Is professional SEO really worth the money?

There are so many resources that teach you how to do your own SEO it's worth asking the question - is professional SEO worth the money?

For example, this SEO training is specifically designed to help non-technical people do their own search engine optimisation (it's superb).

So why pay hundreds - maybe thousands - to a SEO professional when you can do it yourself for free? As always, the answer comes down to your particular circumstances...

• Do you have time to do your own SEO?
  Getting to the top of Google may require months of tedious effort on your part. Is this really the best way to invest your time?
• What is your time worth to your business?
  If you're paid well you're almost certainly better off paying a professional to do SEO for you.
• How quickly do you want to get to the top of Google?
  A professional can almost certainly get you to the top of Google faster than you. For a start, a pro doesn't have to learn how to do SEO.
• Can your business stand the 2-3 months it will take to undo a mistake?
  If you make a mistake that results in Google punishing your site, it can take several months of misery while you attempt to undo it. A professional won't make these types of mistake.
• Is being at the top of Google likely to be a profitable investment for your business?
  There's more than one way to get traffic to your site, and sometimes SEO isn't the best way to do it. A professional will tell you if there's a better approach.
• Are there problems with your site that hold it back in Google?
  Many web designers have incorrect ideas about what makes a site 'SEO friendly'. Sometimes they do more harm than good, and create problems that must be fixed before a site will rank well in Google.

These last 2 points are especially important. It entirely possible that getting to the top of Google won't help you achieve your business objectives. If so, an experienced pro will tell you and recommend more viable alternatives.

This could save you months of effort, and direct your energies toward more profitable activity.

This alone could be worth thousands (i.e. far more than the cost of an initial SEO report). Not to mention the opportunity cost to your business.

As your SEO experience improves over time, so will your ability to spot the sort of problems that stop a site from ranking well in search engines. The thing is, a professional can tell you within minutes if there's an existing problem. And either fix it immediately, or explain how to get it fixed.

All it takes is a professional SEO report. I'm not talking about a free automated report you find on a website. I mean a report prepared manually by an experienced professional that looks in-depth at your site, likely keywords, internal links, external links, the strength of your competition in Google and all the other factors that go into a SEO strategy.

This report will save your business a lot of time, money and lost opportunity. Isn't it the logical next step for your business?
Click here now...

Deep Linking Techniques

A 'deep link' is a link to a page on a website that isn't the homepage. Naturally it must obey all the other conventions of SEO link building...

• It must be from an external site (from them to you)
• It must be a one-way link (i.e. no reciprocal link)
• It must convey SEO benefit (i.e. a dofollow link from a credible source)

A lot of SEO link building makes use of web directories. This is a quick and simple way of getting a link back to a web site.

While a web directory is the SEO Professionals' 'old faithful', it's of little help when it comes to deep linking. Most web directories will only accept links to a site's homepage. So what do you do when you need to raise the importance of some other page on your site? Here are several options...

• Write an article and get it published on a dedicated article site. Link to the page on your site from the author profile
• Write a blog article and use it link to the webpage
• Create a Squidoo lens and generate deep links from that
• Find an appropriate 3rd party blog article, make a comment, and link back to the webpage
• Add the link to a forum signature and start posting
• Create link bait and link on from that
• Recreate the page destined for deep linking as link bait in and of itself
• Try one or more of these specialist deep link directories

Of course, these techniques tend to involve either time or money. For that reason, you may be better off paying a professional to generate links for you (i.e. save yourself lots of time).

I'm currently working on a this root canal treatment page for a dentist in Battersea. As you can see, it's unlikely this page will pick up links on its own. And it's not the sort of page that can be rewritten as link bait either (within the context of this particular site).

As a result, link building must be done the hard way!

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Backlink Builder - The uber useful SEO tool

There are 3 main tasks in SEO. They are research, content optimization and backlink building. The last (backlink building) is by far the most difficult. It requires a combination of dogged determination and endless patience.

One of the main challenges is finding places willing to link back to your site. It can take hours (literally) of searching to find a single site that...

• Will publish a one-way link to your site
• Is actually worth getting a link from

Fortunately, help is at hand. A handy SEO tool called Backlink Builder does much of the hard work for you. Simply enter a keyword phrase into its Keyword box, and click the Submit button.

