organic SEO program and save on cost and time.
  
  
• Organic SEO is no rocket-science and you can find tons of net materials on do-it-yourself SEO practices. It’s not difficult to begin with, but the only constraint is that they take up lot of time. A SEO pro can in-turn help you save this time and even bring on board all the experiential tips and tricks that drive faster results compared to trial-and-error methods.

Internet marketing offers many avenues to know and reach your targeted customer instead of waiting for them to come to you. Be active, be found and make marketing the center of your activities to survive the recession besides following the conventional precautions.

Internet Marketing Terms for Newbies - II

In continuation to the previous post where we have described important internet marketing terminologies; find few more terms that would be useful:

21. Guerilla marketing: Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.

22. Hit: Any one file downloaded from your site one time. A single page of a web site, viewed once, may generate 30 or more hits.

23. Home page: The main page of a Web site.

24. Hybrid model : A combination of two or more online marketing payment models

25. Impressions: I Instances of an online advertisement being displayed for any Web user.

26. Inbound link: A link from a site outside of your site.

27. Outbound link: A link to a site outside your site.

28. Interactive agency: An agency offering a mix of Web design /development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

29. Invisible Web: The portion of the Web not indexed by search engines.

30. Keyword: A word used in a performing a search.

31. Keyword research: The search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

32. Link popularity: The 'vote' provided to a page on your web site when another web site (or page within your web site) links to it. Search engines include these 'votes' in their ranking algorithms.

33. Navigation: Facilitating movement from one Web page to another Web page.

34. Pageview: Request to load a single web page. If I visit your web site and look at 2 pages that will count as 2 page views.

35. PPC: Pay Per Click marketing is a bid for top position in the sponsored search engine rankings. Higher bids have a better chance of a higher ranking, although there are other factors. One is advisable to set bids after careful research and analysis of keywords to optimum results.

36. PPL: Pay per lead (PPL) is an online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.

37. PPS: Pay per sale (PPS) is an online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.

38. RSS: It stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ where in a type of text file delivers a list of headlines and content directly to feed readers and other software.

39. SEO: Search Engine Optimization is working to ensure your web site will get as high a ranking as possible in the unpaid search results in the major search engines.

40. Social Media: Usually refers to the many blogs, bookmarking sites and other sites that allow visitors to interact with each other and the web site owner.

41. Static web site: 'Static' refers to the fact that the page does not change.

42. URL: It stands for Universal Resource Locator. http://www.analytixsolutions.com/ is the URL of one page of this site.

43. Unique visitors: Individuals who have visited a Web site (or network) at least once during a fixed time frame.

44. Web Analytics: Taking traffic data and other information about your web site, analyzing it, and then providing insight. Note that a raw report is not analytics.

45. Web site usability: The ease with which visitors are able to use a Web site.

Internet Marketing Terms for Newbies - I

Internet marketing is peppered with its unique lingo and terminologies which can leave a new entrant baffled. Below are list of few important terms with brief explanation which can prove as a useful tool to understand Internet Marketing:

1. Above the fold: The section of a Web page that is visible without scrolling.
2. A-list bloggers: A-listers are all those writers who dominate the Technorati rankings. Getting a nod from one of such an authority can mean exponential growth in site traffic.
3. Affiliate marketing: To sell your product through other web sites or e-mail lists by paying the site or list owner for such sales. It is basically revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations, or a hybrid model.
4. Blog: Short for ‘web log’. It basically means posting (generally in reverse chronological order) short entries which can be personal or business related and allows visitors to post comment which is not usually possible on a website.
5. Banner ad: A horizontal graphical web advertisement that is measured in pixels.
6. Button ad: A graphical advertising unit, smaller than a banner ad.
7. Caching: The storage of Web files for later re-use at a point more quickly accessed by the end user.
8. Conversion rate: The number of sales, leads or other desired actions that occur on your web site, compared to the total number of visitors.
9. Cost-per-action (CPA): Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.
10. Cost per click (CPC): The cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through.
11. CPM: Cost per thousand impressions.
12. Customer acquisition cost: The cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
13. Domain name: The address of your web site, e.g. 'http://www.analytixsolutions.com/'.



