I’m not the first one to chime in on this topic, mostly because I’ve gone both ways and I can make pretty valid arguments from either side. But I’ve finally settled it in my mind which is “best”.
Full RSS feeds are better than summary feeds.

Why?

I can answer that only from the perspective of a skimmer and scanner.

When I browse through my RSS feeds, I’m first looking for titles that draw my interest. If your title doesn’t make me want to read I scroll right past it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have a bad title, not every title is going to make everybody want to read. There are just a lot of things that I don’t care about and many feeds I read don’t always have posts that strike my particular fancy.

Once I see a title that makes me think I might want to read on, well, then I start skimming through the post. I might read a few of the first sentences and then start skipping down to link text, headings, boldings, and use those to create a judgment of whether I should take time to actually read the full post.

Summaries don’t have eye appeal

What? Your summary feed doesn’t have headings, boldings, bullets or anything else that catches my eye? Well, you better hope that your first few sentences really grab me. And I mean I really have to be convinced to click through. It’s a mental thing really. I don’t mind clicking if I know I want to read something, but not if I just think I might want to read it. The summary may be partially convincing, but not totally. I’m then forced to move away from my primary screen to another screen because I think I might be interested. You’re making me think to hard.

Countless times, after reading a summary, I’ve been on the edge. I think I’m interested, but not entirely sure. Do I click or do I keep scanning available blog posts. Sometimes I opt for the former, wishing I opted for the latter. Now, more times than not, now, I opt for the latter. If the summary isn’t entirely convincing I won’t click.

It’s a shame really because there are probably some decent insights in there somewhere. But you hid them all behind a not-so-telling summary. Or heck, maybe your summary was dead on and your information just isn’t my cup of tea… if you had a full feed I still might have gleaned a little something of value from your insight.

Are you missing anything by providing a full feed? Sure, you got the click, right? Your traffic numbers go up and maybe you can sell your ad space for a few cents more this month from last… but there is not always value in it for me, which means there is often no real value in it for you.

Do you want to be read or do you want to be visited? Do you want people to hear what you have to say or do you just want your page numbers to go up? Do your yourself a favor, provide a full feed. You’ll be less likely to lose subscribers and you’ll definitely gain more readers.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Every now and then I see an article written about what people should look for when selecting an SEO provider to manage their web site’s online marketing campaign. Most of these articles written by SEOs, or those intimately familiar with the industry, provide valuable insights of (what the author believes are) some of the most important aspects of the selection process.

A recent discussion on a popular forum got me thinking about the other side of the coin. Instead of creating another list telling the business owner what they should or should not be looking for in an SEO, I wanted to analyze what it is that the client actually looks for when they are narrowing down their choices between SEO providers. Here is a list of seven things the client considers:

Price: Though many people would (or should) be willing to pay more for a better service, there does come a point where price for services is just too high for a company’s current budget. Regardless of the quality, they simply can’t afford to pay anymore, at least right now. Then there are the bargain hunters. It surprises me when talking to prospective clients and I’m told by one that our prices are way too high and then by another that our prices are within the range of other firms they’ve been investigating. It’s all about each person’s perspective, and each has a pricing range that they can, or think they can, afford. Funny, I don’t think I’ve ever been told that our prices are not high enough (though I suspect for some prospects that may actually be true!)

Longevity: One of my favorite questions to get asked is “How long have you been in business?”. I know that there are many quality SEOs out there that have been doing this stuff for far fewer years than we have, but I know that being able to tell people how long we’ve been in business is a considerable source of comfort for them. Longevity lets them know that the SEO is not some fly-by-night shop likely to cut and run or go out of business overnight.

Trust: There are many indicators of trust on a website and I know this plays a role. One of those symbols of trust is belonging to certain associations such as the Better Business Bureau. Displaying such symbols on the website serve to reinforce trust aspects, including longevity mention above.

