Value of SEO Associations & SEO Certification?

Value of SEO Associations & SEO Certification?

Aaron Wall of Threadwatch points to a Jim Hedger article on SEO Certification programs like the Society of Internet Professionals and SEOPros and asks “What do you think of the idea of SEO qualifying bodies? Are they necessary? Will they be far more respected than something like SEMPO?” Mr. Wall’s question has led to a vibrant thread of responses on Threadwatch, which are definately worth reviewing and contributing to.

I personally see little benefit of SEO Certification for myself after 8 on and off years in the business, and feel that my certification comes via trial by fire, experience, living through Florida with client site rankings intact and years of established search rankings.

SEO is an ever-evolving field however, and with so many people entering the industry now from public relations, development and advertising agency backgrounds, the schools of thought seem to be a bit more decentralized than ever before as SEO itself is expanding since the reach of search engines have moved beyond establishing top 10 rankings to buzz tracking, reputation management, blog pulsing, and post search usability & findability.

The argument over the need for SEO Certification, which one Threadwatch member feels is nothing more than “some self appointed SEO “experts” justify charging people a few thousand dollars to make up a 3 page website because they are certified,”reminds me of a post made by John Scott of V7N a while back entitled SEMPO, SEM-NA & SOB SEO’s where John looks at SEMPO and SEM-NA’s business models and lends his opinon on what a SEO/SEM Association should bring to the Search Marketing Industry:

A truly useful SEO advancement organization will actively promote search engine marketing. For example, provide free literature to small business association membership outlining the benefits and possibilities of SEM. There are hundreds of professional business organizations - real estate professionals, Christian Small Business, Black Business Owners, Women Business Owners, ETC, ETC.

As it stands right now, the larger part of the world doesn’t even know what “SEO” stands for, much less are they aware of the dubious benefits to be had from engaging the services of an SEO. Provide useful and legitimately valuable information to these organizations and their membership, and the SEO gospel will spread.

Secondly, an organization of SEO professionals ought to pool the resources of members to fund legitimate useful research into search engine usage. Oddly enough, the one person who provides us with the best research into consumer behavior on web pages is not an SEO, but a usability expert.

Thirdly, a professional organization should not be party to SEO politics. SEMPO is one organization that is strongly “political”. And “political” is a euphemism for cliquey. If your only purpose is to promote a few select friends, don’t play like you intend to promote the industry.

Fourth, don’t go setting standards for SEO conduct. Some guidelines are restrictive to the point of silliness. It’s isn’t about policing members - it’s about promoting search engine marketing.

Fifth, make it full time. The biggest mistake I see is in having an organization run part time by folks who really don’t have time to commit to the organization. This industry is big enough to support an organization with a full time staff.

Again, here are the links : Threadwatch’s SEO Certification - Is There Any Value to It? and John’s SEMPO, SEM-NA & SOB SEO’s. Enjoy!

Paying Attention to Internet Advertising Opportunities

Since I graduated from college in 1999, each of the four companies I've worked for has been an online business. At my first job, one of my many duties was working as an assistant to the marketing director. This was still in the relatively early days of the internet, and since neither one of us had much experience with online marketing, I was given free reign to explore search engine optimization while my boss occupied herself with lucrative newspaper ads and glossy promotional folders from NPR.

I could see the traffic that was coming in via natural search listings (alas, we were not exploring paid at the time). Much harder to track, however, were the leads we were getting off radio or print ads. I remember basking in the glory of our newspaper ads, and smiling indulgently as I heard our sponsorship mentioned on public radio. I also remember wondering, what difference is this all making? Are we even getting any new business from these expensive ads? We were just starting to experience an industry trend which would eventually prove that not only did search engine marketing have the lowest cost-per-lead of any other marketing strategy, but it also had the easiest methods of tracking ROI.

What seems most remarkable is that this particular online company had hired a marketing director who focused the majority of her efforts on offline endeavors. Again, this was in 1999, but I'm sure that over half a decade later, most companies and marketing directors now pay due attention to both, as they well should. Of course they do.

Or do they? Have you checked out our study of Fortune 500 companies who are slow to capitalize on SEM?

Slowly but surely, however, the two worlds are converging. As mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, the Fortune 500 behemoths are opening their eyes to the power of online marketing. And what with the rise of services like TiVo and ad-free satellite radio - not to mention the ability to download programs, music, and resources independent of their normal offline mediums - the traditional world of advertising will need to adapt to the internet just as our culture is.

The online marketing world is constantly adapting and evolving as well. We've expanded from the essential basics of SEO and SEM to focusing on all marketable areas of a website. Website usability, press releases, online media buys, podcasts, mobile marketing and more - there's an entire world of internet advertising opportunities to explore. And I for one can't wait to see what the future holds.

The Image Search Query & What it Means for SEO

Not long ago, I came upon an article that demonstrated the idea of image search queries on mobile phones - that is, performing a search using an image rather than text. With this technology, the user would actually perform a search, for example, by inputting an image of a labrador retriever to find online resources, instead of simply typing "labrador retriever" into a search engine. After a little research, I found that this idea spreads further than just the mobile camera phone arena.

Admittedly, my first thought was a technical one - specifically, how do they do it? Secondly, because I work in SEM, I thought, what does this mean for SEO? What does it mean for the hours spent optimizing title and meta tags, and content, and what does it mean for companies who rely on their site as a source of business?

The technology of image based queries is actually quite intuitive. To search for an image in a vast database, the engine doesn't look at the entire image, but focuses on zones, colors, patterns, and spacial qualities as a way of identifying similarities between the searched images and the images in their database. Looking back over years of research, we can conclude how databases of images evaluate the searched images using content, spacial qualities, and a combination of both. Current Yahoo literature refers to the analysis of pixels, the size of images, and many other factors in its comparison.

I understand that this isn't going to change the overall function of searching. First of all, users have to actually have a picture of what they want to search in order to perform the function, and also, they would have to spend the time to find the image in order to search it. Instead of searching the term "picasso," the user would have to already have a image of a Picasso in order to perform the image query. Wouldn't you just search "picasso"? Either this, or they would have to have a photograph already on their computers.

So do I think this significantly effects the SEM industry and companies that have invested in SEO? Probably not. Overall, because of the limited coverage on this topic, it seems that the SEM industry and companies relying on it can rest easy for awhile. When I searched "google + image query", the results I received had to do with Google Images rather than image queries. Because of their prevalence, their lack of information on this topic is comforting. Yahoo does have some information on it, as I stated above, but it seems to still be in the developmental stages. MSN refers specifically to camera phone searches.

With that said, I believe that the industry should not completely ignore this technology. Even though there is limited information on the technology and its overall popularity is still wavering, there is something to be said for it. What that something is right now, I am not sure. I just think it is one of those things that needs to simmer on the back burner for awhile as programmers toy with this idea. One area I do see this tool becoming useful is the mobile marketing arena. The popularity of mobile devices will likely spur development of this technology... just something to think about.

SEO/SEM Journal: Microsoft Trying to Bludgeon Google with Checkbook

All that money that Microsoft will be spending starting July 1 when its new fiscal year begins - the couple of extra billion and change that sent Wall Street into a swoon last week - includges $1.1 billion of it targeted at MSN for R&D, up from $500 million in fiscal '05.

And it's increasing its capital equipment spending from $100 million in fiscal '05 to $500 million, so it can play tag with Google.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned this Thursday when Microsoft kicked off its new adCenter advertising vehicle, so it can play tag with Google. Microsoft's overall R&D budget will be about $6.2 billion, Ballmer said, and a nice chunk of it will be going into developing software-as-a-service so Microsoft can protect its flank against the likes of Google.

According to Ballmer, "We've told out R&D folks that our number one priority is software-as-a-service."

Meanwhile, Microsoft is rolling out what is now called Microsoft AdCenter, its homebrewed replacement for the Yahoo-Overture service it's been using, so it can chase the expanding search-related advertising business were Google is king. The thing is now 100% live in the US as well as in Singapore and France, which were the test beds, and they'll start phasing it in in the UK in June.

Microsoft AdCenter is better at demographics than Google's AdSense platform. It can target an audience by age, sex, geographic location and sometimes their tax bracket and lets advertisers pick the time of day they want the ads to run.

Microsoft has been testing adCenter with 6,000 accounts and reportedly those who tested it got more clicks converted to paying customers than Google or Yahoo. Looked at that way, Google tends to come in last behind AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Which might explain why Microsoft might be interested in doing a deal with Yahoo as the Wall Street Journal suggested the other day. If it gets more traffic Google will break out in hives. In this regard, Microsoft is also going to be spending money on developing content.

Initially adCenter will be used for search advertising but Microsoft intends to push it into videogames, mobile devices, e-mail, blogs, Office, small business hosted services and television sets.

Meanwhile, Google, master of search, has been complaining to the European Commission and the Justice Department about Microsoft's new IE7 browser rev and the search box that Microsoft has put in its upper-right-hand corner that by default delivers search results direct from Microsoft's MSN search without stopping at Google.

Google contends Microsoft is leveraging its monopoly and putting itself in position to grab web traffic and ad dollars unfairly from competitors.

IE7 just went into a pre-Vista public beta last week and when it finally goes gold it's expected to recoup some of the browser market share that Microsoft has lost recently to rivals.

The offending box makes IE look just like the Firefox and Opera Safari browsers, where Google estimates 30%-50% of all searches start. Firefox and Opera default to Google.

Microsoft, which contends its default setting is easy enough to change, is estimated to control about 80% of the browser market now and only maybe 11% of the US search business. Google has 49% and Yahoo 22%.

Google and Yahoo have been complaining to Microsoft about the box since last year, according to the New York Times. Microsoft has turned a deaf ear hence Google's escalating its complaint up the line to the regulators.

Of course, OEMs can always auction off the real estate to the highest bidder when IE7 starts being pre-installed on their boxes.

Google Webmaster Notification and SEO's Evolution

By Jon Revill

Matt Cutts made my day. In his recent post he covers communication between Google and webmasters.

In recent months Google has been testing communication with webmasters via email to notify them that they caught the eye of the Google spam team and could potentially harm their Google presence.

Matt says that the program has been successful but there are certain limitations to email when attempting to contact the webmaster. As an alternate method the Google Webspam team and the Sitemaps team have put their heads together and have provided and alternate solution.

Google Sitemaps have been updated to include notifications in the webmaster console for sites that have drawn penalties and offer a reinclusion request.

These notifications are geared towards helping legitimate businesses, not for notifying Black Hats employing negative SEO techniques.

This is HUGE!

Google has always been active in the webmaster community, but this is going a step above in my book.

In this industry there have always been those unscrupulous SEOs who intentionally spam a site to attempt to achieve rankings. A certain ex-SEO and their now famous doorway pages come to mind.

Site owners, particularly smaller sites, often never knew what hit them. Google can now let them know what has been done to their site.

But Jon...isn't that what SEO's are for?

Well, yes and no.

Matt alludes to the perfect search engine, one that not only provides value to their user, but also works with the website to identify potential indexing and ranking issues.

This has been the job of SEO's for the last several years. An entire industry sprung up around providing content and META tags to boost rankings.

The dark side of this industry discovered doorway pages, hidden text, and cloaking to achieve their goals. What Google is working towards here is completely removing the Black Hat element.

With these tactics effectively gone SEOs will be able to focus on what is truly important, providing value to a site's users and helping their clients build a viable, sustainable business. Thus ending the era of hard SEO and bringing in the age of true Interactive Marketing.

Interactive marketing moves well beyond the old staples of META tags, content, and base level linking.

Traditional SEO started with the site and optimizing for rankings on specific keywords, pushing outward trying to gain as much visibility as possible through rankings.

This strategy has one major flaw, it is often blind to the user. That's not to say there isn't any value in these practices, but they are only a part of a far bigger picture.

Interactive marketing starts with the user and looks inward at the site to provide value. It answers questions like:

- Who is my audience?
- What are their needs?
- What are they doing once they are on the site?
- What are they doing afterwards?

Value for a user begins with what they need, not what a site wants them to need.

User data and activity are endless sources of strong information to help websites grow and improve. The new world of interactive marketing is driven by identifying, providing value to, and converting users. Building a business rather than building traffic. Interactive marketing should be just that, marketing! Interactive simply refers to the mediums to which you apply your marketing strategy.

As Google moves toward the ideal search engine, SEO firms should look to the users, open up their traffic analytics accounts and move towards interactive marketing.

Website success was once based on whether or not your site was listed in the top ten. Success as a business, however, must be based on how much value you provide to the user.

SEO For Google

This article is part three of a four part series on optimizing your website for the the three major search engines.

Part one, titled "SEO For MSN" covered optimizing your website to rank highly on MSN, while part two, titled "SEO For Yahoo!" covered optimizing your website to rank on Yahoo!. In this article we will cover optimizing your website for Google.

I likely don't even need to mention that Google is currently the largest of all the search engines with ComScore Media estimating this giant to be responsible for 42.7% of all online searches in March of 2006. For this reason people tend to view Google as the engine to rank on. While this point is debatable (let's remember that there's still 57.3% of searches that aren't done on Google) it's definitely an important engine to rank on. So how is it done?

The Factors

To optimize and rank highly on Google, as with any of the major engines, specific areas need to be addressed. On Google the most important of these factors are:

* Backlinks


* Age


* Content


* How it fares in the results

Backlinks

More than on either Yahoo! or MSN backlinks are key to attaining top rankings on Google. More importantly, Google's methods for calculating the weight of backlinks is very different than either of the other two engines. Once upon a time backlink acquisition was mainly a numbers game. If you had more links you had higher rankings, it was basically as simple as that. Today however Google has an algorithm inside their algorithm for determining which links are more valuable than others. This algorithm has a number of factors itself, however there are some that are more important than others. They key factors that determine the value of a link in regards to its contributions to the ranking of your site are:

The age of the links - Like domains, links gain weight with age. The longer your links have been on a web page the higher their value. Basically this means that your link building efforts today aren't going to pay off for a number of months. The weight seems to age gradually. In a month your link will hold partial weight, in two months it'll hold a bit more and so on. Links hold the majority of their weight after about 5 to 6 months.

The location of the link - The physical location of your link on the page is an indicator to Google of its value. A link buried in the footer of a page will hold virtually no weight whereas a link near the top (i.e. where a visitor is likely to see it) will hold much more. Another location factor is how this link is situated relative to the content around it. A link that is located within content holds more weight than a link in a typical link-page or directory format with a title and description. The inline nature of the aforementioned location indicates that the link itself is more natural.

The anchor text and formatting - The linking text used is obviously important. If you are targeting a phrase such as "seo firms" then using these two keywords in the anchor text is going to attach relevancy between your site and these keywords. Be careful though, building a thousand links using all the same anchor text is going to look suspicious. Vary your anchor text, perhaps include other keywords and you'll find your efforts rewarded. The formatting of the link is also relevant. A link that uses bold, italics, etc. is obviously meant to be seen by a visitor and is thus more highly regarded by Google.

Relevancy - The relevancy of the site linking to you is of key importance. Getting a link on a health site if you're an SEO firm is going to hold little weight whereas a link from an SEO resource site will be much more valuable.

PageRank - While the value of PageRank is arguably dropping when one is considering it's importance in link building it is still a factor. A link from a PageRank 5 page is worth substantially more than a link from a PageRank 2 page.

Age

In a patent application from back in 2004 Google told SEO firms (and anyone else for that matter) that age was an important factor. Google has since become a domain name registrar which gives them access to whois data and thus they can clearly see the age of a domain, who it is registered to, where it is hosted, etc. The older your domain is the more legitimate Google sees it and thus the more likely they are to rank it. Additionally, domains that are registered for longer periods of time are also seen as more legitimate and thus will tend to rank higher.

Content

Google is more picky than either Yahoo! or MSN when it comes to content. While the phrase, "content is king," may be overused it is still relevant. The more content you have on your site the more likely someone is to find what they're looking for when they get there. Thus, the more content you have on your site the more likely Google is to believe a searcher will find what they're looking for there. This does not mean that you should grab every bit of content you can find and build a 500,000 page site about potatoes. The content needs to be relevant and preferably well written. While a search engine spider may not be able to tell if your content is truly well written it must appeal to a human visitor. The reason for this will be made more clear below.

A blog is a good option for the easy addition of relevant content provided that you can dedicate the time (generally only a few minutes per day) to post some new and interesting information on your industry.

Keyword density is not as large a factor on Google as on Yahoo! or MSN however it is a factor and in the SEO "game" any factor that holds weight needs to be taken into consideration in all but the least competitive areas. While a site targeting a phrase such as "bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere" can afford weakness in some of the areas most of us cannot. As noted in the articles on MSN and Yahoo! it would be unwise for me to specify an optimal keyword density here as the optimal levels vary by site type, topic, and fluctuate with the algorithm updates. Keyword densities need to be reanalyzed approximately monthly or any time an update is noted.

How it fares in the results

How your website fares in the results is a growing factor and will only continue to gain importance as time passes. If your website appears in the results for a specific phrase yet no one click on is your website will drop out of the rankings. Arguably worse, if your website is clicked however after a few seconds Google detects that the searcher has returned to the results to find a new site your site will drop. It is for this reason that it is important to insure that the titles you write for your website are both search engine and human friendly. You want Google to rank it highly and you also need humans to click it or Google won't rank it highly (circular logic I know but valid nonetheless).

You also need to make sure that what people see when they first land on your page either is the information they are looking for or alternatively, clearly indicates where that information can be found. This point may seem obvious simply from a usability standpoint however the number of sites out there that violate this basic principle is vast. As part of your SEO efforts you will want to take a look at your site from a user's standpoint or better yet, watch real users navigate it to see if they can find what they're looking for quickly. You have about 3 seconds to get a visitor's attention so make sure that your visitor can find what they want in that time. You may need to hire experienced web designers to bring your website up to speed however the cost of this is lower than the cost of losing rankings and business due to poor design and the falling rankings that will follow.

Conclusion

Google has the most sophisticated algorithm of the three major engines and must be treated as such. Tricks rarely work and when they do they tend to work only for a short period of time. Build a strong site with lots of quality content that is easily navigated and will appeal to your human visitors and you're off to a good start. Optimize your keyword densities and secure quality links to your site and while it may take a bit of time to get past the aging delays, you will succeed on Google.

Recommended Resources

Total Optimizer Pro - A keyword density and backlink analysis tool. This tool breaks down a variety of onsite and offsite factors giving you a full snapshot of how the top 10 got their positions.

Google Press Releases - Read the latest press releases from Google. This may not give you the algorithm but it will tell you the direction they're going. Understand this and you'll be better equipped to deal with changes down the road.

Matt Cutts Blog - Read this blog from Google software engineer Matt Cutts. Obviously he's not about to give you the algorithm (or he wouldn't be a Google engineer would he?) but he does give great advice and the occasional head's up on updates. He allows comments on his blog and many of them are useful as well.

Online SEO Courses for Web Masters

(PRLEAP.COM) For thos who wish optimize their web site themselves and make their site to appear higher in the search results for a set of target keywords and to improve search engine placement, Organic SEO Consultants offers SEO Courses http://seocources.organicseo.us/ that would optimize your websites rather than just paying a professional SEO firm.

This course is to make sure that your website is search engine compatible and optimized well to catch the attention of your target audience through search engines. These SEO courses will give you the familiarity required to make your website search engine friendly, optimize your web pages for the targeted keywords, check your search engine ranking and sustain your search engine position across the most popular engines like google, yahoo and msn.

Organic SEO offer professional SEO Courses. Teaching is similar to usual search engine consultations but it goes much more in-depth and is meant to be appropriate to every website a web designer would encounter. During this training Organic SEO teaches the basics and work a way into the finer seo details.

There is a booming demand for SEO Specialists and related marketing skills. No colleges or universities now offer SEO certification courses. However, Organic SEO Consultants have university professors who will teach you in the same manner as having attended a specialized school. Organic SEO Consultants have their own SEO training method which has demonstrated extreme success. Organic SEO have hireed the best people in the industry to teach SEO courses and you get the best possible training when you take this course from us. If you would like to be trained to optimize websites, please contact us today!

Newly Developed SEO Method to Increase Organic Search Traffic

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Santee, CA, United States, 04/29/2006 - A new SEO method enables increase organic search traffic to their websites. Method is not another theory, it can be validated in practice and has produces tremendous results.



The method, described as “tough but very effective” by Yuri Abramovich, a brand manager for jsmadeeasy.com. The SEO method maximizes results by focusing my attention to the optimization of keywords that promise the most return on investment of my ever so precious time says Yuri.

Steve Slavutskiy the creator of the SEO method explains the details:
I’ve always looked for best way to improve the organic traffic on my websites and finally I’ve come up with the system.

First Identify how do people find my site on search engines. For instance lets say we are working with fontsmadeeasy.com I pick a list of keywords that produce some traffic but minimal. (These keywords can be found on any traffic reporting software)

Second I get the ranking of each one of these keywords on three major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo). You can get the ranking of your keywords by visiting rankchecker.net

Now that I have a list of keywords, amount of traffic each one produces, and the ranking of these keywords all I need to do now is get the ratio of traffic per position For example keyword “font” produces 11 visits to my site while the ranking for that keyword is 3. On the other hand keyword “free font” produces 10 visits and the ranking for that keyword is 30. It is now clear that I need to optimize my site or a page on my site to improve the ranking for the keyword “free font”.

Finally now that you know your priorities and ready to do some optimization work you can visit metachecker.net and get it to analyze your site you know what you want and Meta Checker will validate your work by looking at your page and your meta tags and giving you feedback as to how search engines will see your page.

Steve, the creator of SEO Method, said he was inspired to develop the method s well as developing both websites after struggling to launch his websites and bringing in some traffic to them.

Only a few weeks old, the method has already generated results for Yuri Abramovich, who reported that after using this particular SEO method his organic monthly traffic went from 49,000 visits to 56,000 visits.



Agency / Source: Meta Checker .Net

Take Responsibility For Your Seo/Sem Program

by Andrew Wetzler, Friday, Apr 28, 2006 3:47 PM EST

ON THIS DATE IN 2006, I am prepared to declare that SEO/SEM works! The number of companies (both large and small) that have figured out a workable, ongoing, ROI positive strategy is impressively large. That being said, the number of organizations who are still stumbling along is disappointingly huge as well. Rather than touting the successes, let's examine why so many companies haven't graduated from Search 101--and in many instances, doubt the viability of this fantastic marketing channel.

I have found the largest recurring issue to be poor internal buy-in and communication within an organization. Unlike with many forms of marketing / advertising, there needs to be buy-in and cooperation from three (and sometimes four) distinct departments within a company for search to work. These include: marketing, IT, senior management--and in some (non-e-commerce) environments, a sales team.

From an SEO standpoint, if IT never finds time to implement the SEO-related advice that they are presented with, then there is little opportunity for organic improvement. Similarly, if the marketing / copywriting group doesn't zero-in on boosting the keyword- rich content on the site, then improved architecture is of limited value.

On the SEM front, campaigns have multiple variables that need to be tested and tweaked as well. Budgets need to be sufficient to allow for several months of experimentation and analysis in order to hone in the strategy. Too often, when very short-term results are not realized, the program is shelved or cut back to the point that it never has the opportunity to develop and flourish.

Other common threads in poorly performing programs include:

1. Keywords. Many businesses feel they have a strong handle on the most appropriate keywords for their site. That's not always the case. It's vital to take a step back and reassess the words being employed. Are there narrower phrases which might lower the volume of traffic, but boost the ROI of the campaign in a meaningful manner? It's not uncommon for words to be incorporated into a program for ego, rather than ROI, purposes.

2. Engine Selection. Although there is no clear-cut pattern, some paid placement campaigns perform better in Yahoo than in Google. For others, the reverse is true. Furthermore, MSN's new demographic "targeting selects" provide additional ways to tailor your audience. Time should be invested to revisit each campaign with each engine, along with their budget allocations. There are likely ways to fine-tune the marketing mix to achieve a more favorable result.

3. Landing Pages for Paid Placement. Bid prices continue to escalate, and new competitors are always springing onto the page. Besides the creative text written to stimulate a click-through, it's critical to objectively evaluate the page(s) that the traffic is being directed toward. Does the page speak to the specific interest of the search? Is everyone being sent to the same page (likely the home page) or are custom landing pages being utilized? The tighter the correlation between the keyword that was searched and the landing page, the better the results will be.

4. Competitive Analysis. One of the most impressive aspects of search is the ability to investigate the competition, in terms of both SEO and SEM. From an SEO standpoint, it can be very beneficial to not only see what keywords a competitor appears to be optimizing for, but also for the trade-offs being made between User Experience and Search Engine Spider / Crawler Experience. On the SEM side, paying to be in the No. 1 spot isn't always the most effective strategy. What are the chief competitors doing, relative to the folks who may only be there temporarily?

Today, there are simply no more excuses. Search has excelled past the milestone of "proof of concept" and has evolved to being an integral part of many companies' marketing strategies. For those companies that have graduated from Search 101, there will always be opportunities to fine-tune their efforts and nurture their programs to even greater results. For those who have been left on the sidelines, it's become increasingly imperative to enter the arena, with a thoughtful long-term perspective.

Andrew Wetzler is president of search engine marketing and optimization firm MoreVisibility, which was founded in 1999. He can be reached at awetzler@MoreVisibility.com.

SEO: Content Or Meta Tags

By: Sally Falkow
2006-05-03

So I paid for my site to be optimized, why am I not getting results? Mike Grehan of SmartInteractive Ltd, had some very smart things to say about SEO, content strategy and inbound links in Click Z.

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Does Textbook SEO Really Work Anymore?, Redux


n my last column, I reached out to the SEO (define) community for feedback. Boy, did I get feedback!

Yet the column seems to have been taken completely out of context by some. In fact, a certain has-been industry commentator used it as a platform to launch a personal attack on me (a cheap, attention-grabbing shot). Some baying forum hounds almost demanded my public execution for daring to declare, "SEO is dead."

Let's clear things up. First, in the thousands and thousands of words I've written relating to SEO, nowhere have I suggested SEO is dead. Period.

Also, I used the term "textbook SEO" in a euphemistic way. I can't really think of another way to describe it, other than bluntly stating: "SEO circa 1998." After 10 years, maybe we should have a word for old-fashioned SEO. But I'll continue to use "textbook" until the SEO intelligentsia come up with a new term for it.

Last week at ad:tech San Francisco, I gave my SEO session audience an exclusive advance listen to clips from an in-depth interview I conducted with Google's Matt Cutts. Cutts helped to substantiate some of my thoughts. That helped the audience to understand what I'm trying to achieve a lot better.

Let me explain in one simple term what I've been talking to various people at search engines about when it comes to the SEO side of the business: "survival."

My company's one of the largest in the industry, if not the largest. If we continue to implement systems and processes that have been predefined as industry standard, yet add nothing to the success ratio of our clients, we have a bleak future.

So I'm not asking search engines to tell me what their proprietary technology is (I can usually figure that out with enough digging). What I'm asking is, "What should we not waste time doing?"

If we continue to implement systems and processes that belong to the dark ages of search and therefore fail, but we still send invoices, we'll lose clients. And when you lose clients, invariably you lose employees. Jobs and livelihoods are at stake here.

Last week, heading over to San Francisco, I conducted a workshop in London. Afterwards, I was approached by a guy who had invested a substantial amount of money in an SEO program with a large U.K. SEO firm. I seemed to contradict what they'd told him, he said.

The firm had sold him a package of "textbook SEO," which included the whole on-page paraphernalia I covered in my previous column. And it wasn't working. He was told he had to have H1 tags on the thousands and thousands of pages on his site. Search engines almost insist on it. He must have meta tags. Search engines almost insist. He must do keyword-density analysis. Search engines almost insist. And he must be linked to by high PageRank pages to win. Yes, search engines almost insist.

I asked whether he believed he could rank at number one at Google not only without any of those things but… wait for it… without ever having had his page crawled by Google.

Here's an example: Over the weekend, my wife and I took a trip to Napa Valley (we were both doing a little research on wine). Search Google for "pinot grigio," and look at the top result. There are times, as mentioned in my previous column, that search engines know of a page purely by analyzing the link data on the frontier of the crawl. I see it regularly. This proves that, when your linkage data is that strong, you don't even need to be crawled, let alone have on-page paraphernalia, to rank number one. (This one is different, though, as I discussed with Cutts. You'll read about it in another column.)

Yes, this is an extreme example. But it does prove my point. I talked to Cutts about on-page paraphernalia and whether we get our optimization tactics in the right order. It's a top-down approach, says Cutts. There's no point in doing textbook stuff unless you have enough great content and the reputation within your community to be a challenger. Listen to my interview with Cutts for more on this.

On the subject of keyword-density analysis, I previously asked my good friend Dr. Edel Garcia to explain why this is a snake-oil sell. It's scientifically not possible to measure keyword weights unless you have access to the entire corpus.

You can only stand a chance of ranking if you're linked to by high PageRank pages? Nonsense! Should we value the price of a link from a page by its PageRank? No! Listen to what Cutts has to say about the importance of PageRank.

Search on Google for "wine tasting," and look at the top result. That's how all search engines will go soon. Within the taxonomy of search, a new characteristic is developing: resource location.

See how the top result has a kind of Web site contents listing ("Serving Wine - Tasting Wine - Tasting Etiquette - Wine Terms")? This proves two things:

* Aggregate linkage data can tell so much more about the subject matter and content of a site.

* End-user data proves that people who were interested in the initial search query were also interested in other information-related to the topic.

Does anyone believe textbook SEO has anything to do with that kind of result?

There were two overall opinions in the feedback I received. Those who have nothing other to sell than textbook SEO say it works. Those who pay for it (clients) and get no results say it doesn't. Pretty much a forgone conclusion, really.

I'm only including one of the many responses I received, because it's the one that really hits home for me:

A brilliantly posted question on a topic of critical importance to those of us in the field.

A key derivative question might be, "How much longer will clients pay" for traditional SEO when such techniques are so hit-and-miss these days?

Link building requires a huge shift in the mindset of most of my clients still in the mode of having us "take care of their SEO stuff." Link building actually means they must get involved, which means lots of overhead and relationship management -- each of which calls for a large increase in billable hours. This is not something that my clients are taking very well.

"Can't you just tweak the tags some more?"

==================================================================




There's no point in doing textbook SEO unless you have enough great content and the reputation within your community to be a challenger, writes Grehan.

And he has some excellent clips from his interview with Matt Cutts at Google to back up his premise.

Diversify Your Traffic - Web Directories and Niche Sites

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It's the age old saying that encourages you to mitigate your risk by spreading yourself out instead of relying on one thing only. Ask any stock broker and they'll tell you putting all your money in one company is very risky and is rarely the right move. When you only rely on one source, if something bad should happen you have nothing else to fall back on. At the end of the day, most people would agree this is basic common sense.

Enter the Google era, where many webmasters seem to have tossed this conventional logic aside in favour of a Google-tunnel-vision. It is true that Google is the most popular search engine in the world today reaching 380 million unique users per month. According to ComScore Media Metrix they have a 42.3% share of the search market. These numbers should make webmasters stand up and pay attention, but it should not make them neglect everything else.

Many SEOs (search engine optimizers) will exclusively talk about obtaining a high ranking in Google, as if that is the one and only way to drive traffic on the web. Other SEOs see the web in a larger sense and, instead, treat Google as one piece of the puzzle (albeit an important piece). The good SEOs recognize that while most searches may originate at Google, there are a lot of potential website visitors and customers coming from other engines that deserve some attention too. Fortunately, many of the search engines determine the importance of a site using similar criteria, so optimizing for one engine should give you a boost in all the others as well. But if your SEO is giving you ranking reports that only say Google, it may be time to start asking where you rank in the other engines. After all, no webmaster is prepared to say that a customer coming from a website other than Google is a customer they don't want!

List Yourself in Web Directories

Your website traffic and customers can come from all over, so you want to make sure that wherever customers looking, they'll find you. There are a lot of different web directories on the Internet. Some catalogue all sorts of sites, while others focus on a particular niche market. By taking just a little bit of time you can launch a web directory campaign that gets you listed in all the directories your potential visitors may use. Best of all, many web directories will let you submit your site for free, so this is a cost-effective way to generate targeted traffic. The best directories are those that offer a direct link back to your site. This way, your directory campaign also becomes a link-building campaign, and you boost your ranking on most search engines, including Google. (Two birds with one stone, not too shabby!)

Find Those Niche Sites

The web was built based on links. It's how web surfers move from one site to another, following an endless flow of information. You need to take advantage of this by making sure that your site is linked to along this path. If you are selling t-shirts, try to find a site that is dedicated to the topic of t-shirts (or fashion, in this instance). In this day and age, you are almost guaranteed to find a site with t-shirt resources. Look for ways you can generate a link to your site from theirs. If you have some marketing dollars to spend, you may be able to buy text or banner advertising, which will also provide a link back to your site. You can send a quick, polite email to the webmaster requesting to trade links (after all, that sites wants links too!), or maybe you can contribute content somehow and include a link to your site in your author bio. There are a lot of different approaches you can take, and as long as you end up getting a link to your site, you'll increase the likelihood of attracting visitors who are following that information path.

The world wide web is a big place and it's only getting bigger. You should devote a good amount of resources to the more important traffic drivers, like Google, but you should not fall into a trap where that's the only thing you can rely on. By diversifying your incoming traffic resources and listing yourself in web directories, you will be better prepared for what the future may bring.

Robert Burko is president and founder of Eliteweb.cc, an Internet portal featuring a best-of-the-web search engine and a comprehensive search-engine-friendly web directory

Putting SEO in Your Dashboard

Red Door Interactive's Paul Bruemmer identifies SEO's economic and strategic benefits.

As a marketing manager, you would like to understand how your campaigns are maximizing results. One of the best ways to improve results is to create a marketing dashboard and then measure, test and tweak for continuous improvement.

Your marketing dashboard should be tailored to meet specific business goals. Your dashboard might include offline media as well as a number of interactive strategies. Regardless of your objectives, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) belongs on your dashboard and here's why.

Effective Marketing Strategy
Search Engine Optimization is one of today's most effective marketing strategies. Web use seems to revolve around search with 80 percent of users finding their destinations from a search query. Over half (55 percent) of all ecommerce transactions originate from a search listing.

SEO is poised to drive substantial profits for your business. As a multi-purpose marketing tool, search marketing can be used for direct response to generate sales leads, collect newsletter subscriptions, gather site registrations and convert online and offline sales. It is even an excellent branding tool.

Search marketing works because people pre-qualify themselves by typing search terms in a search box. What makes search so powerful is that you can get the right message to the right person at the right time as search engines attract people with a high level of interest in their search topic. Search can provide a huge reach, as 90 percent of U.S. consumers use search engines (Pew Internet ALP).

Search has the lowest cost-per-lead of any marketing strategy (U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray). While formerly second to email in popularity, search recently surpassed email and has become the most popular online activity (MarketingSherpa).

Advantages of SEO
The original search marketing strategy is cost-effective both in terms of conversions and return on ad spend (ROAS). While it takes time to generate prominent organic links, once achieved they last indefinitely, and this long-term quality is what makes SEO cost effective. The average company SEO project averages about $3 per-day, per-keyword, and you can generate ten times that much per day in additional business by being found more often in the search engines.

Recent research (comCast and MarketingSherpa) shows that search engines drive offline sales. Organic links are important because they yield more conversions. The Search Marketing Benchmark Survey (MarketingSherpa) shows that conversions with organic links outperform PPC links thusly:

* Average conversion rates: organic links 4.2 percent vs. PPC links 3.6 percent
* Delayed ecommerce/service purchases: organic links 6.3 percent vs. PPC links 4.2 percent
* Ecommerce product /service purchases: organic links 4.1 percent vs. PPC Links 3.8 percent

Earlier research shows that 70 percent of your prospects will click on an organic link over a sponsored link and that organic clicks outnumber PPC clicks by 5:1. JupiterResearch found that "algorithmic listings in search indexes generate an estimated six of seven commercially natured search referrals." Therefore, it's important to put SEO in your marketing dashboard.

SEO services require modification of your site content and structure to improve relevancy and rankings in algorithmic search engines. This is sometimes referred to as making your website "search engine friendly." A properly optimized website is more easily indexed by the search robots for indexing in search engine databases. Well-optimized sites naturally achieve higher rankings.

SEO goes a long way toward making your website successful because it energizes your site content and structure for maximum effectiveness. SEO works in tandem with other important variables on the marketing dashboard.

Segmenting Media to Improve Results
You'll want to segment all sources of traffic to your website, using your dashboard and web analytics to maximize results. My next article will focus on how media segmentation improves results.

Can the Mainstream Media Understand SEO?

I am a SEO. As a search engine optimization specialist, I have spent the better part of the last decade studying search engines to get a better understanding of how they work in order act as a guiding consultant for paying clients. My clients, or more appropriately, my firm's clients, are interested in having their web documents found on the first page of search results across all the major search engines. After spending years traveling trenches full of fiber, my colleagues and I have gotten very, very good at getting those first page placements. If only SEO was really so simple.

In the trade-press we can discuss our personal war stories and write about website marketing campaigns and all is good as we tend to understand the metaphors being used. When talking to the mainstream media however, representatives of the SEO community seem to lose the thread of an otherwise sensible message.

Explaining the finer points of website optimization and search engine marketing to a person who has never designed a website themselves is tricky, under any circumstances. It is all too easy to get carried away when discussing one's ability to put a website on the first page of Google results, especially over drinks.

Where most clients are generally happy to learn that their SEO is a proficient practitioner, mainstream journalists need to feel they understand the subject they are covering and have a limited amount of time in which to learn it.

Though an increasing number of articles are appearing, writers in the mainstream media still find it difficult to wrap their heads around the practice of search engine optimization without sensing and reporting some form of techno-skullduggery. Articles appearing in the mainstream media tend to note how SEOs "game" the search engines by using techniques that give documents an unfair advantage. Perhaps reporters on the business and marketing beats simply perceive SEOs as cyberpunk hackers-for-hire, professional players in a William Gibson metaverse.

An article in the NY Times April 9 edition, "This Boring Headline is Written for Google", noted how news writers were adapting their headlines and styles to meet the challenges of getting prominent placements in search engines. The author likens search engine optimization to a chess game played between SEOs and search engines.
The goal of the game is to get first place listings. Being seen means being read. In the world of search engines, being seen means being on the first page of results. Journalists are intensely interested in search engine optimization. High rankings bring strong click-through rates and tend to generate happy publishers.

It's all about the rankings, or as noted in a recent piece in the Washington Post, "How to Juice Up a Site’s Rank" it's all about the Google juice. Google juice, (for the SEO-illiterate), is apparently produced by squeezing links. To be fair, the article is based on the "v7ndotcom elursrebmem" contest initiated in January by John Scott which, by its nature, tends towards link strategies.

Though achieving a Top10, or first page placement is only half the game, it is the part of the process the mainstream media is fixated on. That is to be expected, given the conditions under which most business reports work. They perceive the Internet as a research and communications tool.

Understanding that most writers view search engines as indispensable workplace assistants, it is little wonder their imaginations turn to imaginings of the old-school game of cat-and-mouse SEOs used to play, back in 1998.

Search engine optimization and placement in 2006 is very different from the information used to describe the industry in previous years. The Internet and the search engines that guide users across it have changed and evolved enormously over the past twelve months.

Mike Grehan published an excellent two-part article, "Does Textbook SEO Work Anymore?" which should become required reading for SEOs who want to get a better understanding of how Google is learning to learn about web-documents and their connections. (link to part 2)

Mike points out that Google is now considering a couple more important factors (in addition to the multitude of other ranking factors) when determining the placement of documents in its index.

The first is a deeper analysis of the network of links that lead to any particular document. "Aggregate linkage data can tell so much more about the subject matter and content of a site."

What this means to SEOs is simple. Links from one document to another are used to determine the topical relevancy of information found within those documents. In other words, Google is learning about you by examining your buddies.

The second is that Google is studying user data to determine what information its users find relevant based on their initial search query and behaviours after choosing a listing. "End-user data proves that people who were interested in the initial search query were also interested in other information-related to the topic."

Google is as interested in what visitors do on a site as it is in what they read while they are there. For SEOs this means that site usability, analytics and planning are essential to delivering a full package of services. Achieving and maintaining strong placements at Google requires the ability to predict and funnel users through a site in order to A) help guide visitors to relevant information or towards conversion goals, or B) help guide spiders to relevant information.

The working world of search engine optimization specialists has come a long way from the cloak and dagger world that existed in the late 90s and into the early 2Ks. Perhaps reporters and journalists will start to see the intricacies of SEO work and move away from the cyberpunk image they too often portray. If that is going to happen, it is up to the SEOs themselves to make it happen. Next time the media calls, let them know there is a lot more to the story than gaming Google for wild rankings and fun times. (Try to help them imagine writing about the cadre of fun loving criminal robots spamming away on the PPC end of things.)

Secrets to Successful Blogging

Blogs have become very successful and popular lately, and SEO consultants say that they can be very profitable if they are managed and marketed the right way. Generating profits from a blog doesn't require selling anything. Profits can be from ad placements, banners, or contextual advertising. The best blogs draw the attention of a large audience and keep them coming back for more.

There are many types of blogs available. The most common types are:

- Professional blogs: These blogs are focused on discussions about professions, job aspects and career building

- Personal blogs: These blogs take the form of an online diary and contains thoughts, poems, experiences, and other personal matters

- Topical blogs: These blogs focus on a certain topic or niche, discussing specific aspects of the chosen subject

- Business blogs: As its name suggests, these are discussions about business and/or stock market

Other types of blogs include but are not limited to science blogs, cultural blogs, educational blogs, and photo blogs.

In order to have a successful blog that attracts a lot of visitors and keep them coming back, you need to follow some simple rules. Here are some tips from SEO consultants:

Before you begin blogging, carefully consider what you are going to write about in your blog as there are lots of interesting topics out there, waiting to be discussed. You can find them in every day life, in the media, in the news - anything that attracts attention and a loyal following is good. You can look for blog subjects in many places, the most important being the Internet of course.

Put quality content in your blog. If you have quality content people like to read, they will return to your blog and tell other people about it as well. Posting articles containing useful information on your blog is very beneficial for attracting more traffic. Make sure you add your URL address below your posted article! If other web site owners find your articles useful and decide to include them within the content of their web pages, the added link will contribute to increasing your popularity every time it is hyperlinked.

Update the blog on a regular basis. If you don't do this, visitors will not return and they will move on to reading another blog that is updated more often. You should try to update your blog daily. Many newcomers have blogging fear, fearing their inability to update it daily. If your blog is interesting enough, offer your readers the ability to keep it updated by posting their own personal thoughts and share stories so you won't have to do all the updating work yourself.

Listen to what your readers have to say. Always pay attention to the readers' suggestions and try to find out what people were actually searching for when they found your blog. Try to focus on that theme and even consider developing it by encouraging the visitors to discuss new aspects of that particular theme.

Keep it short and concise - You don't need material that takes hours to read, people usually like to quickly skim a blog for quick tidbits of useful information and if you post materials that are difficult or take a long time to read, you will most likely drive them away.

You can also include some artistic work or pictures in the blog, to make it more visually appealing. Blog picture managers such as Picasa are freely available on the Internet to accomplish this.

If your blog has interesting, original content, bloggers might decide to add links to it on their web sites and comment on your suggested topic. By gaining back-links to your blog from other web sites, your web site will place higher within search engine queries, thus boosting your link popularity.

Announce the launch of any new blog with press releases. Free publicity through press releases are powerful tools for increasing incoming traffic. Search engines love press releases and it gives them a good reason to spider and to index your site quickly.

Include free downloadable viral reports on your blog to turbo-charge visitor traffic and build a subscriber/viewer base quickly.

In order to simplify the creating and updating process of a blog, take advantage of the many blogging tools and software readily available, a number of them are free. Blogging software such as WordPress or Movable Type helps you update a blog easily. There are even free blog generators such as Blogger which allow you to host your content on Google's servers without having to install any software or obtain a domain and host content.

Offer to inform readers of your blog with free email management services like Feedblitz (if you don't have an email list management solution) in addition to offering RSS feeds for subscription. Readers and visitors can be kept updated of any new information being added to your blog without having to check the site constantly.

Utilize blog and ping to get sites indexed quickly by the search engines. By notifying popular ping servers monitored by blog search services such as Google Blog Search, you attract search engine spiders to a blog. A blog can automatically be setup to ping certain web sites. An easy method of doing this is by adding the Pingomatic service to the sites to ping in the blog software which pings many popular ping servers at once.

Finally, remember to submit to popular, high quality blog directories such as Feedster, Technorati, Blogstreet, and Best of the Web Blog Directory to boost your web traffic and link popularity!

If you respect these rules you will most likely have a successful blog, and you will be rewarded in the process. Ask a SEO consultant for further information and assistance if you are stuck for ideas to promote your new blog.

Why SEO Formulas Don't Work

By Jennifer Laycock - May 04, 2006

I'm sure I'm not the only one that has read article after article and blog post after blog post announcing the death of traditional search engine optimization. I've even written a few myself that talk about the need to shift our focus from things like keyword density, PageRank and even rankings themselves. On that very topic, Mike Grehan has an excellent article over at ClickZ that asks some important questions and makes some crucial points.

From the article:

There's no point in doing textbook stuff unless you have enough great content and the reputation within your community to be a challenger.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article called "Search Engine Algorithms - Understanding the Pinocchio Effect." The point of the article, which was missed by many in the industry, was not only do we need to continue educating people about the "how" of search engine optimization...we also need to educate them about the "why."

Now there's no doubt that most businesses are quickly grasping the "why" in the sense that they know search engine optimization will bring them more customers. What they don't get about the "why" is the common sense logic that can be applied to help them figure out where the search engines may be headed in the future.

If we truly want to see this industry progress, we have to move beyond the point where legions of web site owners wait on "the word" from a few recognized experts in order to know what comes next.

Right now, the search engine optimization world sits at a point where 95% of practitioners and site owners operate like this...

1.) Word starts to spread that links help your site.

2.) Site owners and marketers rush out to get any and every link that they can.

3.) Word spreads that reciprocal links are pretty easy to get.

4.) Site owners and marketers start spamming the world with link exchange requests.

5.) Word spreads that one-way links "count more."

6.) Site owners and marketers start buying links in a rush to gain those one-ways.

7.) Word spreads that you can "earn" links with great content.

8.) Site owners and marketers start to grumble about how much work this SEO thing is.

Anyone else noticing a pattern?

What tends to happen in this industry is the development of the leaders and the lemmings. The leaders are the those that are out there in the trenches, testing and working and researching to figure out what has an impact. They then share their findings with the lemmings who rush out to implement those findings with no thought as to "why" they are making those changes. The simple fact that the change may help their site is enough of a reason for them.

But that's not good enough.

To see this industry progress, we need to focus on teaching people why the search engines place more value on earned one way links or why content needs to be relevant and engaging rather than mathematically formulated to have the proper number of keywords.

Site owners and marketers need to learn more about how people judge the value of a web site so that they can understand and even anticipate where algorithms may go in the future.

A little common sense applied two or three years ago would have easily made it clear that earned, unsolicited links showed a more honest representation of value than links that were traded or paid for. With that in mind, site owners could have had a hefty head start by spending their time building great content rather than chasing down the next link.

As we move into the future, issues like latent semantic indexing and personalized search will play a powerful role in how search engines put together and deliver results. By taking the time to teach site owners about these concepts and how they might be applied, the SEO industry will be able to teach people how to anticipate what search engines will be looking for, rather than letting those same people play a non-stop game of "catch-up."

Do You Want To Be Just An Average SEO?

Robin Nobles
Expert Author
Published: 2006-05-04

As a marketer, I'm fascinated by television commercials. One commercial I saw recently talked about how no one grows up wanting to be "average." That really shoved the right side of my brain into overdrive.

No one wants to be an average Webmaster, graphics artist, CEO, educator, programmer, or SEO. We all want to excel at what we do . . . or do we?

Would any of us hire an average SEO? Would an average programmer be in high demand? Is the CEO of General Electric just average? In my opinion, the answer to those questions is a resounding "no."

Let's Take a Look at the Average SEO

What kind of results would we expect to get from the average SEO?

Would we expect the average SEO to keep up with the current happenings in the SEO industry?

How would the average SEO expect to compete with the above- average SEO, or the top-notch SEO?

Would the average SEO result to using spam strategies in order to compete? Maybe, or maybe not.

How would the average SEO differentiate himself from other SEOs in the industry? What would make him different? In other words, what would be his USP, or Unique Selling Proposition? Chances are, he wouldn't have one. Being "average" is certainly not a USP!

How would the average SEO learn SEM strategies in the first place? From an outdated book? From someone online who may or may not know what she's talking about? Your knowledge is only as good as whomever you've learned it from.

Who does the average SEO associate with? Chances are good that he associates with other average SEOs, as opposed to top-notch SEOs who share their strategies with other exceptional SEOs or conduct research on their own.

Average SEOs may not be paid as well as exceptional SEOs who really know what they're doing and who have a portfolio of success stories to prove it. Therefore, they may not put the time and effort into forming relationships with their clients. Clients come and go, and they may leave quite dissatisfied.

To be honest, there are thousands of "average" SEOs, but who strives to be average and mundane? It's something to think about, isn't it?

Your Goal: Become an Exceptional SEO

If you're an exceptional SEO, you won't be able to get rid of your clients, even if you wanted to, and they'll refer additional clients to you and so forth.

So, how does this work?

1. Obviously, you need to know search engine marketing from the ground up, or surround yourself with the best in the business to where your firm can specialize in each area.

2. You have to keep up with what's happening in the search engine industry. Pick and choose who you listen to, and read those newsletters, blogs, or forums carefully. Make sure that you're listening to the right voices ­ those with experience who don't spout off based on hearsay. You want the facts based on research and trial and error.

3. You need to know when to say "no" to a potential client and not take her on when you feel for whatever reason, you may not be able to provide the help she needs. Exceptional SEOs actually walk away from clients rather than take on any client that comes their way. A client who has had every domain she touches banned, or who sells items that you personally don't want to work with, would be clients that you might turn away.

4. When you take on a client, keep a virtual paper trail of every piece of e-mail written back and forth between you and the client. Save screenshots of the client's entire Web site. Run ranking and log reports before you ever begin work.

5. Treat your client's Web site as your own. If you see any problems, notify the client immediately. Phone calls are fine, but follow up with an e-mail so that everything is in writing.

6. Remember that if you employ any spam strategies, it will come back to haunt you. Any red flags that are sent up to the search engines are red flags for every single client you have. Don't go that route.

If you're truly an exceptional SEM company, you'll play it straight for your clients' sake and for your own reputation. If your reputation becomes tainted, it's extremely difficult to overcome.

Remember: word gets around very fast in this industry that's full of blogs, forums, and newsgroups.

7. Build your portfolio with success stories: long-lasting success stories where those rankings are there to stay.

This is where your Unique Selling Proposition comes in: what makes you unique from your competitors. Why should a company choose you as their SEM company versus one of your competitors? There needs to be a well-thought-out reason ­ usually more than one.

8. Exceptional SEOs can charge big bucks for their services, because you're worth every dollar. You know how to optimize for competitive keyword phrases while staying within the guidelines of the search engines. You understand that it may take time, but you know how to talk to your clients and explain how the art and science of SEM works. Every piece of SEM works together, which is the beauty and intrigue of the industry.

9. When search engine optimization and technology have taken you as far as they can, the exceptional SEO understands how to bring in the missing element of search engine marketing: creativity, so that no brick walls are ever erected for your clients.

10. Report back to your client often through reports, phone calls, and e-mail. Let your client know you're working hard on his or her behalf. If your client doesn't hear from you, this is where communication problems can occur. This is particularly true if you're a techie, because non-techies usually expect a lot more in the way of communication than most techies are willing to give. :)

No One Wants to Hire an Average SEO

No one wants to hire an average SEO for their Web site. They want exceptional work for their online business. Therefore, your goal should be to work hard to build a solid reputation for taking care of your clients, following the search engine guidelines, and treating your clients' sites as if they're your own.

Client support is crucial. If they don't understand, take the time to explain. Believe it or not, your client with the pet store doesn't understand what "keywords" are. It's up to you to introduce him to the "technical jargon" of the SEO industry. You just need to explain to him that this particular page needs to be focused on the word "dog baskets," and he'll understand.