Backlink builder then searches a wide variety of sites that accept new links, and are willing to do so using the keyword you specify (i.e. a contextual link). It then returns hundreds of candidates within minutes, saving you hours of "search and explore" misery.

Going Local with SEO

There are times when a website owner is better off avoiding the most popular keywords. By focussing on geographically targeted local keywords, a business owner...

• Saves money
• Saves time
• Is more likely to succeed

This Battersea Dentist is a case in point. They're better off competing for the modest keyword phrase Battersea Dentist than more contested terms such as London Dentist or cosmetic dentistry. Here's why...

• The client has a limited budget
• There isn't the funds to engage in link-building activity
• People entering "Battersea Dentist" into search engines are likely to be very good prospects
• Some people use this term will need a dentist immediately

In other words, this is a term appropriate to the client. They can compete for it, and are highly likely to secure new clients as a result.

As the competition for keywords grows, geotargeted locally-orientated SEO is likely to gain traction.

SEO Case Study - Pension Cash

The term pension cash attracts around 8,000 searches/month here in the UK. It's a lucrative term at the moment, due to an upcoming deadline that pushes up the age a UK resident can withdraw tax-free money from their pension.

Independent Financial Advisers 1stFF asked me if I could get them to the top of Google, so they could reach people interested in withdrawing pension cash. 1stFF CEO Yash Tosar is especially concerned about people who like the idea of tax-free money, and didn't understand the implications of simply helping themselves.

In other words, he's on a mission to save UK pension-holders from themselves (and a certain kind of financial adviser).

So I started the process, and had a look at whether or not anybody in the UK was actually using Google to find out about withdrawing cash from their pension. They are, and the aforementioned term 'pension cash' is the term we settled on (i.e. tight focus).

The company's main site had a few issues in SEO terms, and we opted to set up a separate sub-domain that included the main keyword phrase. In this case: pension-cash.1stff.com.

This wasn't necessary for SEO purposes, but for something else the site has to do (lead generation). I wanted to implement something special (not yet live) that wasn't possible on the company's main site. This required a special CMS that has advanced tracking and lead generation features built in.

Of course, in SEO terms it doesn't hurt to have a domain that includes your main keyword phrase. Having said that, it's initially easier to push an older site up Google's results pages.

I've literally just removed the robots.txt file that tells Google not to index the site, and added it to my Google webmaster account. As I write this, the site should appear in Google's index sometime over the next 2-5 days.

To help Google index the site correctly (i.e. the way I want it to), I've done the following...

• Selected a specific keyword phrase for each of the main pages
• Included the keyword phrase in the title of each page
• Included the keyword phrase in the headline (h1 tag) of each page
• Included the keyword phrase in the meta keyword list and description tags
  
• Used a keyword density tool to ensure the main keyword phrase appears in sufficient quantity, and that the meta keyword tag contains useful words from the page's content (versus a pointless wish-list)
  
• Used internal contextual links to reinforce the main keyword phrase I want associated with the site's main pages
• Established 5 external inbound contextual links to reinforce the main keyword phrase I want associated with the site's homepage (pension cash)

As the term pension cash attracts over 8,000 searches/month in the UK, this won't be enough to get the site into the top 3. Especially as Google will deem it to be a brand new site. I'll have to establish more external inbound contextual links, and add more content to the site over time.

Never-the-less, the site is starting off on the right foot.

68 Lead Generation, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Copy Writing and Web Marketing Articles

This article marketing page contains 68 original articles (by me) about Internet marketing, copywriting, lead generation, search engine optimization and social media marketing.

Here's a sample of the topics on offer...

• Is there SEO value in Social Bookmarking?
• How to charge more for your product or service
• How to overcome human inertia in lead generation
• Get more sales from ad copy
• Press Release tips
• Online marketing with social media
• Lead generation's deadly sins
• The power of 'you' in online advertising

Click through, have a look around, and bookmark the page.

The DIY Guide to SEO

NOTE: The DIY Guide to SEO is now available to the public, and even has its own website. Click here.

The DIY Guide to SEO covers absolutely everything you need to know about search engine optimisation...

