—> A prospective deal between Google and Twitter that would see posts from the social networking giant published in a search results feed would change the way SMEs approach search engine optimisation and marketing, an industry expert says.

According to a report posted on All Things Digital, the tech-industry focused blog of the Wall Street Journal, the two companies are in talks to create a feed that would show posts from the social networking giant.

Software giant Microsoft is also reportedly involved in discussions about a deal, “in which the companies would license a full feed from the micro-blogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines”.

SEO expert Chris Thomas says a deal would change the way SMEs approach search engine optimisation, as Google would then have access to a huge number of new pages that would be used for search results.

Thomas says any deal between the two companies would make sense, as Google has been responding to Twitter’s popular “real-time” search capabilities by updating its search filters to be faster and more relevant.

“Google has responded to the real-time search thing by speeding up its indexing capabilities, but it’s just not quick enough to keep up with the likes of Twitter which has millions of tweets. Google robots can’t index everything and they need something like this to help.”

“My gut feeling is that to have this sort of deal there would need to be some sort of staticness or relevance to the tweet feed, because otherwise you’d just be getting spammed by millions of random tweets. If you were doing some sort of SEO strategy you’d need a tweet to your site if someone searched for you, that sort of thing.”

The prospective deal, which could include a payment of several million dollars to Twitter and a revenue deal, would be non-exclusive and would see Twitter maintain its independence.

Any contract would come at a time when Twitter is seeking to raise revenue by charging corporate clients for specific services. A Twitter feed with Google could be an avenue for those corporate products to be introduced, as well as the “premium services” chief executive Biz Stone has spoken about this year.

Executives at Twitter, Microsoft and Google have so far made no comment about the reports.

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—> I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life. Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us. We don’t write simply for our entertainment. Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

Google delivered its refined search options box to new mobile platform Android today, which should help search engine optimization (SEO) professionals raise website profiles.

The new options give Google users the option to filter their search results in unconventional ways. Searchers can exclude internet shopping sites, find websites that they have already visited, and limit their results to a specific type of website, such as forums. Experts say that the refinements were introduced as a response to the slight gains posted by rival search engine Bing.

With the addition of these options to Android, Google’s new mobile phone operating system, the company has greatly expanded the pool of searches that search engine optimization (SEO) techniques can influence. The search option features will also function on smartphones running iPhone OS and PalmWebOS, which will additionally heighten their impact and market penetration.

Android is expected to quickly snatch a significant share of the smartphone OS market, with multiple handset manufacturers lined up to produce Android phones. Refined mobile search coupled with Google’s dominant position atop the search engine market could prove a potent combination.

The power of Twitter is obvious for all to see with millions logging on every day looking at what other users and businesses have to say at that moment in time. Many of the tweets that read will probably not be relevant to every user every time but if a user enjoys what you have to say then they will look further into what else that user does. With millions of businesses all fighting for your attention, many Twitter users can be put off so writing compelling headlines is a must with links going to more interesting information. You also need to know what is working and what isn’t and there are Twitter tools available that can be used to monitor how effective your campaign is. Each Twitter tool aims to improve your Twitter SEO and start making Twitter work for your business.

TwitterCounter

Some organisations have hundreds, sometimes thousands of followers which can be difficult to keep up with all of them and how often they visit your Twitter page. The TwitterCounter tool provides a chart of your twitter followers and predicts the future volume of your followers based on the average growth and loss over time, which can prove to be very useful. This can be a great way of gauging how effective the Tweets are being and whether the campaign is working or not. By deciding upon particular subjects each week, you will be able to monitor which people are interested in and go to these followers with products and services to suit them.

TweetStats

TweetStats is a tool that looks at how often you and your colleagues are tweeting, which can be useful if you’re working in a large organisation. The Twitter tool also tells you what interface is used to make these tweets and the time of day these Tweets are posted. TweetStats also monitors who has commented on the tweets and at what time to give you an idea of who is interested in your company and what you have to say. From this data you can see when members of your staff are posting their tweets and see at what time seems to bring the most traffic.

TweetBeep

The TweetBeep Twitter tool allows you to save keywords and keyword phrases and then monitors other Twitter conversations that mention your keywords. TweetBeep will then email you the tweets contain your keywords at certain times that you can set, which means that you can then follow them as they may be interested in your services and products.

