SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Tips & Tricks

2011-06-15T06:44:00.001-07:00

Tips For Keeping Customers Engaged Over the Summer

Keeping your customers engaged over the summer can be a challenge. Between vacations, outdoor events, and school being out, the consumer’s buying habits and attention span change. People are in front of their computers less and use mobile devices more to check email in the summer months.

So how do you keep your customers engaged during the lazy, hazy days of summer?

Make sure your emails are mobile-ready. If at all possible, create a mobile version of your email. If you do not have the resources to do this, at the very least make the font bigger and keep the call to action closer to the top and more centered (so you don’t have to slide the email to the right).The same would be true with landing pages.

Try a time-of-day split test. A change in season can mean a change in your contacts’ behaviors. Parents are distracted by children now that school is out, children stay up later, there are more activities outside. If you usually send at the same time, try a different time or split-test one time with another and look for a difference in engagement. There is no magical time – it depends on your audience.

Be patient. In the lazy days of summer, it may take people longer to get to your email. Studies show that it can take 2 weeks for all of your interested contacts to interact with your email. Make sure your offer is still valid or, at the very least, make sure the landing page has an offer of some kind. It may be best to avoid “today only” specials in the summer, unless this is your business model.

Do a “summer tips” email. Retailers – do you have a product that can be used more/differently in the summer (hats, lotions, shoes, equipment)? Do you have information that is more relevant in the summer (healthy tips, travel destinations, children’s study tips while out of school, water safety)? Get creative and your audience will appreciate the tips.

Do a summer auto-responder series. Alternatively, set up an email calendar now and create the emails ahead of time. Schedule these emails in advance – especially if your email manager will be on vacation. An example of a “summer series” could be around deals each week, summer safety tips, motivating health tips related to the summer (skin care, pool exercises, healthy eating). Nonprofits could consider hosting a “summer challenge” fundraising goal and offer winners a prize at the end of the summer.

Express yourself. Summer is a more casual time, making it a good time to relate to your customers on a personal level. People like to feel they are buying from people, rather than companies. Take time this summer to stop selling and start building relationships. Take pictures of your staff at a company cook-out, share pictures from employee travels (this would be great on a blog or social media, too). Have a picture-caption contest – for example, use a picture of your CEO or owner doing something fun and ask your subscribers to write the caption with a small prize for the winning caption. Ask your customers what they did during the summer and ask them to post pictures to your website or Facebook page.

Get creative, find a reason to send to your list, and you’ll find your audience engaged with you through the summer and into fall. Read more about the importance of summer campaigns to small businesses here.

Written By: Penny Ashley-Lawrence, iContact Enterprise Account Manager

Choosing Search Engine Optimization Services

If you decide to use our search engine promotion services, be sure to find out what is included in these services. SEO Specialist Online can help you through every step of the process: researching keywords, writing the content, even updating the optimization periodically.

This is the type of service you want so that you can sit back and put your web site’s future on the search engines in the hands of trusted, experienced professionals who will generate the results you want.

Not being where your customer is looking could be costing you their business! Let SEO Specialist Online do a free website evaluation.

Branding

2011-05-19T09:03:00.001-07:00

Delivering on Your Brand

Your brand positioning has been agreed on, your target customer has been identified, your message has been refined to reach that audience, you have a new logo and tagline, a new email marketing template and your website has a new design. All of this really captures who you are and where you want to go.

So, your work is done. Right?

Wrong.

Good start, but you’ve only scratched the surface. Your smart positioning, new site, new template and new logo will only get you so far. Now, the real challenge: delivering on your brand experience.

Experience can make or break a brand. Say you’ve premised your entire brand on exceptional service (á la Nordstrom), but your frontline employees don’t deliver. At all. What stays with your audience is not that winning tagline about service, but the abrasive rep who rubbed them the wrong way. And at that point, no amount of appealing logos or clever messages can salvage your brand.

Retailers provide an example of how to think about your brand experience. In fact, the emphasis on brand experience in retail has inspired a whole cottage industry. Perfumers develop special scents for specialty shops. Of-the-moment DJs craft brand-inspired soundtracks for store stereos. But before you write this off as a trend for retailers only, think again. While you might not need to rush out for that perfect fragrance for your office headquarters, the lesson is this: Take a hard look at your brand experience.

Getting your brand experience right requires a top-to-bottom sweep of your touch points. So, do yourself this favor. Get your team in a room and start mapping out all the possible ways your audience might interact with your organization. In other words, audit your brand experience.

As a warm-up, start with the obvious conveyers of brand: your emails, your website, your ads. But then get into the not-so-obvious: how your staff interacts with your audiences, the atmosphere in your lobby, how you answer the phone, the music playing when a caller goes on hold, the tone in your email marketing messages.

Also, think hard about whether your processes actually reinforce your brand promise—and identify the gaps. For example, are you promising “easy” but making customers take a dozen steps to complete an order? Do you want to target young families but aren’t actually offering family-friendly policies for your employees? Do you want to be known for hospitality but have a less-than-welcoming presence at the front door? All of these details add up to an impression of your brand—good or bad.

So, get beyond the big picture and think through all those details that make up the experience. Then, make some changes, start actively managing the experience and watch your brand take off. Written By: Anna Adlard, Director of Account Planning at capstrat

Choosing Search Engine Optimization Services

Not being where your customer is looking could be costing you their business! Let SEO Specialist Online do a free website evaluation.

Worst SEO Blunders

2010-06-13T07:01:00.001-07:00

Worst SEO Blunders

According to Search Engine Land Many consider search engine optimization as a sort of black box. But once the essential features of a search engine optimal website are laid out in a concise list, SEO is not nearly as mystifying.

The Big secret is, "There is No Secret"

Every web site owner wants more traffic and higher rankings in the search engines. In the midst of an SEO campaign, however, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. So before you change a single title, you might want to shift your focus to answer some important questions.

So what do I mean by losing sight of the forest for the trees anyway? You’ve probably heard that expression since you were a teenager at least. You may even know that it means focusing on the details to the point that you lose sight of the big picture – and with the amount of detail work that goes into a proper SEO project, that’s easy to do.

The mission of search engines is to supply their visitors with relevant results, so penalizing or banning sites that appear to interfere with that mission is a necessity. Understanding which blunders adversely impact your search engine rankings is a prerequisite to a well-optimized site.

1. Do you use pull-down boxes for navigation? Search engine spiders can’t fill out forms, even short ones with just one pull-down. Thus, they can’t get to the pages that follow. If you’re using pull-downs, make sure there is an alternate means of navigating to those pages that the spiders can use. Note this is not the same as a mouseover menu, where sub-choices show up upon hovering over the main navigation bar; that’s fine if done using CSS (rather than Javascript.)