Assurances: I was going to say guarantees here but I think people are starting to realize that top rankings cannot be guaranteed. Heck, even performance guarantees are hard to come by unless the SEO maintains virtually total control over the site’s marketing aspects. We often get asked if we provide a guarantee only to find that the prospects are relieved to hear that we don’t provide any top ranking guarantees. That answer gives them the assurance that they are looking for. These prospects are the ones who know to run away when promised a guaranteed #1 ranking in Google in 19 days.

Comfort: I think a great deal of determining which SEO to select is based on how comfortable the individual making the decision is with the person or company as a whole. The SEO may say all the right things, but if the prospect isn’t comfortable with the relationship that will be reason enough to go with someone else. For the SEO its important to adapt their “persona” to the person they are dealing with. I have some clients that I can joke around with whenever we talk and with others I must take a more serious approach. I find what makes them most comfortable and go with it.

Size: Yes, the size of the SEO firm matters! Different people are looking for different sizes based on their needs and desires. One will be more comfortable with a single contractor working on their account for the more personalized attention, another feels that only a large firm can handle their needs. Still others are looking for something in between where they feel they’ll get the personalized service yet ensure that everything isn’t farmed out to sub-contractors in India. There is nothing one can do to be the perfect size other than to provide the assurances necessary that the client will get just the right amount of attention they’ll need to ensure success.

Results: Many prospects rely on assurances, but the really savvy SEO researcher demands to see results. They want to know what you’ve accomplished and for whom, and possibly even some references that they can call to talk to about the services the SEO has provided them.

SEOs can tell potential customers what they think they should be looking for in an SEO firm, but what the client actually looks for often turns out to be something entirely different. That’s not to say that the client shouldn’t look for the things us SEOs recommend, but only that those things are just the tip of the iceberg. They are an important part of the equation, but often not the most important part. By being able to provide satisfaction in the areas above, the SEO will be at a far greater advantage not only at obtaining the client, but maintaining client satisfaction.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker

I admit it, our SEO services are pretty bad.

Speaking of bad, the Beatles couldn’t sing a tune, John Grisham has never written a decent novel, Dell makes crappy computer’s, TiVo’s and iPods suck, the Lord of the Rings movies lacked imagination and video killed the radio star. (OK, that last one might actually be true!)

Do you see where this is going? To somebody, one or more of the above statements are true. Not to the vast majority, but some people do feel that way. No matter what the product or service there will always be those that are dissatisfied. Have you ever heard of a company with a 100% customer satisfaction rate (outside of their own marketing gibberish)? I haven’t.

There have been a number of blog and forum posts and articles recently about what to do if you’re with a bad SEO company. All good advice, but sometimes it’s not the SEO that’s bad, its the client. Yeah, that’s right, sometimes the client’s are just plain clueless, have unreasonable expectations, or fall prey to the “grass is greener” scenario presented by competition. Yes, sometimes clients are bad.

It’s Not You, It’s Me!

Like every other company, product and service on the planet, search engine optimization firms will always have dissatisfied clients.

Our firm has a significant number of very satisfied clients since 1998. We have also had a handful of clients that walked away dissatisfied with our services. I’m sure the same is true with every other SEO company out there. Does that make them bad SEOs? No, not necessarily.

Can good SEOs sometimes produce bad results for their clients? Absolutely. Happens all the time. Let me give you a few examples.

We worked with one client for several years. In the early phases of their campaign they selected some really poor keywords. We let them know this but they were insistent that we move forward. We were able to get most of their keywords ranked very well on the search engines, but as we suspected, sales did not increase. Every few weeks the client would call us asking if there was anything else that can be done to increase sales. We often made suggestions on how to improve their site along with recommending they change their optimized keywords. The site improvements they considered and often made. They keyword changes were considered but never approved. Eventually they left us.

We often find clients changing their website causing our optimization efforts to be overwritten with un-optimized versions of their pages. Those clients will then call us wondering why their rankings dropped. Duh! When this happens repeatedly with the same client you start to realize that you’re just not going to get any good sustainable results. [Shameless plug: our new CodeMonitor tool notifies SEOs and/or clients when page changes are made.]