At SEO Junkies we are dedicated to monitoring all of our client’s campaigns whether they are through social media websites or other search engine optimisation methods through your website. Our knowledge and experience on SEO means that we have a solid understanding of what makes a successful SEO campaign to get the best search ranking results for our clients. To find out more about our search engine optimisation techniques and our other internet marketing services, please visit seojunkies.com or contact us direct.

When your SEO tactic hits a brick wall and you see other sites casually occupying positions above yours with ease; instead of getting flustered, simply delve deeper into the root causes behind the guise and not just react to the effects of a well orchestrated plan. By determining which optimization method is pulling the strings of relevance in search engines, you can craft a suitable counter to overcome competitors and set your own ranking tactics into play.

In many ways SEO is like a game of chess. You have to switch up your game plan based on who you’re up against and different strategies are required to overcome the different types of optimization you’re competing with.

In a word of causes and effects, you can fight phantoms (like a blind puppet) or initiate elaborate strategies (like a puppet master) to orchestrate a series of competitive keyword victories online to determine who acquires a dominant search engine position.

Just like styles make the fight and the rules are the same (8 squares by 8 squares with predetermined rules for each piece), the possibilities are endless as the game progresses.

The only difference between chess and SEO is that  there are only 10 spots in search engines for any given keyword or key phrase combination, and based on how well optimized your site is for each one determines how search engines rank them as preferred destinations for its users.

For example, each website has an ideal method which will provide optimal results. When you determine what that method is and apply it, you have to measure how it fares against the optimization efforts of competitors and the scrutiny of search engine algorithms.

Ten of the Most Common SEO Tactics are:

1. Thousands of sku’s (stock kept units) for ecommerce or products with themed titles.
2. Flat site architecture and links to the homepage and critical landing pages.
3. Lean pages with higher quantities of staggered inbound links from other sites.
4. A vast authority site with deep categories, themes, silos and multiple topics.
5. Redirects from other sites or pages within your website to a consolidated page or folder.
6. A combination static website / blog to provide stability and frequent updates.
7. An RSS based feed aggregator combined with unique content to emulate hub status.
8. The Wikipedia style internal link consolidation method in tandem with selective deep links.
9. The grandfather effect, aging as a result of domain authority.
10. Press releases, media and trusted links.

As you can see above, these are but a few different play book type SEO tactics that can yield top ranking positions. SEO is not as easy as it seems. Sure, anyone can do it, but only those who understand the various layers required appeasing the 200+ metrics that search engines assess are capable of creating consistent top 10 rankings.

Which SEO Method Are You Applying?

Just like someone can use multiple paths and arrive at the same destination, SEO tactics, methods and implementation also falls under this category of events. It’s not always easy to discern which method your competitors are using to produce their respective rankings, but similarly, you can use multiple tactics to produce a series of rankings for multiple keywords in your website.

Top 10 SEO Tactic Elaborated:

SEO Method #1: Dynamically Generated All In Title Theming

Is very popular for ecommerce sites with thousands of sku’s (stock kept units/products) for that produce themed titles and pages based on dynamically generated data. This is common for sites with multiple pages appearing for an umbrella like theme. For example, if your website is about shoes, and your categories are flats, pumps, stiletto or sports, the site theme is still shoes.

Therefore, you could potentially combine the pages titles and meta data with any of the categories mentioned above without penalizing the pages.

The main consideration is having enough unique content to stand apart from the crowd which means either controlling what pages get indexed and pass link flow or using each to sculpt link flow with internal links.

By shifting the title tag, use of contextual links and footer links (with enough content on each product page) you could devour massive segments of keywords pertaining to any of the said categories.

SEO Method#2: Using Flat Site Architecture to Consolidate Link Flow

Using flat site architecture and links to the homepage and critical landing pages. This is the most common default for most shopping carts since it consolidates the most robust type of shared ranking factor in the folder with the most ranking power (the root folder of your domain).

Every time you add a subfolder, sub domain, category or segment to a website, that means you have to provide a sufficient amount of ranking factor either from (a) within the website or (b) from other websites via inbound deep links to provide prominence in search engines.