• How to get to page one as fast as possible
  
• Where to find the best free SEO tools on the web, and what to do with them
  
• How to alter your site's structure and content to perform in search engines
• Best of all - this in-depth guide shows you how to get good quality SEO backlinks

The DIY Guide to SEO gives you deeply practical information. It doesn't gloss over key tasks with a few vague tips. And it eliminates all the fluff and padding normally found in these things. It gets right to the point, and delivers the SEO information you need to know.

So how can you get your hands on a copy? Click here, fill out the form, and ask me to send you a copy as soon as it's published (14 August, 2009).

SEO Case Study: The outplacement strategy

Recently I was asked to get an Outplacement site to page one of Google. After a keyword and competitor analysis, I judged it was possible to get to position #6 on page one for this term.

There is a lot of competition for the main keyword (outplacement), and getting to page one will be a real challenge. Here's a run-down of the strategy...

The Strategy:

The current economic environment means there is a lot of demand for this service, and that's reflected in the competition for the term in Google. What's more, the site itself contains only 2 indexable pages.

The amount of competition, lack of content, and the fact the site is a sub-domain of the main cimpany site work together to create an interesting challenge.

The site already has a Google sitemap, and is registered to my Webmaster account. It also appears in Google's index. There are now enough one-way contextual back links for me to know that getting to page one for a term like 'outplacement' requires some work.

The Solution:

This brings you up-to-date with developments so far. The solution for this Outplacement site is to...

1. Hunt down and obtain as many high-quality back links as possible
2. Create 6 new pages for the site and put them live over a 12 day period (one per 2 days)
   

The process of finding good quality sites to obtain back-links from is much easier when you have a resource that does all the hard work for you. The one I use is free, and can be found here.

Generating 6 pages worth of content isn't difficult either, at least in terms of what can be added to the site. Examples of potential additional content are...

• Tips for coping with redundancy
• One or more case studies that illustrate the process and its benefits
• A comparison of the different types of outplacement provided
• A free downloadable resource pack for companies thinking about outplacement
• Tips for how to handle outplacement (e.g. 10 outplacement dos and don'ts)
  

In this particular case, I can't simply generate content and add it to the site. The company has to decide if they're happy to go ahead with this approach. Then the content has to be approved. Such is the reality of SEO for a third party.

The way forward is crystal clear. Search engines don't currently believe the site has much to offer. More content is require before the site will move up the search engine results pages. And one-way inbound contextual links are needed to add to the sites PageRank and trust.

Are you interested to hear what a Google insider has to say about PageRank and trust? Take a look at this useful blog entry by Matt Cutts.

Everything you need to know about Inbound Links for SEO

This article has since been incorporated into The DIY Guide to SEO, an in-depth explanation of the entire SEO process.

Most of us have some awareness of the importance of external inbound links in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). As a general rule of thumb, inbound links are good.

From the search engine's perspective, a link back to a page on your site is a vote of confidence in the content it contains. The more 'votes' you get, the better your site must be.

When a search engine is assessing the relative value of a site, it looks at the number, reciprocation, quality, speed and context of inbound links.

The Number of Inbound Links:

There are 2 factors to consider when looking at the number of inbound links...

1. Overall volume
2. Number of individual domains

A single site might generate a vast number of links back to yours. These links will all originate from the same domain (the main part of a site's URL - for example: asureimage.com). Having a large number of links from a single domain isn't going to help much. What you need is a large number of inbound links from different domains.

You can find both the number and quality of inbound links to your site with this free backlink analyser. The resulting list makes for very interesting reading.

Reciprocation:

If I link to your site and you link back to mine, it's clear that something is up. Either we've made a deal, or you're using a link exchange program. Search engines discount the value of reciprocal links.

Swapping links isn't the way to get to page one of Google. It's a much better idea to focus on securing a one-way inbound link from a quality site.

The Quality of Inbound Links:

Not all inbound links are created equal. For example, Google assigns a PageRank score to every site on the Internet. The higher the score, the more value a link conveys.

There many ways to find out what a site's PageRank score is. My favourite is via the Google Toolbar. Click the link, and install it to your browser. Then activate the PageRank score in the options...