14. Doorway domain: A domain used specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main domain.
15. Doorway page: A web page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content.
16. Dynamic web site: A web site generated using a web application and a database. These sites will often change from one visit to the next, or one moment to the next.
17. Ezine: An electronic magazine, whether delivered via a Web site or an email newsletter.
18. Flash: An animation and interactive platform which allows very complex movement on a page. Generally used to distribute videos. YouTube uses Flash to distribute all video on the site. Completely flash based web sites are not advisable due to low search rankings.
19. Forum: An online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest.
20. Frames: A structure that allows for the dividing of a Web page into two or more independent parts.

There are few more to go which will be shown in the next post.

Do you need an SEO specialist?

Analytix Solutions based in MA, provides superior SEO services for your Website promotion and marketing. Our SEO pro can boost your Website rankings on all major search engines to top positions for your preferred keywords. Email us on mark@analytixsolutions.net to qualify for a free SEO analysis of your site.

Our SEO consultants help those who are looking to hire SEO services to help achieve Top Search Rankings. The Organic SEO Services provided by them includes SEO Copywriting and SEO Link Building for your Website Promotion along with other SEO Techniques. Analytix delivers affordable SEO and not purely cheap SEO Services for small and mid-sized businesses. We are an Ethical SEO Firm from Boston, servicing MA, NH, RI and other parts of New England.

Check out further about Analytix’s SEO expert tips on SEO blog which shares SEO tricks, SEO advices, SEO help and general information relating to SEO Website Marketing. Analytix’s SEO program can elevate your site to high search rankings for your preferred keywords through professional SEO campaigns.

Write to us at mark@analytixsolutions.net for further information.

Looking for a SEO Guru?

Analytix Solutions LLC is an SEO Provider based in MA, USA offering elite SEO services to small and medium businesses. SEO experts at Analytix are giving free analysis of websites so email your business details right away at mark@analytixsolutions.net.

Our SEO Company does expert SEO copywriting for website to increase their SEO rankings. We have SEO experts and consultants along with designers and programmers to rebuild SEO friendly website. Our SEO experts will provide strategic SEO marketing to boost search engine rankings for chosen keywords. Our Web SEO strategy gives an affordable small business SEO package which includes organic SEO services like SEO Link Building,Directory Posting, Article writing, blog postings and increasing website traffic through posting on various boosting forums. We also include inorganic SEO services like Pay per Click (PPC).

To know more about SEO pricing for various website promotion SEO strategies email at mark@analytixsolutions.net.

The Tango between Keywords & Search Engine Crawlers –Part I

“SEO is the business of getting found, even if the users did not know that they were looking for you all along.“

The first basic step to any search engine optimization project is finding the right keywords. There are many misconceptions and confusions about the relation between search engine crawlers and keywords.

One of the common question is “How does a search engine recognize which word is the targeted keyword?” Those of you who believe that Google has a list of keywords provided to spiders that later come scavenging to your website hunting for it are wrong. Honestly folks, bots (i.e. Search engine crawlers or spiders) really cannot read in the literal sense. Crawlers don’t come to your website thinking “hey let me learn about SEO services today and let’s hope this website will give me all the information I need on SEO”. Crawlers can’t process information like humans. What they actually do is pick on patterns and flow of repetitive letters which forms a word in the text content of your website and selects one that’s repeated fairly often.

Let’s explain the above example of ‘SEO Services’ as a chosen keyword:
A search engine robot when crawls does not knows what a particular word is, but they observe which letters repeat most over and over and they file this information. This pattern might be complete gibberish, but patterns do stand out. A crawler skims and decides on keywords by filing the pattern shown below:

Text text text SEO services text text text
Text text SEO text text text text text Service
SEO Service text text text text text text text
Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text
Text Text Text SEO Text Text Text services

Upon further analysis the crawler can now filter the keywords from the rest of the text



Bingo! They now realize that ‘SEO Services’ is the keyword as it is repeated fairly often so it must mean something. Crawlers use this information to display your site for this particular keyword when searched by web users.

Next post will throw light on how many keywords should be optimized per page.