2. Does your primary navigation require Flash, Java or Javascript? If you rely on search engine spiders executing Flash, Java or Javascript code in order to access links to deeper pages within your site, you’re taking a big risk. The search engines have a limited ability to deal with Flash, Java and Javascript. So the links may not be accessible to the spiders, or the link text may not get associated with the link. Semantically marked up HTML is always the most search engine friendly way to go.

3. Is your site done entirely in Flash or overly graphical with very little textual content? Text is always better than graphics or Flash animations for search engine rankings. Page titles and section headings should be text, not graphics. The main textual content of the page should ideally not be embedded within Flash. If it is, then have an alternative text version within div tags and use SWFObject to determine whether that text is displayed based on whether the visitor has the Flash plugin installed.

4. Is your home page a “splash page” or otherwise content-less? With most webites, as mentioned above, the home page is weighted by the search engines as the most important page on the site (i.e., given the highest PageRank score.) Thus, having no keyword-rich content on your home page is a missed opportunity.

5. Does your site employ frames? Search engines have problems crawling sites that use frames (i.e., where part of the page moves when you scroll but other parts stay stationary.) Google advises not using frames: “Frames tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links and so on, because frames don’t fit the conceptual model of the Web (every page corresponds to a single URL.) “Furthermore, if a frame does get indexed, searchers clicking through to it from search results will often find an “orphaned page”: a frame without the content it framed, or content without the associated navigation links in the frame it was intended to display with. Often, they will simply find an error page.What about “iFrames”, you ask? iFrames are better than frames for a variety of reasons, but the content within an iframe on a page still won’t be indexed as part of that page’s content.

6. Do the URLs of your pages Include “cgi-bin” or numerous ampersands? As discussed, search engines are leery of dynamically generated pages. That’s because they can lead the search spider into an infinite loop called a “spider trap.” Certain characters (question marks, ampersands, equal signs) and “cgi-bin” in the URL are sure-fire tip-offs to the search engines that the page is dynamic and thus to proceed with caution. If the URLs have long, overly complex “query strings” (the part of the URL after the question mark), with a number of ampersands and equals signs (which signify that there are multiple variables in the query string), then your page is less likely to get included in the search engine’s index.

7. Do the URLs of your pages include session IDs or user IDs? If your answer to this question is yes, then consider this: search engine spiders like Googlebot don’t support cookies, and thus the spider will be assigned a new session ID or user ID on each page on your site that it visits. This is the proverbial “spider trap” waiting to happen. Search engine spiders may just skip over these pages. If such pages do get indexed, there will be multiple copies of the same pages each taking a share of the PageRank score, resulting in PageRank dilution and lowered rankings.If you’re not quite clear on why your PageRank scores will be diluted, think of it this way: Googlebot will find minimal links pointing to the exact version of a page with a particular session ID in its URL.

8. Do you unnecessarily spread your site across multiple domains? This is typically done for load balancing purposes. For example, the links on the JCPenney.com home page point off to www2.jcpenney.com, or www3.jcpenney.com, or www4.jcpenney.com and so on, depending on which server is the least busy. This dilutes PageRank in a way similar to how session IDs in the URL dilute PageRank.

9. Are your title tags the same on all pages? Far too many websites use a single title tag for the entire site. If your site falls into that group, you’re missing out on a lot of search engine traffic. Each page of your site should “sing” for one or several unique keyword themes. That “singing” is stifled when the page’s title tag doesn’t incorporate the particular keyword being targeted.

10. Do you have pop-ups on your site? Most search engines don’t index Javascript-based pop-ups, so the content within the pop-up will not get indexed. If that’s not good enough reason to stop using pop-ups, you should know that people hate them – with a passion. Also consider that untold millions of users have pop-up blockers installed. (The Google Toolbar and Yahoo Companion toolbar are pop-up blockers, too, in case you didn’t know.)

I expect many of you will look at these questions and think that they should be asked well before a site goes live, very early in the design process. That’s probably true. But it’s also true that web sites evolve over time, rather like people. They change, grow, and adapt to conditions in the marketplace. By the time a web site has been up for a couple of years (or even less), it might be a very different creature from what the site owner originally had in mind.

This kind of change is not a bad thing, per se. We all get a certain amount of satisfaction out of growing and tweaking our sites, and then watching what happens. If we’re not looking clearly at what the site is turning into, however, we can’t see what it needs.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic.

Today Google Real-Time Search Changes Everything. Not being where your customer is looking could be costing you their business! Search engines are tightening up the loopholes to manipulate positioning.

So called “doorway” pages, tricks with meta tag/keyword files, etc. no longer are effective. Keyword positioning, along with indexing, is the way to be seen on today’s Internet.

•The vast majority of clicks occur within the top 5 positions on a search page.

• As a rule, the more competitive the business category, the harder it is to attain decent placement. Conversely, the more competitive the business category, the more important placement is to success of the business.

Entrepreneurs and small businesses constantly find themselves looking around asking themselves why they can’t quite seem to find a good fit for what they need from service providers.

People do business with who they like, who they trust and who truly care about their business. In fact, a recent study by US News & World Report revealed that when clients leave their current provider it’s not because of a pricing or product problem, but a “people” problem. People that no longer value their business, or seem indifferent to it. A whopping 68% of them.

• A fractional 14% defected because of a pricing issue followed by 9% who were successfully wooed by a competitor.

• With Google Real-Time Search the playing field has been leveled.

• No longer can you or your competition sit back and think they own their TOP organic Google positions!

To Improve Web Site Search Engine Rankings, it’s SEO Specialist Online for all your search engine optimization needs Why not let us do a Free Website Evaluation for Your Business TODAY!

SEO Services

2010-05-30T09:55:00.001-07:00

Guaranteed SEO Services and solutions to improve the ranking of your website

When a prospective client approaches us for our SEO services it is quite obvious that they want to improve their website ranking so that they can outdo the competition. While we specialize in all kinds, there are a few guaranteed SEO services that will definitely give you the kind of results that you are hoping for.

Keywords and site content

Competitive keywords and interesting content are a must for any site to succeed. In fact both keywords and site content go hand in hand. Our team of professionals will analyze your market and come up with a list of keywords that are competitive. They will then utilize them in the appropriate density to create content that is unique. Once this unique content is uploaded onto your website, you will find that its ranking has improved automatically as search engines favor new content.

Social networking, article marketing and URL submissions

Social networking sites are one of the best ways to optimize your site. In addition to this we also recommend article marketing and URL Submission. To begin with our team will make sure that your website is listed with all the major search engines. Once this is done, we start submitting articles with new content to article directories. These articles will contain back links that lead to your site. In addition to this we will also submit your articles to social networking sites as they can play a significant role in traffic increase as well.

Building a phenomenal web site is only half of the picture. You have to use your marketing abilities to bring traffic to that web site and this is where search engine optimization services come into play.

