Search Engine Optimisation Seo Start Up Landing Your First Clients

Writen by Ilan Touri

Starting a search engine optimisation business from scratch can be an extremely overwhelming and daunting task, especially if it is your first time. Establishing contacts and connections can also be extremely time consuming if you have no prior marketing and sales knowledge.

Below is a useful guide to help you get your first clients and to get your SEO / SEM business off the ground. Before I begin, please keep in mind that "word-of-mouth" is king, get the word out, talk and mention your business to whomever, whenever and wherever. Remember, the more exposure you offer your business, the more chances you will have landing that first deal.

Search engine optimisation marketing and offline selling tips:

1. Target your market and know your customers, i.e. do some background research. It helps to initially concentrate on one industry, e.g. travel websites, and know the terms, your clients, their line of work and their competition.

2. Localise yourself, concentrate on a local area. Try not to tackle too much at first, focus and concentrate on local businesses and gain their trust. Remember "you are a local" and share similarities.

3. Meet with them, form a partnership and more personal relationships.

4. Assess your advertising options (depending on your budget), consider using the following advertising tools:

a. Local newspapers – place a catchy add.
b. T-shirts - they create great advertising on the street or wherever you go. Also, choose an eye catching slogan.
c. Business cards – choose an appealing and aesthetically pleasing design, trust me professionalism and great design go a long way.
d. Billboard and brochure advertising for those that have the financial means.
e. Taxi advertising: Taxis can be seen all over town by motorists, many of who may happen to be company executives looking to increase their online sales.
f. Radio is also not a bad way of reaching out to people, however this can be costly.

5. Join your local chamber of commerce, meet business people and discuss your SEO business. Offer them a FREE brief website analysis / proposal on their website and show them how you can increase their online traffic and sales.

6. Referrals, referrals, referrals and partnerships. Speak to web design / web development and ISP companies, form partnerships, offer them commission if they refer companies to you.

7. Last but not least: There is nothing like cold calling. Go straight to your source, bypass the marketing manager, do not collect $200, and head straight for the decision maker. Again, as in tip #5, offer a FREE SEO website analysis.

Follow these steps and you can be sure that you'll be on your way, just stick to your guns and persevere. Deals and contracts may not rush in overnight, however you can be sure sales and new clients will come about in a short period of time. Best of luck!

About the Author: Ilan Touri works for SEO Sydney, a team of search engine optimisation specialists. He has worked on many projects and offers search engine marketing services to companies in Australia. For further information, please contact SEO Sydney.

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Selecting A Search Engine Optimization Company

Writen by Zaak OConan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You can access this at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zaak O'Conan discovers and presents information on to enhance your site, newsletter, marketing and other Internet related topics. You'll find his other articles that expand your horizons at http://WebWorkersWeekly.com

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How To Weather Google Algorithm Changes

Writen by Rick Rouse

If you spend much time reading the various webmaster forums, you're no doubt well aware of the grief that many webmasters experience after seeing a Google algorithm change send their web pages sinking like a stone in the search results. But there are always other webmasters who do well with the changes, and many whose rankings are pretty much unaffected.

What allows some websites to weather frequent algo changes and even prosper while others are banished to the nether regions of the SERPS or banned altogether? In a word, moderation.

Search Engine Optimization is a lucrative business, and many SEOs routinely "push the limits" of what's allowed by the search engines in an attempt to maximize a client site's rankings and draw more business. The problem with this approach is Google is constantly moving the goal post. If you play the game too aggressively you'll find your site being penalized when Google changes the algorithm.

So what can you do to safely optimize your site for the search engines? There are several things to remember:

1 - Make your SEO efforts an asset to Google, not a nemesis. Use ethical optimization practices that help ensure that your pages rank well and pass the "relevance" test. Google loathes spammers because they skew the search results making them less relevant for the searchers, and less relevant results drive searchers to other search engines. Understandably, Google doesn't like that a bit! Bottom line: Make your pages search engine friendly, but don't spam. That way when your page makes it into the top 10 it will really deserve to be there.

