OK so there are a ton of companies out there that claim that they are experts or professionals in the art of search engine optimization. So I thought, lets do a search on the term,”search engine optimization” and see what it turns up.  Since, if you claim to be a pro or expert, then you should rank pretty high in the organic listings for terms and keywords that speak to what you do best. Right?

My other thought was, Ok I’m a small to medium sized business, so maybe there is someone I can afford out there, and who might get me the results I need. Who would I use?

Before we dive in, I will limit my results to the top 5 organic listings in the Big 3. Of course in Yahoo, I will kick out any paid inclusions listings. Ok lets see what we have in Google.

Top 5 are:

1. Wikipedia– I shouldn’t be surprised because of the tons of backlinks that are probably coming into the article based on its sourcing references.

2. SEOchat.com– an absolute monster of a site, so to me, there’s really no surprise that they are ranked this high.

3. Submitexpress.com– I’ve used some of their tools in the past, and what I think is interesting is that, they actually can back up their claim with proven results in the organic listings. Interestingly enough, I don’t see a typical tactic of backlinking, but the content is solid and they are in the top 3. Which is the holy land for search marketers.

4-Bruceclay.com-All you have to do is look at the landing page that comes from Google to appreciate what they have done. This page is loaded! One look and you can understand why they are in the #4 spot. Just a major backlink strategy going on here as well as relevant content all over the place. The site is actually worth reading.

5-Inteliture– This one is puzzling, because on the surface it doesnt appear to have much going on. So I had to take a quick peek at the source code.

<title>Inteliture™ Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service Company</title>
<META NAME=”KEYWORDS” CONTENT=”search engine optimization service, internet marketing service, search engine marketing service, internet marketing company” />
<META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=”Inteliture™ a professional search engine optimization and internet marketing company. Offers internet marketing solutions, search engine optimization service, search engine marketing services, and internet marketing strategies for high search engine rankings and placement.” />
<META NAME=”robots” CONTENT=”index, follow” />
<META NAME=”googlebot” CONTENT=”index, follow” />
<link rel=’stylesheet’ href=’fontstyle.css’ type=’text/css’>

Not too revealing. The content is ok. But as you drill down, it’s a well written site replete with key words, lots of deeply linked pages and just a solid site with content. They must have a lot of quality links coming in, but then we just don’t know.

Ok so that’s Google, out of the top 5, if were going to choose a site to contact, I’d probably go with submitexpress since it’s really geared towards webmasters but also can handle the full boat if you so choose. Bruce Clay just smells of being expensive. Wiki you to have throw out, and seochat is more of a portal resource, reference site. and Inteliture just seems to slick and expensive for my small and medium sized businesses.

Next up, Yahoo. lets take a look:

1. Wiki-No surprise there

2. Seoinc.com-Interestingly enough, a huge flash header on this page, which we all know is somewhat frowned upon by the SE’s. Lots of quality content here, including the requisite buzzwords and white papers to boot. There are a lot of pages on this site, and of course all with great links to and from each other within the site. Impressive.

3. Ebrandz- Something about this site bothers me and I’m not sure what. Perhaps its the offers at the bottom of the page that state for a mere $8450 I can buy the platinum package. Look at the offerings:

The Customized SEO Solution (Platinum Plan) Includes:

 Initial Search Engine Optimization Report. Initial Competitive analysis Technical Report from algorithm point of view. Meta tags optimization including title, description and keywords On-page optimization Customized keyword analysis to define the best suited key phrases for your business.  Creation of targeted, optimized pages for Search Engines destined as landing pages for visitors. Image Optimization W3C validation for homepage Creation of a search engine friendly sitemap for better crawling of your site. Paid inclusion in Inktomi (Optional) Paid inclusion in Yahoo Directory(optional) Paid inclusion in AltaVista (Optional). We try to initially increase the relevance of your site so that all your main pages are indexed in Altavista for free. Hand submissions to the top search engines and directories using our unmatched experience for individual engines and directories. Email and chat support. Submission to secondary engines and targeted directories. Link development and Management services to increase your link popularity and rankings. Link Popularity Development – 75 one way links – free. Comprehensive log file analysis. This will help us in deciding future marketing strategies for your web site. Monthly reports showing ranking progress. An SEO account manager.  Optional PPC services for Google Adwords™ and Overture – Yahoo sitematch. Optional Affiliate program management services. 120 key phrases optimization. Emerging SEO trend updates. No hidden or Extra fees. OK So now the kicker is, that price is only for the first 6 months! and If you read through this list,  more than half of what you see on here, is standard SEO 101 stuff and the other half is a la carte… Companies like this can really scar people who have no idea of what they are getting into.

4. Submitawebsite.com-Looks like it’s more of PPC type of company but they do stress a little of their SEO process.  You can definitely see why they might be in the #4 slot though, lots of quality content. and of course a  visible linking campaign, as well as a deep linking strategy throughout the site. Worth a more extended look/

5. Scrubtheweb– They have been around since the advent of time. They allow site submissions and are just so deeply linked throughout, that it is no wonder they are ranked so high for anything web or search related, but as an SEO company, they are not.

