Why You Shouldn’t Trust Emails Selling SEO Services
September 20, 2011
I’m a little perturbed at the increase in frequency of emails to my clients that look similar to the one found here:
We offer quality Search Engine Optimization / SEO Services and Internet Marketing Solutions. Our dedicated team of SEO Professionals ensures Top 10 search engine rankings. Our SEO Processes are designed in view of the SEO guidelines, and white hat SEO techniques are strictly followed to ensure that our clients from world over get the best SEO services. Please reply to this email so we can send you more details.
from: cecilia (at) gmail.com
Right off the bat, the gmail email address offers no credibility behind the email – one is still left to wonder who this person is and what company they work for (if they are even a real person). But the real clincher behind this email is – if this supposed person who works for a mysterious company is so good at SEO, then why are they emailing YOU? Is it because they don’t have enough clients because not enough people have found them through their own internet marketing efforts?
My best recommendation is if you are looking for an SEO or internet marketing firm, Google “SEO” and the city and/or state your business is in, talk to your friends/colleagues who have worked with a firm or contact us for a no obligation proposal.
Build a Blog and They Will Come
July 2, 2009
I am often approached by companies wanting “search engine optimization (SEO)” services for their website. Some might wonder what SEO services are. Once you get a deeper understanding of what SEO entails, it will forever change the way you think about a website. It will likely result in changing your website. SEO will change your sales forever.
The biggest mistake I see companies make is trying to get the cheapest website available, even to the extent of using Godaddy’s© Website Tonight. I’ve heard people claim “Hey, my son can build websites.” And that very well may be true; but can he build a website that will generate customers? That’s a brutal question, I know, but it can also cost you your image. You’ve heard the saying “It takes a lifetime to get a customer’s respect and a second to lose it.” A properly built website should be more than just a billboard of services.
In fact, a bad website can hurt future sales. Out of proportion graphics, cross browser incompatibilities, archaic site architecture, poor sales copy, grammatical errors, no contact form, etc. It makes me ask “Does a 17-year-old understand all of that?” Probably not. I know at 17, I didn’t know the first thing about sales, marketing or branding. My point here is, a proper website is more than just some html pages thrown up onto a server.
It’s your brand.
If you care anything about your image (which most of us do even on a personal level), then you will at least consider this. Instead of paying to have a website designed and then realizing it really does matter what it looks like to professionals and potential clients and that now you need to pay for SEO, then you clearly should have gotten an SEO website designer to begin with.
Understand the process of SEO now: Site design DOES matter.
1.) Keyword Research
Keyword Research – Probably the most important of the beginning steps. It’s the foundation of your SEO campaign. I use Google’s Keyword Tool, but I also use common sense, logic and focus groups to define the appropriate keywords.
Setting up Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics is a must!
2.) On-Page Optimization
Make the page meta titles descriptive and clear, optimize the meta keywords and the meta description (for a later post), tidy up each page to 450 words respectively, make sure there is a good internal linking structure, etc.
3.) Backlinking Campaign
Backlinking Campaign – Absolutely essential to any successful SEO project is a backlinking campaign. Here’s my only plug, we offer an initial campaign for $249. It will get your website off its feet.
Here are some tips for the DIYer: Generate links at a moderate pace, use varying keyword anchor text. Get links from a variety of places. This is the hard part.
Here’s where most people fizzle out but keep reading!
4.) Analyze Traffic
Once you get 1000 visitors (not a magic number just a good amount of traffic), look to Google Analytics. Not only will you find how many visitors your site had, what keywords they used to find your site, what site referred them to your site, what pages they viewed, etc., but it will also tell you how long they spent on your site.
It can be brutal at times…no doubt. If you look at your stats only to find no one spends more than 10 seconds on your site, that hurts.
5.) Increase Traffic Levels and Add Fresh Content
A high traffic ranking is a must for a truly successful website. This leads website owners further into the usability aspect of a website and into creating more of a resource instead of “just a billboard of services.”