SEO Services Incorporate:

* Detailed Keyword research
* Creation of relevant Meta tags & other html tags
* SEO content copy writing with optimizing of site text and creating additional text as needed
* Creation of Sub Domain
* Site navigation & control flow optimization
* Developing theme based site architecture
* Link Building services
* Dynamic Search Engine optimization
* Detailed Competition Analysis and report
* Search engine submissions directories.
* Ongoing optimization

What are Search Engine Optimization Services?

Search engine promotion services are designed to promote improved rankings for web sites. Basically, the term refers to a wide-range of activities which are combined for the sole purpose of securing top spots at major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing and boosting the size of your web site's traffic.

These services typically include researching keywords extensively so that the best are chosen for your site. The development of SEO content, including tags, and link building are also important aspects of search engine promotion services.

Why Use Search Engine Optimization Services?

Using Search engine optimization services is important for one because of all the new technologies being incorporated by leading search engines. For example, Google is now using a process called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to help calculate the page rankings. This technique involves the use of language and the relationships between words. The purpose is to weed out sites that are merely fluff content wrapped around keywords. SEO Specialist Online has now begun incorporating this same technology into their search engine promotion services to ensure continued high rankings for our clients.

LSI is only one example. The search engines are constantly changing their ranking methods in order to create the best possible experience for users so using professional search engine promotion services is the only one way to keep up with those changes without losing your ranking.

Choosing Search Engine Optimization Services

If you decide to use search engine promotion services, be sure to find out what is included in these services. SEO Specialist Online can help you through every step of the process: researching keywords, writing the content, even updating the optimization periodically. This is the type of service you want so that you can sit back and put your web site's future on the search engines in the hands of trusted, experienced professionals who will generate the results you want.

Sometimes the best helping hand you can get is a good, firm push

2010-04-06T06:27:00.001-07:00

SEO Ranting

I do want top rankings
I do NOT want top rankings.

Which one of those statements is true for you?

I am willing to invest time or money to get top rankings.
I am NOT willing to invest time or money to get top rankings.

Which one of those statements is true for you?

Not many things in life are black and white...but getting top rankings for your website is.

You either have them or you don't AND you are either willing to do something to get them, or you're not.

I think a lot of people fool themselves into thinking they will do what it takes and then when the times comes to invest the time or put up money, they don't follow through.

I don't mean to be too blunt, and I definitely don't mean to be offensive but I do want to be honest and hopefully get you thinking.

It's worth repeating.

You either have top rankings or you don't.
You are either willing to do something to get top rankings, or you aren't.

What is true for you and what does that truth mean to you, your business and your goals?

It has been said that inaction is action, in and of itself. So, the question is - you are already taking action in some form, so are you taking the right action?

SEO may not be for you. You may not want a lot of new traffic and leads and sales. If that's the case, that's OK.

But if you want or need traffic, leads and sales - then you need top rankings.

Not sure where that come from, but I guess that was my little rant for the day! Stay tuned for more SEO tips.

Jim Gras
Senior SEO Strategist
SEO-Specialist-Online.com
Skype: jamiboy
800-897-6458

Professional Web Hosting | SEO Specialist Online

2010-04-05T10:09:00.001-07:00

Virtual Private Servers for You. A low cost solution that provides a high performance hosting experience, without the price of a full server.

Let SEO Specialist Online do the Work for You

Buy cheaper

* The more servers you purchase, the more you save.

Pre-Optimized/Pre-Secured

* All SEO Specialist Online hosting come pre-optimized/pre-secured by default. No worries about having to secure your VPS for you or your clients. We take care of that before you even receive your welcome email with login information.

True Partnership

* We are the type of Partner that sees the value of focusing day to day on helping our clients grow and evolve. We credit our success to our personal touch with our clients and can safely say when hosting with SEO Specialist Online, you're in good hands 24/7. As a VPS leader with unmatched experience we welcome you to the SEO Specialist Online family.

Need more assistance?

If you have any questions please feel free to contact our support department.

Monthly charge $15.95

Save 5% pay for your hosting for 3 months

Save 10% pay for your hosting for 6 months

Save 15% pay for your hosting for 12 months

SEO SPECIALIST ONLINE FORUM LAUNCHES

2010-04-02T12:30:00.001-07:00

SEO SPECIALIST ONLINE FORUM LAUNCHES

Jim Gras from SEO-Specialist-Online.com announced the opening of the SEO SPECIALIST ONLINE FORUM today to the public.

A place for an open and frank discussion on "Cracking The Google Code, One Website At A Time", say's Gras, Senior SEO Strategist for SEO-Specialist-Online.com

SEO Specialists Online provides a high-level of and focused menu of Internet Marketing and related services to enable businesses, individuals, and entrepreneurs to promote their business successfully online.

Additionally, it provides the platform for building associate relationships that will serve to expand the business beyond that of the time and abilities of its principles.

Using our expertise and experience, clients will benefit from the services by getting more visibility to their websites, learn the tools and techniques to get that visibility and provide support services to the customers of customers.

Together with Lou Veltri who brings over 35 years as an experienced Information Technology (IT) entrepreneur and business consultant and Michael Augustine specialization in Information technology with over 15 years experience in both the public and private business sectors, SEO Specialists Online can help develop your business plan and help you build your blueprint for driving your Brand's presence on the Internet.

Steven Turner a SEO Specialist with MBA Post Graduate in Marketing w/Entrepreneurial Studies, Doctoral Candidate (PhD)-AMDS (Applied Management Decision Science) Access Sequential processing Methods which are used in the query process with in SEO-strategies. and John Lombaerde a 20 year veteran of the manufacturing and CAD/CAM industries, a technical writer and a SEO Keyword Analyst round out the team.

With several years of existence, long for most internet-based companies, SEO Specialists Online following, contacts and prospects are plentiful in our maturing pipeline. And, of course, there ability to mentor, train and lead is much more advanced than most of there competitors at any level. And last, but not least, each of their reputations are highly regarded both in Veretekk and on the internet, in general.

Register Today for the SEO SPECIALIST ONLINE FORUM so you too can Learn to "Crack The Google Code One Website at a Time"

Business Building Tips for Entrepreneurs

2009-10-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard the saying,

"I know that I waste half of my advertising budget.

The problem is I don't know which half!"

It's this very philosophy that is prompting me to strongly

inform you... advertising doesn't work!

Let me show you why: Get the Facts

There is no way to track effectiveness (or ineffectiveness)

It's impersonal

The target audience is too large

It's costly to redo or improve

There is no call to action

What surprises me is the number of small business owners that save their

marketing dollars just to waste them on ineffective advertising.

Then, they complain because nothing is working and they don't have any

customers..

I know what you're thinking,

"Isn't advertising and marketing the same thing?"

Well, not really. Let me explain the differences

.

Advertising includes: commercials, billboards, radio, and newspapers.

Marketing includes: emails, letters, postcards, and fax.

So how is follow-up marketing better than advertising?