• Click the 'Settings' menu on the far right-hand side
• Select 'Options'
• Click the 'More' tab and check (tick) the PageRank option
  

Once it's up and running in your browser, you'll see the PageRank score displayed for every individual web page you visit.

Contextual Linking:

In addition to the quality of an inbound link, search engines also assess their context. This context is taken from the link's anchor text (the clickable text in a link). For example...

• This isn't a contextual link
• This is a contextual link
  

The first example isn't contextual, because the clickable text doesn't relate to the page it links to. The second is contextual, because it relates directly to the content of the resulting page.

You can shape Google's view of what a page is about by paying attention to the anchor text in a link. If it contains an important keyword phrase, Google will start to associate that phrase with the page. Naturally, the page you're linking to must also have that keyword in the title, headline and content.

This is where focussing on a single keyword pays off. Rather than trying to get a site or page ranked highly for several keywords, pick one and use it to build inbound contextual links. It's important you include a variety of non-contextual and alternative links too. Your link building must appear natural to search engines.

The Speed of your Link Building:

If your site picks up 1,000 inbound links overnight, search engines will regard that as suspicious. This is why it's essential that your link building take place over a period of time. That way, it will look like people out in the world are linking back to your content (i.e. growth appears natural).

This is almost certainly a reaction to link farms and other such sites that promise to get you many links in a short space of time. You're better off doing this yourself, adding one new quality inbound contextual link each day for 2-3 months.

How to find sites that can give you Quality Inbound Links:

The main challenge in securing quality inbound links is finding good sites. This free backlink checker does an excellent job (they could easily charge money).

Simply enter the keyword phrase you're interested in, and click the button. It searches the web and returns a list of likely candidates (i.e. fit the keyword phrase and appear to allow you to add a link back to your site). You can then visit any site you're interested in by clicking it's link.

Not all these sites will be suitable, but a surprising number are. It's likely there will be too many to deal with all at once, so save the web page to your desktop. That way, you can work through the list over time, adding one new inbound link per day.

NEW INFO: You can take this strategy one step further by entering a targeted keyword in Google, and note down the URLs of the top 3 sites. Then visit Backlink Watch and enter these URLs. It will display a list of sites from which you can get back links, and that are already helping your leading competitors.

9 Brilliant Sites for Article Marketing

Of all the people that can make use of article marketing, it's the DIY SEO crowd who stand to gain the most. In particular, article marketing offers these 2 key benefits...

1. You get inbound contextual links
2. You send visitors direct to one or more web sites under your control
   

The first benefit is of particular significance to search engine optimisers. Not only is a contextual link one of the most powerful tools in our toolbox, it will sit on a highly focused web page that contains content directly related to the web page it's linking to.

The cherry on the top is that the page itself will be allocated to a relevant category. The title tag and page name may also conform to best SEO practice (especially if you construct your headline carefully).

All these factors work together to make it highly likely your article will be index well for several long tail keyword searches. And if you want to, you can add it to a virtuous SEO circle and derive additional benefits.

The plain fact is, article marketing and SEO work well together. If you can put together half-decent copy, article marketing is something worth investigating. And to get you started, here are 9 of my favourite article marketing and content sharing sites...

1. Ezine Articles
   
2. Buzzle
3. Easy Articles
4. Go Articles
5. Junta42 (content sharing)
   
6. DropJack (content sharing)
7. Article Alley
8. Delicious (content sharing)
9. Technorati (blog search engine)
   

Even better, here's another content sharing site I've thrown in as an extra bonus: Stumble Upon. 'Stumbling' is a fantastic way to discover new content on the web, and share you own articles (or videos or photos) with others.

Each of these sites has something unique to offer you. For example, Ezine Articles attracts high Google ranking, and a lot of visitors every day. Go Articles gets your content online quickly. Junta42 and DropJack will send you traffic.

Content sharing sharing sites help you to tell others about the article you've just written. These sites tend to rely on voting, and it's possible to work in conjunction with others to get more attention for your articles (and give your virtuous SEO circle a boost).

How to Create Link Bait

Link bait is the creation of something so useful, funny or important that other people want to link to it. It might be...