2 - Corollary to #1: Provide content that is truly relevant to the search queries that the page ranks well for. In fact, strive to make your page the most relevant (and most useful) page on the Internet for those search terms. Google loves lots of high quality content that is actually useful to your visitors, and their ranking algorithm will reward you handsomely for it, often with little or no SEO techniques in use at all. Lots of quality content draws lots of quality inbound links to your pages, which in turn helps boost their rankings even more!

3 - Use moderation in everything you do in regards to SEO. If you don't edge right up to the line, you'll be a lot less likely to cross it when Google moves it on you. This applies to linking, keyword density, header tags...all of the typical SEO techniques that are in use by webmasters today.

Conclusion

The webmasters who are happy after each and every Google update make their SEO efforts actually benefit the Google index. Their pages are full of relevant, useful content and they refrain from using "gray area" SEO techniques. Remember, today's "gray area" techniques are often tomorrow's "black hat" techniques.

Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Directory & Informational Resources (http://www.rlrouse.com), your one-stop source for information on a wide variety of topics.

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The Power Of Article Marketing With Seo

Writen by Kenneth Doyle

There are many ways to market your business on the Internet, and using search engine optimized articles has to be one of the "keeper" strategies for getting pre-qualified 'natural' search engine traffic to your web site.

Now, I'm sure you've heard all this before, "people search the Internet looking to information (aka articles) on how to solve a particular problem". People just don't search the web to buy your 'stuff'!

If you truly understand this search "path" then you understand the meat and potatoes of how the web works, it's an information resource for people.

To completely understand the above concept 'follow the money'. Search engines need content to be able to rank web sites, so that they continually get searchers BACK to their engines. The more searchers they have searching for relevant content on a search engine means more revenue for that search engine (e.g. the success of Google adsense).

This is why blogs and RSS have become the "buzz". Blogs and RSS make the content (copy, words) "fluid"... meaning that the content changes often. This means that the search engine bots love these technologies, visit more often, and then rank the content well (if the blog articles are keyword optimized).

To see how this works go to any news site. News sites have a volume of ever-changing content. For example CNN gets spidered (visited) by the Googlebot something like 28,0000 times a day.

Why? Because of CNN's ever changing content, and I guess the 'bots' are 'lazy'? They go to where the good, and changing content is more often.

The SEO aspect of article writing.

Think of SEO as "filing". What I mean by this is that good search engine optimization strategies help the search engine to "file" your content appropriately. Good keyword analysis gives you the information to enable the search engine bot with the 'right' filing.

There are no smoke and mirror tactics here. Your Mother was right when she told you that 'telling the truth is always better in the long run'. This principle especially applies to good SEO practice.

Now, how do we take this concept of "fluid", search engine optimized content and turn it into a Links IN bonanza for your own web site (thus sending your rankings through the roof over time, so to speak)?

These are the core principles...

1. Ensure that the link for your article is on a web page hosted on a unique IP address.

2. Ensure that the link for your article is on a web page that has a unique, wholly independent set of backlinks.

3. Ensure that the link is on a web page that is at least loosely relevant to the topic of your own web site.

You see, it's not just a matter of having your articles on just any article directory. Your articles need to be in a category (and preferably a specialist directory) that is within "theme'. In other words you would never post your article on 'looking after your cattle dog" on a directory that was focused on Financial Management.

In addition to placing your articles on article directories one can also run your articles on press release service sites, and of course there are RSS strategies (but that's a whole other story, and another article).

Kenneth Doyle Is A Writer And Internet Marketing Consultant, *Find Out About His [Keyword Optimized] Article Writing And Submission Service Gets Thousands Of Prospects To Read YOUR Web Site Offers, Here... http://www.feedyourhungrymind.com/articlesam4

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The Da Vinci Code Of Search Engine Optimization

Writen by Christopher Conlan

I recently signed a new client for Search Engine Optimization Services (that's what we do). The problem, same as always was she wanted $10,000 worth of optimization on a $200 a month budget. I was groovin' on her style and liked her can do attitude. We put together a program.

