I’m a huge fan of Tony Hsieh of zappos.com .  The way he handles his business and his stance on how to provide excellent customer service.  I actually had the pleasure of seeing one of his excellent presentations.  What is great is that he empowers his customer service reps to do whatever they believe is the right thing to do.

Here is an example story from Tony.

A customer rep received a phone call from a lady that wanted to know how to return a pair of shoes.  She explained that her husband recently purchased a pair of shoes and unfortunately died in a car accident and never got to wear the shoes.  The customer service rep offered her condolences and told her how to return the pair shoes.  Immediately once they got off the phone, the customer rep went ahead and got flowers delivered to the ladies house.  The widow was so happy she called them back to thank them and stated she will be a customer for life.

You see Tony instills this type of culture and values to his employees.  This is a good example of how to deliver happiness.

Enjoy the slides

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Thanks for everyone that joined the latest webinar on internet marketing for your small business. For those that missed it your in luck.   I got the recording.  So just hit play and enjoy.  Feel Free to contact me if you have any questions.

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There has been a flurry of entrants into the Search Engine Optimisation market in the past year or so. Judging by the horrendous rates some are charging, money rather than service seems to be the main motivation. Judging by the horror stories from clients who have arrived on my doorstep after being ripped off by sharp operators, in some instances there is evidence of a serious deficiency in both ethics and skills in some cases.

I have a new client who spent almost $30,000 last year, with no work having been done on the actual site, no evidence of link increases, and according to traffic statistics, site visitors have gone DOWN by 60% – so read the following sections carefully.

So, how do you choose an SEO firm to entrust your business to? I believe that there are some simple checks to put in place before committing yourself to any SEO proposal, no matter how attractive it might seem.

How To Shorten Your SEO Short List
The following sections list a few ways you can find some potentially good SEO firms, and also eliminate some dodgy ones and thus reduce your chances of being disappointed.

How Well Does Their Own Site Rank?
Do a search for search engine optimisation, seo rates and/or seo firm on the country-specific version of each of the big 3 major search engines – e.g. Google.co.nz, Yahoo.co.nz or XtraMSN.co.nz. Alternatively, go to the main Google.com etc site, and search for nz seo, seo rates, or new zealand search engine optimisation (or your own country-specific version of those). The market SEO has become very competitive out there, but you should expect the SEO business you are contemplating doing business with to be on Page One on each search engine! If not, drop them from the list of possibles, because how much help could they possibly be to you? A list of 3-5 potential firms should quickly emerge from this process.

Request For Proposal
From your initial research, you should have a list of contenders you are considering entrusting your business to. Contact each, and request a site review. This will invariably result in a detailed analysis of your site, and a proposal which sets out what remedial action is required and an indicative costing to achieve this. Having now received a series of these, apply the following criteria against each one.

Guaranteed Inclusion in Google/Yahoo/MSN
If an SEO firm offers a guarantee of inclusion into any major search engine, or assures you that they have a special relationship with a search engine, immediately drop them from the list of possibles. Frankly, search engines simply do not enter into such relationships. That would be as likely as a close friendship between a poacher and a gamekeeper!

What Are They Proposing?
There are two key ingredients to web site optimisation, and if both are not assessed and addressed, drop the SEO firm’s proposal from the list of possibilities!

The first is on-site optimisation of individual pages to improve organic or natural search engine rankings. This involves keyword research with associated analysis of the business products and services. This is the most important aspect because it delivers ongoing traffic which is essentially free after the initial work is carried out.

The second key element is link analysis and recommended remedial action. Basically, the more links to your site from trusted sites carrying high page rank, the better. Insufficient links means your site is not worth indexing. Proposals to increase your 1-way back-links from web directories and other trusted sites are good. However, should there be any suggestions for participation in link propagation schemes, or place main emphasis on reciprocal link strategies etc, drop the SEO firm from your list because they are not up to date with current best practice.

Google Adwords & Yahoo Search Marketing
Some SEO firms boast that they are certified Adwords practitioners etc. That’s all well and good, but what they mean is that with YOUR money, they are real confident of getting you top placing in the keyword bidding warfare! There can be some short term benefits in that, but guarantees along those lines are not overly helpful to your business. If a proposal places primary emphasis on Pay-Per-Click, slip it down to the bottom of the pile!

