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What To Look For When Shopping For A SEO Specialist
When, shopping for a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company/specialist you need to be aware of a few things.
If someone offers you fast results they may be pulling your leg. If you aren't listed on search engines the average time to be index takes around 4 weeks. Someone offering submissions in less then that is coning you. Websites that are already listed and are just being updated will have a faster result.
A guarantee isn't always reinsurance. Just because a site states they can get you in the #1 spot doesn't mean they can deliver. Or, they may have you listed under an obscure keyword or phrase. Most legitimate SEO's will tell you no one can guarantee a top stop on all keywords and phrases. Search Engine optimization is not an exact science. Trail and error along with constant tweaking will help bring your site closer to your goal.
Most SEO's should give you some information on where your site stands currently. You links, keywords, where you rank on major search engines etc.. Or, do one yourself. My article "Google's Helping hand" show you free tools that can help you evaluate where you are on search engines. Don't go into any SEO work blindly. Know where you stand before and after.
Price is never an indication of how good a service is. More isn't always better.
Shop around try to get the most for your money, but be realistic. If it seems too good to be true then it may just be. Be prepared to shell out some cash. SEO is not cheap. You should think of SEO as advertising. It should be contestant as should all of your advertising efforts.
Ask questions! Do not be afraid to ask what will be done to increase your ranking. Most SEO's will have no problem telling you what they will do. They may not want to reveal their whole SEO operation. But, they will give you some insight to what they will do. Talk to more then one SEO company. Compare what each has to say. Do some research on your own. Find out if these companies have been reported to the Better Business Bureau. If the company or persons have had any articles or reviews written about them. Ask around. Try to have some idea of the company or persons creditability.
A few additional things to keep in mind are:
Is SEO there main business or is it a sideline to other businesses. SEO is a full time job. Especially, keeping up with the constant changes.
Do they have a specialist?
Do they outsource?
How much do they really know?
What are there view points on link farms and doorway pages?
Will they do anything to get you links and traffic? Even though search engines frown on those practices.
Can they explain to you clearly how their plan of action?
Are they looking to take small steps with you?
Or, are they trying to sell you the biggest SEO package possible?
Follow this outline when you are searching for someone to optimize your site. In the end it will be worth it.
Joe Balestrino's site is http://www.mr-seo.com where he offers affordable SEO, submissions and other articles on SEO and marketing. His other site http://www.jnb-design.com offers affordable web design and free lifetime hosting.
Google PageRank Explained
PageRank - an exclusive technology developed by Google which can have a major impact on the success of your website. This article will attempt to explain the concept of PageRank and how your ranking can be improved without spending any money at all.How is PageRank beneficial?Google refers to the technology as a way of evaluating the usefulness, importance, and quality of a website. The PR of a webpage can mean different things for different people.For a webmaster, a high PR is a sign of accomplishment. It shows that your website is moving in the right direction and has the potential to become successful. PageRank also directly effects your Google search engine listings. Acquiring a higher PR than your competition could mean more traffic for you, and less traffic for your competitors.Visitors to your website probably won't care about the page's rank (most surfers have no idea what PageRank is). However, visitors who understand PageRank may use your PR as a sign of how credible your content is. Would you rather use the information from a website with 0 PR or a website with 5 PR and hundreds of other websites linking to it?How is PageRank determined?PageRank is basically determined by backlinks. A backlink is when another page links to your page. For every page that links to you, that page is "voting" for you. The more votes you get, the better your PageRank will be. However, it gets more complicated than that because some votes weigh more heavily than others. The weight of the vote is determined by the PageRank of the page linking to you. This means that a couple links from pages with high PR could be more beneficial than hundreds of links from pages with low PR. But it gets even more complicated - each page can only transfer so much PageRank. The set amount of PR that the page can transfer must be split up between each "vote" that the page gives out. This means that a PR 7 page could actually give out as much weight per vote as a PR 3 page if it had too many outgoing links.How can I improve my PageRank?There are many different methods to obtain quality backlinks to your website. You will find that some methods work better than others depending on the subject and popularity of your site.DirectoriesSubmitting your website to directories is one of the best ways to increase your PageRank and even get some traffic at the same time. But submitting your site to just a few directories won't be good enough. You need to sit down and spend the necessary time to submit your site to a large amount of directories. This may seem like a painstakingly long process, but you'll be glad you did it when you notice results. I have taken the time to make a large list of free directories with high PageRank which you visit here. Although directories with low PR may seem like a waste of time, you should submit your site to them too because it still helps and they could eventually become a high PR site which charges money to submit to.Link ExchangesA very common practice to improve your PageRank is a link exchange. This is simply where two people link to the other person's website. It's best that you only link exchange with someone who has at least as much PR as you and the subject of the two websites are similar. If you receive a link from a website with a subject which has nothing to do with yours, you'll find that very little if any PR will actually be transferred to you.Forum SignaturesIf you are an active user on a forum or message board, it would be wise to put a link to your website in your signature. This could help improve your PageRank if the forum has a high PR, it could help improve your traffic from the forum members seeing your signature, and your site could get spidered more often because it is linking to a forum (forums generally have a lot of new content every day and search engines love new content).Buy AdvertisingAlthough it isn't the best of choices, many webmasters will buy text link ads on websites with high PR. Although this can be effective, it can be very expensive and only a temporary thing. If you purchase text links for just a couple months, after the months are over you won't have the backlinks which were giving you the "votes" you needed to keep your PageRank. So you have now spent a large amount of money on text links, but in the end you're right back where you started.ArticlesThis is a method which not many people know about. Basically, you write articles about the subjects you know a lot about. You then let other people use these articles as long as they provide a link back to your site. If you wrote a quality article, you'll find many websites will want to use it, thus giving you plenty of backlinks. This method can work well with anything which you develope and give away for free such as scripts, web design, etc.Stay On Google's Good SideThe most important thing to remember when trying to increase your PageRank is to not cheat and to always follow the rules. The people which run Google aren't fools and they have many ways of catching cheaters. Don't even think about using any of the "link farms" or trying to hide keywords on your pages. If caught, you may not get unbanned for many months.Make A Quality WebsiteIf you have a quality website which your visitors enjoy going to, then you will receive backlinks without having to do anything. Websites will link to you with the intention of informing people of a helpful resource, or showing off a cool new website they found, or any other reason other than trying to increase your PageRank. If you build it, backlinks will come...
