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  • 5 Reasons You Should Opt For Personalized Birthday Invitations

    Your birthday is indeed one of the most special days in your life. On top of everything else it should be fun and exciting for you to experience. Because birthdays happen only once every year, you should make sure you do everything possible to make it a really special thing for you. The same goes if you are only planning a birthday celebration for someone – a friend or a loved one. Here are some useful reasons why it’s best to opt for personalized birthday invitations:

    Book a personalized video message as a surprise for a birthday
    1. It’s less expensive – When you do your own birthday invitations, you have more control over everything most especially the expenses. It’s not something that should be tasking anyway unless you wanted it to. You will be surprised that most of the materials you need to make your invitations can be easily found at home, in the kids room, even your home office. This way, the only materials that you would need to buy are those that you still don’t have.

    2. You can make your own designs – This is perhaps the main point of doing your own birthday invitations. It lets you control the design and overall appearance. In the end, it would become a lesser hassle for you because you no longer have to pre-approve the design or choose from a wide variety of templates first because you already have an idea and all you have to do is implement it just the way you want it to come out.

    3. You can add your own personal touch on it – One of the things that most people look over when it comes to preparing for a party are the invitations. You might not now it, and neither would your guests, but the look and the feel of your invitation does a lot to inspire them to come to your special event. You can include a special message in your invitation so you can inspire your guests to be there.

    4. You can fire up your creativity – Since we’re talking about invitations here–items that would speak to your guests and inform them that something special is coming up–it should be something that is very creative. It should elicit some sort of interest in them and make them feel how privileged they are that they are chosen to be a part of the said event. This is the time to let your ideas rushing in.

    5. It can be a special remembrance – Needless to say, the time and the effort you will put into doing the said invitation would be something that you would like to cherish. If the invitations are actually that creative, you can extend it as the party’s giveaway as well.

    Making personalized birthday invitations is something that most people overlook. You don’t even have to be totally creative about it in the sense that you need to start from scratch. There are lots of invitation templates and DIY sets these days that you can take advantage of to make this fun activity much easier for you to accomplish.

  • Why You Should Hire an SEO Firm

    Hiring an SEO firm is something many business owners are contemplating these days. Since the widespread popularity of search engine optimization (SEO) and its benefits, there have been many marketing firms offering to run SEO campaigns for other businesses. There have also been some do-it-yourself business owners who feel they can optimize their own website as well. From an overall marketing standpoint, the case can be made that investing in online advertisement will potentially reach more prospective customers through SEO than other forms of advertising such as print ads. Whether you are contemplating optimization on your website or thinking about running your own SEO campaign, here are a few reasons why you should hire an SEO firm to help land you in front of more potential customers looking for your product or services.

    1. They have the Expertise
    Even though the stereotypical web developer/SEO professional is thought to play video games all day and work at night in his mother’s basement, they should still be respected as a professional. After all, do you know how to (technical term for web development)? A main reason you hire an SEO Firm is for the same reason you hire an attorney to write up your legal documents or represent you in court; they are the expert! I personally do not change the brakes on my car or put a crown on my own tooth. Granted, I could learn how to do it on my own but I know it will save me in the long run to hire someone who specializes in these services. Now don’t get me wrong, there are a few companies out there claiming they know SEO and how to get you on the first page of Google so they can get a piece of the pie but choosing a good SEO firm comes later…

    2. An SEO Firm will save you time
    When you hire an SEO firm to handle your online marketing and SEO, it will save you loads and loads of time! I cannot stress enough how much time goes into a worthwhile SEO campaign. SEO firms have years of experience under their belt (hopefully) and a full knowledgeable team to work on optimizing and marketing your website for you.

    Like anything, there is a learning curve to search engine optimization. I would be ignorant to say it has the steepest learning curve of any profession but I honestly believe it is in the top 25%. The time an SEO professional has but into gaining all of the knowledge they have gained is shocking! The lucky thing for someone who hires an SEO firm is they have already previously put in the time learning which ensures the website will rise in the search engines much quicker than someone who tries to optimize themselves. There is also a pretty good chance the SEO Firm will be able to utilize the connections they have with other professionals to help speed the campaign along.

    Not only will the SEO firm you hire know the latest tricks to optimization, they also know what doesn’t work. As an SEO professional, we have learned through trial and error what effort to consume our time with.
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    3. It’s all in the numbers
    Can you imagine paying employees that you cannot track the work or hours they put into their job? You would not be able to justify if paying them has been profitable for you or your company. The same holds true for hiring an SEO Firm. All of the good SEO firms have a tracking system on the website they are optimizing. In this tracking system you will be able to see daily visitors, what keywords they are typing in to find your website, what search engine or source they came to your website from, how long the individual was on your site, where the location of your visitors are coming from and the list goes on and on. SEO firms also have access to very useful web based tools such as a keyword tool that will tell you the monthly volume of searchers typing in certain keywords or keyword phrases. This is extremely beneficial to recognize and understand what keywords should be targeted in your SEO campaign.