References
Can your SEO firm provide you with some reference sites they’ve worked on successfully, case studies, and/or some clients you can contact for comment? Bear in mind that there are likely to be some commercial sensitivities that apply constraints.

Is There Value in 1 Year Contracts?
Frankly, no! The hallmark of a professional, ethical operator will be a fixed price contract to carry out the initial remedial action on the site. As a reassurance, they will usually let you know that ongoing support is available if required, because the rules of the SEO game do keep changing. The best SEO practitioners do not attempt to lock you into 1 year contract because they know the initial work will often take 8-12 weeks to deliver full benefits, and the project cost will usually include a built-in monitoring component over that initial period. It is, in my view, a little unethical to double-dip on the project costs!

Not only that, but what if you are not happy with the results of the SEO firm or their level of service? A 1 year contract might just guarantee you receive a full 12 months of unsatisfactory services! My advice – do not lock yourself into a long-term contract until you have grown comfortable with the SEO team you are dealing with

Fixed Price Contracts
Insist on one! A professional SEO firm will set out exactly what is wrong with your site, and explain the precise remedial action in a coherent and logical fashion. The actual work will be specified and a total cost provided. It is customary to require payment in advance. This is usually 100% for smaller jobs, which I would define as less than $1500. For larger projects, expect to pay a 50% deposit with balance on completion and/or when Top 30 rankings on agreed keyword terms show a demonstrable improvement.

How Much Should It Cost?
Well, each proposal should come down to a judgement by each SEO firm on how many hours of work are going to be involved in the project. However, some seem more inclined to make an assessment of your ability to pay in big chunks! There can be obvious, huge discrepancies – its common to see variations of 1000% e.g. you will see that some firms initial cost proposal can be 10 times that of competing operator! From your point of view, you want to know how many pages are gong to be amended, what will be done by way of increasing incoming links, are articles being published, and if so, how many? Reduce it to a known quantity, compare apples with apples! When you are systematic about it, the choices become more obvious, and a decision becomes easier!

You Need to Know What Will Be Done
An SEO professional will involve you at each step of the process, providing you with a preview of all site changes before implementation. You will be able to measure progress of the work on a page by page basis, and see the results in your site traffic statistics as well as SE ranking reports. As in all aspects of life, failing to plan is planning to fail! If there is no plan, no road map, don’t expect a happy ending or any rights of redress.

Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO
There are other danger signs to be aware of. If your SEO proposal suggests cloaking, redirections, doorway pages, hallway pages, invisible text, multiple domain names for duplicated content etc, immediately drop the company from the list of possibles!

There are many Black Hat SEO operators who prefer to attempt to subvert the Search Engine guidelines, essentially looking for rapid, short-term ranking gains by ANY means, instead of taking a responsible, professional approach. If your site is caught up in any scheme like this, banishment from search engine indexes is assured! Essentially, good White Hat SEO involves thoughtful restructuring of site content, within the SE guidelines and parameters, and taking no risks of any kind.

Who Are You Dealing With?
Does their site have some personal profile information? Are you dealing with a seasoned IT industry professional, a kid fresh out of high school, someone moonlighting from their primary job, or maybe somebody who has English as a second (or third) language? SEO is very much about words, semantics, languages skills and this, plus broad SEO project experience over several years, should be a key indicator to consider!

Partnerships
Your web site is an integral part of your business. The people you work with should have an intuitive understanding of your business, products and services, and should by now have demonstrated that they have given your particular circumstances some personal attention. Some, on the other hand, may have merely used automated site assessment tools. From the initial proposal, and exchange of emails with questions and answers to clarify any issues that have arisen, do you feel a sense of rapport with anyone? The best people to work with are those you are comfortable with.

I hope that this has proven a useful and thought-provoking summary of how to weed out the space cadets, cowboys and make-a-quick-buck operators. I really hope you do find yourself a competent, professional SEO practitioner, because they are out there toiling away, doing a great job for great people like you!

Good luck!