• Information
• A video
• A slide show
• A photo
• A resource

Link bait is useful in SEO, because it's a way to attract external inbound links. Most links to your site won't have sufficient PageRank to make a significant impression on your Google ranking (unless you're nowhere near the top). But every now and then, the right kind of link bait will attract a link from a significant player.

That one link can make all the difference, and see your site shoot up the listings.

The question is, how can you create something that is link worthy? If you're good at creating information, work on an article. Not just any article, but one of enormous interest to your target market. Something thorough, comprehensive, and too complex and awesome to copy.

If you're a videographer, get your camera out and start working on something useful to your target market. In this case, your target market is people who might link to you. This video has to be good, and feature something other people will feel compelled to share.

If you're a whizz on Power Point, create the presentation to end all presentations. Then upload it to Slideshare. This presentation has to wow everybody that looks at it. Be sure to include many things that surprise and delight your intended target audience.

If you're a talented photographer, perhaps you have or can take a photo that gets people talking. This is definitely the road to go down if you're marketing to other photographers. Use a service such as Flickr to display the photo.

Can you create a web utility (i.e. resource) of use to the people you're targeting? If you create something spectacular, people will tell others. If it's a web-based application, that's even better. It will sit on your site, and others will have no choice but to link to it.

Remember, whatever you produce, it has to be so good that people want to share it.

Can You Help Start the Ball Rolling?

Now that you've created your link bait, it's time to get the ball rolling. Popular bloggers are the key to getting the word out.

Your objective is to get links from influential Bloggers that already have the very audience you're hoping to reach. You want these Bloggers to link back to the web page that contains your creation. Here's how...

• Make a list of every Blog that focuses on your target audience. You can find them by typing appropriate key words into Google, Bing and Yahoo Search. Note down the top 6 blogs
  
• Visit each Blog on your list and see what their PageRank is. Install the Google toolbar to find each Blog's PageRank. Eliminate the half with the lowest PageRank, and find the name and email address of the remaining Blog owners
  
• Email each Blog owner individually, describe what you've created, who it's aimed at, and what it does. Do not describe it as 'link bait'. Include a link to your creation, and invite the Blog owner to review it and/or respond back to you with an opinion
  
• Visit these Blogs and see whether or not you've succeeded in getting linked. A link from even one of these sites is worth the effort in terms of the trust it earns you with Google. You'll find more people visiting your site, and so linking to it

You can probably come up with several other lists of Blogs by varying your key words. It also pays to use Google's Keyword Analysis Tool to find the most frequently searched key words.

The more searches there are, the more link juice you'll get flowing in your direction.

The Complete Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

NOTE: This blog entry inspired an SEO ebook (The DIY Guide to SEO), and this awesome SEO resource to support it.

Do you want to get your site listed on page one of Google, Bing or Yahoo Search? Then take a look at this in-depth guide to SEO...

1. Find the best key word for your product, service or site
2. Work on your content
3. Get contextual links
4. Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and Squidoo
   
5. Build your virtuous SEO circle

1. The Best Key Word

While everybody else is stuffing dozens of key words into their homepage, take a step back and relax. google isn't going to list your site on page one for any of those keywords unless it has good reason. And it's very hard to give it 'good reason' when you're chasing dozens of terms.

If you're a DIY operation, it's far better to pick the best key word and focus on building content, contextual links and a virtuous circle. That gives you a much better chance at getting on page one.

How do you find the best key word for your product, service or web site? You can use one of the many key word research tools listed here. Or do what I do, and stick with Google's own key word analysis tool. It contains all the information I've ever needed, and is well documented. You'll find advice on how to research keywords for SEO here and here.

What about Bing and Yahoo Search? This article covers Microsoft's research and analysis tools, while this does for Yahoo. And if that's not enough, try this site (packed full of useful SEO tools).

2. Work on your Content

You'll find a lot of help and advice about how to shape page content for SEO here and here. If you're a blogger, you'll find more specialised search engine optimisation info here. Meanwhile this page provides useful information about common search engine marketing mistakes.

The main points to be aware of when it comes to creating content for SEO purpose are...