SEO Method#3: Concentrating Link Equity Across Fewer Pages

Lean pages with higher quantities of staggered inbound links from other sites. This means you choose a keyword, build a stable base of pages such as 20-50 pages of content, then build a higher percentage of inbound links to your core pages only. This functions like a beacon and is a great strategy for root phrases or single or double word competitive rankings.

SEO Method #4: Developing a Robust Authority Site

Developing authority sites takes time, but they are virtually unmatched when mature and contain thousands of content rich pages which all contain hundreds of potential rankings per page. Any two words from any optimized page can return a search query (despite the competitiveness of the keyword). Don’t believe us, just look at how Wikipedia dominates search results as a result of authority status.

SEO Method #5: Using Redirects Optimized Internal Pages or Aged Domains

Online properties sometimes lapse and their registration expires and theses properties have aged backlinks supporting them. This is why people acquire aged domains and redirect them to existing website or pages to add their inherent potency.

Redirects can also be used from cultivating popular internal pages within a website and then redirecting them to a home page or landing page (to pass along the rankings) or make a page with sparse topical content rank for the legacy on page and off page factors for the previously optimized page.

SEO Method #6: Creating an SEO Beacon for Static Pages

Static pages do not share as much link flow with other page and horde it for themselves, which means for more competitive keywords, a landing page close to the root folder is one ideal method for producing a long-term ranking.

When static pages are linked to from dynamic pages or blog posts within the same site, you can produce surges of link flow to give those static pages a boost in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

SEO Method #7: RSS Scrapers and SERP Hijacking

Often you see blogs harvesting RSS feeds from various sites from around the web. Aside from annoying the hell out of the authors who spent their time creating that content, what is the motive of scrapper sites?

Some of such sites are all based on affiliate offers or products or monetize traffic from SERP hijacking (ranking for your keywords and / or posts) with the ultimate objective of gaining enough authority to branch out in a niche after the crawl frequency has established their site as a hub. Remember he who is crawled faster can gain more traffic, and depending on their offer can harvest conversion.

Although it is not a long-term strategy, many still put blogs on auto-pilot to aggregate content and then either redirect the authority they gain (to a homepage or product page) and then promote their own distinct products and services (on the content creators dime).

Definitely a questionable tactic for those morally challenged types. I wouldn’t expect this to pass value for too long after duplicate content filters determine who wrote what first and assign the proper degree of relevance.

SEO Method #8: Using Consolidated Absolute Internal Links

Internal links when harvested properly can yield fantastic results. If the links are absolute (using the entire URL vs. relative site based links such as ../page.html) then those links that contain keyword-rich anchor text can elevate a page within a website with a fraction of inbound links from other sites.

SEO Method #9: Aging Layered Content to Gain Search Engine Trust

Over time each page in a website that has been online long enough can gain a significant degree of trust. That trust can be leveraged by linking from that page to a new page, or just by the virtue of its existence can get your foot in the door for competitive rankings.

Authority is the basis of all rankings, the more you have, the less persuasion required to surpass sites without it. Just consider each page as a time released asset that can be re-harvested time and time again as time progresses.

SEO Method #10: The Power of the Press and Syndication

Even though this is often overlooked as a viable SEO tactic, acquiring editorial links from Press Releases can oftentimes get your site in the spotlight for webmasters from authoritative site to link to you.

Don’t expect much link flow from the press release service site itself, but it’s the individuals the press release influences and which of those individuals decides to link to your site that matter.

Associated press feeds can also get aggregated into do-follow blogs, social media, or other syndicated sources.  Link quality trumps link quantity frequently, so, this method can be used with any of the other tactics above to add an additional layer of SEO to existing metrics in progress.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life. Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us. We don’t write simply for our entertainment. Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

Truly understanding the SEO process (starting with a goal instead of trying to fix something after the fact) represent two distinct schools of thought.

Having a general understanding of the stages involved in search engine optimization can produce moderate rankings, but just as search engines are constantly retooling their algorithms, in order to keep up with or create immunity to penalties for your website, you need to make constant adjustments, tweaks and fine-tune your website to maximize performance and outperform your competition.

Each page has a different threshold, depending on (1) the competition for the industry or niche (2) the keyword objectives for your pages and ultimately your site and (3) the ranking method you engage.