She has a unique selling proposition, competitively priced products, and is in a relatively crowded marketspace. Her website was built on the cheap, but is structurally sound. She's been playing around with FrontPage and can at least create new pages from old ones, change images, add new content and publish her changes.

Sounds good so far. Right? Just enough knowledge to get into trouble!

Leonardo Da Vinci once said "Savage is he who saves himself". So in the spirit of Hollywood here's the Da Vinci Code for helping out your SEO Expert, reducing your Search Engine Positioning costs and maximizing your website return on investment.

This is a recipe so to speak, so follow the instructions.

Da Vinci Code #1

Existing Content. Using your favorite HTML editor (we'll use FrontPage for this exercise) do some basic on page SEO. Using the bold feature (the "B" at the top of the page) bold the keywords in your content. Don't do crazy, but try to "highlight" at least 3 or 4 times per page. Feel free to mix it up for readability and use italics instead of bold (the "I" at the top of the page). Just like your reader, the search engines take notice of words in bold and italics when used for emphasis.

Da Vinci Code #2

Find the hidden treasure in your images. Search engines could care less about your images or what your site looks like. To them they're just code. So give them the code they're looking for. Using the right click button, right click on your favorite image, select "Picture Properties", click on "General". Give your image a name related to your keywords, example: search_engine_optimization.jpg. Put at least one keyword in the "text section", then write a keyword rich description of the image. Now the search engines can read the "code" of your image.

Da Vinci Code #3

New Content. Hopefully your SEO Expert will have done some in depth keyword research for you. Pick 10 keywords that you want to target. Now create a page for each keyword set. Start creating a new page of content from one of your existing pages in FrontPage by highlighting the HTML file in the left hand column. Right click and select "New from Existing Page". This preserves your existing layout and saves you from having to recreate a whole new layout/theme if you're not experienced with CSS.

I know that every SEO guru and web design grandmaster's head just exploded, but remember this is YOU saving YOU, not THEM billing YOU. You can fix the architecture when you start realizing gains from your efforts.

Start writing. I prefer to divide my keywords up into three tiers. (1) The keyword you use thematically throughout your site – the tough one that everybody is chasing (link a few of these back to your home page – see #4). Search Engine Optimization). (2) The keyword that THIS page is about Example: Pay Per Click. (3) A localized version of both – Example: Arizona Search Engine Optimization and Scottsdale Pay Per Click.

Da Vinci Code #4

Link Building. Charity begins at home. Make sure you have an internal linking strategy. Link back from internal content pages to your home page or to other internal content pages. In Front Page, make sure to take advantage of the Screen Tip function (in the top right hand corner of the hyperlink popup box). Put in the keyword relevant to that hyperlink. Link building is a science to a certain degree, but you can help out your SEO Expert by going old school. Ask your suppliers, customers and friends who have websites to link to your site – then mix and match when those sites are linking to your site. Don't have every link go straight to your home page.

Da Vinci Code #5

Become an Expert. Believe it or not, someone out there actually is looking for the knowledge and experience you already have. Write an article for your blog, share it with your competitor, syndicate it (ask your SEO or emarketing consultant about strategy here). This is great for the double whammy of link building and traditional "how to" marketing. Check out Ezinearticles, GoArticles or Article Sender. They are good places to start becoming an expert. Include these "articles" or "press releases" as new pages of content on your site.

If you are willing, and have the time, you can help your SEO Expert make you successful and reduce your costs. Always remember that Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process and results take time, so be patient. And be savage about it!

Kaboodle Ventures http://www.kaboodleventures.com/organic_seo.htm The Blog Mill http://www.blog-template-layout.com

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