You can track response rates

You can quickly change campaigns that aren't working

You can specifically target your audience

It leads prospects to an immediate sell

If you really want to attract more customers, you will learn to market

and leave the advertising to those gazillion dollar companies.

Get the Facts Today

SEO-Specialist-Online.Com

800-897-6458

Skype: jamiboy

Sustaining Top Ranking

2009-10-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

Does Your site needs an Extreme Marketing Makeover? Now you can get exposure to 100's of thousands of new customers or prospects every month if you know what to do! Visit SEO Specialist Online for a Free Web Site Evaluation for your Business.

Managing Your Brand To Perform In Universal Search Results

Achieving and sustaining top ranking visibility for your brand on important organic terms is increasingly getting tougher.

This is because natural text listings no longer rule on the search result page. There are many other elements that appear

sometimes ahead of or intertwined with the natural results, including local listings with a map, shopping listings, latest news, top blogs, images, videos and even book reviews can appear.

Google calls these mixed result types Universal search; others call it blended search. These other elements can push what were once top performing organic listings into second or third page positions, as first reported by Lori Weiman from search engine land.

Consider these keyword examples:

“Desktop computers”. The natural listings are intertwined with three shopping listings. If you want your brand to show in the number one spot, you have to compete with the shopping listings that will appear above you.

“Pizza delivery”. Three natural listings on top, followed by seven map listings. If you are a pizza shop showing 4th in natural results, you are below the fold.

“Refrigerator deals”. You’ll see a forum with a description and four forum listings
intertwined in the SERPs before you even get to the organic listings.

“Ghost”. If you’re looking for a product named with a word with multiple meanings, such as “ghost,” you may find several videos and image listings beating you out.

Just as SEO has finally become a commonplace tactic in the online search marketing mix, we now find that the evolution of the layout of the SERP requires a new approach. As brand marketers, we need to re-think our strategy for how to achieve top visibility for our brand on our major terms on the free SERPs.

We think of this as a new opportunity to be found in a growing class of page elements.

We hope this information will help you develop your web-site to a more effective and profitable. Stop by for a Free Web Site Evaluation of your Business

Your Meta Keywords Tag is Dead!

2009-10-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

EXTRA - EXTRA Just In - The Meta Keywords Tag is Dead!

Now what do I do?

At the SMX East recent gathering, Cris Pierry, the Senior Director of Yahoo! Search, surprised everyone by saying that Yahoo! had stopped supporting the Meta Keywords Tag several months ago as reported by Srarch Engine Watch.

Google has never supported the Meta Keywords Tag and Bing doesn't support it, either.

So, I think we can safely say, "The Meta Keywords Tag is dead."

Actually, the first to notice that it had died was Andrew Goodman of Traffick, who declared way back on my September 2, 2002, " An End to Metatags "If somebody would just declare the end of the metatag era, full stop, it would make it easier on everyone."Inktomi and then Yahoo! Search continued to support the meta keywords tag, so some search engine optimizers continued using it, although it didn't have significant impact.

Time passed, Sullivan left Search Engine Watch to start Search Engine Land and Search Marketing Expo, and way too many search engine optimizers continued using the Meta Keywords Tag because there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.

Even those who realized that top search keywords actually need to appear high up in very visible locations, had trouble dealing with the death of the Meta Keywords Tag.

They would go through the five stages of grief described in the book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, "On Death and Dying." They are:

1. Denial (This isn't happening to me!)
2. Anger (Why is this happening to me?)
3. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
4. Depression (I don't care anymore.)
5. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes.)

But, now we can say the meta keywords tag is dead, dead, dead.

Are you ready for 2010? DoesYour site needs an Extreme Marketing Makeover? Now you can get exposure to 100’s of thousands of new customers or prospects every month if you know what to do! Visit SEO Specialist Online for a Free Web Site Evaluation for your Business.

SEO Link-building Mistakes

2009-10-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

7 Deadly SEO Link-building Mistakes

We hope this information will help you develop your web-site to a more effective and profitable. Stop by for a Free Web Site Evaluation of your Business

SEO link-building has become one of the main high leverage activities in any online business. The simple fact is that back-links will give you a high page rank and a high page rank will rank you higher in the S.E.R.P's. Obviously this means more traffic and more money, as reported by VodaHost General & Forum Administrator

Back-links make up 90% of your Google rank and because of this, link-building has taken on a life of its own. Most people seem to misunderstand it completely. For starters you should know that not all back links are good links. They can actually hurt you more than help you.

SEO Link-building is all about building links that are natural. Google did not design their ranking system to be manipulated. It was designed to reward good sites that get linked to it naturally. That's why getting the right links can be incredibly difficult if you try and do it manually.

Unfortunately, you have to build in links these days otherwise you will not be competitive. If you sit around and wait for sites to link to you, you might wait forever. The good thing is that this also give the "small guy" a fair shake to get good rankings in Google, Yahoo and M.S.N.

Most guys build Back-links kamikaze style; that is they go in there and just get as many links they can from wherever they can and at whatever cost. This is a recipe for disaster. Once your site gets marked by Google, you might as well start over again.

Rogue link-building techniques can render months of hard work useless, so be very careful when building Back-links. Here are the 7 deadly S.E.O link-building mistakes. Avoid them at all costs.

Mistake #1: Mass Link Packages

Obviously, some sleazy and unscrupulous people are out there selling link packages that are not even worth a mention. Most of the time they blast ads out to classified directories or other spam filled networks. These links are the equivalent of buying spam email lists. Don't do it. Your links might end up on banned sites that can really hurt your Google image.

Mistake #2: Link Exchanges

Back in the day, exchanging links was the main S.E.O link-building strategy. You link to me, I link to you and we both win. Right? Wrong! Google caught on to this when hundreds of link farms opened up. Google can easily trace reciprocal links and they simply don't count for much anymore. Getting links from big link exchange networks can actually hurt your business.

Mistake #3: Linking From Non-Indexed Sites

Most people who spend hours building those free Back-links make the mistake of building links on non-indexed sites. For your back links to count, the page on which you have your link has to be indexed. Having links on non-indexed pages means nothing. It's a waste of time.

Mistake #4: Not Using Anchor Text

At first this probably won't sound too scary, but if you build 2,000 links without relevant anchor text your site can easily pass for a spam site that just gets random links. By using anchor text that is related to your site, it gives your links link-juice; meaning it makes your links relevant and increases the perceived value of each link.

Mistake #5: Not Being Relevant

Google is getting smarter by the day. After all it is their business to provide the most relevant information for each and every search that is conducted. If they don't, people will stop using Google. That's why they protect it so vigorously. When you get Back-links from relevant and related sites that would naturally link to you, then the link will count for a lot. Unrelated and random links from any old site really does not make Google see your site as being important.