As a result, you must ensure that (a) your primary objective is to create quality content to raise your organic relevance score (b) work harder (or smarter) than the sites between your website and the websites in the top 10 for that phrase and (c) once you get there, make sure you have countermeasures in place to defend your position.

This is where experience pays off, a seasoned SEO firm is able to produce results deliberately and consistently. They say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and SEO in theory is one thing, yet SEO in application requires a synergistic continuity of objectives as well as tangible benchmarks to decipher progress.

Here are ten proven search engine optimization tactics:

• Domain Level Domination
• Content, Title and Tag Ranking Strategy
• CMS Systems, Topical Relevance and Internal Linking
• Concentration of links to interior pages or deep linking
• A mini-site strategy emphasizing small group of keywords
• 301 Redirect (rolling multiple sites into one)
• Using sub domains with GEO Specific Key phrases as a prefix
• Capping link flow and sculpting page rank and internal links
• Using sitemaps to connect vast sections of larger websites to funnel crawling / indexing
• Using Site Architecture (such as Wikipedia) to acquire competitive rankings

Any or all of these tactics are essentially interchangeable, or can be used in succession:

Domain Level Domination - Who knows how long this aspect of the algorithm will last. Having a keyword rich domain (keywords in your website name) is a proven format for creating relevance and rankings with a fraction of the effort vs. domain names that do not have keywords relative to the theme of the target phrase.

Content, Title and Tag Ranking Strategy – Works wonders for large sites with hundreds or thousands of pages.

This is based on allinurl, allintitle, allintext and allinanchor relevance. Ideally, each page represents a percentage of the overall topical relevance required to qualify your website and pages for a high ranking search engine position.

100 pages about a topic on your website (even if sparsely mentioned or unified with footer links) is more than enough to outperform a competing website with just a few pages on the topic.

This strategy works wonders for extremely competitive keywords (like each page is a piece of the puzzle that supports the overall ranking). E-commerce websites with optimized meta tags and titles use this tactic often due to the high number of stock kept units.

CMS Systems, Topical Relevance and Internal Linking – This is typically implemented by bloggers (who have the capacity to dedicate time and energy to developing each category over time).

Most CMS systems convert categories into relevant and structured subfolder with SEO friendly naming conventions that systematically organize link flow and distribution of link weight evenly to sub pages.  We posted about some different SEO Friendly naming schemes last month in Tech Tips & Solutions from Solutions For Life.

As a result, by internal linking your pages (with relevant keywords) you can emphasize which pages have more alignment and rankings for specific keywords in the SERPs. In other words, you can sculpt which pages appear first based on how you link within the content management system.

Concentration of links to interior pages or deep linking – The previous tactic touched on this lightly, but when combined with building external links to specific pages (via deep linking) search engines calculate the synergy and pure relevance and award a page with higher positioning when the ratios are perfected.

For example, a top 10 ranking can be produced from 100 internal links to a page and 25 external links to a page using a specific range of inbound anchor text from other websites.

A Mini-Site Strategy Emphasizing Small Group of Keywords – Just as implied, create a website based on a very specific range of keywords, build ten pages of related keywords under each topic or landing page, link up from the sub pages to the landing page (with keyword-rich anchor text) and dial in the external links for competitive rankings. This strategy still works well vs. creating a site with multiple topics.

Using 301 Redirects for SEO – Many sites, like homes.com or like.com employ this tactic to increase rankings for their content, both employed thousands of redirects from sites that were acquired (or devoured) for the sake of creating an authority site. There are multiple uses for 301 redirects that can be used internally, however in this reference, it was regarding other sites outside of the target domain.

Using Sub Domains with GEO Specific Key phrases – This strategy takes tons of links to gain expression, as each sub domain is essentially ranks like another site. HP for example has 50 subdomains and you can see that when conducting searches how many in fact are just extensions of their main domain hp.com.

For a juggernaut such as that, it is a valid strategy for SEO defense as well as market domination, but it takes time, energy and resources to implement and is not suggested for smaller organizations unless you have the time and energy to dedicate to the process.

Capping Link Flow and Sculpting Page Rank and Internal Links – Essentially, using the pages you have as a resource. Limiting outbound link juice from escaping by only using relevant anchor text and keeping the quality and quantity of links from page to page maximized through the use of no-follow, java script to exclude links from being crawled) and synchronizing the anchor text from Page A to the topic of Page B (which is the optimal target page).