6. Submitexpress- I just wanted to throw them in. Good job by these guys.

Last, lets go to MSN and size them up.

1. Wiki

2. Seologic.com– simple clean site with very targeted information. The landing page is clean and short and to the point but dig deeper and there is a wealth of information. It teaches and explains which I think is critical for any type of SEO site. The customer will appreciate that. Although I’d like to know what their fees are. I hate calling people for pricing information.

3. Submitexpress

4. Submitawebsite

5. Ebrandz

So there you go. An interesting mix of results but if I were to weigh the results and go with an SEO company or at least explore what I could get, and the info that they provide, here are my results:

1. Submitexpress

2. SEOinc

3. SEOlogic

and an honorable mention to seochat

Either I learn something from these 3 sites, or I use their free tools, or I use/employ them in some type of capacity. But they seem to know what they are doing and appreciate the challenges that webmasters and designers face. Next time we will look into the murky cutthroat world of pay per click.

Cheers

So I did a search the other day( don’t we all do searches?) on the term, “search engine marketing” and the results blew me away. The tool, said that it had been searched upon 33,000 times! Oh and not in one month, that would be per day, on average. PER DAY!! Someone grab a calculator and do the math real quick. 

Ok so, if we go by that stat, and for the sake of error we cut the number in half, that’s only a term that was searched upon 5 and a half million times in one year.  Ok I have some questions…

What the hell is going on out there? Are there that many people who need help? Are there that many web site owners who have no clue what they are doing and thus are looking for search engine marketing professionals? Or are there that many search engine marketing professionals out there, that DON’T know what they are doing and are ALSO looking for help? OR, do the SE’s change so much that web owners and search engine marketers alike are constantly in search (pun intended) for help, a leg up, or any and all information that can push their site onto page one on all SE’s? (Notice I said, page one. I think getting on page one, let alone the top 3 should be most people’s goals.)

So anyway, what is it? Why such a huge number of searches on that term? Chances are the answer is all of the above. Which leads me to the premise of the title. You just really do not know what you might be getting when you hire a search engine marketing professional. But the easiest way to check their work is verify their work. But that might be where it gets dicey. I could tell you that some of the sites that I have worked on are Amazon, E-bay, and E-trade. Then I could tell you they are number one for their primary key words, and there would be no way for you to dispute it. But what you may really need to know, is what has this person done with “other” keywords and second tier keywords and phrases… what have they done to a sites overall structure before and after? and what were the immediate and noticeable results?

But this is where you can truly find the proof. Work with individuals who have actually worked with “other” companies that they don’t own. Where the relationship is strictly employee/employer. That way you can ask, What was your site PR before they started working on it? Where could you find the site before they came aboard? What is your ROI like now?  Are you satisfied?

The questions are really quite simple, but some site owneres are just dazzled by the BS that these folks can throw, and they are obsessed with a high ranking and traffic and a Top 3 or top 5 rankings in 48 hours (those are paid inclusions) or better yet straight PPC rankings. If someone does not know the difference between an organic ranking and a nonorganic, it will appear as a if it is a top 3 ranking, won’t it? The fact of the matter is that the job of a SEM professional should be to educate and counsel, so that a site owner can truly appreciate what goes into a top 3 ranking. The difficulties, the challenges, and the constantly changing landscape. The space (search engines) changes so regularly that it’s almost as if someone comes into your clients office in the middle of the night and re-arranges everything and changes your passwords their passwords and logins and hides everything, and it’s up to you to put it all back together again before 9am. Then explain to your client, why they(the search engines) did it, when for all practical purposes everything you have done has been A-1. Try explaining THAT to a non-hip SE person!

I know thats a loosely based definition, but you get the point. And maybe that is why deep down, the number of searches done on “search engine marketing” is so insanely high. Because the rules of engagment change so much, we all must keep looking for the latest information to help us, to give us an edge.

Just beware of the snake oil salesman and the old adage, “if it’s too good to be true, it prolly is.” Because chances are, they might actually know less than you.

So you want to grow the site and you don’t want to spend money on pay per click. Ok so now you also know you need backlinks as well. What to do…Well you need to create some buzz with the site and one of the best free ways of doing that is….drum roll please.  How about a blog? They’re free, user friendly, and you can fill them with content till the cows come home.

If the content is worthy, then other blogs and websites start to carry the feed because you are saying something other than blowing your own horn. Now thats content. Don’t steal or borrow someone else’s content either, unless you have their permission or you give them their just due or mad props.

By creating a content worthy site or blog, the links/back links will happen. The old adage if you build it, they will come…doesn’t quite work in the cyber world. You have to lift a finger so to speak to let people know you are out there and that you have something to say.

Now if you have  strictly a commerce site, then you probably are going to have to break down and use ppc to drive traffic. because chances are you are selling a product that someone else is selling and thus, they may be more settled in with backlinks, keywords, pages and general content. With commerce sites, people are not looking for content, they are looking for deals and there is a lot of competition.

