Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

How do you spot a black hat SEO before they take your money, mess up your site in order to artificially create rankings, and run?  Finding a reputable SEO firm can be hard, so here’s some tips on how not to get taken for a ride by a black hatter.

1. A legitimate SEO will be VERY specific about what they can do for you, and not afraid to answer questions about how they intend to accomplish those goals. SEO is no huge mystery – it’s hard work done from learning acquired over years of experience, and most people hire it out because they don’t have the time or expertise – not because they are really too stupid to understand it themselves or because all the keys and secrets are held by gurus. It’s like hiring a cook to make you a gourmet French meal every night. You could probably learn to do it yourself, but it would take forever and you have other priorities.

2. A legitimate SEO will not offer canned guarantees such as ‘I will get your neam ranked #1 on Google’ – it’s easy to get ranked for a name, but who will be looking for Hubert’s Pet Emporium in a search? You need to rank for keyword phrases like ‘pet shop Seattle’. Don’t be fooled by ‘top on Google’ promises that aren’t worth their weight in chalk dust.

3. A legitimate SEO will link build properly. They won’t hook you up with mass link projects, and they won’t buy links. If an SEO tells you that you will be getting links but it will cost you XX per link, make sure you are paying for research and actual link placing, not paying for links. Links should also be coming from high PR sites, so demand a report of links and where they come from to ensure they are good backlinks.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion. A good SEO will not be ashamed of their work. They won’t be working their way around finding loopholes to exploit. On the contrary, they’ll be a little proud of themselves, and willing to vouch that the work they do will stand up to the test of time.

If you hire an SEO, see an amazing boost in your SERPs rankings and traffic, then three months later your sudden spike in traffic and good rankings tank, well… you just got taken for what was probably an expensive ride, and need to look hard at your site to ensure they didn’t use any tactics that culd get you banned!

Blackhat SEO tactics like spamming, cloaking, link buying or selling and keyword stuffing might work short term, but will never get you where you relaly need to be or keep you there. Hire a reputable SEO firm with a slow and steady approach, and build your site the right way with SEO that lasts.

So, how has the year played out thus far? There have been a number of things rise and fall, alliances made and dissolved, prophecies touted and dissembled.

Cuil never made it big. No-one has bought Yahoo – yet! Bing … remains to be seen. Twitter is exploding, along with other social networks.

AOL is going strong. Jeeves is back. Organic search is where it’s at – and local is the next big thing, if companies will just sit up and take notice.

SEO is finally getting some respect – it may not deliver as much traffic as paid search, but what meat it does have is ‘cherce!’ The ROI is better for organic than paid search, and a few businesses are finally smelling the coffee.

Analytics are getting bigger, better and badder. Tracking conversions rates, time spent on pages, natural progressions and bounce rates makes all the difference.

So, where do you put your focus?

An SEO company like SubmitEdge can helo you from start to finish when it comes to keeping up with the latest in cutting edge search and marketing methods. Starting wityh XHTML validation for your site, web design services and web content, they can wlk you through the web, showing you the submission strategies and article marketing that can drive organic search, and the pay per click methods that bring in highly coveted keyword oriented searchers.

Linking is next – an airtight campaign for one way links increses traffic and PageRank, and blogging services boost your online appeal. Add a few well thought out social networks tot eh mix and you see where your website could be in a year!

Make the rest of 2009 count. There’s no time like the present, so take a look at the SubmitEdge family of service packages and figure out what can help catapult your site to i’s rightful place in search results.

Is submitting your site to Google enough? Only if you only want traffic form Google. Add in Yahoo and MSN, and your chances of showing up for search is much higher. The competition on these large search engines is considerable, however, and with more and more people moving towards vertical search, it is well worth your time to pay attention to the smaller search engines that still have a major impact on organic search traffic.

This doesn‘t mean FFA, or Free For All sites; submitting to these thousands of sites can cause you to be penalized or banned by the real search engines, so steer clear of companies that offer you thousands of listings. There are only a few hundred really high quality search engines at any one time, and SubmitEdge constantly re-evaluates and updates which search engines they submit your site to for indexing.

Many people who could have an international interest in their product neglect versions of search engines used abroad, and niche engines geared for specific industries. Think of all the people looking for what you have to offer, and try to imagine the hundreds of different search engines that exist! Aside from popular ones like Alexa, AOL, ATT, Buzzle, and Earthlink, there are many more that SubmitEdge can target to bring you localized traffic.