    If a business owner runs their own seo campaign are they going to create monthly reports to keep track of progress? Is a business owner going to focus on key point indicators such as bounce rate and new visitors in their SEO campaign to ensure prime results?

    4. You Get to Focus on your own Business
    Probably the greatest part about hiring an SEO firm to help with your online marketing is you get to concentrate on your own business; what you are good at! I have previously stated how much time goes into an SEO campaign and the truth is for the first six months you need to be constantly working on building links, writing articles and creating PR for your website every day. You have to admit, if you had to just concentrate on running your business and manage your staff efficiently while the leads came in you would be sitting pretty happy. There is no reason for a business to be concerned with trying to manage their online marketing and the day to day activities as well; that is hard enough.

    Rely on a professional with years of experience and the time and team to fully optimize your website. Although the thought of not spending money on something you think you could do yourself is nice, hiring an SEO firm will pay for itself and then some in just 4-6 months!

  • 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Do SEO Yourself – The Honest Guide!

    Almost everyone can be successful online if they take the time to understand and apply the SEO principles. But understanding SEO principles and differentiating between SEO myths and facts will most certainly take months if not years to do. Most people know the theory behind SEO but have never taken the time to apply it themselves.

    That is where SEO companies come in. Some of them provide you standard services with minimal benefit while others are expert in providing unique services, which their competitors just cannot copy.

    The bottom line is that unless you have spent months or years understanding SEO and applying it, it is better to outsource this job to someone more experienced in this area. Here are 5 reasons why you should not do SEO yourself:

    1. SEO is all about experience: Almost everyone can undertake SEO but most of the people do not know how to do it right. Seasoned SEO consultants have spent years testing out different techniques and have met with many failures on their way to success. If you do not have the time to apply SEO techniques yourself, it is better to outsource this job.

    2. There are only 24 hours in a day: Good quality links are comparatively more difficult to find. It is very difficult and time-consuming for a beginner to successfully find good quality links. When I started in the internet marketing realm, I used to put 5 hours daily for 3 months and got only 600 links to my website! Good SEO consultants know where to get the links from and how to do the job quickly. If you are a beginner, do not spend your valuable hours doing the link building yourself. Hire an SEO firm to do the job for you!

    3. There are too many factors involved: As I keep on studying SEO, I am exposed to new stuff that did not even exist to me before. While many SEO books try to simplify the whole game by presenting you with a list of factors, it is a horrible over-simplification. Although basic SEO can be done quite quickly, getting your website ranked high for competitive keywords requires you to do a lot of things right at the same time.

    4. Buying SEO software can be costly: If you start doing your websites SEO yourself, you will need to invest a considerable amount in buying good quality SEO software. Although SEO can be done without the software, doing so severely diminishes your chances of success. SEO consultants and firms have already invested in the needed software, which makes them more efficient for the job! If you hire them, you do not have to pay the hefty price of buying and understanding the SEO software yourself.
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    5. You can hold the SEO firms accountable: This is one of the best points why you should not do the SEO yourself. If you hire an SEO consultant, he can be held accountable for the results he provides you. In contrast, if you do SEO in the wrong way, it is only you who is held accountable for the lack of good results. Clearly, if you are not that experienced in SEO, you need to outsource this job in order to reduce your risk.

    At Quantum SEO Labs, we try our best to reduce our customers risk! Do you want to rank on Google Page 1 in as little as 2-5 days? If so, try our Affordable SEO Services [http://www.quantumseolabs.com]. Our techniques increase your rankings dramatically – guaranteed!

  • Guaranteed SEO Rankings

    There is much debate online about guaranteed search engine rankings and there appears to be a war of words between firms that do, and firms that don’t. We like to leave it up to the client to decide on who they would prefer to deal with, but here’s my two cents worth on the subject.

    Why is this such an issue?

    There is a massive amount of confusion and misinformation out there about Guaranteed rankings, due in part to the three main players in the industry, those who do, those who don’t, and those who pretend they can.

    The biggest misunderstanding is that the firms who don’t guarantee results believe that as no SEO firm owns a search engine, they can’t possibly achieve the desired results, therefore the guarantee is worthless, unless a firm uses unethical techniques and the firms who DO guarantee results believe that the firms who don’t are just greedy, lazy and have no confidence in their own abilities.

    So who are the main players?

    The SEO firms who WILL guarantee their work The SEO firms who WON’T guarantee their work, and The SEO firms who WILL guarantee their work but use unethical or deceptive methods, both in their approach to SEO and in their client acquisition strategy Let’s touch on the last one first.

    The firms who will guarantee their work but use unethical methods.

