| |
| |
|
SEO Articles |
|
|
|
How to Pick an SEO Firm
If you're looking for an SEO firm, we recommend that you weigh 10 factors that can save you trouble down the road. 1. Check out their experience. You shouldn't have to try hard to find samples of their clients or their SEO performance on individual websites. How competitive are their search terms that are ranking well on Google? Are the search terms that are ranking well difficult terms to position--one, two and three word phrases, or are they easy terms to position because no one else is using them at all--six, seven and eight word terms? 2. Ask for testimonial letters. Insist on letterheads from the clients that feature real names, not Fred from Cleveland or J.T. from New York. Call these references and ask them questions about the SEO performance of the company you are considering. 3. Ask them to document their process. What policies and procedures do they follow? Are they consistent? Do they stay away from unethical procedures that could put your site in jeopardy with the search engines? 4. Get staff credentials. Find out who is doing the work. You really need a team of people - no one person can be proficient in every area of server administration, programming, marketing, writing, link building and more. Get to know the team a bit. 5. Be suspicious of money back guarantees. Unless it's super-clear, you have to wonder about the details of the guarantee. If a firm offers one, including Top 10 placement, ask them to elaborate. Which key words are included? Just one Top 10? Do they plan to achieve Top 10 rankings among natural results or pay-per-click? Are the Top 10 listings associated with your web site or a supplemental web site the SEO firm controls? 6. Get pricing information. Is the SEO contract for hourly, monthly or annual services? Get prices from a few other firms as well, but be aware that the scope of services may vary greatly from firm to firm. Insist that the firm you're interested in explain why it charges more for services, if that's the case. 7. Ask about reporting. How many keywords will the firm handle? How many pages? Find out whether you'll be able to access the latest data about your project. How often is it provided? What's included? Some firms just send a ranking report. What other details can you expect in terms of the overall strategy, next steps, web site traffic and conversions? 8. Determine the firm's ethical standards. What are the firm's practices when it comes to ethical standards and practices? How far will they go? How do they view doorway pages, cloaking and keyword stuffing? 9. Know your objectives. You need to have some idea of what you want to accomplish when selecting an SEO firm. Do you simply want to promote your brand? Do you want to increase visitors and push traffic to retailers? Do you want to improve online sales? Which categories of products will matter the most in your campaign? 10. Come up with a budget. You can submit your web site pages (not optimized) for free or through services that cost well below $100. Optimizing is another matter--It's going to cost money. Have some flexibility--the level of service and the firm's expertise will determine whether you pay hundreds of dollars or well over a $1,000 a month. Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland, Ohio-based search engine marketing (SEM) firm. A member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), he also authored the white paper, "Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game."
MORE RESOURCES:
SEO - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Make Quality Content Your #1 Priority It is by now a proven fact that content is the most important element for getting better pagerank and, consequently, more traffic.Furthermore, the best ranking websites have content that is better written than most other sites. How To Become an SEO Expert - 5 Secrets That Will Allow You to Outperform 95% of All Webmasters Becoming an SEO expert, or a search engine optimization expert, is something that is worth your while if you are interested in getting your web page noticed and increasing your traffic. It is not hard to become an SEO expert if you simply know what steps you need follow to take you there. Search Engine Marketing: Are You Accidentally Hiding From Potential Customers? You may be hiding if the search engines can't 'see' all of your site's relevant content.You've invested a great deal of time and effort carefully crafting compelling, helpful website content for prospective customers. Part I : Getting Free Hits Using These Simple Tips & Tricks Search Engine OptimizationSearch engines still remain the #1 tool to generate free targeted traffic to any website, so make sure that your site is indexed in every major search engine. Do a through check of all the meta tags and make sure you are not missing any one. Internet 2005: The Ten Billions Pages Search Engines To see each and every page during 10 seconds would take 694 days 24/24. The leading search engines fight to be the first that oversteps this level. The Biggest SEO Scam of All While there are many ethical SEO firms serving Internet users today, a few notorious practitioners also exist. One of them called me just the other day. Importance of Keywords in Anchor Text or Title Text Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an anchor text.First of all, for those who are still learning the ropes let us define an anchor text. Advertise Locally Using Search Engines While search engine advertising has been a great advertising medium for businesses capable of or interested in marketing their products and services to a national or international audience, the effectiveness of this type of advertising was limited for businesses interested in advertising to a local market until very recently.For example, a realtor with a web site in Minneapolis is likely interested in advertising on search terms such as "homes for sale" and "sell my home. Easy SEO in 6 Simple Steps If you want to increase traffic to your website and better your search engine positioning, here is an easy 6 step process that will enable you to do so.1. List Building vs. Search Engine Optimization It seems the excitement about search engine optimization fades in and out from time to time. The more people talk about search engine optimization (SEO) the more it seems to be the logical choice for bringing customers to your site. Why Top Search Engine Placements Never Move? #1 question when it comes to web advertising is how do I get top 10 search engine placements for the terms I wish to aquire?Without getting into how to aquire #1 placements (Since there are virtually 100's of articles explaining these techniques), let's instead look into how companies who do end up aquiring them, never seem to loose them.. The Latest Craze: Local Search, 7 Steps to Being #1 in Your Local Market Anyone would agree that it is much easier to be number 1 out of 100 or 500 then 1 Million or 200 Million. With these 7 Steps you should have no problem being number 1 in your Local Market or MarketsA Recent Search on the Term Book Store Yielded over 200,000,000 Million Results in the Yahoo Search engine. Straight Talk on Search Engine Optimization To get your website listed well in the major search engines, you have to perform search engine optimization (SEO). . Getting One Way SEO Links - The Easy and FREE Way What we are hunting for?Unique Domains,One Way Links,Text Link copy of our choice ,The ability to change those links,Sites that have PR and cover our choice topic .. Search Engines from a Webmaster Perspective By now, virtually every webmaster has heard or read that the major search engines are responsible for 80% or more of the traffic received by most web sites and that most searchers never look beyond the first 20 - 50 search results. Not surprisingly, an entire industry devoted to search engine ranking and search engine optimization (SEO) has sprung up to capitalize on these well known facts. How to Get Non-stop Free Traffic to Your Website Yet the simple truth is that without traffic a website cannot be successful. Lack of traffic really need not be a problem because there are various free, proven ways of generating traffic that will cost you nothing but get you lots of traffic without you having to spend anything. Why SEO Will Make or Break You, Part 1 Today's article is about the wonders of SEO. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. Without Conversion Rates You Don’t Know If You’re Mickey Mouse Or Mickey Mantle I couldn’t agree more with the headline of this article and it’s one I’m afraid I can’t take credit for. I found this line in Paco Underhill’s book, Why We Buy – The Science Of Shopping, and found myself comparing many of the things he has measured in the retail world to the tests I’ve done with online, visitor-based activity. SEO Made Easy! Search engine optimization remains a minefield of old advice, outdated ideas and outright dangerous techniques that can get you banned. Here's the main points to great search engine optimization. Search Engine Keywords - What Do People Search For? Do you ever wonder how people search for things on the Internet? What if you knew exactly what words they typed when using a search engine? If you're marketing a product or service it's extremely insightful to know what are the most popular search terms relating to whatever you're marketing.The Overture CompanyOverture.
|
| Home | Sitemap | Forums | Contact Us | Advertise |
| © 2006 SEO Articles. A Real Web Talk Presentation. Network Sites : Index Rated Directory | SEO Care Directory | Humour Inc. | Free Mobile Ringtones | A1hosts | SEO Blog the four required words |