• The title tag must contain your most important keywords
• The content of your meta description and keyword tags do matter
• Include your #1 key word in your page headline
• Use the H1 tag to indicate your page headline
• Include your #1 key word in your first paragraph
• Use natural language. Don't force keywords into sentences

You'll find a very useful, thorough and detailed SEO report on this site. The first report is free, and I strongly recommend you run it on your site's home page. Over the course of 50 pages, it explains what's missing, what's holding your site back, and what's needed to get you to the top of search engines.

The creator of the above report also publishes a short book packed full of the exact information you actually need to know. I really like this book because it leaves out 150 pages of fluff typically found in competing titles (time is money - who wants to wade through pages of fluff?). It gets to the point, and focuses on the important stuff. You can pick up your copy here.

3. Get Contextual Links

Click the link to find out what a contextual link is, and go here for more information about the use of internal contextual links. These two articles also explain how contextual links work.

Google uses contextual links to help decide which web pages will rank highly for a given keyword. If you create a web page about stamp collecting, when you link to it from other pages on your site, the phrase 'stamp collecting' should be clickable. It's this clickable text that makes a link contextual.

For example, look up two paragraphs and you'll find two links. The first is contextual for the keyword phrase 'contextual link'. As a result, it's delivering some SEO benefit to the web page it links to. The second link isn't contextual.

The main purpose of external inbound contextual links is to obtain link juice, and build PageRank. These advanced SEO concepts are essential, so click the links and find out what they mean. Then take an in-depth look here.

NEW INFO: There's a lot more to inbound links than the contextual link. Take a look at this extensive article on link building for SEO.

4. Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Squidoo

These 6 social media tools make for an excellent marketing team. Here's a quick look at the potential uses for each of these from a search engine optimisation perspective...

• Blogger:
  You can create a Blog within minutes, and start publishing content immediately. It's a simple way to get content on the web, and start building your reputation. Your blog should have a specific topic based around your primary key word (see point #1 above). You must promote it, and build PageRank for your Blog. Then you can send link juice to your main site.
• Twitter:
  If you don't have a Twitter account, get one now. Twitter is an excellent way to get visitors to your site. Your aim is to pick up followers, and have them retweet your posts. I've created a page that explains how to build targeted followers and get traffic with Twitter in detail. Spend time with it, and explore the links I've included. This system works really well. I suggest you follow me on Twitter, as I post links to a lot of useful SEO, Internet marketing, lead generation and social media marketing information on my Twitter page.
  
• Facebook:
  If you don't have a Facebook account, get one now. Once you're on board, scroll down the left-hand column and click the 'Create a Page for My Business' link. Follow the instructions to build your page. I'm going to explain how to take advantage of this for significant SEO benefit soon, via my own Facebook business page. Click this link, then click the 'Become a Fan' button. I post links to the web's best SEO, Internet marketing, and social media marketing information on that page.
• Delicious:
  Get yourself a Delicious account, and start posting links to all the pages under your control that offer people in your target market useful information, tools and resources. Watch this video to get ideas on how to use Delicious for SEO link building.
• StumbleUpon:
  StumbleUpon sends visitors to your site, and can provide SEO benefits as well. Check out my lead generation StumbleUpon page, click the 'friend' button, and sign up (it's free) if you don't already have an account.
  
• Squidoo:
  Take a look at the information on this page and find out how to get SEO benefit from your Squidoo page. Then get yourself a Squidoo account and set it up using the information you've found. It's also worth taking another look at my Squidoo page above (the one linked to from the Twitter section).
  

5. Build your Virtuous SEO Circle

Tools such as Twitter, Blogger, Delicious, Facebook and Squidoo can be used in conjunction with your own site to build a virtuous circle. It's purpose is to help you build PageRank over time, and then let it flow out (via link juice) to other sites in your circle.

It's also a way to maximise the facetime you get with each visitor to your site. They'll eventually leave your site anyway, so why not send them to another of your sites? That way you double your chances of achieving your objective for that visitor (e.g. to capture their contact details).

Here's more information about how to create an SEO virtuous circle, and even more information.

What's Next?

Assuming you've read everything in this Blog entry, and followed the links I've posted, you've taken in a lot of information. Rather than seek out even more (and there is more to learn), I suggest you start practising.

I learned a lot more by trying out ideas than I did by reading about them. Don't get me wrong, obtaining new information is important. So is practical experience. In particular, I find trying out ideas helps me to understand them better. And to establish them firmly in my mind.