    Unfortunately, there ARE many SEO companies who use a client acquisition strategy that is entirely deceptive. They will make sweeping claims about their abilities, offer wild guarantees on their work, and use unethical SEO techniques to ‘trick’ search engines into listing websites higher than they have a right to be. Make no mistake, any SEO firm who uses such unethical techniques WILL do more harm than good. They can effectively have your website banned from Google and other search engines altogether. Unfortunately, they may actually achieve the desired rankings for a little while, in which case they will want payment from the client at this stage. No matter to them if the website gets banned at a later stage; they got the (temporary) results, they got paid, and they are out the door to hit their next target. There is no doubt in ANY firms mind that ‘Black Hat SEO’ (unethical, cheating methods of SEO) are bad. So how do you spot the firms offering Black Hat SEO? Ask them what they intend on doing. If they cannot give you firm, definitive answers, move on. It also pays to contact their clients and ask them. My recommendation is to ask them for the details of a client that they have performed SEO for as far back as 2 years, who is still a client. That will be a dead giveaway.

    What about SEO firms who don’t guarantee results at all?
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    My opinion is that SEO work is largely considered as money-for-jam if SEO companies are allowed to take money from clients without having to demonstrate any level of success. It is another deceptive client acquisition strategy. They can sprout on about ‘unethical SEO firms offering guarantees’ but at the end of the day, it is because THEY don’t have confidence in their own abilities. If an SEO firm is not prepared to put their money where their mouth is, then perhaps they should find an easier, less demanding line of work. There are many ‘bodies’ that exist to provide a place for SEO companies to gather and spruike their wares, but even these bodies have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of no guarantees. Let’s be clear, ethical SEO firms who DO offer a guarantee are a clear and significant threat to non-guaranteeing SEO companies’ way of life. They threaten the very foundation of easy money for SEO firms.

    What about the ethical companies that DO offer Guaranteed SEO?

    There are only a handful of these companies at this stage, but as customers become more demanding (ie.. when customers simply want to get what they pay for!), I believe this number will grow considerably. Provided a few criteria are met, then dealing with Guaranteed SEO firms should not be an issue:

    Get references. Speak to their clients, especially long-term ones, and ask THEM how they feel. If an SEO firm won’t give you access to their clients, run a mile; there will be a good reason why they won’t give you references (especially from loyal, long-term customers) Ask them WHAT they will do to improve your rankings. Due to the time-intensive nature of SEO, they should have no fear that a client will simply take their ideas and do it themselves.
    They should have no qualms telling you the specifics of what they are going to do. If a company mentions ‘cloaking’, run a mile. If they mention ‘special tricks’ or something that is ‘secret’, run a mile.
    Find out exactly what the guarantee is for. Most SEO firms will put conditions on their guarantees that are far too ambiguous or too extreme. Ensure that it is as simple as this ‘IF you don’t rank in the top X for such and such keywords in such and such search engines, you don’t pay anything at all’. Also ensure there is a time guarantee (for instance, if the rankings drop out of the guaranteed limits within perhaps 6 months, they must refund the customer)
    Make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the SEO firm has been in business for longer than the guarantee period. We suggest that clients should ensure the company has been in operation for at least 2-3 years. Any less than that and you KNOW that that company cannot produce any references from ‘long-term’ clients.
    At the end of the day, you need to deal with a firm you can trust, so if you are in doubt about their abilities, don’t hand over the money. Whatever you do, DO NOT hand over money to an SEO firm that won’t even offer you ANY type of guarantee on their work or failing that, comprehensive reporting. And if you DO deal with a non-guarantee SEO firm, if they don’t produce significant results after 3 months, dump them and deal with a company who will.

  • Guaranteed SEO For a Top 10 Ranking

    How can SEO firms guarantee top 10 rankings while others bulk at even the notion that the SEO client should get anything in return other than a statement of work and at the end of the month some fancy reporting about hours spent on link building, article submission and other seemingly important search engine optimization tasks. The truth as always is between the two different camps of SEO firms who either guarantee top 10 ranking or don’t. So, why some SEO companies offer performance guarantee, while other SEO companies don’t?

    Before start our investigation, we have to set some ground rules here of course to make sure we compare only reputable SEO companies with at least 3 plus years in business and a customer portfolio of at least 2-3 dozen clients a year. Oh, and of course the SEO companies we compare have all achieved decent rankings results for their clients and their clients would not hesitate in recommending them to their friend, business partners or family members. Now that we got these important benchmark out of the way, let’s examine what is at the heart of the SEO guarantee and the sometimes very heated discussions surrounding it.

    The issue is quite simply trust. The trust by the clients placed into the hands of the SEO companies to do the best they can to achieve the first page ranking results they were hired to deliver. So, it comes down to which company can sound more convincing on their website touting their SEO services with fancy graphics, customer case studies, testimonials, badges of affiliations with SEO organizations and being member of better business bureau. But does this really make a difference in how competent a SEO company is?