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SEO and positioning your website to rank top spots in the search engines require some careful planning. Just like setting up a business or going to war, it requires strategizing for optimal results. Diving straight into the internet without any clear game plan is time-wasting, dangerous and more often than not, a futile attempt to rank any website for maximum targeted traffic. Let’s dwell a little deeper into some useful SEO and positioning tips to get your web pages indexed and ranking faster.

1. SEO and Positioning Tip 1 – Determine Your Objective

What is your objective in optimizing your website? Is it for maximum general traffic or targeted niche traffic? Once again, webmasters are unable to get this part clear. Many think that driving as much traffic as possible to their websites is the way to go. Unfortunately, this is a big pitfall. A web site may attract loads of traffic but yet don’t perform as well as another with little traffic but making more sales. Know what your objective is, to sell more products or to get more people to visit your website. If you are building an interest-based website or hobby website, perhaps getting maximum general traffic is the right solution for you.

2. SEO and Positioning Tip 2 – Plan Your Keywords Right

This is applicable for all websites that intend to tap into free organic traffic. By that, I mean SEO and positioning high in search engines for specific keywords. One clue for you before you compile your keyword list is to understand that search engines rank individual web pages, not websites. The systematic way to do it is to first look at your objective of SEO and positioning. If you are targeting a niche market, for example SEO tools, target the niche keyword SEO tools for your home page, and drill into this main keyword for related keywords such as SEO Elite, effective SEO tools, etc to target for each internal web page.

Don’t make the mistake like many webmasters do in targeting one main keyword for the entire website. The smart approach to SEO and positioning is to target a list of low competition, moderate demand keywords and rank well for them. This would potentially drive more targeted traffic, than to blindly hit at one main keyword.

3. SEO and Positioning Tip 3 – Simple Well-Thought On-page Optimization

Use your keywords in the meta-tags, web page title, sub-headers and web content. Make your web content unique. A keyword density of 1-3% and word count of more than 400 words is ideal for on-page optimization. Create a sitemap page to make search engines spiders love your web pages. This helps in indexing the internal pages fast.

4. SEO and Positioning Tip 4 – Effective Off-page Optimization Techniques

Building link popularity of a website is far more crucial than any other factors for SEO and positioning for top search engine ranking. But pay attention to who your link partners are. Trade links with websites in a similar niche, and high Google PR if possible. Links from authority websites such as educational or government websites, ie domain names with .edu or .gov extensions are valuable. Buying links from link partners is perfectly fine if you can verify the quality of the websites. Search engines nowadays can be quite demanding and look for quality more than quantity of links.

5. SEO and Positioning Tip 5 – Using Search Engine Optimization Tools

Webmasters used to do everything traditionally from on-page optimization to off-page optimization such as emailing fellow webmasters to exchange links. Technology and software development has made it much easier for SEO and positioning websites using search engine optimization tools. These smart tools are designed to automate all manual tasks necessary to grab a top search engine ranking for a website fast. Almost every webmaster has one or two of these in their arsenal as they are big time and money savers.

Feel free to drop by at my blog to read more about search engine optimization tools and grab a free ebook worth more than $97 packed with detailed SEO tips and techniques to help your SEO efforts. This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

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Search Engine Optimizers

SEO is an abbreviation for “search engine optimizer.” Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, a few unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.

While Google doesn’t have relationships with any SEOs and doesn’t offer recommendations, we do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether.

• Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue.

Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

“Dear google.com,

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

• No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or through the Google Sitemaps (Beta) program, and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

• Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.

Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway” domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help” you.

• You should never have to link to an SEO.

Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines — at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

• Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar.

Most such proposals require users to install extra software, and very few users do so. Evaluate such proposals with extreme care and be skeptical about the self-reported number of users who have downloaded the required applications.

• Choose wisely.

While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: search engine rankings. While Google doesn’t comment on specific companies, we’ve encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.

• Be sure to understand where the money goes.

While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they “control” other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn’t work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you’re considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.

• Talk to many SEOs, and ask other SEOs if they’d recommend the firm you’re considering.

References are a good start, but they don’t tell the whole story. You should ask how long a company has been in business and how many full time individuals it employs. If you feel pressured or uneasy, go with your gut feeling and play it safe: hold off until you find a firm that you can trust. Ask your SEO firm if it reports every spam abuse that it finds to Google using our spam complaint form atEthical SEO firms report deceptive sites that violate Google’s spam guidelines.

