Category Archives: SEO

Search Engine Optimisation and the old, new and different opinions, techniques and advice associated with making it a positive aspect of a website.

SEO Services and SEO Budgets

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SEO Services and SEO Budgets

Many people and businesses believe that there is a “secret” method used to become the top website.  Surely there exists some rapid way of securing top placement results and getting all that juicy targeted traffic?

Yes there is, if you don’t know what your doing, so choosing a reputable company or individual to perform your works is essential.

The result of “blackhat” or unethical SEO is inevitably blacklisting and a ban from the search engines meaning you revert back to ZERO nevermind a complete lack of results in the meantime.

Always ensure that the application of SEO is done legitimately by checking out your service provider or SEO specialist thoroughly via their client list, testimonials, philosophy of process and application and their on-line reputation. It’s a simple matter of asking around, something you would do with any business in any type of industry.

If anyone ever claims to “have a contact at Google” or guarantees you amazing results overnight, then walk away, no… in fact RUN!

Some of the things to be wary of are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamdexing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_stuffing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking

How to find a quality SEO service.

There are a variety of way to source a good quality SEO company and some of them are not immediately obvious.  Mopst people looking for SEO services will immediately do a search on Google. It is also not necessicarily true however that a good quality SEO company will be at the top listings for search terms either, although this would certinaly go a long way to qualifying them as reliable service providers but also this would imply that they are expensive and possibly beyond your allocated budget.

One of the most reliable places to begin would be a business forum, on twitter or indeed by asking some of the top Bloggers (usually individual SEO experts) who they would recommend, if it is not apparent already on their site and by gathering this feedback and recommendations you can begin to formulate and decide on who would provide the best quality service for you and your business against your budget.

On the subject of Budgets, make sure you establish a realistic amount for your SEO. A completely pointless exercise is contacting any provider without having a budget in mind.  The reason for this is that the whole campaign or schedule of works will be dictated by this budget over time in order to establish how the works will be deployed.

Countless times I have had people ask me:

“How much does SEO cost?”

the only reasonable response and the one people do not want to hear is the only truthful answer:

“How much have you budgeted to spend?”

As Second advantage to establishing a budget is that you will be aware and comforatble with the allocated cost of the SEO.  This allows you to factor the cost into your overall business expenses and avoid any surprises.  The only reason that you would deviate from your allocated business plan, in this case, is if the required works you establish change dramatically or extra works are required on top.  Again, a good service provider will be able to assess, account and advise for this in advance without disrupting the work already in progress and then incorporate it into the overall campaign.

SEO Budget Comparisons

The final advantage of establishing a budget, and possibly the most important in the initial stages of choosing a provider is the ability to compare quotes across different companies.  By establishing a budget and approaching three seperate companies you can then state clearly what you wish to allocate to the campaign and they can respond clearly to the services provided for that amount.

For example, call any three companies and ask the question “How much is SEO?”.

In response you will get one company offering it for 1,000 Euros, another for 12,000 Euros and a final for 50,000 Euros.  You are left totally in the dark in regards to which company will actually give the best value for money.

By approaching them with the statement:

” I have a budget of 10,000 euros, what services can you provide against this for the next 6 months and what results would you expect to achieve?”

The three responses you will get back will be a lot more detailed, more relevant and more COMPARABLE.

The key point here is the comparability. Because you have defined the parameters of the project more accurately via this simple statement the responses will be more accurate and as they are constrained by the budget and time frame then the decision on which service provider to choose is made so much more simple.

Misunderstanding SEO

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People are confused and in other cases scared by SEO & SEO Experts and understandably so.

In essence, it is a complicated and analytical process covering a wide spectrum of disciplines and requirements. Most of these misunderstandings have developed because of these factors:

  • Technology develops at such a rate that it is difficult to stay on top of all the options.
  • There is a misconception that SEO is easy, that doing one or two things will work and when this does not happen frustration and disappointment prevail.
  • Very few people understand the full extent of what SEO involves and how the practice of SEO is actually implemented. A business simply wants effective results.
  • We all see how SEO is cheap, but when presented with the facts the reality becomes apparent that cheap SEO is a waste of money.
  • We see huge variations in prices for SEO and become suspicious at the super cheap and also the super expensive.
  • It is difficult for a business to understand the requirements of website design and development in relation to Search Engine Optimisation.
  • No one actually KNOWS categorically what SEO involves (Yes this sounds strange but I will expand upon this in another post).

Over the next few days I will be doing a series of posts expanding upon some of the areas involved in SEO and dispelling and clarifying these misconceptions.

Post 1: SEO Services and SEO Budgets
Post 2: SEO and Keyword Density
Post 3: Linking and Backlinking
Post 4: Writing content for your Visitor
Post 5: Is W3C validation worthwhile?
Post 6: Permalinks and Clean URLS
Post 7: Website Submission

Keyword targeting for businesses explained

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Explaining the importance and relevance of targeting keywords for your business.

To view the full sized image click the graphic or here.

Keyword targeting for businesses explainedThe diagram above aims to explain in simple terms the relationships between:

Keyword targeting for businesses explainedkeywords vs traffic vs competition vs quality

To view the full sized image click the graphic or here.

Most of us are under the impression that we need large quantities of traffic in order to generate sales or enquiries via our website.

This is not necessarily the case. Search Engines are a service provider and want their users to find the correct information, something relevant, something needed, otherwise the user will simply switch to a different search engine to get the required results.

When we search we all begin in the general, usually one or two words. For the sake of an example lets choose the word “car”.

If I own a car dealership I would naturally think that I want to be in the number 1 position in the Search Engines for the word “car”. But do you really need it and will you make money, or could it actually cost you money AND reputation.

Using the diagram I can example my reasoning.

In the first blue triangle I choose 1 keyword.  Following on to the pink triangle I see that it has the highest traffic at 5. The third navy triangle immediately tells me however, that it also has the highest possible competition with 5 and the green triangle shows me that the quality of the visitor will be considered a 1, or the lowest quality.

Why is the traffic so high?
Because the word “Car” is popular and searched for by millions of people.

Why is the competition high?
Because so many different companies, manufacturers, fans, collectors or clubs want to be gaining that traffic.

Why is the quality so low?
You sell Cars. Most of these searches will not have made any concrete decisions regarding the reason for their search and may not even want to buy a car.  Also you may be restricted by real factors such as the model of the car and your geographical location. If a person does order a car will it be affordable to ship it to them and still be a competitive price or will you be wasting valuable time and effort dealing with these general enquiries only to miss the ones that are REAL sales.

So what now?

Well lets choose 4 keywords now and put them in this context:

Model  +  Type + Action + Location

Based on this and to illustrate this 4 word phrase could be:

HONDA CARS for SALE in my TOWN

Where the capitalised words are the important keywords in the search and words such as the, in or, but, and are irrelevant.

Looking at the triangle diagram now, in the first blue triangle we choose 4 keywords, in the second pink triangle we see that the amount of traffic is much lower, at 2. The third navy triangle shows me that the competition for this phrase is also low at 2 but the final green triangle shows me that the quality of the visitor is a high 4.

Why is the traffic so low?
The traffic is lower because the searcher has made a much more specific, refined and relevant search related to your product in your area.

Why is the competition high?
The competition is lower because of the localisation of the search.  Your will be competing with the other businesses in the same geographical location as your current location or where your business has been established. A much more manageable competition pool.

Why is the quality so high?
Again it is because you have refined your product to match the search as closely as possible. The search engines will recognise this and hence produce your page as the most relevant to the searcher.  The searcher is satisfied because they have found exactly what they are looking for and so they are much more likely to make an enquiry and much more likely to be converted into a client, producing a sale.

I have simplified this process to help illustrate the importance of researching the keywords you use in your website and also reflect the advantages of being more specific in your product descriptions and the types of service you offer within your geographical location. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule but these are few and far between.