    If the company can’t convey enough trust to the potential SEO client on their website, they might as well close the shop, but sadly even when a potential clients feel in their gut there is something inherently wrong with forking money over for services that don’t have a tangible outcome, they still sign on the dotted line. How sad, but it doesn’t have to be this way. You have the right to demand to know what your hard earned dollars buy. So, here is where the guaranteed SEO services can truly make or break a deal from a reputable SEO company, but there is more to a SEO guarantee, than simply writing a few over used slogans on a webpage and hope visitors will listen. These are the criteria you should use to hire an SEO firms who guarantees results in writing.

    Get references from as many previous SEO clients as you can. The SEO company should give you a list of previous clients’ contact information cheerfully and with lots of pride. After all they are going to be only as good as the last client they have dealt with. The most important questions to ask previous clients is, how long it took the SEO company to achieve the results and were they able to hold onto those rankings long term.
    No money up front. You should not pay a dime for any type of setup costs or other silly administration costs. It takes nothing more than 1 hour for seasoned SEO to come up with a thorough analysis of your site and to create a proposal for you. The cost of this should be not be coming out of your pocket, so never every pay for any type of site review or report up front.
    Specific ranking results for Google. Google is still the king of the online searches with over 60% of the total worldwide search market and you should not accept a guarantee that includes any mention of Yahoo or Bing (MSN,Live) in the contract. You should simply say you are only interested in Google natural results.
    Verify rankings independently. Always find out what type of ranking report generation tool the SEO company will use. The rankings have to be checked daily and a history of the rankings must be available to you at any time.
    What constitutes a SEO guarantee being fulfilled? In other words how many days of the month do the rankings have to in the top 10 or top 5 for the ranking guarantee to be fulfilled. Ask for a minimum of 15 days of each calendar month for the site to be in the top 10 or top 5.
    Don’t pay for all the SEO fees when the rankings are achieved in the first month. Once you agree on the total SEO fees, you should demand that you pay over a minimum of 6 months as long as the site remains on the first page of Google during that period. If the site drops from Google’s first page for more than 15 days in the previous calendar month you should not have to pay and roll the contract term forward another month.
    Ask them how much their maintenance plan will cost you, once they achieved the top rankings and the contract expired. Be careful if the SEO company wants to charge you the same rates they charged to get you on the first page of Google in the first place. The link building and optimization effort needed will be substantially costly and you should get a decent break on the SEO fees, if you choose to extend it.
    Transparency of what they plan to do to get you on the first page of Google. Ask very direct questions if it’s not spelled out already in their statement of work or contract, what methods will be used to get you in the top 10 on Google. If all you see in the contract is optimizing page content and some directory submissions, it’s most likely not going to get you what you want. You want to see in the contract specific references to one-way permanent link building, not rented, permanent links only. Ask them for a sample of links they have acquired for other SEO clients.
    SEO can be extremely effective to increase leads, sales, whatever you objective may be, but too many times decision makers in businesses blindly accept SEO contract terms put in front of them simply because they don’t know the questions they should ask. It’s your duty to exercise due diligence and part of your research when choosing a SEO provider is to know what you get in return for your money, and what are your options if the promised results are not achieved.Submit article
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  • SEO FAQ’s

    What is natural search engine optimization (SEO)?

    Natural, or Organic, Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s a process of making your site more search engine friendly by optimizing the entire website design and content. Then the site will be visible in SERPs against optimized keywords or Key phrase.

    Why is SEO important?

    Search engine optimization is important for a number of reasons including:

    36% of searchers attribute top organic position with brand quality
    60% to 70% of all search traffic comes from organic listings
    90% of organic search traffic is driven from the top five listings
    62% of searchers view only one page of results before clicking (Jupiter Research)
    Having the No. 1 listing in both organic and paid search can increase click rates by three times
    How do natural search differ from paid search?
    The primary differences are:

    Paid search can be launched quickly. Natural search generally takes months to show a return.
    Paid search focuses on a large number of keywords. Natural search needs to be focused on a few high-return keywords.
    Paid search is highly measurable. Tracking results on natural search is more difficult (although not impossible).
    How much time will it take to see SEO result?
    Time is most important factor in SEO life cycle. Once your website cached by search engines, it will take at least 2 weeks to update the results.

    Can any one guarantee a #1 ranking in Search Engine?

    No. No one can guarantee a #1 placement in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), as there are simply too many factors outside our control. In fact, in Google’s Information for Webmasters, they recommend that companies beware SEOs that guarantee results.

    We are, however, willing and able to make a guarantee as to our SEO ethics.

    Will my website stay at the #1 position once my website is placed there?

    Search Engine ranking fluctuate frequently. SEO is an on going process. However if your website is maintained by SEO Specialist month to month then it can be stay in top positions.

    How long will it take to see results?

    This largely depends upon how old the site is. If the site is new, you shouldn’t expect to see significant results from Google until the site has been in Google’s index for at least six months. Results for new sites can be seen in Yahoo and MSN, generally less than three months.

