Hiring an SEO

There’s been a lot of hoopla as of late about Google’s algo: de-ranking of blogs,  changing the face of SEO, blah, blah blah.  Maybe you’ve seen your rankings drop and are thinking of turning in your SEO fighting gloves and hiring a professional SEO.  If that’s the case, this post is for you. So just how do you choose good SEO consulting services?

How do you tell who’s blowing Web 2.0 smoke?   Bad SEO consultants do, promising that in exchange for a few hundred or thousand dollars, they can catapult your site to the top of search results pages, position 1, quickly and easily. Turn the other way when you hear such promises! Many of these charlatans even go the other way, giving no sense of performance guarantees.  It’s clear no one can promise you’ll be in the top spot of search results, but they can give you some indication as to what you will be getting. Some of the bad boys try to confuse you into purchasing their services by using technical terms (if you don’t understand what they are saying, they have to be good at what they are doing, right?) Wrong! Some aspects of SEO are technical, but the good guys can explain it to you so that you don’t go away scratching your head. Additionally, many bad SEO’s speak in generalities (“we performed a free webpage audit and are recommending changes in your titles, url structure, and keyword density”). Well, ask, why they are recommending these changes and what will happen if you do.

Sometimes you  need to interview a few SEO consulting services to find the right one for you. Ask questions: How long have they been in business? Any referrals? How much do they charge? Is is a fair price?  Good SEO consulting services maybe few in between, but you can find one that has the best mix of experience, pricing, and just generally makes you feel comfortable. When you do, stick with them…

 

Better Landing Pages

A big hurdle to overcome in the Affiliate Marketing space is the conversion of your traffic into sales. Why has this been a problem for so many? More than likely, the marketer didn’t focus on the quality of the page but instead on  where his traffic came from. Sure, you need targeted visitors, but if you cant get them to buy, whats the point? Therefore, creating a page that converts should be priority number 1.  How is this acccomplished?

How are your buttons?  Let’s imagine you’re selling rain water barrels and you have your “order now” link buttons all over the place (that’s OK). More than likely they won’t distract a reader from your main value prop. However, if you want your visitors to follow through on your call to action, you need to include a highlighted button that demands they take action to buy your rain harvesting product. Ensure good button size, colors and good wording flow.

Something else to consider is the length of your paragraphs. Keep these short. This is a must! Short paragraphs take less time and energy to read.  People are lazy and don’t like to read. Make your paragraphs 2 or 3 sentences long.  Less is more in this case.

Lastly, think about what people generally want. Make the pitch about them and not you.  Show them how the product solve their problems.  This build rappor and trust.

So there you have it – the secrets to profitable landing pages…

Risk FREE SEO Services

Need to drive quality traffic to your affiliate site? Aside from PPC ads, if you have a niche site that you feel is going to be around longterm (this is the recommend route right?), then SEO should be a part of your marketing strategy.

Large corporations have their own SEO departments. These are filled with their hired guns to make sure they rank well for strategic and competitive keywords. SEO is a crucial to their cause, as most people today do their research and buy online.  But what if you have limited budgets? You probably won’t be able to  hire SEO employees, but you can leverage SEO companies to do the work for you, with NO RISK and NO MONEY.  How?

What if there was an SEO company that worked like affiliates do, meaning they only get paid when you start ranking better?  Well there is.  One such company is AffordablePop.com. Their affordable SEO business model is genius! Tell them what you want to rank for, they will give you some suggestions, they get working on link building campaigns, and if you don’t rank, you don’t pay.  See the video below:

 

Ranking for keywords is serious business.  It takes time, money and time is money.  For help with your search engine ranking initiatives, AffordablePop’s guaranteed SEO services provides a unique, risk-free solution that is hard to beat.

SEO Basics

Is your landing page up yet? How serious are you in making it successful? If your answer is ‘Very!”, then SEO should be part or your marketing plan. But if you know next to nothing about it, then here’s the lowdown on SEO basics. If you can master the basics, then the rest will be much easier for you.

Let’s start with keyword research. How can you optimize your website if you do not know what keywords you should be targeting? Which ones are you going use? For instance, the identity theft niche has been hot for a few years now. Suppose you were marketing the IdentityHawk solution. Well, ask yourself: What keyword or search phrase, when typed into a search engine, should display my website as part of the results? Could you use “identity theft protection“? You could. Which keywords get the most traffic? Which ones are “informational” keywords (which may drive traffic but low conversions), and which ones are  ”buying” keywords (conversion-centric)? What is your competition ranking well for? How many inbound links does their website have? The answers to these questions will help you come up with a good keyword list.

After your keyword list is generated, you’ll need to them for your on-page optimization. What this means is that your keywords should be visible in the web copy of your website. You should put your keywords in the title, the H1 tag, the image alt tag, the meta description and of course, in the body of the text. Don’t overdue it (keyword stuffing), as this could get your site de-indexed.

Next comes Link building. Links are the most important factor in search engine optimization. Your goal should be to get as many quality links as you can. Quality being subjective, think of links that are surrounded by fresh, unique, relevant content on pages with adequate page rank.

These are just some of the SEO basics that you can do for your own website. Practice these and you can see great results within the coming months.

Tips For Increasing Your Google Page Rank

If you want great positioning in Google’s search results, go for better page rank. Higher PR can get  you better rankings and traffic. But if you are new to SEO, you may be clueless as to how to increase your site’s PR. For page rank, focus on building quality back links. When you get good backlinks you get better visibility and eventual higher PRfrom sites with high page rank,  as far as your SEO goals are concerned. If you want to rank higher in Google and get more traffic, use the following tips and watch your page rank soar. Whether you’re using video marketing to target a specific niche, the following mistakes are the ones that you need to avoid.

You may get frustrated when you see other sites outranking you in Google for certain keywords. Quality content is the one factor that Google and other search engines consider most of all when ranking sites. Increasing your page rank is all about understanding these various elements that get together to give you the exposure you want. If you want Google to value your site and give it high preference, then start focusing on the quality of your content. Besides that, when you have good content on your site, you’ll automatically find other relevant sites and blogs linking to you. This will give you relevant backlinks that will also help you to get a higher page rank. This is the most basic principle to remember if you want to improve your page rank.

If you have a blog, you should also submit it to blog directories because search engines love them and they have a lot of incoming links which means a higher page rank. Try to find directories that are “do follow” so that you can submit your link and increase your page rank with their help. Most of these blog directories are free but some of them charge a small fee; go ahead and pay it if you can because it’s usually worth it. You can easily find these blog directories by searching on Google. So for instance, if your targeted niche is Blueprint Project , then you should make videos about it with quality content.

Last but not the least; make sure you code your site the right way. You need to make it easy for the search engine spiders to crawl your site and view your text. It isn’t helpful for you to use JavaScript/DHTML. Since search engines don’t have the ability to read flash, if your site uses this you should have an HTML page for visitors. You will have a hard time raising your page rank if your site isn’t constructed with the search engines in mind. You should focus on making consistent progress and building your page rank gradually.

A Useful Link Building Tool – Social Bookmarking

Link building can be very time consuming but like it or not, it is also an unavoidable part of any internet marketing strategy. Here’s some tips to help speed things up for you and make the whole process easier…

1. Know What Keywords to target

From your keyword research have your top 5 or 10 keyword phrases ready to use these in your link anchor text

(you have done keyword research, right? If not stop link building and go back a step or 3 … do your keyword research!  )

So for example, I would use Web Design Australia as a link rather than (say) the straight URL webdesignspecialist.com.au or even the company name Web Design Specialist. Yes you want to rank well for your company name but unless its something that you know people are going to search for you’re better off concentrate on the keyphrases instead.

The top 3 search engines won’t just rank your website number if it has the right keywords and matching content, in some cases the most relevant site won’t make it to the front page of Google. This is because the site doesn’t have enough backlinks for it to rank and hence isn’t popular enough yet.

3. Find Authoritative sites and get links from them

Most Search engines see links back to your site as a “vote of confidence” for your site. But that’s not the whole story – if only it were !

The more relevant and authoritative the site providing the link back is, the more weight is given to the link.

It’s not always easy (or cheap) but try and get links from sites that are in a related or similar field to yours -  it’ll be well worth it. It can count as valuable as a dozen or a hundred “not related” links.

Example of what is a “relevant link” : for me as a web designer a paid link in a web designer directory or a link from a hosting company of a web design forum would be valuable. To an online clothing store these links would be considerably less valuable ( since they are not thematically linked to the clothing industry)

4. Don’t waste your time in reciprocal linking

Now this might be a bit controversial for some but unless there’s a real compelling reason to “exchange links” it’s generally not worth the effort. Especially where the same effort could gain you a more valuable one-way link!

I am not saying don’t exchange links.  Just don’t expend a lot of effort in doing so.

If your website is about red cars you will want to target links from other red car sites but you can also go after general car sites and forums. These are relevant backlinks and hold some more weight in the search rankings. It’s also ok to grab links from yellow boats websites but these may not hold as much weight.

