Tag Archives: SEO

Social Media Channels and My Time Management

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Social Media & The Currency of Time

Social Media Channels and My Time Management

Having taken a refreshing step back from the depths of the social media environment over the last week in order to celebrate various special occasions (3 to be exact, 17th March – St. Patrick’s Day, 18th March – My big old birthday and 21st March – Ireland win the Grand Slam in the Six Nations Rugby Tournament for the first time in 61 years) so you can imagine I wasn’t in front of a computer screen too much.

It has allowed for some excellent reflective time however, regarding lots of different views, opinions and options on the internet and in social media in general.  I have had time to listen to the views of social media pundits, users both casual and serious, business, and even those who have simply “heard” of it but don’t indulge or are not convinced of its advantages or even its role.  Its helped me make some decisions regarding my own route and what I wish to achieve as well as how to achieve it.

Its going to take some time to make it work though.

Theres that word again.

“Time”

Its the single consistent word I have encountered throughout every single interaction I have had with all of the above mentioned peoples and entities.  “I don’t have the TIME” or “How much TIME will it take”.  Over the last few weeks I have spent every possible waking minute trying to understand, comprehend and decide on how people can, could and should be making the time for the benefit of their business especially as budgets are being cut and cash flow is drying up, surely then we need to take that cut in expenses and invest in a more hands on approach to being effective in our TIME online and especially in the social media sphere.

Let me give you an example.Lets take twitter.

I have spent time on twitter simply understanding how it has been shaped by people online and what the accepted “ethics” and “etiquette” are. This took some time.  I pretty much have that side of it resolved now and am happy with the way its progressing and will continue to meet and build relationships as I currently am, but in my OWN TIME.

Something that also took me time to understand was the number of followers on and how the size of the follower count relates to the person being followed. Initially I was desperate to build a large following in the belief that the more people you are in contact with the more ears you have a hold of and the more effective you can be.  I have come to the conclusion that this isn’t true (at least in my case).

I have decided that I will be very very particular about who I follow on twitter now, and I will also not let the numbers of followers decide or affect my decision on my own count and also in regards the people I decide to follow myself.

I don’t want Quantity.

I want… no I NEED quality and quality takes TIME.

Having reflected now, I am surprised at myself having taken so long to come to this conclusion. For quite some time I have preached to my clients about the value of quality SEO rather than quantity SEO. Instead of being obsessed by the numbers of visitors to the site the bottom line should be addressed against various horizontals but to put it simply:

If I’m getting 1 sale a day from 1 visitor a day via quality SEO then I can realise and quantify the exact value of this effort and return.

If I’m getting 10,000 visitors a day and 2 sales a day then I have to be very cautious how I calculate the return.  I have to account for the sale of course, but I also have to account for the LOST sales as well, the ones that where not addressed properly because of the number of enquiries that may or may not have been serious, but the most important issue I have to address is the cost in TIME it has taken me to make the sales.

There it is again you, that word.  “TIME”

This all comes back to social media and the channels we use and the time we have to spend working on them and developing them effectively against the time it takes us to understand them, apply ourselves to them effectively and grow them responsibly. What social channels have proven most effective for you, have you tried enough of them to decide effectively or are you simply “going with the flow” and jumping on the closet major bandwagons as that’s where the party seems to be at and you heard from somebody that it was where you had to be.

Maybe its not a bad idea to take the social TIME online and decide where you need to spend it to satisfy your aims.

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