The Search Engine Of The Future: Mobility Has A Pricetag
We all know the ease of using a search engine to garner information from around the world in microseconds. We've gotten accustomed to accessing these for the price of our hookup to the internet, be it dial-up, cable or wireless. But as more of our world connects via wireless media, what is included in our 'free look' may be changing.
Going To Market: Keywords and Backlinks, Part 1
As I waded into the 'Make Money Online' waters on the Internet, I felt I needed to do some research on what keywords might help me generate traffic for my websites. I am very, very new to this whole Internet marketing arena but at the simplest level it seems that the keys to generating income are:
Is My Search Engine Optimization Working?
You've just built a website and can't wait to start popping up in the top listings of search engines. After all, you've paid this company even more money to create "optimized, search engine friendly pages, start building links and add lots of fresh content." If it takes weeks and months for the search engines to notice me, do I have to wait that long to see if the money was worth it?
Is Reciprocal Linking Dead?
I just read an article at SitePro News that really rings my bell.
Can Google Really Deliver Country Specific Searching?
This is a serious matter, can Google really deliver top quality search results for other countries? The answer so far is "sort of". In this article I will use Canada as an example of the quality or lack of thereof, that is delivered by Google's search results.
Understanding Googles Algorithm
What is the Google Algorithm?
A Simple 4 Step Approach To Have Google Crawl Your Site Today Guaranteed!
Extra, Extra Google Now Gives you feedback. By Creating a Google Sitemap using free online tools you can get Google to crawl your site within 24 Hours. As an Added bonus after Google Crawls your site they give you feedback about any problems they encountered. To take advantage of this amazing service from yahoo just follow these 4 simple steps.
Copywriters: Make Friends with Search Engine Optimization
I don't know about you, but I felt a lot of internal resistance when it was first suggested to me that I write 'for' the search engines.
Importance of Keywords in Anchor Text or Title Text
Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an anchor text.
Optimize Your Site Pt2
6: The hidden benefits to having the right links. Every site online has an index or default file as its home page file. But outside of that rule you can name the other pages whatever you like. So why not cram the names with keywords and/or keyphrases relevant to that page and your site? We've just scored again ;-)
Search Engine Updates vs. SEO
Webmasters always anxiously wait for a search engine update. Those who rank well want to see their sites get even better. Those who didn't do well expect a major boost. Those whose sites get de-indexed anticipate a major comeback. Those who just started new sites bet on their sites will make into the first page of search engine result pages (SERPs) for their targeting keywords. Of course, not everyone will be happy about the results of search engine updates. After all, search engine traffic is a zero-sum game - someone loses and someone gains. Then, the webmasters start preparing for next update.
Googles PR System Explained
The complexities of Google's PR (Page Ranking) System have grown more difficult to understand since the Hilltop Algorithm was introduced. This beginner's guide to the PR system explains the basics of what PR is, what it does, and how it affects your site's rankings. This revolutionary search algorithm has made it to where the most relevant and popular sites with the best content do the best on Google's search page. Keep in mind, this algorithm is kept secret by Google for fear of it being exploited, but the basics have been released for study.
Build Link Popularity The Smart Way
A Brief Introduction To Link Popularity
Webmaster-Friendly Google Operators
There are a lot of operators (commands you can enter in the Google search box to return specific results) you can plug into Google in order to find what you want. For webmasters and website owners, however, a few particular operators can be especially useful. Operators can be used to locate potential link partners, evaluate current inbound links, and determine what pages of your website still need to be added to the index. Here are the operators we think you should know:
Importance of Keywords in Links to Your Website
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a very complex process. It is a long-term process that will usually never produce results that you can see in days or weeks. By now you probably heard about the importance of getting other websites to link to yours so that you can get a higher ranking in search engines. You listed your websites in some directories and also received a few other links to your website.
Its Not Just All About Google Anymore
Those webmasters that stick to the old ways and focus entirely on Google are missing out on a lot of search traffic these days if they are not also well ranked by Yahoo and MSN.
Stuck on Keywords
Keywords have turned into big business on the internet. If you pick the keywords that your customers are typing in, then your product is finally exposed to your perfect customer. That keyword is gold. Either you have run out of keyword ideas, you don't know where to look, you haven't had time, you need an easy to use tool, whatever the reason, I'm here to help.
How I Suddenly Stumbled Onto No.1 In Google and Yahoo Without Search Engine Optimization - So What?
Sometimes, the search engines act really strange. And this story will prove how I've got top positions (80% on no.1) into the major search engines - such Google, Yahoo!, MSN - without lifting a finger! What is REALLY strange? I did not optimize my page!
Increase Your Search Engine Ranking
There are methods to increase your search engine rankings which may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue.