Search Engine Optimization

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset
in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing
how to raise your search engine positions, monitoring those
positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies
to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since
this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it
can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather
than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there
are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria
to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective
search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the
approach they employ to raise your search engine positions.
Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge
pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most
search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only
get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely
from a search engine’s index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to
the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded
to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special
page, which is set-up to artificially boost your search engine
position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but
often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the
largest and most important search engine on the Internet, will
remove your website from their index if they detect you have
cloaked pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this
technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company
you hire will not work with your competitors while they are
working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the
effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be
aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for
your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get
your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check
out is the company’s track record of results. However, don’t
take the company’s word for it. They will undoubtedly be
slanting their results in order to sell their services to you.
To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few
pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on.
The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and
these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the
popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of
the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at
Search Engine Watch. You can access this at

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great
results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with unpopular
words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes” will get high
popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it.
What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords.
Check out the software Wordtracker, available at
www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a
subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates
the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search
engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company
claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide
range of positions over a number of different search engines
using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request
a report for any client the company claims to have done well
for. This report should show good positions on a number of the
most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular
keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies,
make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to
have done. Some companies will use other company’s results in
order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call
the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the
name of their search engine optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search engine
optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a
wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords
and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and
you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing
strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering
for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular
search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember:
search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you
need a company that not only understands this, but keeps
constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must
also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search
engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your
positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search
engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample
of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should
show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don’t be
impressed by a report that only shows great results for a
limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy
results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine
results they are showing you are indeed the popular search
engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format
that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the
form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and
presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a
monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain
that the company you are considering actually monitors these
positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they
show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific
site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and
make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather
than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a
company that is actively participant in your search engine
marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of
company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization
company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is
not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that
will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might
consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances
to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that
will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a
fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved
with using a company without a proven track record – and that
risk is your money! Don’t take that leap unless the company can
supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company.
Don’t use a company that won’t show your references because of
any reason, confidentiality included. Remember – even doctors
will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you
with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and
one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise,
specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask
them what their experience was like with the company, such as
their availability to answer questions and deal with problems
and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate
the overall performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make
significant changes to their web pages that affected the
visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search
engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both
search engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the
search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits
for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether
your positions are at the top of the list or not

5 steps to create Successful Search Engine Optimization strategies and improve your website’s organic ranking.

Dear Reader,

You are reading this article probably because you want to learn about Search Engine Optimization techniques and tricks. Perhaps you want to promote your site and generate more leads, increase the revenue, and ultimately bring more business for your site.

Therefore, I gathered some information about search engine optimization subject which I hope you will get benefit from reading it.

Search engine marketing is using the search engines to drive traffic to your website. Consumers are using the internet and for the most part “search engines” to find what they are looking for. Therefore, it’s important for your business to have a website that has a good ranking in search engines.

There are numbers of method you can use to market your website using the search engines; however, I will only cover those that are free of charge in this article.

Organic Search Engine Optimization

This is probably the most common search engine marketing strategy for your website. There are enormous amount of information on the web about organic search engine optimization; however, which one will work for your site?

Learn from my mistake. It won’t happen over the night. You must have a good plan for your website optimization process and dedicate yourself to that plan. Therefore, it’s important to have a well-planed search engine optimization strategy to reduce your chance of failure. Today, there are so many FREE TOOLS available to you that you can use to create a successful plan for your site such as Google Webmaster Tools, GoodKeyword and many more.

I have divided the search Engine optimization planning into 5 major steps.

1. Decide which search engine you want to focus on. I would suggest start with Google, Yahoo, MSN respectively and Lean as much as you can about these search engines. For example, learn what is important to Google and use it your advantage. These information are usually published at their sites and it’s available to the public. In addition, there are thousands of methods that have been patented by USPTS and it’s available to you for FREE which you can study and learn from it.

2. This is an important part of your plan. You have to be realistic. Select your target keywords as narrow as possible. Why? Because if you choose very wide keywords you are diminishing your chance of being successful in your project. Remember, you are not the only one that is trying to optimize his or her site and those who started before you are ahead of the game. So be patient and start from the button and get to the top.

3. Identify you competitors and find out about their strategies. By doing a simple search on Google you can find your competitors and discover their strategies and secrets. Using methods like number of incoming links to the website, website’s contents, number of pages and…est. learn as much as you can about them.

4. Once you have identified all the search-terms it’s time to start the optimization process from your home page and other important pages on your site. In this step prepare the Meta tags, keywords, heading, contents, link tags… Remember, search engine optimization is divided into two major parts; inside optimization and outside optimization. Please note; do not neglect to put relative Meta tags and content for your pages. Although, search engines such as Google, and Yahoo do not put a high value on Meta tags anymore, however not-having Meta tags can reduce your ranking up to 1%. Don’t say 1% doesn’t matter, when you are competing with more than one million pages.

5. Once you have figure-out your Meta tags, Keyword, and contents, it’s time to start the real and more challenging step “outside optimization”. The best and most effective method which so fare has been proven the top strategy for search engine optimization is linking strategy. But be careful of who you are getting link from and to whom you are linking from your website. I suggest link to those sites that offer something valuable to your visitors and exchange link with websites that are in the same market as you are. Link exchanging is beneficial but it can also be harmful. Search engines such as Google puts value on all incoming links to each web page and recognizes them as a vote from one site to another site. Linking strategy is a very complicated and critical subject and I would suggest that you do some research on your own before starting this process and find the best strategy for you site. I have another article “A successful linking strategy” which you can download from my site and in that article I will go over the details of a successful linking strategy.

I hope that by now you have a better vision of how a successful optimization plan should be designed and If you need any information you can always go to my website http://www.websitedevelopmenttech.com and click on learning center, or you can subscribe to my “6 weeks FREE optimization workshop” and get all the details you need to optimized you site.

Wish you all the Best.

Shawn Davari