    For sites that have been in existence for a year or more, results from on-page optimization can generally be seen within a few weeks of being placed online.

    Google, is highly dependent upon links in its calculation, and prefers links that have been in existence for a long time. As a result, if the market space is competitive, it may take six months or more to see significant results.

    What is SEO Copywriting?

    In a webpage where the same keyword is repeated again & again, in a way that makes it very difficult to understand what the page is actually trying to say. This is SEO’ed copy.

    SEO copywriting is the creation of website copy that includes heavy usage of keywords in hopes to move a page up the search engine rankings. It is generally written to a particular “keyword density”, which will supposedly perform well in the search engines.

    For search engines with a heavy reliance on on-page factors, such as MSN, or for particularly uncompetitive keywords, SEO copywriting might work, at least to a certain degree. For keywords with any amount of competition on Google and Yahoo, however, it is rarely effective.

    What’s more, even if the SEO’ed copy works in a search engine, it is rarely effective for the human beings visiting the site.

    In addition, SEO copywriting can be very profitable for the SEO firm, as the search engines regularly change their preferred keyword density. This results in more work for the SEO firm as they rewrite the SEO’ed copy, and up charge the client.

    We prefer not to use SEO copywriting. We recommend that the targeted keyword be used in the page’s copy, but used in a manner that is natural sounding and effective for readers. Our SEO efforts focus on other on-page factors and most importantly – links.

    Does this mean copywriting is not important to SEO?

    Copywriting is certainly important in SEO. The copy of a website should always be written to maximize the return on marketing dollars. If the visitors to a website do not convert to leads or sales, then the efforts on SEO are wasted.

    The copy of a page should focus primarily on effectiveness and conversion rate. Simply use the page’s keywords in a natural manner, and optimize the other on-page factors and links.

    Also, landing pages can be created to address specific keyword needs that cannot be found on other parts of the site. Each such page must have substantially unique content and not employ deceptive techniques such as redirects, or run the risk of receiving penalties from the search engines.

    We offer a full range of copywriting services which can be used in conjunction with either our paid or natural search services.

    Do you engage in unethical SEO?

    We tend to not see SEO in ethical terms. Notwithstanding potential issues of deception, the way one structures one’s webpage is not a concept that should inspire discussions of morality.

    There are, however, issues of risk management and tolerance with SEO. Certain techniques might run the risk of being blacklisted by one or more of the search engines. Typically, the more competitive a space is, the more risky the needed techniques are.

    As SMO Solutions Search does not work with companies in the truly hypercompetitive space (e.g. gambling and pornography), we have never needed to resort to risky techniques to achieve the rankings our clients demand.

    One aspect of SEO that can raise ethical questions is the communication between the SEO firm and the client. Some firms engage in risky techniques without informing the client. That is certainly unethical.

    Another area of potentially unethical behavior can be found in firms that provide “SEO” services by building a network of their own sites that drive traffic to the client’s site. These are often sold on a per click basis. While this is a viable marketing model, many clients do not realize that the moment they stop paying, the “SEO” they’ve been buying goes away. In fact, many SEO firms will then turn around and sell this traffic to the former client’s competitors.

    Apogee Search’s SEO practice is built around achieving superior results in the natural listings of the search engines. Baring an algorithm change in the search engine, the traffic does not go away if a client does not continue to engage with Apogee Search (although listings do tend to degrade over time if continue SEO efforts are not made).

    Do you offer search engine submission services?

    We’ll let you in on a secret, assuming a page can be read and indexed by a search engine’s search bots; all that is needed to submit to the search engines is a link from a page on another site that is in the Google index.

    The automated submission services that you receive constant email spam for are, at best, a waste of money. In many cases, they can actually hurt your site’s performance in the search engines, as repetitive submitting of the same site can cause the search engines to invoke a penalty.

    How do you select keywords?

    Ideally, keywords for natural search are selected by using data from a properly configured and managed paid search campaign. This way, keywords that generate leads and/or sales are certain to be focused on.

    Alternatively, detailed analysis can be made on a group of potential keywords to measure their relative search volume and competitiveness, but this data is greatly strengthened with the addition of conversion data from a paid search campaign.

    Will you make the changes on my website?

    We are not a web design firm, and don’t manage the actual pages of your site ourselves. We do, however, make specific, detailed suggestions of changes. And, if you do not have the staff to make the changes yourself, we have a number of web design firms that can do this for you.

    What about link rental or purchase?

    One of the dirty little secrets of the SEO industry is that many of the people at the top of Google bought their way there through paid links.

    Many links can either be bought on a one time basis, or rented month to month. One of the biggest advantages of this is the ability to configure the link exactly how you want it for maximum SEO benefit (begged links often have to be accepted “as is”).