A usability example; It’s hard to believe that in 2009 there are websites with no contact form. This is an SEO must! Not often have I had a customer call me or any of my clients when finding our services on the internet, they almost always use our contact forms. Many contact forms are generated because we are:
- easy to find
- our websites are well organized
- we have an easy way for people to contact us
In fact, I wouldn’t even bother with a website unless I had a contact form. Once you have a contact form, you are welcoming the potential client and making it easy for them to reach you.
Other Tools to Increase Your Traffic Level
Oh there are so many to choose from, let’s see:
- Social Networks (a la ning.com where you can create your own)
- Forums installed on your domain
- Interactive Game and Quizzes
- Videos
- Tools useful to your target audience
Be creative. Set yourself apart and set yourself up for good times ahead, for you and your company.
The Easiest Way to Increase Your Traffic Level, Add Fresh Content and SEO all at the same time:
A blog! Did you get it right? A blog implemented by an SEO professional of course (it’s only a $100-$500 one-time fee. Every article you write gets generated for the search engines.
A blog is the only way to compete with larger sites. It creates an equal playing field for all. Each article, another page in the search engines. Every category, yet another page and every tag is yet another. The pages end up multiplying and within a year, you have a library of information you can package into an ebook. You also have hundreds of pages in the search engines. You have made your website the authority in your niche (see lower right image).
This is the main reason Ponder Consulting™ (that’s exciting my first time “tm”ing Ponder Consulting since being trademarked…more to come on that when the papers arrive) designs/creates all nonecommerce sites in WordPress, because we know it’s best for the customer, their future and our success. There are many more advantages (for another post), but to sum it up: WordPress is a search engine magnet, a website and blog all in one. In addition, it’s updatable by a novice computer user. Have I convinced you yet?
Become the Authority of Your Niche with a Blog
This article is by no means an all inclusive list of SEO steps, but it does create an outline that may help you make the right decision if you are considering a new website, a website redesign or SEO work.
In over ten years as a marketer, from direct mail to internet marketing, I have never seen a better return on investment (ROI) than a WordPress website (set up by a seo professional), a backlinking campaign, and a faithful blogger.
I am going to leave you with one last thought: If my business was in trouble (thankfully it’s not), I would be blogging my tail off. I do it anyway, because I know it’s good PR and good for SEO. Besides, if I KNEW it would attract potential clients for my business then I would do it! It’s a no-brainer and I am telling you, it will produce a positive ROI if executed correctly.
All of this information is true. If you have any questions, comments or arguments about these theories, I would love to hear them. Please share your comments below.
In case I don’t get back by the weekend, have a Happy 4th of July, full of barbecues, fireworks, friends, families and memories. I know I am. We are hosting the first ever “Ponder Consulting™ Summer Bash” at the cabin on the lake in Cheboygan if you will be around, contact me for directions.
15 Do Follow Social Bookmarking Sites
April 8, 2009
In my effort to simplify the internet (is that even possible?), I am launching blog posts of useful tools, tricks and free stuff. Cool? Right?
With that being said, here is a list of 15 high ranking do follow social bookmarking sites.
For those of you who don’t now, there is a difference between “nofollow” and “do follow” links. The nofollow link does not pass the Google Pagerank to the links on it’s page where the do follow does.
In other words, these are the best use of your time.
- Folkd (PR7)
- Oneview (German) (PR7)
- Spurl (PR6)
- Feedmarker (PR6) – Feedmarker now charges $50.00 to create an account.
- LinkaGoGo (PR5)
- SpotBack (PR5)
- Connectedy (PR5)
- Blinklist (PR5)
- MyLinkVault (PR4)
- A1 Webmarks (PR4)
- OYAX (PR4)
- Pixelmo (PR4)
- TeDigo (PR2)
- MyPIP (PR3)
- SyncOne (PR3)
BTW, I have done my research and these are the best quality links you can get. If you know of anymore, please post them and I will review.
If you like this post, please “Share It.”
Google Pagerank Update Right on Time
April 2, 2009
It’s that time of year, the first quarter of 2009 is officially passed. And with the beginning of a new quarter comes higher Pagerank, for some, that is. How do you rank?
PonderConsulting.com faired above average with this update. We increased from a Pagerank of 2 to a 3 for our home page. Some other pages that show an increase in Pagerank was our Testimonials page and some of our more popular blog posts. Posts such as Dentist in Trouble for Buying Bugs and Steve Wilson of TopRankingLinks.com is a SCAM both came out of the update with a Pagerank of 2.
