Blog

SEO Agency and SEO Services

With the huge number of online businesses the only way to survive is to increase your visibility and popularity. Improving your sites rankings with the search engines is not an easy job to do, therefore as an online business the way forward is probably to employ an SEO agency and SEO services.

How to Select the Best

To help you make the right decision with regards to an SEO agency keep the following in mind:

1.        Decide If You Are Looking For Short Term Or Long Term Engine Optimization.

You must understand that this type of work is ongoing and will involve you making changes to ensure that you site’s rankings are not affected every time the search engine changes their ranking algorithms.

2.      Look At The Costs Involved In Employing A SEO Agency.

It will not pay to hire a company that is going to charge huge costs for their services but at the same time there is no point in hiring someone cheap. If the charges are high the chances are that the costs will be beyond your budget, and too cheap could result in shoddy work. You need to get a good compromise.

3.      Hire An SEO Agency That Fits Your Business Aims.

Your choice should be a company that is attracted to your business and has the ability and experience to complete the job to your satisfaction.

4.      Check The Record And Accreditations Of The SEO Agency.

Before hiring a company it is vital that you check their records and you have a good look at their accomplishments. You should also check their client list and testimonials. If at all possible talk to other businesses that have used the services and ask them for their feedback, this is the best way to get honest and trustworthy information about the SEO agency.

Finally it is obvious but worth taking on board, do not deal or trust agencies that in your opinion use dubious or underhand techniques.

The only real way to move your business forwards in keeping with the competition nowadays is to hire the services of a SEO company, just bear in mind the above information and this will provide you with at least a beginning in what to look for and ask before making that all important decision.

An SEO Company Can Help Grow Your Company

It is a known fact that a company cannot grow without a customer base, and that growing a company takes time. However it is not impossible to grow a company quickly as long as the correct steps are followed, using an SEO company can help with the building whilst also expanding the customer base.

SEO Companies

There are a multitude of SEO companies and all of them operate in different ways and there are many things that you need to know before getting started with them to ensure that they are the right choice for you.

  1. The SEO Company needs all the background information of the company that they are working with so that they understand what the company does etc. This is paramount.
  2. They should check that the company’s website is suitable to handle the increase in traffic and they should test this to ascertain if changes are required.
  3. They will make suggests on how to make the website more attractive to customers, making sure that it is easy to use.
  4. No one will hang around a website if they cannot find what they are looking for and the SEO Company should ensure that the website is designed for the customers, not the company that owns it and this is something that company managers can find hard to comprehend.
  5. The SEO Company will know the keywords that will bring the company to the top in terms of search engines and they have several ways in which they can make sure that this happens.
  6. Nearly all SEO companies nowadays have writers that can create quality content that fits the keywords perfectly. Content is something that drives the people to the website. Writers in SEO companies can also bring out the interesting points and ideas for the products and be able to link the consumer’s searches to this content.

The most important thing for any business is to make sure that it is presentable to the public and with so many companies competing for the online customers it is important to stand out for the right reasons. This is why it is so important to know your audience and what they are most likely to search for.

Any company that is seeking the help of an SEO Company needs to understand their business and know what their goals are. Then they must look at those SEO companies that provide what they are looking for as there are some that operate one way whilst other won’t.

When it comes to help from an SEO company, the business owner can expect to see significant improvement whilst also having work to do in expanding their customer base.

Get the Most from Video Marketing

Social media and banners once topped the list of internet marketing techniques — that is, until the birth of video marketing. We now live in the age where internet users are more involved in making, watching and sharing videos making this one of the most convenient ways of marketing. Not only does this form of marketing reach out to a number of people but it also means that the information can be presented in a more interesting way than just as an article.

As video marketing is now used by almost everyone, it is important to make sure that you are making the most of the process, and to do so keep the following tips in mind:

–          Search engine optimization is not just for written content on websites, it is equally important with regards to your video.

–          Pay attention to the title, subtitles and descriptions

–          Research keywords and incorporate them into the written content that accompanies your video.