• Make sure you’re protected legally.

For your own safety, you should insist on a full and unconditional money-back guarantee. Don’t be afraid to request a refund if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, or if your SEO’s actions cause your domain to be removed from a search engine’s index. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing. The contract should also require the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.

What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?

One common scam is the creation of “shadow” domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client’s behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor’s domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.

Another illicit practice is to place “doorway” pages loaded with keywords on the client’s site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO’s other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.

What are some other things to look out for?

There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It’s far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:

• owns shadow domains

• puts links to their other clients on doorway pages

• offers to sell keywords in the address bar

• doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear in search results

• guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway

• operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info

• gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware

• has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google.

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You open your internet browser and enter: SEO into the search box. In a nano-second you are provided with thousands of results for SEO. SEO tools, SEO books, SEO software programs, SEO consulting firms, and so on. Your head begins spinning with so many choices before you to make. Especially considering that the success of your business is largely dependant upon your choosing the correct SEO procedures for your website.
At first glance SEO and all of its strategies might seem to be nothing more than just common sense, and how hard could that be, but in actuality, many of the strategies involved in search engine optimization can be difficult to implement. It is for this reason that you might need help with the SEO of your website.
Choosing to work SEO on your own or with someone who isn’t an expert in that field could mean that your website may be overlooked by the search engines, leading to lackluster amounts of traffic. It is easy for those who are inexperienced with search engine optimization to make a mistake that costs their website the high ranking it needs to generate traffic crucial to high sales, or worse, get their website expelled from search engines.
Someone with comprehensive knowledge about how search engines work and what exactly a website needs to meet the requirements for listing and positioning among the search engines can ensure your website is meeting those requirements. These experts also know what to do to beef up a website with straight-forward SEO, for websites that would otherwise fall short of the requirements of the search engines.
Search Engine Optimization experts have their ears tuned into the industry pipeline and are among the first to become aware of search engine rule changes, and how those changes could affect the optimization of your web pages. They are usually among the first to hear about the success of new SEO techniques and to learn how these can best benefit you.
The knowledge you can glean from these experts can save you countless hours of searching for the answers you need about search engine optimization and from wasted dollars on materials that are not necessary.
Investing in SEO programs and software can be costly, especially if you are not sure of what you need and don’t need. SEO experts know the best SEO programs that are available on the market today and that means avoiding spending money on programs you don’t need or that simply don’t work.
An SEO expert has the knowledge and expertise to evaluate your website’s content and design, spotting areas that need sprucing up and areas that need additions in order to raise the probability of being picked up by search engines.
Most webmasters are busy enough with making sure the warehouse is properly stocked with product and fulfilling orders, without the added burden of finding the time to properly monitor all of the things that are involved in the SEO of a website. The last thing you want as a webmaster is to get buried under the avalanche of reports that are produced from using various SEO strategies so that you’re unable to use that information to improve sales.
Having someone help keep you on track by organizing, and monitoring the results reported, pays a big dividend in the headaches and missed opportunities to increase sales and profit that won’t happen because you have competent help on your side.
The question you should be asking yourself at this moment isn’t why you might need SEO help, but when are you going to get the SEO help you and your business deserve? You can find reputable SEO consultants and firms to help you with optimizing your website online. Ask them to give you a complete proposal of how they can help you with the SEO of your website. Make sure they can show you success stories from other clients and go with the ones who have had the best results with search engine optimization.
SEO experts are your #1 resource for information about the newest SEO strategies, services, and software programs coming in to use in the marketing industry, so why not take advantage of that valuable tool for the profitability of your website. The promoting of your business through a website is one of the most time and money consuming activities of a successful business. SEO is critical to getting the most out of your financial and time investments.
Why not let an SEO expert worry about the details of just how to attract the most traffic to your website. Leaving you to concentrate on the very important detail of connecting with your online customers for their increased loyalty to you and your company, and increased buying of what it is you are selling.