In the end it’s a matter of getting as many links pointing back to your site with your chosen keywords in the anchor text. More links equates to more visibility in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and consequently more relevant, organic traffic to your site…

How To Do Your Keyword Research Correctly

When dealing with a online business, keyword research is likely the most crucial part of your job when you’re preparing to design and build a website. It really doesn’t matter what you’ve planned for the website, assuming that you do indeed have something planned for it, because if you want your website to be seen by others in any meaningful number, then you’ll need to pay particular attention to this task.

In simple terms, a keyword is a single word or a few words put together into a phrase which describe something in particular. Hence, your keyword could be “dogs” or something more complex, such as “yellow Labrador retrievers”. This latter phrase is known as a long tail keyword, or in other words, a more detailed description of a simpler term.  The success of a website is based around the relevance of a keyword or set of keywords – even if the owner of the site doesn’t realize it! In most circumstances, your chosen keywords should directly relate to the nature and purpose of your website.

It should be common sense, that if you’re pursuing website development for a meaningful purpose, perhaps as a commercial business, then it’s absolutely essential that you plan its construction very carefully. Part of this construction involves the correct selection of keywords appropriate to your subject, topic or niche. Once you’ve selected your keywords, you should then build your website accordingly, and with a fairly structured approach. This is commonly known as search engine optimisation, as it’s the method by which you can ensure that everyone else – across the world, can find your site if they’re interested in what you’re discussing, promoting or selling.

Keyword research is the cornerstone of this task. There are a variety of different points of view, but in our highly competitive world market, you should make sure that your keywords aren’t just appropriate, but realistic with respect to the level of competition too. As you will be trying to “rank” for your keywords (or end up as high as you possibly can within the ubiquitous search engine rankings of sites relevant to your niche), you must make sure that you have a good chance of doing so, firstly, and then secondly orchestrate your approach to give yourself the best chance possible.

One of the most common mistakes that most individuals (including some so-called SEO experts) make is to misinterpret the actual supply and demand for your chosen keywords.

Demand: there are many tools, some more complex and more costly than others, which determine the demand for your keyword or long-tail keyword. In simple terms, how many people are searching for information directly related to your keywords. Google and others have a way of measuring the number of times that someone will search their engines for that exact keyword. They will supply you with figures which show, on a monthly basis and broken down into geographical territories if you wish, the number of times someone entered that phrase into the search box. This will give you a good idea of what the actual “demand” for information about your keyword is.

Supply: if you go to Google’s search page and enter your keyword in the search box, you’ll come up with a number of sites which Google considers to be relevant to that phrase. In some cases this can run into the many, many millions. If your keyword is – and it probably will be, a long tail, you should know that this initial supply figure is based on a broad analysis, and in order to get a realistic return on the number of relevant sites, you’ll need to enter your keyword in quotes “”. By doing this you’ll see that the number of sites returned is significantly lower, this being a good indication of the “supply” for that keyword. The websites returned in this way will be your competitors.

As you’ll quickly see from conducting this exercise, a very broad keyword – such as “dog”, has a very high demand and a very high supply. Don’t be tempted to run after this demand as the chances of ranking highly for this keyword are not that good. Generally speaking – the higher the demand, the higher the existing supply. However, part of the skill of keyword research is in developing long tail keywords that more accurately describe your particular niche. For example, if we research “yellow Labrador retrievers”, we can see that there is a reasonable amount of demand – somewhere in the region of 3000 searches per month for that term, and a low amount of supply – less than 1000 competing sites. In this example, we would likely include this exact keyword in our campaign.

This is just an overview into keyword research, which should be an integral part of your plan to develop your business. Choose wisely and get targeted, organic travel and consequently, conversions….

Increase Your Sites Search Results Position

Organic Search Engine Optimization or  SEO are tecnique used  for improving the position of a website in the search engines results pages (SERPs). Although there are many ways to gain lift in the SERPs, only a few are sanctioned by Search Engines (specifically Google).  Those allowed are oftern alluded to as white hat tecniques. The rest are referred to as black hat and can lead to being penalized by the Google gods.

Black hat techniques involve many differnt practices such as keyword stuffing, website link farms and content spinning.  Stuffing, an now defunct tecnique was the use of repeating keywords (invisible to the website visitor) over and over on a web page.  The keyword might occasionally be typed several times on with background color to remain obscure to reader.  Llink farms are a group of websites that have been interlinked. This meant that a user would constantly end up at the targeted web sites. The large quantity of websites inside the group meant an assured amount of links and visitors. Content spinning is typically the use of plagiarised content from another site.  The written content material is rephrased and edited just before becoming published to attract the same quantity of hits as the authentic content.

White hat SEO optimization tactics are authorized by search engines and generally do not result inside the website being eliminated from the search engine index. These SEO optimization tecniqies  consist of writing original, keyword rich content for that website. Internal linking, the process of linking within a site, is nother valued SEO .