But this doesn’t mean that you ignore your natural ranking as some site owners are wont to do since they are pouring substantial dollars into their pay per click campaign. On the contrary, their biggest mistake is not to continue to optimize the site with the SE’s in mind. You have to strike a balance.

So in order to get a high Page Rank, not only do you optimize, optimize, optimize, but you must also have people linking into your sites, as well as developing pages of content. Remember, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

For those of you who have read about back linking in regards to the “this is what you need to do” to grow your website traffic and have wondered what is the best way to do this, welcome to the biggest challenge facing newbies, novices, and even experts in the SEO/SEM arena: Acquiring good strong quality back links. The reason it is such a daunting task is that, if we are to look at Google for example, and their algorithm, it frowns on quantity or lack of quality of back links.

Why would that matter? Because of the advent a few years ago of link farming services, programs and software which allowed websites to jump in Page Rank quickly without really “growing naturally”. the farms could grow the number of inbound links they had on their sites fast. In short, Inbound links are back links. What the link farms did and do is allow website owners to add links to their sites as quickly and as impersonal as possible. So site owners added quantity fast. Google realized this and decided to take steps to stress quality inbound links and penalize sites that used automated programs to “farm” inbound links. These programs, would and do send out automated emails that ask if you, the site owner would like to exchange reciprocal links.

 I use Google as the primary example here but it can and does stretch across to Yahoo and MSN search engines as well.  But Google also is the example because of another primary reason. Page Rank. Google has a toolbar that website owners can load onto their computers that allows a user to see what the Page Rank is of a site.  Page Rank, according to Google, is the relevance or the importance of a website in the wild wild web. The higher the Page Rank, the more important the site. Take a look at Amazon of Ebay for an example of a site with a high Page Rank.It has become so important and such a focus for SEO experts that it drives the premise of website marketing: Increase your page rank= increase your natural or organic ranking= increase your sales or traffic. In other words, High page rank=relevance. 

Since web marketers are so obsessed with what Google does and what a high natural ranking in Google can do for a website, it has created a cottage industry in and of itself.

Now the rub. There is an old saying that applied to recent college graduates that goes like this: In order to get a job you need experience but how do you get a job if you don’t have experience….? Ok so now let’s apply that statement to Back linking.  I need a good page rank but how do I acquire good back links if I don’t have a good page rank? Why as a site owner would I want to exchange reciprocal links with you if you do not even have a page rank? There is the challenge. 

You can’t use an automated program to acquire your links because quantity is not the goal and thus you have thousands of website owners out there swimming around looking for sites with page rank to latch onto.I’ll give you an idea that harkens back to the earliest days of business ownership. If you want sales or customers. Go get them. Go to work, call them, email them personally, and show them why exchanging links with you would be beneficial for both. Be honest and show them that your site is actually worthy of their link and vice versa. It’s amazing what can be accomplished the old fashion way.  Sure it goes against the grain of how impersonal the web has become, but it also speaks to one of the key components to any successful website. Personalization.

You are humanizing your website by showing other website owners who you are and what you’re about, and what you’re trying to achieve. Instead of hiding behind an automated email try and go after quality links by approaching website owners whose reciprocal links actually make sense for both of you. It’s amazing what common sense can achieve. Why then, is it called common, if everyone doesn’t possess it? 

Did you know that not all analtyics packages are the same? If you think they are, you should pit them against each other on the same site. This way you can see for yourself, the way they look at traffic and the way they determine what is a unique, what is a hit etc etc..

Why? One of the most crucial aspects of owning and operating a website, is the ability to understand your traffic. Your users. Your lifeblood. If you don’t know the most basic of information coming from your site, how can you speak to doing what is best for your users or for your site? Thats where solid analytics of your site come into play.  If you’re selling a product on your site, then it is even more important to know things such as unique visitors versus sales and what the conversion rate is. If your metrics are wrong or are off, then it can skew everything. Or should we say skewer?

Some good Free software packages are of course Urchin by Google and then a popular one, but one that costs a bit of coin, is Webtrends. Two others that we have had success with in house, and both which are free are Statcounter and Onestat.

One thing the free sites will not give you is a more detailed drilldown of your traffic. the reports also may be limited and also the type of data they return is sometimes light. But if you are strictly wanting to know uniques, then the free one’s should be fine.

Between the group we mentioned above, you should be able to play one against the other to see which one is giving you a more accurate accounting of your most prescious commodity. People.

This is just another piece of the puzzle that needs to be in place for a successful run in the online world.

 If you don’t understand, here is the down and dirty: Number 3 is paid listings. These are Googles’ bread and butter. Number 2 is the organic or “natural” listings. These are the tougher to get listings and the ones that mean the most if….you’re not trying to sell something. If you are trying to sell a product, then you need to be out there and in the top results of the terms that apply to the product you are trying to sell. If you can’t afford to be in the top 3 results for a paid term, then you need an SEO expert to get you in the top 3 natural listinigs. Number 1 are Google based local results. These are geo-based results and is the way that search is going, if it isn’t there already.