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Part II
2. Does their services include content creation, or just optimization of the site as-is?
Content creation refers simply the content on your site including images and graphics. Content can be optimized by being enriched with keywords and tags added to images, etc.
Any Austin Texas SEO firm can do a better job for you with optimized content on your site. Without optimized content, you’re basically throwing free money into the pocket of your internet marketing consultant.
3.Do they guarantee results?
Like I said earlier, no Austin SEO firm can’t guarantee top rankings. What results do they guarantee? Can you get your money back if they don’t live up to it?
4. Do they use a standard method of SEO or do they approach each site individually?
Cookie cutter approaches to SEO work, but a good Austin SEO firm will look at your site and determine what methods will work best for it. You’re a paying customer. You want your site to get the treatment it deserves and not put on an assembly line.
Of course, if your internet marketing consultant’s cookie cutter approaches with other sites impress you, then I can’t tell you not to do it?
5. How long until you see results?
Listen up! Results do not happen overnight unless the Texas SEO firm either owns a magic wand or starts PPC campaigns for your site. With just organic SEO, it can take months to see results.
Any legitimate internet marketing consultant will tell you this. PPC campaigns give immediate results. Everything else? It’s going to take a month or so before the Austin SEO firm’s work produces any noticeable results.
6. Will they just analyze and provide a report on your site or will they perform the SEO work as well?
Some Texas SEO firms analyze your site and provide you with a detailed description of what needs done. They don’t do it for you. If you want an internet marketing consultant, this becomes one of the most important questions you can ask.
7. Ask the Austin SEO firm to tell you, as precisely as possible, what they will do to and for your site.
If they don’t know the answer to this question after looking at your site, then move on to the next Austin, Texas SEO firm!
Now, don’t expect them to go into detail because that would tell you how to do their job (and saving you money), but you do want to know as much of their intended strategy as possible.
8. What search engines will they target?
Plenty of little, no-name search engines exist, and your site could achieve top rankings with them. But let me ask you this.
Who uses them? Get the names of the search engines the Texas SEO firm will target. Better yet, get those names in the contract!
9. PPC or paid inclusion listings with the search engines?
PPC gives you immediate results. Paid inclusion doesn’t guarantee top ranking, but it does guarantee ranking. However, the results the Austin SEO firm gets with these methods will stop when your contract ends or you stop paying them.
If this entails all the only SEO that they’re doing for you, just keep in mind that the SEO work lasts only as long as you fork out money to the Austin, Texas SEO firm. If that’s what you want from your internet marketing consultant, then go for it.
10. How many hours will they put into working on your site?
I think that’s clear enough of a question. Any internet marketing consultant or Texas SEO firm should put some initial time into kicking off the SEO campaign. After that, your site will require regular maintenance to retain its ranking.
These questions make up a few that you will want to ask all Austin SEO firms that you contact. Of course, I encourage you to come up with questions of your own and to request, then explore, a contract with any Texas SEO firm you decide to hire.
Top notch SEO provides you with a successful and profitable website. Hiring a knowledgeable, experienced Austin SEO firm spells out the difference between being an Ohio-like business and a Texas one. Everything comes bigger (and better) in Texas, you know.

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Outsourcing simply means handing over the work that you do to a third party. Every business these days is being dominated by this and search engine optimization or SEO is no exception. Among the many
destinations for outsourcing, SEO outsourcing in India has emerged as the most illustrious destinations in the world. True there are several countries in the world, that provide SEO outsourcing, but due to certain advantages India has emerged as the hottest destination for SEO outsourcing.
There are several advantages of SEO outsourcing from India. Among the countries that are in the outsourcing work, India has the highest number of English speaking professionals. Proper knowledge of the language is a huge bonus as this helps in proper interaction with clients. After all if professionals working for SEO outsourcing are just not able to understand what their client wants, there will be chaos all around and needless to say that the work will not at all be done in a proper manner.
SEO is all about undertaking various strategies that will help an online site to rank at the top of search engine find results. One of the strategies for SEO is writing lots of articles and content and distributing them on the web. So to write good articles one needs proper knowledge of English and also knowledge about the subject on
which they are writing. This along with several other advantages has enabled Indian professionals to do excellent work for SEO for businesses that are operating outside.
India also has a huge number of professionals who are very highly qualified in the technical field. Technical qualification of professionals is one of the benchmark for successfully doing SEO for any online business site. Another great advantage of doing SEO outsourcing from India is that you will end up saving huge amounts of
money. This is the one aspect that is driving more and more companies towards undertaking outsourcing SEO for their business.
Imagine if you can hire someone who can do the work for you in less then half the rate that you used to pay, then it surely is a huge advantage to you. Suppose you used to pay eight dollars to get certain SEO work done, you will now have to pay less then half say about three dollars if you outsource the same work. That is not all the SEO work for you will be done by highly qualified professionals, so you will also get top quality work done from them.
Many companies have earned huge profit by undertaking SEO outsourcing India, when there are so many advantages, and one can earn only profit from this. There is absolutely no chance of incurring losses of any kind if you work with the right people.So just make sure that you are working
with the right kind of people to get your SEO outsourcing in India done in just the perfect way. After all you are undertaking this task for the progress of your business and you will undoubtedly want the best for your business.