Mistake #6: Inorganic links

As I mentioned earlier, Google designed the page rank system to work organically. They are looking for links to come to your site naturally. For the most part that means, slowly and consistently over time from a variety of related sites. If you go and get 1000 links overnight from the same site then Google's alarms will go off and you might land yourself in some Back-linking trouble with the big G. Slow and steady wins the race - especially if you have a new site.

Mistake #7: Buying Links

High PR Back-links are worth gold. Quite literally. I've seen a single PR7 link sell for as much as $250 per month. There are a lot of link networks out there that make it their business to sell links on high PR sites. These links have become quite expensive, but the lure of instant results have people buying links like it's going out of fashion.

Google is catching on and there has been widespread reports of Google slapping page rank. If links are publicly traded then Google can probably trace them and penalize you.

SEO link-building is all about being as natural and as organic as possible. Always go after links that are 1-way, relevant and on sites with a high page rank. If you can get links on pages with a high page rank, even better. Don't fall for the quick-fix promise of so many link building services. In the long run, slow and steady links that look natural will keep sending more and more traffic your way.

I hope this information will help you develop your web-site to a more effective and profitable.

Stop by for a Free Web Site Evaluation of your Business

Paid Search Is About Process, Not Planning

2009-09-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. Take the Free SEO Preparedness Quiz Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Paid Search Is About Process, Not Planning

Many times we’re asked to present a plan for the next 30 – 60 – 90 days of a paid search program. This makes a great deal of sense when we bring a new client on board and have to fix or re-build their program. It takes time to build out a program comprehensively and laying out the priorities helps manage expectations. After that point that request for a “vision” or “plan” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of paid search marketing as reported by George Michie .

Paid search is an amazingly powerful channel for capturing existing demand. It is not a demand generating channel. Like the yellow pages people only see the ads when they’re in the market for the advertiser’s products or services. Yellow page ads don’t make people interested in taking yoga; they convince people who are interested in yoga to try the advertiser’s studio. Paid search plays the same role, but it’s easy for marketers steeped in traditional channels to miss the implications of this fact.

For demand generating channels planning is of paramount importance. Television ads seek to 1) create awareness of a brand; 2) infuse that brand awareness with positive connotations; and 3) catapult that positive awareness into action. Marketers must plan the proper messaging and imagery for each phase, and plan the timing and budgets. Even direct marketers like catalogers must plan contact strategies, page counts and formats, circulation counts and frequency of touches. Planning is required because the marketer must generate interest and action, and the time lag between marketing investment and eventual payoff is both long and not guaranteed.

Paid search is different in every respect. Budgets don’t make sense for advertisers with shopping carts on their sites because the sales happen before they pay for the ads. We don’t have to plan what products to push or when; the ads will be served to the right audience at the right time and in the right volume to respond to consumer demand.

This is not to suggest that paid search requires no work. Paid search demands well honed processes for dealing with product turnover, landing page changes, promotional offers, seasonal shifts and more. Skilled analysts study data six-ways-to-Sunday to find nuggets of gold in search logs, in click-to-order intervals, and in new classification schemes that feed statistically meaningful differentiators to our algorithms. Reacting to shifts in consumer behavior and anticipating them whenever possible takes knowledge, skill and mountains of well-organized data.

However, it doesn’t really require a plan. Indeed, predicting what projects will be most valuable 30 days from now, or 60 is both impossible and unwise. The priorities change depending on all kinds of factors outside of the analyst’s control. Locking an analyst into an arbitrary schedule prevents them from adjusting to the priorities of the moment and thereby squancders opportunities.

Asking an analyst for a long range plan for a paid search campaign is like asking your stock broker what stocks you should buy and which you should sell 6 months from now. They can make those recommendations if you really want them, but usually you’d be wise not follow them.

Absence of “a plan” is unsettling, particularly when you’re working with an agency. You can’t see them hard at work at their desks every day, so it’s natural to wonder whether they’re asleep at the switch. This fear is compounded by the reality of PPC agencies that all too often are asleep at the switch.

Trust comes from results, and in PPC results come from smart people with great tools and great processes. Anticipating and reacting to changes in the landscape requires hard work, knowledge, skills and the flexibility to follow one’s nose.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. Take the Free SEO Preparedness Quiz Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

2009-09-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

Put Down the Remote.. That's right, put it down. Get focused here.

I want to show you something that could very well change your life drastically.

But here's the deal, I won't show you unless you're giving this news 100% of your attention.

Okay, are you ready? Are you sure?

I really want you to be totally focused when you read this.

Shut the door, turn the TV off. Make sure you're ready!

Okay....

Now, if you're even remotely serious about becoming massively successful on the internet, is to know what separates the struggling, heartbroken and cash-poor online entrepreneurs and small business owners…

From the confident, clued-in marketers pulling down huge numbers and results (yeah, even in this chaotic, soul-sucking economy)?

No, wait — ESPECIALLY in this chaotic, soul-sucking economy.

While average business owners are cowering in bed with the covers pulled over their head……

The top marketers are still fearlessly bringing home the bacon, even as everyone else panics and freaks out.

Not sure if you know the answer?

Then you’re in luck.

Here’s what’s available right now:

Are You Prepared For The Future of Search?

If your site is not already in the top of the search engines, you are losing traffic and ultimately sales on a daily basis.

Take this quiz to determine if you are positioned to get the most out of the search engines, and find out how prepared you are for the future of SEO.

SEO Preparedness Quiz
http://seo-specialist-online.com/quiz.html

We promise, we won't be wasting your time.

SEO Preparedness Quiz

2009-09-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Take the SEO Preparedness Quiz

Do you know what separates the struggling, heartbroken and cash-poor online entrepreneurs and small business owners… from the confident, clued-in marketers pulling down huge numbers and results (yeah, even in this chaotic, soul-sucking economy)?

(No, wait — ESPECIALLY in this chaotic, soul-sucking economy. While “average” business owners are cowering in bed with the covers pulled over their head……

The top marketers are still fearlessly bringing home the bacon, even as everyone else panics and freaks out.)

Not sure if you know the answer?

Then you’re in luck.

Take the SEO Preparedness Quiz Today!

http://www.seo-specialist-online.com/quiz.html

Let go of activities that take time away from your priorities and do it right!

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. Contact http://www.seo-specialist-online.com for all your SEO needs.

When to Run Away from an SEO Company

2009-09-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

When to Run Away from an SEO Company

You probably shouldn't be charged for a couple things that many "back alley" or "strip mall" SEO companies and consultants still offer. In some cases, even larger marketing organizations are trying to push value into some tactics that are outdated or simply don't work to help rankings, as reported by Chris Boggs, Search Engine Watch, Sept 2009

No two sites on the Internet are identical. In rare instances, some of the below tactics may work. But most of the time, if your SEO company is pushing these services on you, take a good hard look at what you're paying for.

SEO Tactic Octogenarians: Time for Forced Retirement

1. Submitting Sites to Search Engines: There's a big difference between submitting your site to the search engines and submitting your site to Directories, Link Pages, Online Malls, Classified Sites! . This type of submission is a very important part of link building, and has continually proven to be valuable.