I can’t help but look back at projects I have done in the past to see how my projects have paid off. I peeked at Custom Modular Homes and see their home page has also increased to a Pagerank of 3. Along with the Pagerank increase, so has their search engine rankings for “custom modular homes” and “custom modular homes ct“.
Other notable mentions are botticellis niece moved up to a Pagerank of 2. Pharmacy Expert Witness also moved up to a Pagerank of 2. Christian Women Speakers also moved up to a Pagerank of 2.
I am sure there are more great results out there.
Want to know your Pagerank? Get the “searchstatus” browser add-on for Mozilla Firefox, it shows both the Pagerank and the Alexa traffic ranking for every site/page visited.
Now it’s back to work for the next update which is at the end of the second quarter around June 30th, 2009. How will you rank?
Free Backlinks: Social Poster Explained
March 30, 2009
It used to be very difficult to get backlinks from other websites to pages within your site. In fact, it took a lot of time, trading, hassle and maybe even money. Almost so much time that it was hard to justify. Now, with the social media craze and poularity it is as easy as the time you take to get the backlinks.
It will only cost you your time.
For all of the bloggers reading this message, what I am about to explain to you will be your GOLD. This method will put your blog posts on page 1 of Google. I have tried, tested and approve of this method as 100% pure whitehat SEO.
Once you have done your keyword research and have written your blog post, and it has been published to the web. Head over to Social Poster. You will see a long listing of all the social media sites, you will see an “R” for register, and “L” for login, and a “Post” to post to that social media site. In the next column you will see the Google Pagerank for that site (very important for determining quality) and in the final colum you will see the Alexa Rank which is the traffic estimate or popularity of the site (also important for determining quality).
Off to the right you will see the text box to enter the URL of your blog post, the title (remember to optimize as this will be the link back to your site), the text describing your post and finally the tags to classify your post on the social media sites.
Here’s the kicker…you must register for each one of these sites using the “R’ mentioned above. It surely may take some time, but once registered, you are registered for life. In the future, you will only have to use the “L” for logging in. Once you have registered or logged in and filled in the URL, title, text and tags information, you are set to hit “Post”.
Within 1-2 days watch your blog post rise. Within 2 weeks, watch your Google Webmaster Tools >> Links >> External Links for this blog post. You will see a good portion of links there.
Your Challenge: I challenge you to go blog, optimize your post, publish, head over to Social Poster and register for the first 20 sites and post to them. Come back and report what happened to your blog post over the next week. I would love to hear how this worked for you.
Google SEO Starter Guide
December 24, 2008
The long awaited…has finally happened.
Google has released a FREE, SEO best practices, 22 page ebook, appropriately called “Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.” Do not be deceived by the title, it is not only for starter’s. This information has always been available, just took more time to hone in and collect. Now it’s wrapped up in one ebook…for free.
I highly advise to take into consideration everything they say, they aren’t here to deceive, sell you something or lead you down the wrong path my friends, they are telling secrets. Plain and simple.
While reading the post on Google’s download page, I had to laugh at the first comment,
“Nice guide for the uninitiated. What are you trying to do, put SEOs out of business ;)”
I am not going out of business! What I will get out of sharing this guide is an informed customer.
I wrote an SEO Best Practices Guide too, for a website design company. I spent many, many hours scouring the internet, reading every ebook and watching every video I could find on the subject!
Here was my advantage, I already designed plenty of sites to practice my techniques. I put them to work and I succeeded. It all goes back to how hard you are willing to work, your work ethic.
When you read the ebook, Google SEO Starter Guide, and apply what you learn to your site, you are getting what a beginning SEO project would entail. This is invaluable.
Granted, there will always be more to learn about SEO. It, just like the internet, is in a constant state of change. Once you know and begin to understand more pieces of the puzzle, the “continuing education” will make more sense. You can do the work yourself, if you have the time. SEO takes time. Alternatively, you can hire an SEO Company or simply purchase hours of SEO Consulting from Ponder Consulting {use our heads}.
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