So the takeway: use whitehat and not blackhat and be carefull with gray

SEO: What Every Online Marketer Needs to Know

Staying abreast of Search Engine Optimization or SEO often feels like you’re putting in a 80-hour week. Search engines always seem to be tweaking the formulas they use to determine how your site ranks. Within a few months, the page ranks shift. So what you worked so hard to accomplish this month may be much further down the list next month. You can’t celebrate getting a front page Google ranking because in a month it may be on page sixty. It all hinges on just how much the spiders visit your site. The fact is, however, that SEO is an important part of internet marketing. Figuring out the ins and outs of SEO will give you the best chance at succeeding in Internet business. There are some secrets you can discover to work on your next project.

Search Engine Optimization will take you only a certain part of the way. You have to have the reader in the back of your mind always, whether you are penning press releases, articles, blogs, etc. Really material should be written exactly for the audience. Despite the essential nature of SEO, it won’t do you any good if your information and content is useless and not entertaining. Don’t appeal to just the search engine spiders, or else you won’t have good content. This will turn off most of your website traffic and they will simply click back out of your site. You want to succeed, right?

The sites that are most likely to rise in the search engine ranks are sites that have fresh content on a regular basis. When you keep your content fresh, it will show visitors that you are doing what you can to offer new material. Make it a point to upload your SEO content as often as possible. Not only do the search engine spiders love it but your readers will too.

With a constantly fresh website, your audience will keep returning and purchasing your items and services on offer. This is a part of SEO that is always consistent.  But if you’re not into SEO, then check out PPV Playbook and learn PPV instead.

Here is a huge tip to help you: Anytime you place a link on your site, either internal or outbound links, make it a point to include the keyword or keyword phrase that you have picked for your site. Reading so much better than simply a “Click Here!” lying in the midst of a paragraph, good links that relate to your site help the search engine majors. Readers prefer links that occur within the content they are reading because it takes them on a treasure hunt to find even more information about the subject. Your readers will more than likely be turned off by something that says, “Click Here!” because it feels like you’re pushing a sale on them.

You still have a lot to learn about search engine optimization. You might start to get discouraged by the amount of time it takes to juggle all of the inbound and outbound links, as well as your keywords and phrases! Regardless of this, you can get a great grasp on SEO and won’t have to work so hard to optimize your content in time. Having a firm grasp of the essentials of SEO will allow you to do it without a second thought. No matter where you are in the world of Internet marketing, you have to pay attention to SEO. If people didn’t use SEO, it would be impossible to find anything!

And while yoiu’are at it, check out PPV Playbook review if it doesn’t work out.

Increasing Traffic With Geodomains

Webmasters increase their chances of getting high search engine placement by including a popular keyword in their domain name. However, if a keyword is very popular, including it in a domain might not help, even if the website it’s pointing to is also optimized. So many Internet Marketers suggest that domains as well as their corresponding websites use long tailed keywords that aren’t as competitive. A good way of doing this is to include keywords based on geography. When such a keyword is used in a domain, it is known as a geodomain.

Geodomains are highly used in the tourism industry. For example, if a person visits Maryland.com, they will see a site that offers information on the activities they can take part in while in Maryland. However, this should not dissuade other markets from centering in on a geodomain. As long as a service or product can be distributed outside of the webmaster’s location, they should consider using geodomains that target national or even international audiences.

However, geodomain marketing may work better for some industries than for others. Why? It’s because the areas that people live in have their own sociological and cultural needs. Even if one markets in their own country, people living in one state or province may not have as much of a demand for a particular product or service. For example, consider a website that is marketing private boats. If they use a geodomain that encompasses an area that is lower-income, naturally, their efforts won’t result in many sales. This is why it’s important that webmasters investigate the general characteristics associated with the area they would like to create a geodomain for.

How can a webmaster find a geodomain name? Well, chances are state-based or country-based geodomains are taken at least for the most common domain name extensions. If they can’t get these types of geodomains with lesser known extensions, they can consider combining a geographical term with something else or look for a more specific geodomain.  When looking for something more specific, webmasters will need to think about making geodomains based off of cities, counties and popular neighborhoods. They need to do this both for their own country and for other countries, provided that their website can meet the needs of an international audience.

In conclusion, a geodomain can be a good method for marketing, if a webmaster is prepared to appeal to a local audience. Research will still be required to ensure a geodomain fits properly with what is being promoted, but overall a webmaster will find that with the right geodomain, they will generate more sales with less advertising expense.

This is because the keywords used in geodomains are not overly used, especially those that are very descriptive. And when that’s the case, a website has a greater chance of ranking higher in the SERPs.