Using Sitemaps – Using html or xml sitemaps are a great way to ensure that all of your pages are being crawled. The more pages indexed, the more ranking potential your entire site can share with itself and search engines (granted there is enough link weight to distribute).

Using Site Architecture for SEO - In short, by carefully structuring your topics, categories and content, then combining is with impeccable co-citation of anchor text you can create the wikipedia effect (the ability to rank for multiple topics). Every time a keyword appears in your site, it is linked to the target page all about that keyword. Cross reference this with every keyword you want to rank for, go through the entire site and internally link this way and you will note that your site will require less external links to rank competitively for those phrases.

To gain true expression for this tactic, you still require focused external links going to the internal pages via deep linking, by the whole site can produce double rankings for the keyword in question (as long as the linking still incorporates a spine with a sitemap or homepage to reinforce relevance).

Obviously entire volumes could be written on any of the topics above, but instead of talking about it, I have to get back to work and implement strategies like this combined with dozens of others for our own site and our clients to fine tune results.

e.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life. Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us. We don’t write simply for our entertainment. Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

I know I have posted many times about SEO, and you are probably tired of hearing about it, but SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can make or break a web site.  One of the most crucial things you can do as part of SEO is finding out what keywords and phrases are best suited for your site.   The higher up in rankings your particular set of keywords and phrases are in search engines, the more likely your site will be viewed by potential customers.

Look at the other guy

One of the simplest ways to determine which keywords are right for your web site is by checking out the competition.  This is not to say you should copy your competition’s keywords and phrases but rather see what they are using to get a good feel for what is best for your site.  Go to a competitor’s web site and look at the source code for the first page.  While quickly falling from use, within the header, you’ll see a meta tag named keywords.  The content of this tag will show you keywords used by this site.  Also, looking at the first few paragraphs of the front page should also so keywords and phrases that may be similar to what you would place for your web site.

List it out

Start making your list of words and phrases that you feel mostly relate to your web site.  For example, if your web site is all about coffee, coffee products and the sale of coffee, an obvious first choice would be “coffee.”  From here you can expand on your list by including such words as “coffee beans,” “coffee mugs,” “coffee maker,” and so on.  These words will then all be placed within your web site in specific areas.

Placement is everything

While meta tag usage is still viable (though being phased out), careful placement of your keywords and phrases within the first few paragraphs of your web site entry page is more critical.  Search engine spiders will not only look at the meta tags but also the site itself.  It’s important to realize the first few paragraphs can be the most important and you should also keep in mind that if you overfill the paragraphs with your keywords or phrases, many search engines will catch this and bypass your site in indexing.  Other areas to place your keywords include the title of the page, anchored text areas, even page names.  Careful placement throughout your web site will help further your positioning with search engine indexing.

Different words – same meaning

The next thing to do is to investigate synonyms – not every one puts in the same word that has close to the same meaning.  This may not work in our case of a coffee web site (when someone is looking for coffee, that’s what they will type in a search engine) but can work for sites that offer services rather than products or items.  If your web site offers web hosting, instead of “bandwidth” you might opt for “site transfer” as an alternate keyword phrase.

Standing out in a crowd

Finally, look at your site and see what you may offer that your competitors do not.  If your coffee web site offers specialty machines such as an espresso maker or coffee recipe books, these are things that are just waiting to be incorporated into your keywords and phrases.  These are the words that will enable your website to stand out from the pack.  A person simply looking for some great coffee recipes may happen upon your site as it has been listed with the keyword phrase “coffee recipes”.  A visitor can then become a customer.  Don’t overlook anything – a comparison between your site and your competitor’s sites can help you find these little differences.

Wrap up

Finding and implementing keywords and phrases within your web site really isn’t too difficult.  The difficulty really lays in how you place your keywords and in how you can differentiate you site from all the others vying for top spots in the search engines.  Research and good luck!

One of the most important things you can do in ensuring your web site is successful is creating a sound SEO strategy.  Not only will an SEO strategy help you keep on track of things you need to implement for SEO but it will also enable you to properly promote your web site and its content.  Done correctly, you’ll be able to spend more time on your actual web site rather than the implementation of SEO.