Submitting your sites to the search engines isn't as valuable to SEO. This simply offers another way for the search engines to find your site. If all you do is submit it to the search engines and sit back and wait, you likely won't see any rankings, other than potentially for your brand name.

Search engines no longer need you to submit to them, although they still provide the functionality for you to do so. As Google says on their submission page, however, "We do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear."

Google and the other engines are fine taking this additional information, but if you're paying someone to do this once, or even monthly, then you're wasting time and money. As Google also states: "Only the top-level page from a host is necessary; you do not need to submit each individual page. Our crawler, Googlebot, will be able to find the rest. Google updates its index on a regular basis, so updated or outdated link submissions are not necessary. Dead links will 'fade out' of our index on our next crawl when we update our entire index."

2. SEO Landing Pages: Another outdated tactic is building landing pages just for SEO, although this is a temporary solution that e-commerce companies sometimes choose to take rather than spending the time fixing the actual site and navigation. In most cases, if you want long-term results without sacrificing user experience consistency, you should optimize your actual content versus trying to create circa 2001 "doorway pages."

3. Reciprocal Linking: The last outdated tactic is using reciprocal linking as a primary link building tactic. If your SEO company or consultants requires that you place an outbound link to every site that is linking to you, then you should run away. Some reciprocal links aren't bad, especially ones that occur naturally -- just be worried if this is the only link building tactic presented.

SEO Tactics on the Bubble

1. Social Bookmarking: One tactic that has very few concrete results is social bookmarking. Some people will likely argue this, but we've yet to prove ranking lift from the addition of a URL to a Delicious or StumbleUpon. These and other links appear within backlink reports, but that alone doesn't indicate that the link is helping from a SEO perspective.

Yahoo-owned MyBlogLog cleans out their bookmark links on a regular basis. As seen in this FAQ, they provide a good reason for this: "New with Me is a moving river of updates. We are not trying to re-create the Internet. We store the last 100 items and up to 25 'clusters' of events. If you're interested in looking at older updates, we direct you to the original service provider for the full archive."

It's very important to understand that not all links are permanent. Thus, to build lasting SEO value, the majority of links developed should be permanent and carry some sort of authority.

Of course, a "natural" pattern would be that some links come and go. But if you spend a large amount of time (or are pay someone else for) building links using social bookmarking or other "expiring" link tactics, you won't get full value from your time investment.

Please note that some people do this at an almost "industrial" level to help boost rankings, by building literally thousands of links, and "refreshing" the links with new ones as they age or get stale. This would only look natural to a search algorithm if the target site has tens of thousands of existing links. Those using this tactic need to keep building links over and over, and have likely budgeted hundreds of hours to support this task with the amount of hours that it would need to provide long lasting value.

2. Article Syndication: Other tactics that are "on the bubble" include large-scale article syndication and "press release over-optimization." Articles that are relevant to your site and contain links pointed back can be valuable if syndicated on a limited basis to hand-picked partners, but using mass syndication services doesn't often yield the kinds of backlinks that could be garnered from a more personalized approach. The jury is definitely still out on this tactic, but a custom approach (which takes longer) provides value.

3. Over-Optimizing Press Releases: Press release "over-optimization" is something that many readers have probably seen after setting up an RSS feed to monitor a particular word or industry phrase. I always laugh when I see the same SEO company put out a press release every time it signs a new client, because when I check even month later, they haven't climbed in the rankings for the terms they seem to be targeting.

The use of press releases and syndicating through PR Newswire or PRWeb can be valuable, but like article syndication, this tactic must be leveraged in moderation. If you're concerned about how many press releases you've sent out to support your SEO efforts, consider if you're overdoing it. For large companies with lots of relevant news, however, this is a different story -- these companies may be OK with up to two to three press releases a week, and you might as well take the time to optimize them.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but

With Time it sure helps you get better traffic.

For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

SEO Marketing Channel

2009-09-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

SEO Marketing Channel

SEO is the marketing channel that brings potential customers to your site who want what you offer, but don't know how to find you. These are people that will browse through the search engine listings of websites that show up for the product or service they're looking for, and choose one to purchase from. If your site only shows up for your brand name, you're not even in the game; the sale will likely go to one of your competitors who have an optimized website

If you only want to serve the needs of people who already know your brand and aren't interested in new customers, then you don't need SEO. But if you want to use every marketing channel at your disposal, SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels to bring in people who don't already know about you but want exactly what you offer.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Search Engine Optimization

2009-09-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Do you know what does SEO stands for?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In today’s world mostly all the businesses are done on internet and this also means lot's of competition.

There are many people who are engaged in same type of business so it becomes very difficult to increase the sales of your products. If you wish to stand out amongst your competitors then you have to consult the professional SEO consultants.

These professionals take care of each and every aspect so as to increase the sales of your products. These professional SEO consultants have many well trained and experienced professionals who do their best to make your site attractive and user friendly.

These professionals also include content writers who are expert in their respective field of writing. They write content which has proper flow and is understood by everyone as it is not necessary that very intelligent brains will be visiting your site.

Content writer write content keeping this particular aspect in mind. SEO Company also has keyword specialists who focus on the use of particular keywords as keyword plays a vital role in SEO Company.

A good SEO Company will do every thing which is within the law to promote the site. The main aim behind all this is to bring your site on the top of the search engine results. Remember if your site is on the top of search engine results, it means many visitors are visiting your site and it also shows the popularity of your site.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Feeling Left Out of the Online Marketing Party?

2009-08-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

Feeling Left Out of the Online Party?

Be Seen in All the Right Places!

From Google to Yahoo! to Bing, search engines are a leading resources used by consumers looking for products and services from your business.

In fact, 8 out of 10 internet users now use search engines to find your business. So it makes sence that businesses with a presence on search engines are in the best position to grow.

To help your business harness the power of the web, Seo-Specialist-Online invites you to learn more about the importance of Search Engine Marketing and why you need to join the party.

http://seo-specialist-online.com/sitesubmission.html

Measurable and Immediate solutions to grow your business:
> What does Search Engine Marketing mean to you and how specifically others are using it.
> How driving traffic drives results to your bottom line.
> Tools available to boost your page ranking from inside out through website optimization, pay per click programs and keyword creation.
> You also have a chance for a free website evaluation

http://seo-specialist-online.com/sitesubmission.html

Let go of activities that take time away from your priorities.

SEO Chatter Eulogy For Yahoo

2009-07-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

A Search Eulogy For Yahoo And then there were two.

Make no mistake, Yahoo’s out of the search game. I know the spin. Better user interface, new ways to innovate, a winning play. Let’s not kid ourselves. They’re done. Not today, not necessarily in a year, but down the line at some point. Done, as reported by Danny Sullivan

And it’s sad, because they were one of the originals. There was a time when the mighty Yahoo roared above all other search engines. When people were so worried about being listed in Yahoo that they pondered lawsuits over the issue, because not being in Yahoo was like not being on the internet at all.