Your "job" as an exceptional SEO goes much further than the optimization and technical aspects of a site. You'll also be an instructor, a hand holder, a cheerleader, and your client's best friend. After all, who else but you will understand what it means to achieve a #1 ranking in Google? You'll be there on the side lines celebrating with your client . . . if you're an exceptional SEO. This enthusiasm is so important to your relationship with your client.

In Conclusion

Don't settle for being average. You have so much more potential than that. Aim for "exceptional." The sky is just at the top of the stairs!

Certify Me - Two Emerging SEO Certification Programs

Two emerging initiatives aim to create and present certification designations for search engine optimization specialists. Oddly enough, both are from Southern Ontario, Canada both are being initiated by long term players in the online marketing world, and neither has sanction from any official bodies, other than their own boards of directors.

If the situation sounds confusing and ad-hoc, that's because it is. There is no official governing board for search engine optimization practitioners. In other words, SEO is not a profession by any extent of the word. It is a practice. There is no regulation, other than the vocal self-policing that happens within the industry and no bureau of complaints and compliance, other than the search engines themselves.

From a business and consumer's point of view, the lack of professional oversight or certification in the search engine optimization field can present problems when deciding with whom to risk advertising dollars. Again, there is no overarching better business bureau or best practices council for consumers to file complaints with. Without an industry-wide certification program, the only protection consumers can expect comes from the due-diligence process they exercise themselves.

The Society of Internet Professionals wants to change that. Formed as a non-profit society in 1997, the Society of Internet Professionals (SIP) sees itself as one of the few entities capable of offering a professional certification for SEOs. They took sole responsibility for the certification for Internet Professionals in 2003 when the Association of Web Professionals ceased operation, though they have been offering an accreditation program, Accredited Internet Professional (AIP), since 1999.

Since that time, the number of specialization streams under which SIP offers accreditation has grown to include, Web Technology, Web Design, Web Management, Web Development, Internet Privacy, e-Business, e-Learning, and SEO.

According to SIP president and founder Max Haroon, "AIP is the accreditation of Internet professional's qualification and experience. AIP are professionals practicing in the Internet sector whose qualifications, experience and professionalism have been assessed by SIP." Expanding certification into the SEO sector is a natural move for SIP, says Haroon.

In order to qualify for an AIP in SEO, a practitioner must first become a member of SIP. They must then conduct a three step assessment program, the first step being a free online self-assessment. After taking the online assessment test, applicants must then pass a SIP Core Examination which challenges the writer's mastery of general Internet competencies. Lastly applicants must take a more difficult test covering the specific AIP certification stream they are interested in.

The certification process is rigorous. Taking the two competency tests is one thing. Passing them with a grade of 75% or higher is another. If the applicant passes both competency tests, he or she will also need to provide references from employers, peers and friends, and agree to abide by SIP's code of ethics.

For more information on becoming a member of the Society of Internet Professionals, or on achieving SIP accreditation, visit their website at http://www.sipgroup.org/.

A second certification initiative will soon be launched if Terry Van Horne (aka, Webmaster T) from SEOPros.org has his way. SEOPros.org is also a registered non-profit society based in Southern Ontario. Founded as a directory of vetted and approved ethical SEO and SEM firms, SEOPros wants to bring a standard of best practices to the industry by offering an online training and evaluation course covering SEO Best Practices and Techniques.

The SEOPros initiative differs from SIP's in that direct instruction is offered to participants in a highly focused online classroom setting. As SEOPros promises one-on-one instruction, it limits its classes to a maximum of 20 participants.

Participants benefit from instruction offered by some of the most well known and trusted names in the SEO industry including Van Horne, Dan Thies, Scotty Claiborne and CJ Newton. SEOPros guarantees participants at least one hour of private conversation with an instructor for personalized, one-on-one lessons.

According to the SEOPros certification documents, "If you have heard of "boot camps" for MCSE, then you know what to expect!"

The SEOPros course covers the following areas, Web Development and Conversion Strategies, Understanding SERPs and HTML Optimization, and Submission and Link Building Strategies. Participants who successfully navigate their way through the intense learning sessions are invited to take a final exam which, if passed leads to SEOPro "Best Practices Certification" and membership in the (best practices exclusive) SEOPros directory. For more information on the SEOPros Best Practices certification, please visit the SEOPros website.

Both the Society of Internet Professionals and SEOPros recognize they have common goals and have indicated a willingness to work with each other in the future. It is interesting to note that both initiatives began independently of each other but are located within 50 kilometres of each other.

The need for a professional designation or best practice certification for SEOs is obvious. The method for creating, marketing and distributing these certificates is not. Each of the initiatives would have more strength if backed by one of the known SEO/SEM industry associations such as SEMPO or the emerging Search Marketing Association of North America.

LinkAssistant SEO Tool 2.2 Download

Publisher Description

Get Your Search Engine Rankings High By Improving Your Site's Link Popularity.

LinkAssistant SEO tool is packed with a plethora of revolutionary features. And I mean revolutionary. It's the only SEO software on the market that is an ALL-IN-ONE solution to your link exchange needs plus much, much more.

What's New:

1) A new Export Module was added in this version, allowing you to export all relevant project data to a number of formats including .txt, .csv, .html, .xml and .sql.
2) 'Quick Search' added - now you can do whatever you need even faster.
3) Embedded e-mail client was improved.
4) This update is also recommended for all LinkAssistant users to improve usability and compatibility.

Features:

- Instantly find thousands of high-quality link exchange partners, email them from within the software, then put them on your custom Links Page and upload it via FTP.

- Monitor if your reciprocal link partners are still linking back to you, and remove them from your Links Page if they don't - with a single click

- Immediately see how well you're ranking over time for the keywords you target in major Search Engines, and create visual progress graphs in minutes

- LinkAssistant is cross-platform, and runs seamlessly on Windows, Linux and Mac. Meaning you can run it on your Windows XP-based home PC and your Mac laptop with no fuss!

Resumes And SEO - Let Your Resume Work For You

By: Joe Balestrino
2006-05-05

This is a out of the norm for me. Writing about resumes, that is. I thought I'd tackle this subject to help those looking for work. I hope to offer insight to others who may not have thought of...

...using SEO to help garner employment opportunities. Take my word for it, a well optimized resume will help land you a job or some freelance work at the very least.

So you have a website. Great! What's on it? Your portfolio? Resume? Information useful for someone seeking your skills? Is it optimized? Optimize a resume? Sure, why not. It is on the Internet already? You may send links to potential employers, but wouldn't it be better if they found you on their own?

Suppose you were looking to relocate but you don't have the time to actively search for a new job. Your optimized resume could do the work for you. What if you are a freelancer? Wouldn't it be nice to have clients come to you? Of course it would. Do you need numbers back it up?

What if you are a model or actress. Did you know that on Yahoo alone there were over 1200 searches last month on Google for Model resume?

If you are a teacher, your resume has the potential to be seen by over 13,000 on Yahoo alone. There were 914 searches for elementary teacher resume. The list goes on and on. Even math teacher resumes are searched 300 times a month, just on Yahoo. One could safely say you can easily double that number by adding Google and MSN.

Granted, some of those searches are for people looking for a sample of a resume. Not all of them by any stretch, however, as only 1800 searched for "sample teacher resume".

If you optimized your resume for a specific geographically area, especially one you are looking to relocate to, it may help you land the job you are looking for.

The point here is to help increase your chances of landing a job. If you already have a site, take advantage of SEO. It can't hurt. Think about how impressed the person doing the searching will be with your self promotion. Not everyone has the ability to market themselves and it shows great initiative on your part. The bottom line is, a resume on a website is still a resume. Drive traffic to it. The worst that could happen is that you'll find a better paying job.