    Competitive market spaces are likely going to require paid links. We typically recommend either purchasing permanent links or budgeting link rental for at least six months (preferably eight or nine months). Links must “age” before Google allocates them their full benefit.

    How do we track the results?

    Many SEO firms create their own fuzzy metrics, generally around the idea of “visibility”. If a particular key phrase improves from a ranking of 100 to a ranking of 20, they call that a 500% visibility. Rarely do you see such firms concerned about the traffic the rankings bring to your site.

    While we certainly monitor rankings in the search engines for our targeted keywords, we are much more concerned with the traffic those rankings generate. And, we are happy to work with you to connect the traffic generated by the search engines to specific leads and sales.

    Shankar soma is an experienced SEO, SEM and SMM consultant. He has authored several marketing manuals for small business owners and ecommerce agents. He is a contributing author to several websites and offers advice on dominating Google search results atSubmit article
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  • The Benefits of Sharing SEO Secrets With Clients

    “No upfront cost”, “top rankings”, “risk free”, “incredible results” are all catch phrases thousands of SEO service companies use to snatch new clients. They flood the Internet with promises of incredible Search Engine Optimization techniques that will bring their customers fame and unbelievable profits.

    Business people buying search services from SEO specialized agencies may indeed get the results they were promised. Search engine crawlers pick up their pages faster, Internet users return more frequently and online sales do increase. They have plenty of reasons to celebrate, yet some of them don’t. They feel their victory is overshadowed, because to maintain this high level of search engine exposure, they will have to continue depending on SEO agencies.

    It is a sad reality, but many SEOs will keep their strategies and techniques under wraps and will not empower their clients with proprietary knowledge and skills that will allow them to become independent and search marketing savvy. What these seasoned SEO technicians fail to understand is that by denying their clientele SEO planning and implementation expertise, they may actually be missing out on the opportunity of closely working with strategic business partners.

    What is in a secret?

    SEO agencies believe they are solely responsible for their client’s search engine optimization needs. They are also convinced that if they reveal their strategies,

    – Their clients will no longer need their SEO services
    – Their tactics may be disclosed to their competition

    Unlike what many SEO consultants believe, clients have the right to know what changes are being made to their website. The site belongs to them and every strategy that was implemented should be reported and explained.

    Clients also have the right to know what they are paying for. This not only holds the SEO agents responsible to deliver what they promised, but it also provides the clients with a history they can reflect back on.

    The advantages of sharing SEO knowledge

    The Internet is an active entity and changes occur almost daily. Transferring knowledge and providing clients with valuable on-site SEO training will bring the providers and their clients closer together. They can learn from each other, share practical insights on advanced SEO tactics and exchange information when search engine marketing strategies or industry trends change.

    It is a misconception that sharing information also means revealing all trade secrets and proprietary technology. Forward-thinking agencies have long understood that, despite strategic planning and tool sharing, they can still maintain their clientele. By offering in-house training sessions and keeping their clients advised on the latest hit generating strategies, SEO’s can keep their customers satisfied, loyal and coming back for more.

    Keeping up with technology

    An effective SEO campaign has to take all current SEO components such as keywords, link building, SEO friendly HTML, or site structure into account, as well as those strategies still being developed. To keep up with new optimization techniques, Web analytics tools are expanding, constantly growing more complicated and sophisticated. As a consequence, they are becoming more difficult to comprehend and only skilled SEO experts can fully understand and use them. This knowledge can be used to offer continued search training, a service probably greatly appreciated by their clients.

    Knowledge-transfer partnerships

    Clients who are eager for success recognize great opportunities that can help them reach their objectives. They also understand that online marketing strategies have become so extensive that basic SEO knowledge no longer is sufficient to consistently attract search engine bots. They need more professional know-how and consulting from capable agencies, people who keep their hands in the field night and day. In that case, who else would they go to, than the team that trained them in SEO procedures in the first place? These clients trust their SEO specialists, because they know that guidance services will be extended throughout their partnership. They can count on updates whenever content development, optimization and promotion techniques evolve, or when revolutionary technical progress has been announced.

    In conclusion

    SEO service agencies who share knowledge with their clients will create long-term strategic partnerships. Information can be exchanged both ways, bringing extended benefits and success to both the initial SEO provider, as well as their client.

    Shout SEO is a premium SEO services [http://www.shoutwebstrategy.com.au] business based in Melbourne. Shout SEO will help increase your traffic and sales through achieving top rankings on the major search engines. Visit Shout SEO services [http://www.shoutwebstrategy.com.au] to find out more.Submit article
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  • Seize Advantage With Higher Converting SEO

    Goodbye to ranking-focused SEO, Hello to Conversion-focused SEO.

    SEOs are good at understanding the influence of links, content, keyword targeting and organic search engine rankings, but few are focused on transforming SEO traffic to leads and sales. Building an analytical-driven SEO process focused on growing profitability of organic search is a significant opportunity.