Sound familiar? Yeah, Yahoo was the Google of its day. Funny to write that — it should be Google is the Yahoo of its day, but that’s how the tables turned in the search space.

Yahoo started out in search as a human-compiled directory. Editors, finding sites, writing short descriptions about them. It worked at first. When it didn’t, Yahoo had partners that “crawled” the web automatically to provide “backup” to its directory results. Open Text was its first partner. Later came AltaVista, then Inktomi, then eventually Google.

Ah, Google. It demonstrated that you could index millions (now billions) of pages AND have relevancy. Why use a card catalog-like human directory when you had a tool like Google that could read every page in every book in the library and pull back the matching pages?

Eventually, Yahoo decided it needed to own crawler technology. In 2003, it bought Inktomi and AllTheWeb. It also bought Overture, to have paid search technology and got AltaVista as part of the deal. All these things it needed to own, we were told, because search was so essential that you couldn’t outsource:

Given how important search is to our businesses, we really needed to control our own destiny in this space and not be dependent on any one third-party provider

That’s what I was told at the beginning of 2003 by Jeff Weiner, then senior vice president of search and marketplace at Yahoo. What’s changed since then? How did search go back to being a commodity to Yahoo?

Microsoft squeezed it. No blame to Microsoft. Yahoo was sitting there with leadership that couldn’t communicate clearly how it was a strong second-place player to Google. It seemed weak, ripe for the picking, and Microsoft went to pluck it last year. Google tried for Yahoo itself through a partnership deal. The US Department of Justice, like Amy Winehouse, sang “No, no, no.” Do that, and we’ll take anti-trust action against you, Google.

Microsoft never went away, though to its credit, it continued to improve its own search offering making it even more credible. Bing’s a long way from being proven. Perhaps it might never have succeeded. But it got buzz. Not only was it not embarrassing, it was impressive to some. Yahoo didn’t seem as necessary to Microsoft’s plans.

We’ll never know if Bing could have succeeded on its own. Or, maybe we will, if the proposed deal doesn’t go through. It’s still just a proposal, subject to investor and regulatory approval. But if it does go through, Microsoft becomes the number two search player. It controls the core search technology. Yahoo will have “parity” with Microsoft to use the search technology, we’re told. Soothing-sounding words, but parity doesn’t matter when Yahoo seemingly has given up on search as a top attraction overall.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has made plenty of noise about how Yahoo isn’t just a search engine. Or not even a search engine, at times. How Yahoo has some of the web’s top destinations. That’s true, all true. But search was a leading property as well, for Yahoo. Yahoo wouldn’t consider outsourcing its email or IM services. Wouldn’t decide that its Yahoo Finance area could be powered by someone else. So why’s search got the boot?

Because Microsoft wants it, and they weren’t going away. Neither was Bartz standing up to definitively say that in the long term, it made more sense for Yahoo to keep search as a core technology. That few companies had such crown jewels. That technology alone a year ago worth $1 billion to Microsoft didn’t suddenly become worth no upfront payment a year later.

But also because Yahoo seems to have no choice. It keeps losing talent. It’s fine to have a great machine, but someone’s got to run it — keep developing it. So if I sound harsh about Yahoo getting out of search, I’m also understanding. It would have been incredibly difficult to keep it.

AOL and Lycos are two examples of portals that gave up their own search technologies and watched their traffic drop. Perhaps Yahoo will be the exception. Perhaps it will surprise me and be a long-time search player — a place where substantial amounts of searches happen. Part of me hopes it plays out that way, if only for nostalgic reasons.

But I doubt it.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Win 7 Doomed, Says ScriptLogic Survey

2009-07-15T05:22:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization Chatter

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO-Specialist-Online.com, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

Win 7 Doomed, Says ScriptLogic Survey

Just a day after analysts predicted a dominant future for Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system (due this October), a new report suggests that up to 60 per cent of all companies might be hesitant to make the upgrade from Windows Vista and XP as reported by Brandon Dimmel

The IDC Win7 forecast discussed yesterday painted a pretty picture indeed for Microsoft, suggesting that 75 per cent of all corporations would ditch XP and Vista for Windows 7 by 2011, just two years after its release. Given that most business users are XP users, that's good news for Microsoft.

ScriptLogic Paints a Different Picture

However, another group of analysts, ScriptLogic, doesn't share the same opinion.

In fact, in their survey ScriptLogic found that just 60 per cent of corporations would make the shift within the opening period of Win7's availability. Another 34 per cent said they'd eventually move over to Windows 7 by the end of next year, but even that number is in doubt. (Source: pcworld.com)

Given that Windows Vista is considered by most businesses to have been Microsoft's great "Vistake," it means that the decade-old Windows XP is most likely to be large and in charge even two years after Win 7's release

Happy Browsing!

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

It's about time, Google

2009-07-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO-Specialist-Online.com, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

It's about time, Google

Today is an exciting day in the world of Google.

As I'm sure many of you already know, Google is not just a search engine. For more than 5 years now, Google has offered web based services for email, documents, calendars and chatting. These services, called Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk, have been used by millions of people around the world, but there has always been one thing that is strange about them. For Five years now, they have been in Beta!

Just in case you need a reminder, here is the definition of Beta:

"Beta is a nickname for software which has passed the alpha testing stage of development and has been released to users for software testing before its official release. It is the prototype of the software that is released to the public."

Obviously, this does not quite match Google's definition of beta. Over the years, many people (including me) have wondered if Google would ever take their products out of the beta stage. Well, today is the day. Just yesterday, Google announced that they would be officially be taking Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google talk out of beta! This is great news, seeing that it probably should have been done nearly four years ago.

PS: For those of you that use Gmail and still like that "beta" feel, google made it so you can still have the beta logo at the top of your screen. Just go to the "labs" link and turn on the "back to beta" feature.

Firefox 3.5 Released

The busy bees over at Mozilla have released version 3.5 of Firefox unto the masses. Normally, this wouldn't be too big of a deal, even for a fox follower like myself, but the developers are touting some pretty major features and improvements this time around. It warrants a look, so here's a quick run-down.

Faster Browsing – Mozilla states that Firefox 3.5 runs almost twice as fast as 3.0. This is due to a new kind of JavaScript engine that processes incoming information more efficiently.

Private Browsing – Taking a token from Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, Firefox users are now able to surf the Internet with total anonymity. Nothing from your session is kept except downloads and saved bookmarks. Better late than never, I guess!

Tear off Tabs – Tab bar getting too cluttered, but you don't want to re-browse to a site? Just grab a tab and rip it off! You'll be given a whole new window to work with!