To-Do List

There are a few steps in creating your SEO strategy.  The first of these is to create your plan.  An effective way to write your plan is with a to-do list.  This to-do list should map out your tasks and the goals you would like to achieve.  Once you’ve accomplished each task or goal, you simply tick it off. A good example of a plan or to-do list would be to first list your main goals.  Then under each goal, list out the tasks you need to complete in order to complete the intended goal.  You may decide that a primary goal is concerning your web site’s search engine placement.  Another good goal is increasing the traffic to your web site.

With your to-do list created, you can fine tune and add additional tasks for each listed goal. Some good examples would be to research which search engines are the top ones utilized and then finding out how their submission guidelines work.  You could also list researching your keywords and phrases as a task, finding the correct places to incorporate your keywords and phrase and then locating a site or program that will enable you to easily track your website. This last task is another crucial part of a good SEO strategy – how to analyze your site.

Analyze

Analyzing sites and programs abound on the internet but one of the better ones to use (and without cost) is Google Webmaster Tools.  It offers sitemap creation, views of the top keywords used to locate your site and where these words positioned you within Google, backlinks (links that are to your site from other sites) and much more.  Google Webmaster Tools will allow you to makes changes to your SEO strategy based on what appears to work well and what doesn’t.  Keeping up with changes, sitemap resubmissions and eventually garnering more backlinks from web sites are all part of ensuring your site sits high in the rankings and a good analyzing tool will make these tasks easier in the long run.

Monitor

Lastly, the best SEO strategy you can implement is constant monitoring.  Again, you can opt to use Google Webmaster Tools for this particular task or one of many other sites and programs available.  It’s a bit of a “lather, rinse, repeat” kind of attitude that needs to be incorporated into your plan.  Doing all the research, the keyword placement, the backlink requests won’t amount to anything if it is only done once.  It needs to be constantly monitored, constantly changed and this simply is no easy task without a good plan in place.  In choosing your analyzing program or site, you will need to keep this in mind.

Final Word

The success of your SEO strategy is deeply tied in with your entire SEO campaign and, as such, is one of the key items that will ensure the success of your site.  In a nutshell, create a good goal plan in the form of a to-do list, give each goal the tasks needed to complete the goal, analyze your site and efforts and vigilantly monitor your SEO campaign.  You will soon see a marked improvement in your web site statistics.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life.  Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us.  We don’t write simply for our entertainment.  Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

As more websites come online in today’s technologically advanced world, s we are asked more and more what makes a website work? Is it in the web design; is it in the website graphics; or does it come down to good SEO practice; or even Internet Marketing?  What truly makes a website appealing to viewers and customers?

Well the answer is not in any one of these areas, it’s in all of these a great web design with nice clean graphics married together with good solid on page SEO techniques and off page SEO techniques means you are really heading in the right direction. Then you have the option of working on solid Internet marketing methods, email marketing getting your product or service known is half the battle.

The days of “If I build a website, they will come” are long forgotten and over. The fact of the matter is customers will not come to your website if they can not find it. Then comes the million dollar question do I pay for my clicks using a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign like Google Adwords or do you employ the services of an Search Engine Optimization company (SEO) like www.websitepromotion.net.au? Either way will get you found but remember once you become a payer of clicks you will become for ever reliant upon this method for you traffic.

The facts are clear and simple if you employ the services of an Internet Marketing company, they can set you straight on the facts and dispel all the myths and best inform you on how to make your website work especially on design, call to action, and the right keyword target. So often I get clients that say to me they want to be found for ridiculous single keywords. The fact is you will have more chance of doing business by using localized keyword targeting your area and subjects relating to your speciality.  If you are selling rare dogs, don’t just have a keyword for those dogs in the US.  Use the name of your breed in your area. This will at least increase business in your area.

Everyday we are emailed and answer phone calls from people that are at the end of the road we soon set them straight on what makes and good website great.

When you hire a professional SEO Firm  to optimize your website, naturally you expect results. You expect your rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages) to improve, your traffic to improve and subsequently your sales or leads, meaning your ROI (return on investment) to also improve.

But how long should this take? How long before your investment in SEO starts to yield results and your site starts to move up the rankings?