Of course, submission doesn’t guarantee a listing and a listing doesn’t guarantee a good ranking. But simply taking the first step to get listed is important! That is where SubmitEdge comes in – they quickly and efficiently get your site submitted to 200+ major search engines.

SubmitEdge makes a commitment to you. Our professionals will submit your site to only quality search engines. We will also be available – we provide excellent support to our customers, and all queries will be answered within 24 hours. You will receive a detailed report after the submission is complete, the same as all of our services. A good SEO firm is transparent about exactly what they have done for you, and offers proof of their actions.

If your site is only listed in Google, you could be making a costly mistake. Get in touch with your SEO and find out why you aren’t showing up in search in other engines, and take steps to get listed!

The many different approaches to search engine optimization (SEO) can be confusing to a new webmaster. As with all other processes and methods, there are honest ways to do things and crooked or illegal ones. Google says ‘Don’t be evil’, and the best policy is to have a solid site with transparent measures, and you will outlast competitors who use underhanded or shady tactics to try for the high ranking spots!

In SEO, if you create good content and do your homework when hiring search engine optimization experts to aid you with distribution, linking, social networking and the like, you will be fine. Utilizing affordable search engine optimization services will help add to your exposure all over the internet, letting you stay a step ahead of the competition and abreast of all the current trends. You need to make sure the company you are working with is ethical, though – some services will sue black hat tactics to get you to the top of the SERPs fast, then you will be left holding the bag whenthe Google police arrive to penalize you!

Navigation

It’s very frustrating to arrive at a website and have lots difficulty understanding where to go for the information you are looking for. You hate it when it happens to you, so make sure your visitors don’t hate you in turn! You need to use clearly marked navigation so your visitors click through to the appropriate page instead of away in exasperation. You also need the spiders to be able to easily navigate your site, indexing your text and links.

Linking

Acquiring link-backs from other strong websites helps to increase your site’s popularity. Find websites with similar content (who aren’t in direct competition with you) who have high link popularity. Make sure you only link to sites that have content you don’t mind being associated with. Make sure the links within and without your site all work!

Take Advice

Read blogs like this one for tips and tricks to strengthen your web presence and increase your traffic. There are many so called ‘gurus’ out there, but your best bet is to read several blogs and talk to some real life SEO experts and find out what does and doesn’t work. Always ask your SEO firm to show you exactly what they are doing and explain why – this will help keep you safe! A good SEO company will have no problem providing a report of each service they perform for you.

Top six questions about outsourcing

Sometimes you don’t have the time or expertise to do it all yourself, especially when it comes to marketing and optimization. Here are the top questions about hiring out, and a few tips on making the process smoother.

1) Do you hire an SEO, or an SEM firm?

Actually, most good firms do both – the two are really intertwined and you should always be optimizing in tandem with marketing.

2) How big of a firm should you hire?

You should hire one that is big enough to give you all the resources you need, but small enough to give you al the attention you need. Pick one that guarantees quick response to your calls or emails when you have questions – a good way to test drive a firm is to send them an email and see what happens. Of course, some firms will court you assiduously to get you in as a client, then ignore you except for payday, so make your query not too obviously related to becoming a client. If they respond in a prompt helpful manner, you have found a good one.

3) How much should this cost you?

Of course, we have to trot out the ‘it depends’ line – but you can normally select which services you need the most, or work out a monthly fee. This enables you to keep in budget.

4) What should the campaign include?

‘It depends’ again – a full service campaign will combine content, linking, social networking and marketing strategies. You can decide where you want your focus and plan accordingly.

5) How soon should you see results?

‘It depends (see a pattern, here?) If you are an established, indexed site, improvement will show up in increased rankings, traffic and conversions. If you are a new site, the process will be slower, but even more dramatic.

6) Can you expect returns if you veto recommendations?

Maybe, maybe not. The biggest gripe you see on SEO firm’s private blogs and forums is that customers refuse to follow directions, then blame the firm they hired for not providing results. You are hiring them to help you – so take their help and you will be more likely to see lasting results.

SEO/SEM firms are like anything else – there are good ones and bad ones. You want a firm you can trust to look out for your best interests.

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