One SEO tool I haven't included here is article marketing. If you're good at writing, this is something you definitely need to look into. Click the link and take a look at the article.

It's also well worth requesting the ebook The DIY Guide to SEO. It goes into far more detail than is possible here, including a in-depth and deeply practical explanation of how to build good quality back links. Click the link, and take a look.

The Google Dance (SEO's emotional roller coaster)

Earlier today I was ranked 2nd to last on page 2 of Google for the key word phrase 'lead generation'. 8 hours later, and I'm 7th on page one. Earlier in the week I was 8th on page one. So what gives?

Professional SEO experts refer to this as the Google dance. It's a difficult thing to explain to clients, especially if they tend to believe...

• We deserve to be on page one, so any work you've done to get us there is incidental
• We've fallen off page one! What did you do?

Ah the joys of the lonely search engine optimiser, as s/he patiently goes about his/her business.

Of course, the Google dance is totally out of your control and mine. It happens when Google is rebuilding its rankings. Sites tend to jump up and down the listings during this time. It's nothing to worry about, and your only option is to wait for it to stop and see where you end up.

If the fall is permanent, you have some work to do. If you've risen in the rankings, you can relax for a while - or start work on getting even higher next time.

SEO is useless without lead generation

Search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, social media marketing and other activity designed to send people to your web site is completely useless without lead generation or online selling. Here's why...

1. Lead generation converts the mild and unproductive interest of a casual visitor into a serious business enquiry (i.e. a person prepared to receive more information, take a phone call, or meet with you)
   
2. Online selling converts a casual visitor into a client

Without a dedicated lead generation process or online selling system set up and working on your site, your visitors will look around for a few minutes and then move on. You will be left with no way of contacting these people, and will probably never hear from them again.

In other words, without a lead generation process and/or online selling system - your marketing activity is wasted (as is the money you spent).

Generating leads and/or sales isn't something that happens automatically. People don't wake up thinking 'I want to be somebody else's lead today'. The lead generation process has to be planned in advanced, implemented correctly, and refined over time through testing and analysis of past results.

The same is true of an online sales system. From time-to-time, a sale might fall into your lap. Most times, it requires serious effort on your part. That's why a shopping cart isn't enough.

How to get external inbound contextual links

The holy grail for most people seeking better search engine performance is the contextual link. And in particular, the external inbound contextual link. They're not as easy to secure as some people will have you believe, especially if your site isn't currently ranked well in Google.

The ideal contextual link is one that appears on a web page with high page rank. The odds that you'll secure such a link are quite small, but there are 3 ways you can get linked from sites that have high page rank (the next best thing)...

1. Write a unique article and have it published on a self-publishing site
2. Add comments to other people's blogs
3. Help people in forums that allow you to add a contextual link back to your site from a signature

Unique Article:

A unique article is one you wrote yourself, and that doesn't appear anywhere else on the Internet. This technique won't work with duplicate content.

Write an article relevant to your site's content, and add one contextual link back to your site. Submit it to a self-publishing site such as Ezine Articles.

Commenting on Blogs:

Find blogs that are updated frequently (2 or more times a week), and that deal with a topic relevant to your site. Look for a suitable article, and add a comment. Include a contextual link back to your site.

Make sure the Blog doesn't add a nofollow tag to your comment. You can find a list of blogs that don't add the nofollow tag here.

Being Helpful:

If you know a lot about something, find a suitable discussion forum and start being helpful. Each post you make carries your signature. Most forums allow you to add a contextual link to your signature.

Be Sensible:

Take your time with these strategies. One contextual link per article, comment or post is all you need. The more you jam in, the greater the chance you'll be seen as a spammer. If that happens, all your hard work will be undone.

If you're commenting on a blog entry, it must add something to the discussion. If it doesn't, it will be seen as spam and be deleted (i.e. offer no SEO value). The same applies to forum posts. If you have nothing to say, move on and wait until you do.

If you're going to pursue this strategy, I recommend you read this short article about links and SEO. And about the concept of creating an SEO virtuous circle.