First off, this depends on a number of factors:

The competitiveness of your industry
As with any form of business, if your industry is very competitive online then you’ll have to do more, and wait longer, to see any results. If your industry is in finance, personal injury, medical or adult then you’re competing with some very large companies with even larger marketing budgets. You won’t be able to set up a loans company and compete online without a sizable investment in your SEO.

Your starting point
Where your website is starting from is also a factor. If you have a ten year old website with hundreds of links and indexed content then you’re starting with an advantage over the person who sets up a new domain from scratch. An established website will always have the advantage over a new one, so you need to keep that in mind.

Your budget
The level of SEO required by a website varies, and if the budget is small then sacrifices have to be made. Sacrifices such as slower link building, fewer content articles or no development of website tools will slow down an SEO campaign.

Previous SEO, whether bad or good
This can be a huge factor in the success of your SEO. If you have had SEO before from an SEO company then you could be in a strong position from which to move forward, or you could be in the weakest position of all, having just been found out by Google for spam, link buying or duplicate content. If you’ve had SEO before, you should tell your new SEO company immediately to save any time and mistakes down the line.

Your expectations
This is again important to clarify before any SEO campaign can begin. If you believe that your SEO company can get you on the first page of Google for any phrase then you’ll be disappointed. Your SEO company should advise of what is possible and what is not at the outset, that way you won’t feel let down in the long run.

As for the original question, how long should SEO take before you see results; you could see your rankings improve to the point that you have first page listings in a matter of days or it could take more than a year. Ask your SEO company for realistic projections for their work, they should be able to tell you.

In case you have not noticed, I have been talking about Search Engine Optimization.  That is because it is very important in today’s world.

If you have read much about SEO, you probably already know that this little piece of code is one of the most important parts of your pages.  Unlike in the popular song we used to sing around campfires, where my name was your name too (Da, da, da, da, da, da, da), page titles MUST all be unique for them to be effective.

If you are using WordPress, or almost any of the other CMS tools, your HTML page titles are probably the same as your post titles.  Having both titles match is not necessarily bad, but you could get better results if you mixed them up some.

Using a CMS does help eliminate one of the biggest problems I see on the ‘net when it comes to page titles.  All too often companies ignore them, or put in something that may make sense to them, but actually does more harm than good.  Why create a title that just says “home page” or “products?”  Sure, it does tell you what page of the site you are on.  However, it does nothing to tell you or (more importantly in this case) the search engines what content that page contains.  Think about the book example I’ve used in the past – what if every book you looked at had just “the cover” written on the front of it.  It’d make selecting a good one a bit more difficult.

Another common mistake is that too many site owners just insert the name of their company on every page as the title.  What’s the point in that?  If you are a known brand, your content should already rank for your name.  If you are an unknown brand, who will know to search for your name?  I’m not saying you can’t include your company name in page titles, but if you must, please put it near the end.

When determining a page title it’s best to consider the content of the page and then try to imagine how a person might describe it. Often, that’s also how they would search for it.

For example, if your company name is “Smith & Associates” and you sell real estate in New Castle, Colorado you should try something like “Real Estate in New Castle, Colorado – Smith & Associates”, or perhaps “New Castle Home Listings – New Castle, Colorado – Smith & Associates Real Estate”.  This helps you be found for what you do, where you do it and who you are.  If you can fit in alternative terms, like I did in the second example – I used both “home listings” and “real estate” – that will boost the odds of being found as well.  For interior pages, consider adding additional details based on the style and neighborhood of the home being shown on the page.  Perhaps a title like “Ranch Style Home – Big Creek – New Castle, Colorado – Smith & Associates Real Estate” would be a good match for your page.

A word of caution though; while there is no limit as to how long a page title can be, the search engines will only display approximately the first 65 characters (including spaces) and will cut off the rest, possibly resulting in an odd looking title being displayed for your pages.  In general, you should try to get your most important words as close to the beginning as possible.  The search engines will read the entire thing, but since search engines try to mimic humans, and since most humans only get a few words in before they stop reading, the engines place greater strength on those words nearer the beginning.  You can see from this example what happened when I set one of my page titles a little too long.

OK , there you have it.  Now you can get started reviewing and updating your page titles.  Let me know how it works out for yo