There's also a host of other improvements to existing stuff like Session Restore, the Awesome Bar, Customization, History Clearing and anti phishing and malware protocols.

If you're a Firefox user click Help>Check for Updates to get the new version!

For more info, go over to Mozilla.com for a more detailed rundown.

Happy Browsing!

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Statistics on getting to the top of the of the Top Ten search engines

2009-06-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

Statistics on getting to the top of the of the Top Ten search engines

77% of people skip over sponsored listings and click on the natural search results.

Source: Enquiro Research

When making a purchase, 67% chose organic over sponsored listings.

Source: Enquiro Research

Why Search Engine Optimization?

No pay-per-click fees - No competitors or "researchers" clicking away on your sponsored link advertising and running out your budget! Levels the playing field between your website and your competitor's website by allowing your website to be displayed on the 1st page rankings of the search engine results as well.

No need to worry about ever increasing per-click fees.

More visitors to your site since your site will be appearing on the left side of the search results. The English speaking world reads left to right. In addition, the left side is more trusted as it is part of the natural search engine results. Consistent search engine ranking and visibility of your site for as long as you are a client with us.

Excellent return on investment Low cost - Save $100s, sometimes $1,000s!

We do all the search engine optimization work for you. We do both on-site and off-site optimization! Almost every customer asks, so might as well say it here, although we still create custom meta tags for the site, meta tags play a very small role in the overall search engine optimization process of the site. There is quite a bit more search engine optimization work involved in placing a site on the first page of the Top Ten major search engines.

Search engine optimization could be a tiring task but with time it sure helps you get better traffic. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learn how to do Keyword Research, for more info Visit Here

What do we Mean by Keywords, and Why do They Matter?

2009-06-09T06:55:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

What do we Mean by Keywords, and Why do They Matter?

Keywords are the foundation of any Search Engine Optimization or Search Marketing campaign. If you don’t know what keywords are being used in searches by the people you want to attract to your Web site, you can’t effectively market through the search engines to those people.

The terms keyword is often used as shorthand for keyword phrase. When we use the term keyword, we mean the word—or words—that may be typed into a search engine by someone carrying out a search. In fact most searches these days are not single-word searches … most searchers now type two or more words in their searches.

If you’re reading this, you probably already understand why you need to know the keywords people use when searching for products or services such as those promoted by your Web site. Just in case …

• If you don’t know the keywords, you can’t optimize your Web site properly.
• If you don’t know the keywords, you don’t know what keywords to put in links pointing to your site.
• If you don’t know the keywords, you don’t know which keywords to bid on in Pay Per Click programs.

Selecting keywords, then, is important. But there are two ways to select the keywords you need for your campaigns:
• Guess
• Do a full keyword analysis

The most popular method is to guess at the keywords. The most effective method, however, is to do a full keyword analysis (which actually begins with you guessing at what keywords you think are important, then using a free KeyWord tool to “dig” into databases of actual search terms).

What happens if you simply guess at the search terms you need, and don’t do a full keyword analysis? Typically two problems arise:

• Many of the keywords on your list will be more or less irrelevant. People simply aren’t using them in searches.
• You’ll miss keywords that people are using to search for your product or service.

What Does an SEO Specialist Do?

Essentially, a SEO Specialist does two things:

• Helps you develop a list of likely keyword phrases. SEO Specialist searches other Web site’s KEYWORDS tags and searches a thesaurus, to help you create a preliminary list of keyword phrases.

• Based on these keyword phrases, it shows you what people using the Web’s search engines are actually typing into the search engines.

For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit SEO-Specialist-Online.com

-------------------------------------------

Given the economic problems around the globe, home based business opportunities usually flourish during recessionary times. Faced with layoffs, downsizing and closures, affected employees look for alternate ways of earning an income. Entrepreneurial spirit is kindled when options are scarce and people turn to the Internet..... continue reading

How to accept credit cards for small business

2009-06-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online, Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here

How to accept credit cards for small business

The benefits of accepting credit cards almost always outweigh the risks, and the chances of this are greatly improved if you do your homework before opening a merchant account. In this article I’ll talk about the importance of accepting credit cards, what to expect as you compare merchant accounts and how to keep your merchant account in good standing once you begin processing.

Convincing a business owner that they need to start accepting credit cards isn’t as tough as it once was and it’s getting easier every day. Credit and debit cards are a staple in consumers’ wallets and the trend isn’t showing signs of letting up any time soon. For merchants, the ability to accept credit cards often translates to larger average tickets and greater gross monthly sales volumes. Of course, along with the greater sales volume comes the expense of processing credit card transactions. Fortunately, profit from increased sales typically far outweighs processing costs.Here are a few helpful points that you should know before beginning your search for a merchant account.

Merchant account fees are not standardized

Merchant account Rates and fees vary widely from one provider to the next. Aside from the amount of fees charged, some accounts will have entire categories of fees that others won’t. As you being to research your options, look at every account as an individual.

Credit card processing rates and fees are not written in stone

Haggling is the name of the game when it comes to negotiating the best merchant account rates and fees. Consider the rates and fees of an initial merchant account quote as a starting point from which you can start to reducing costs.

There are a lot of providers competing for your business

Don’t begin and end your search at your local bank or even with the providers in your town. There are thousands of merchant service providers all competing for your business. Use this competition to your advantage to get the best rates possible. Consider using a web site like CardFellow.com to get quotes from multiple providers from a national market.

Once you begin contacting merchant service providers, you should expect to encounter some pretty good sales people that may employ high-pressure sales tactics. The key is to remain methodical in your search process and look at the facts surrounding an account, not the salesperson’s interpretation of them

The best and truly knowledgeable salespeople will use the rates and fees of their merchant account quote to help portray the benefits of their offer. They’ll take the time to learn about your business, present calculations and estimations of processing expenses using an effective rate, and they’ll take the time to answer your questions in a consultative manner. These are the salespeople to look for, but not necessarily the ones to expect.

Once you decide upon a merchant account provider and start accepting credit cards, your education about credit card processing has just begun. Don’t look at the task as complete, but as just beginning. The bankcard industry is always changing and new regulations that affect you are commonly brought to legislative attention. The phrase “knowledge is power” translates to merchants in the bankcard industry as “knowledge is money.” The more you know about credit card processing, the more you will be able to save yourself in processing expenses.

Once you begin processing credit cards, frequent reliable and unbiased sources on the subject to keep yourself up to date about the industry and ways you can optimize your merchant account to lower costs. The best sources of merchant account information are the ones that aren’t trying selling you processing services.

A wealth of Information to help businesses that start accepting credit cards find the best merchant account is available at the SEO-Specialist-Online.com
-------------------------------------------

Given the economic problems around the globe, home based business opportunities usually flourish during recessionary times. Faced with layoffs, downsizing and closures, affected employees look for alternate ways of earning an income. Entrepreneurial spirit is kindled when options are scarce and people turn to the Internet..... continue reading