PageRank and the use of nofollow

There's an interesting discussion happening on Andy Beard's Blog about changes to Google's PageRank algorithm, and whether or not the nofollow tag still works to preserve link juice. If you're using nofollow in this way, you need to read this post.

Unfortunately, the exact nature of the changes and their impact is still unknown. I'll post about this again, once the impact of all this is better known. Stay tuned.

Why does everybody get so excited about pagerank?

A high Google PageRank score is greatly sought-after, yet its not the most important factor in a site's ability to rank well in search engine results pages. So why do people get so excited about PageRank?

Here's what Google has to say on the matter: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

The key words in that sentence are 'more likely' and '500 million variables'. The implication is that site A will rank higher than site B if it has higher PageRank - all else being equal. But the various factors that go into a search engine result page are never equal. How can they be when there are 500 million variables to consider?

My viewed (based on experience) is that Google is more concerned with relevancy than its own scoring system. If site A is more relevant for any given search, it will appear above the less relevant site B in spite of their respective scores.

You can get your site onto page one of Google for a specific keyword phrase even if you have a low score. What matters is how relevant that page is to the given keyword phrase.

Article Marketing sends targeted visitors to your web site

Do you have a web site, but don't get many visitors? Or maybe the visitors you do get show little interest in your product or service? Article Marketing will send well targeted high-quality visitors to your site. Even better, you can do it yourself for free.

You'll find a great overview of how to get started in article marketing here. In addition to the information in that article, you'll also need the following...

• A source of inspiration for new article ideas
• Plenty of practise at writing articles quickly
• More useful information about article marketing

Sources of Inspiration:

In find my current clients are a wonderful source of new inspiration. Any time a client has a particular problem, or raises a specific challenge, it will inspire an article. For example, the challenges I faced doing SEO work for this contract catering company, and the 'newbie' questions they asked along the way, inspired several articles on this very blog.

Topical forums are another excellent source of article ideas. You'll tend to find both experts and beginners on forums. Beginners ask 'stupid' questions, and experts answer them. This provides great clues about what people want to know in your line of work. If people are asking, they'll certainly read articles about it.

What's more, once you've written an article on a topic, you can refer people to it. Not just once, but over and over and over again across multiple forums. If you get lucky, other people will start linking to it as well. And if you've included a contextual link in that article, it will deliver significant link juice to your site.

This all helps build your virtuous circle, pushing you ever closer to page one of Google.

The 'nofollow' Attribute

The nofollow attribute was introduced by Google in 2005, and can be added to a link to deprive the destination of any SEO value. Many forums and article sites use this attribute to ensure you can't obtain any of their SEO PageRank by having your article hosted there.

If you're into Article Marketing solely for SEO benefit, it pays to check whether or not the contextual links you create have this attribute added to them. If they do, look to publish your articles elsewhere.

If you contribute to forums to receive SEO value, you'll also want to check and see whether or not your signature has 'nofollow' added to it. If it does, you're wasting your time (from an SEO perspective).

How to check for the 'nofollow' attribute:

You need to view the page source. That's the HTML code that makes up the page. If you're a Firfox user like me, you can do that by pressing Ctrl U. The page source will appear. Internet Explorer users need to navigate to the 'View' menu and click on 'Source'.

Find a link by pressing Crtl F (Firefox and IE) and entering this into the search box: href=

This will take you to the first instance of an anchor tag. Look either side of the href= and see whether the nofollow attribute appears: rel="nofollow"

Here's an example of a full HTML tag so you can see how it looks...

<a href="http://asureimage.com/" rel="nofollow">Lead Generation</a>

In the above example, the text 'Lead Generation' would be clickable in a web browser. Normally, this would be a contextual link back to my main site and provide me with link juice. Unfortunately, in this case the 'No Follow' tag tells Google not to transfer any link juice to my site.

Secrets of the SEO Masters #1

The title tag is essential to SEO success. It's very useful to know how many people have placed a particular keyword in their site's title tag (i.e. how much competition you have). Here's how it's done...

• Go to Google
• Enter this search: intitle:keyword

For example, my keyword phrase is lead generation. I would enter...

• intitle:"lead generation"

The result is 156,000 sites in Google's listings that have the phrase "lead generation" in the title tag. That's the number of sites I'm competing against.