    There has never been a better time to rethink SEO far beyond the ranking or click. The Google algorithm is also becoming increasingly efficient at detecting post-click user engagement and conversion metrics, via a variety of data collection sources. Better engaging websites will also improve rankings. SEO itself should be more about conversions that essentially convert to additional revenues from traffic.

    Making SEO more conversion-centric also means that some current SEO strategies and processes need updating to focus on conversions.How to get your SEO focused on conversions. The following methods may help to get your SEO more focused on conversions:

    1. Assign dollar value to conversions. Using your web analytics platform, assign conversion dollar values for different conversion types, and following data collection, evaluate for organic keywords and keyword categories. When using an internal tracking system to track referrals, do not limit it to advertising campaigns only — track referral URL traffic too. Proper SEO measurement and metrics are the basis for drilling down on SEO profitability at a deeper granularity level (keyword, landing page, SEO category, geo, etc. and combinations).

    2. Evaluate and optimize the effectiveness of your SEO landing page in terms of its contribution as an initiator of a successful conversion funnel. Your SEO landing page may receive a lot of organic traffic but not necessarily spark conversions. Analyze the landing pages that do, and optimize.

    3. Customize your value proposition for major target verticals. Your solution may appeal differently to various market segments. Identify main user segments and customize offerings according to the ‘reason why’ they are interested in your offer.

    For example, a company that offers moving services may decide to tailor one value proposition for potential clients who are ‘price sensitive’ and another value proposition for those who are sensitive about moving company insurance coverage. You may want to have a separate SEO target page or a more comprehensive SEO ‘hub’ page per value proposition.

    4. Test your page title and descriptions. These may appear in the SERP listing and may significantly affect how users click your organic listing. Past the click, a more focused snippet will lead to higher conversion rates.

    5. Re-think internal linking structures (anchor and placement). Do not think about links only in terms of site structure or PageRank. Test performance of placed links in terms of appeal to users, call for action effectiveness, and conversion rates.

    6. Build your keyword targeting strategy based on best converting keywords. Often using paid search to identify best converting keywords is instrumental in formulation of an ROI-driven keyword targeting plan.

    7. SEO click stream analysis (first click or last click?). Many conversions have a “click stream to conversion”, meaning the same user arrived multiple times via different sources before conversion — from multiple keywords/sources. Most analytics systems assign 100% of the conversion credit to the last click. Be aware of the setting for your analytics system, and take into account the contribution of each click in the stream. Note that certain organic keyword queries should serve well for increasing awareness and building intent, while others, among them brand keywords, do a better job at driving the “last click” conversion and thus are fully credited for the conversion.
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    8. Scale
    Within PPC activity, it is common to scale by identifying new niches, expanding the keyword bedded on, and optimizing a large number of micro segments and ad groups. When the performance of each micro segment is improved, overall performance can improve significantly, and is also where search marketing technology is essential.

    As far as the scaling approach, advanced SEO within competitive markets should essentially be the same. By better segmenting SEO activity, as broken down into separate keyword groups and SEO target pages, and optimizing the conversions of each individual segment, accumulated results of SEO activity should significantly improve.

    Time to rethink what SEO is all about:

    SEO has changed and you must change with it to stay competitive. There has never been a better time to rethink SEO, taking action to transform it away from ‘rankings’ and ‘traffic’ and into more systematic, tested client acquisition activity. By establishing measurement and metrics, analyzing pages within the SEO conversion funnel, customizing value propositions for different verticals, testing SERP snippets, and re-thinking keyword targeting and linking strategies, you can scale your SEO results and discover new revenue potential.

  • How to Choose a Good Quality SEO Firm?

    You’re probably not the only one on the web trying to figure out how to hire a Good SEO Firm. SEO engineering is a mystery to many. I will say you can’t get it for $100 a month though. That’s a bunch of hoohah. Here’s some good tips. I have seen some SEO firms around for years and they are a partner on a prominent web hosting service. People have asked, “Are they a quality SEO marketing firm?” I have wondered as well if they are quality. It seems legit, since they are on a prominent hosting site’s partner page. I would think a lot of people would scream and shout if their work was really bad and produced poor results.

    One of the best ways to measure a firm’s quality is to check their previous client results. That’s what your paying for in the end…strong, high ranking search results in Google, Yahoo and Bing(msn) for your keywords. I will say that you should look around a few places for reviews. Of course we are an SEO firm offering SEO service. I’ll stop there as not to push too hard and be accused of commercializing. This is for your education on how to choose a good firm and what to look for in SEO services offered by reputable Internet companies.

    Here are some basic search engine ranking elements you should look for in a quality search engine optimization company or Internet marketing firm proposal: They should use ‘White Hat’ SEO On-Page and Off-Page optimization tools and techniques. Many Internet marketers could benefit from some basic ‘white hat’ SEO information.