Advertising Campaign

It is a good idea to run a small advertising campaign on social media platforms, just a simple and interesting shot of your video along with a catchy title will do the trick. Pick the popular social media platforms and target your audience carefully. The most important thing is to make sure that your video is short and catchy and you will find that long videos promising something at the very end will normally go unwatched.

To make sure that you get the most out of video marketing, you can use the content of your videos in other ways:

–          For a small fee you can have your video professionally transcribed and by doing so you can upload a file along with your video and you can also use the video in other written content.

–          Elaborating on your transcribed material could mean that you are able to use it for various blog posts.

–          The result will be that you can reach a larger audience with the same content.

There are a number of reasons why you should seriously consider video marketing, we live in a society that now sees the majority of internet users watching videos and sharing these and who knows with the right video you could become an instant hit on You Tube or the like! Now that would be cheap advertising!

What is Email Marketing?

If you don’t understand what is meant by  then you are not alone. The concept of email marketing is a relatively new marketing tool and for those still in the dark, the following is a simple explanation on what it is, what you need to get started and what advantages it can bring to you.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a system of delivering promotions to those that have subscribed to you and have expressed that they would like to receive emails with links to products or information that they are interested in.

Permission

It is important that you have the persons consent prior to sending them anything, if not the action of sending the information will be classed as spam and this will generate a lot of complaints.

Subscribing

When someone subscribes to your email marketing list it is best to confirm that this is what they actually intended to do. By double checking you reduce the risk of your email provider getting spam complaints about you and you also know that the people you are emailing are actually interested in what you have to offer.

When you have built your email marketing list you then have the option to choose whether you use it as a service or newsletter to your reader. You can send out updates, special promotions such as discounts or anything else that you feel would be of interest to the subscriber.

Getting Started

To get started with email marketing you need an email account such as hotmail, Gmail etc, Gmail tends to be the most popular, possibly because it belongs to Google. Then you need to set up your auto responder.  An auto responder is a form of software that automatically responds to email messages. This is important because it allows interested parties to receive the information they want immediately. You can also send personalized follow up messages this way and it means that you only need type the information once and the system will do the rest for you.

What Are the Advantages?

Probably the major advantage of email marketing is that it is extremely affordable. You have no cost to collate your list or printing and mailing costs. You may have to pay to send the mailings but this will protect you against spam complaints but this is a nominal amount, making email marketing cost effective in comparison to other forms of marketing.

Now that you have an idea of what email marketing is and what it can do for your online business it is down to you to how you proceed.

Performance-Based SEO Yields Affordable Solutions

If your website was a tourist attraction would you spend time and money building something that people couldn’t get too or didn’t know about?

Ok, if you were to use word of mouth marketing people would find the way and you would achieve some revenue, and you could put signs up to draw in the traffic, however this would eventually slow up and you would end up having to close down. This is why you need to continually and consistently tell people about your business. Search Engine Optimization allows businesses to show off their website, products and services to as many customers as the search query generates.

URL Placement

In depth studies have revealed that if your URL does not come up on the first page of the search results that over 60% of users will not find your website. Corporate clients are still reeling from their initial investment in their sites development that the idea of even more outlay frightens them and the thought of this expense being for something that they cannot even touch, the Search Engine Optimization campaign; they can be reluctant to proceed. However the only way that the business will be found by those searching is to ensure that their business is very visible, to do this the expenditure is a must.

Performance Based SEO

By introducing a performance based SEO  model, corporate clients can set search engine goals that are compliant with their Internet Marketing and Advertising budget. When the search engine positions are achieved the executives and owners are happy to pay for the designated results. As they now feel that they are paying for the performance and not promises it gives them good reason for why and how their money has been spent. This also means that if they have hired a dubious SEO provider they can question the bill with the lack of results.

It is more important than ever to make sure that your business is greeting those that are searching for your particular brand or service on the internet. Thanks to the birth of Performance Based SEO, you can be assured that you are paying for what is demonstrated and not for something that is only a promise.