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Outsourcing your SEO activities vis-a-vis having SEO professionals on your payroll – A comparative studyBenefits of employing a SEO professional

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SEO for keywords and content is relatively easy. Choose your keyword. Write content around that keyword. Use an SEO optimizer program to make sure you have done it right.

Long gone are the days of writing unrelated content, and then typing “Britney Spears” 100 times at the end of the article. Today’s search engine spiders can spot the “Black Hat” SEO techniques a mile away, and your site can be banned for life.

Here are a few tips for SEO optimization:

Be focussed in your meta keywords – 1 to 3 SEO optimized keywords is enough

Put your keyword at the beginning of you page title tag.

Make sure you title tag is the first tag in the head section

Make sure your keyword appears in the alt tag for images and in link text, but no more than 3 times

Put your keyword in bold

Put your keyword in the H1 section of your page, and H2 if you can

Have a keyword weigh in your article between 3-6% (higher is “keyword spamming”)

SEO for domain names

Going back to the Nike.com example from my “SEO for Google” article. Since the keyword weight is 0%, how does nike.com get to billing when you search for them? Easy, Google gives a rank weight to domain names.

Make sure your primary domain name reflects the main purpose of your site (domain SEO). This site, for example, is all about my desire to “retire with millions”. The site is subdivided in to many SEO optimized sub-domains each with a URL that denotes the sections. For example, all my SEO articles are in a sub-directory called ../seo.

Many articles have been written about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Google. Google is the largest search engine (for now) and getting your SEO right for the Googlebot can make your site top ten site getting millions of hits a day. On the other hand, poor SEO and your site may never be ranked and your campaigns for Adsence will never net you any real money. Even worse, bad SEO might mean that your cutting edge product is un-finable by your customers.

Google page rank is determined by a number of factors:

SEO keywords

SEO content

SEO domain name

Originality of content

Number of links from external sites

SEO keywords and SEO content will be dealt with in another article, lets focus on the other 2 for now.

Original Content

Having original content on your site is a no-brainer. It is the “why” that escapes many SEO web content developers. We have all seen the ads promising “150000 Adsense and SEO optimized pages”. If it were this easy, all of us would be multi-millionaires by now. The reality is, Googlebot applies a penalty for non-original content, no mater how SEO you might think the page is. Think about it – why does “Nike.com” come up number 1 when you type Nike into Google? You or I could probably write a better SEO page about Nike than Nike.com. In fact, Nike.com keyword density for “Nike” is 0%!!!

Links from External Sites

Google take into account the number of links you have from external sites. Each link is like a “vote” for your site. Before you go and sign up for a link exchange program, consider this, some links do not count, in fact, being a “link spammer” can kill your ranking, no matter how good your SEO.

There are ways to generate quality back links:

Create a blog on blogspot.com (a Google Site) and write about your web page – include properly formatted links

Join blogs on respected sites and comment on articles, putting your URL in your signature

Write “press releases” when you update your site and post them on the free press release sites around the web

Take out classified ads in respected on-line newspapers

Make small donations to charity sites that keep a “Thank You” page and include your web site with your name

These are just some tips to compliment your SEO work to get a good Google ranking.

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