    What does ‘white hat’ mean? Are they cowboys with clean clothes? No, this means that they are actively using ‘best practice’ techniques that SEO friendly to Google’s algorithms. By the way, it generally won’t say white hat openly.

    What’s a search engine algorithm? It’s the computer code in web spiders that that crawl all over the Internet deciding which 10 websites are more relevant to a users specific search out of the millions of websites on the Internet.

    I will not reveal everything as some techniques take years to learn and are proprietary to our company. However, these basic white hat SEO techniques should be in the Internet marketing services they offer to you:

    On-Page SEO techniques that cause good “organic” SEO rankings are:
    o Keyword Research Analysis
    o Website HTML Meta-Tags: Title, Description, Keywords
    o Optimizing Internal Website Links
    o Making Images to be SEO friendly
    o SEO Content and Text upgrades
    o Google xml sitemap
    o No Flash or sloppy Javascript code

    Off-Page SEO techniques for your website that cause higher search engine rankings:
    o Increase of Relevant Inbound Links
    o Reciprocal – relevant exchange links
    o One Way – inbound links to homepage
    o Blog/Article Postings – keyword relevant content
    o High Ranking Directory Submissions
    o Social Bookmarking – Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIn
    o An SEO analysis report comparing your site with 1-2 competitors of your choice Monthly Reports:
    o Web Traffic source tracking
    o Google Ranking Progress
    o Inbound Links Created
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    If they at least offer these SEO services and give you easy to read monthly reports, you will probably be in good shape. Ask for a sample report. This way you can see how data will be reported to you and you’ll know what to expect.

    IMPORTANT: SEO marketing is not a flip of a switch. It can take a few months and sometimes up to a year to see 1st page rankings in highly competitive keywords such as “real estate” and “mortgages”. However, you should see some improvement within a couple months with a continuous climb upwards.

    Be smart, get a couple real bids from accredited SEO marketing firms and they should be comparable. If the price is way off, look at what each company offers. Do you get to talk to someone on the phone? Are they going to answer questions? Is it more of a hands off type of service where they do the work in the back ground and only send you reports?

    That’s ok. Just make sure that it works for your type of personality. Some SEO firms only do external link building and never touch your website. This will almost never have you dominating your competitors in the search engines. Some SEO firms will offer a free SEO analysis of your website. Take it, but realize it may be very limited compared to an analysis for $200-500. For a small investment, you can have an SEO consultant talk you through the SEO

    Good luck with your SEO ranking campaign and your search for a good SEO firm.

  • Understanding SEO For Your Business

    SEO and You…Not Always Perfect Together
    Businesses who rely on SEO criteria as the foundation from which to build their advertising and promotion campaigns may find a disconnect between their business presentation and SEO experts who expound profusely on the value of following SEO formats and tools without exception. As with most other business tools, SEO does not necessarily suit all businesses. Adhering too rigidly to SEO as mentioned in an interesting article by Garrett Pierson*, has negative impact on the value of the overall SEO effort.

    SEO and Communication
    SEO is a form of communication. All too often, the disconnect in SEO is directly related to unclear communication as presented, as well as misinterpretation by the reader. Considering SEO is a relatively new tool of search engines and users, SEO experts offer somewhat personalized direction and influence. SEO, as a tool, should enhance communication relating to presenting business information and refine advertising style. When SEO constricts business identity, it may become a weak link in the foundation of promoting services and products. Affect a balanced blend of SEO and common sense business practice for best results. Online advertising should be proactively arranged in a manner that creates consumer “need” before “want”. Once consumer need is established, what follows is congruent business name recognition.

    Quality SEO Communication
    Following SEO criteria that 7-10% of any online information should be included as “key words” may be overkill for some businesses while being crucial to others. Then again, the choice of key words may be flawed, leaving search engine users frustrated when they find redundant information. To exact the most quality from SEO efforts, it’s important to include business image in all online promotions that utilize SEO. That’s often the missing link. Services or products need to include business image.
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    SEO Tools
    Key word usage can be a tool to enhance business image, thereby advancing recognition. Think creatively when choosing key words. But, also think objectively about how SEO efforts are viewed by others. If key words don’t allude to business name and image in promoting products or services, communication is unclear and bound for the vast wilderness of cyberspace. In addition, keep in mind that key words are a connection to search engine ranking. Determine in advance how important ranking truly is to the overall SEO efforts. If the product or service is unique, it will be found quickly and easily. If it falls into a categorical offering with huge competition, ranking becomes a more significant issue.

    Quality SEO, Quality Ranking
    It’s a common supposition that the higher the quality of SEO efforts, greater quality ranking will naturally result. SEO is a bit like adding salt to food. Too little and it’s bland. Too much and it’s overpowering to the point of distaste. Within the boundaries of SEO efforts, common sense planning and effective business promotion will result in compatibility with SEO as a helpful business aid. SEO should never inhibit individual style. Rather, it should promote it to maximum benefit.