 

How to Choose the Best Web Design Company

There are many factors that you should consider when choosing the best web design company for your needs. There are a multitude of companies on the internet that specialize in design services and therefore you need to be careful and choose the company that is going to provide you with the best service for your budget.

The most important factors that you should consider when you hire a design company are listed below, and these points should definitely help you to make the right choice.

  1. 1.       Company Portfolio

Checking the portfolio of the company is one of the best ways to check the credibility of a company and the services that they offer. The portfolio will enable you to see whether you like their style and whether they are capable of designing unique designs or do all of the websites have a similar look etc. Look further than your first impression and aim to decide on a company that shows more than 8 unique websites in their portfolio.

  1. 2.     Check The Cost

It is imperative that you do an in depth search to determine the exact cost of the services that the web design company is offering. There are some companies that will be offering low cost services and others that have overly expensive pricing structures. There are many companies that will pull clients in with their low prices and then charge higher recurring fees. You need to find out their hourly or daily rates as a must.

  1. 3.     Check The Companies Qualifications, Skills And References

Before hiring any web design company you need to check the exact skills that they can offer. List your own criteria and make sure that this can be achieved, for example if you require flash animation then make sure that this is something that the company is capable of providing and so on.

The above points are the basic things to look at when you are choosing a web design company. By searching and doing a little specific research you will be in the position to make the right choice for your specifications, it is also worth asking friends or other business owners for a referral.

 

Essential Information about Link Building

Essential Information about Link Building

No one can say that SEO is easy or fast process, however there are ways to make this an easier task, read on to find out how.

1.       Links Are Important 

Many articles and blogs lead the reader to believe that link building is dead, however this is not the case, and it has simply just changed. As long as people are using search engines to find information link building is necessary.

2. Quantity of Links

While it is not essential to know the number of links that will see you moving up in the rankings, any professional will tell you that the quality of the links are far more important that the quantity.

 3. High-Quality Content

The saying “content is king” is so true when it comes to link building. The better the quality of the content that you produce the more successful your link building will be.

 

4. Starting Point 

Creating links is dependent on the keyword, the industry, the website and many other important factors. Your link building strategy will be crafted in accordance to these factors but professional link builders will have the resources to determine the best starting point for you.

5. Links must be earned

To ask someone that you have no relationship with for a link is like asking a stranger for money. Relationships should be established and then the links will surface. By producing

6. It Is Harder Than You Could Imagine 

In the same way as you don’t know the number of links there is no set timescale for links to become effective. Link building is a slow process, and patience is required as the search engines are slow at indexing and evaluating the links also.

7. Rankings Drop If You Stop Building Links 

Link building is a continual and ongoing process. The search engines refresh listings constantly, so your content and links must always be relevant. It is also important to keep updating the content in order to fall within the refreshing process, as it will only count if you have fresh new content.

As you can see links are not created and active overnight, however work hard and pay special attention to the detail and your link building efforts will come to fruition.

Successful Reputation Management Strategy

It wasn’t so long ago that reputation management was dealt with by posting a press release every month, and there was also reliable word of mouth marketing strategies. Today it is all about social networking and business listing websites that allow the customer to provide immediate feedback on their experiences immediately. As so there is more for a business to deal with as all feedback from the customer should be acknowledged, good or bad.

The following tips are the essential blocks which a company should employ to support their reputation management:

1. Automating your Monitoring

The monitoring process of your company’s reputation should be completely automatic. Search engines such as Bing and Google provide email alerts which you should make full use of, and you can set up alerts with relevant information and this allows you to keep a check on your company’s performance.

2. Use Free Monitoring Tools

Whilst the email alerts are effective they will not always provide perfect results. This is where you can use free reputation monitoring tools which will help you to more specific results.

3. Encouraging Positive Feedback

When a customer makes a purchase of uses your services you need to make sure that you ask them about their experiences, if they are happy you should ask them to rate your business in the listing website and leave positive comments on your social media business profiles.

4. Respond to Negative Feedback in a Timely Manner

There will always be someone that leaves negative feedback, it is inevitable and when this happens you must deal with this in a timely manner. Failing to respond will do your business further harm. When you do receive a negative response, compose yourself and reply in the best way you can. Make sure to post these replies so that others can see how you have handled this bad situation.

By implementing these simple steps you can create a solid foundation for your online reputation management that is easy to handle and shows your business in the best light even when things aren’t going your way, and does prove to new users that even when mistakes are made they are dealt with immediately and with the minimum of fuss.

How to Choose the Best Pay Per Click Management Company

Ideally you will be running a range of strategies to reach your target audience, this way if one technique fails you have others to fall back on. Therefore instead of just relying on search engine marketing to boost the visitors to your site and sales, you should be using social media branding, Web video marketing and pay per click (PPC) advertising. Pay per click doesn’t just promote your products and services to multiple channels you will also get qualified leads to your website that will convert to sales.  However the best way to make this reality is to employ a Pay per Click Management Company and the following tips will make sure that you make the right choice.

  1. Create a short list of potential PPC specialists by talking to friends or other business users to get referrals, this will help you choose the right one for you and the requirements that you expect the Pay Per Click Management Company to meet.
  2. The Pay Per Click Management Company should offer the most advanced techniques and tools and be able to advise you on which keywords and ad groups work well enough to deliver optimized PPC campaigns.
  3. The PPC specialist should be able to simplify your campaigns and deliver only the most relevant traffic to your website which will increase the click through rate and conversion rates whilst filtering out those that are more likely to not require your services.
  4. Choose a PPC specialist that can guarantee Google Ad Words management that will deliver results. AdWords is an efficient and cost effective way to reach the market and the PPC specialist should make sure that your Google Ads only appear to your target traffic.
  5. The Pay Per Click Management Company should also provide all of the copy for your PPC adverts including the images, video, review, coupon etc.

It is important that you remember Pay per Click Adverts are not restricted to the normal banner style adverts. They allow you to deliver PPC ads to your audience in different ways and the best Pay Per Click Management Company should be able to advise and identify what will work best for your company and to implement this.

Website Search Engine Optimization Begins With the Design

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is more commonly known is a specific service that enhances the visibility of a website. One of the biggest factors that Search Engine Optimization relies on is the design of the website. It is a common problem where SEO agencies have been brought on board to find that the website is not designed within the recommendations and therefore they have to spend a lot of time with the design before the website can be optimized.

To avoid this from happening consideration should be made as to the requirements of SEO at the initial design stage of the website. It is vital that the developer and SEO work together just as it is important for the graphic designer and copywriter to work alongside one another. Many website developers still fail to understand the importance of the Search Engine Optimization during the design stages. Due to this there is unnecessary work when optimization begins, however all of this can be avoided by ensuring that the following points are adhered to:

Headers That Are User Friendly

The first point is to include a user-friendly header as this will persuade the user stay on the page. If the user were to search with the keyword “Cheap Shoes”, the Search Engine Optimization would ideally land on the websites product page of shoes. If the header is not clear then it is more than likely that the user will move onto the next search result. Landing pages, particularly those of services are tricky and therefore when the header is composed it should be done with the user and their intentions in mind.

Clearly defined Services on the Home Page

The majority of time the home page of a website is the landing page to the links that appear in searches. Due to this it is the most important page as far as SEO is concerned. When a user visits a business website searching for a product or service these should be clearly shown in the home page.

Responsive Site

If the site is responsive then there is no need for optimizing and additional promotion. All the user need do is type in the URL and site version and it is automatically loaded dependant on the device being used. This saves a lot of work for the SEO team and the user.

Links to Social Pages in the Home Page

Social Media Optimization has become as important as Search Engine Optimization. It is most helpful from the SEO point of view that any links to the businesses social media pages i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn etc. are included in the home page.

Although it is the SEO that brings the user to the website it is the optimized designing that makes them stay and one is no use without the other.