Still other clients have limited our ability to optimize their websites with all kinds of restrictions. Don’t change this, can’t change that. There is always a “good” reason, but when your hands are tied there is only so much that you can do.

So What’s the Problem?

I recently had a client leave dissatisfied because his rankings dropped for a couple of weeks and he felt we just were “not working for him” anymore. The worst part about it is that he just canceled the contract without talking to me or anyone on our team to find out what’s going on. I took me several emails and phone messages to find out why he left.

We often get calls and emails from clients asking why rankings dropped which affords us the opportunity to explain things and usually ask for patience as these type of fluctuations occur every now and then. One client did just that and once his rankings popped back into the top positions he emailed me just to say, “hey, you were right!”.

We get a lot of calls (and clients) that come to us from other SEO firms that just didn’t pan out for them. Before I go off telling them that their SEO company is bad I try to find out a few things. How long have they been optimizing your site? What changes have they made? Is their name Traffic Power? Etc., etc. A few such questions will usually give me what I need to know to determine if they have cause to jump ship or not. If they have been with the company only for a few months I usually tell them to hang tough and give them a chance to produce results. Unfortunately SEO does take time, especially when a site gets sandboxed, and you wont’ always know that you’re with a bad firm for quite some time.

Talk to Me, Baby!

Communication is the key. If you have difficulty getting calls and emails returned, or are not quite sure what your SEO company is doing for you, then there is a good chance you’re not with a great firm.

One company came to us from one of the largest SEO firms after their one-year contract expired. We checked their rankings only to find sub-standard results. There were no penalization or sandbox issues, just lack of good performance. I was able to determine that their current firm simply wasn’t doing a good enough job. Once this client signed with us we were able to get most of their keywords on the first page within the first two months.

nother firm came to us after their previous SEO got them banned from Google. Coming to us we couldn’t guarantee any more than we would fix their site to make it compliant with search engine guidelines and work aggressively to get them back into the index. After fixing the spam issues, and several months wait… and several phone calls asking “when”, Google finally re-included them, and with great rankings on top of it.

Denial is Often the First Sign of a Problem

Nobody wants to think they are a bad client, but here are some signs:

• Does not communicate concerns to their SEO firm
• Does not listen to advice given
• Refuses to change their site based on SEO recommendations
• Demands optimization for poorly targeted keywords
• Constantly overwrites optimization efforts with page changes
• Expects rankings to appear overnight
• Calls all the time to complain about lack of progress due to the above

The signs of a bad firm are pretty obvious, bad communication, spammy optimization, getting your site banned, etc. If you work with one of them then run away as soon and as fast as you can. It’s usually pretty easy to tell a good from a bad. Communicate with (don’t harass) your SEO firm. A trustworthy and respectable firm will keep open lines of communication. Just be ready to listen to what they have to say and implement recommendations that they provide, even if those recommendations are to be patient.

Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s them. Get the facts before you do anything. You definitely don’t want to be stuck with a firm that’s just sucking your money away and doing very little work for it. On the other hand, you don’t want to jump ship mid-way in what will turn out to be a substantially rewarding campaign just because things didn’t happen fast enough. Before you dump your SEO, make sure the problem isn’t you!

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Duty tariff

We’ve all heard that familiar expression, “Good things come to those who wait”. Whether you’re waiting for your Heinz ketchup to pour out onto your burger (remember those commercials?), waiting for Christmas day to open your gifts, waiting for summer vacation to be let out of school, or waiting in line at the DMV… well, maybe not the DMV, good things will come if you simply allow them to come in their own time.

Under normal circumstances that expression is simply not true. You’ll still get your ketchup if you shove the butter knife into the bottle, dragging it out onto your plate; open all your gifts on Christmas Eve; skip that last few pointless days of the school year; or get into the express line at the DMV. The real lesson behind the cliche’ is that patience is a virtue.

One instance where it’s is true, that good things come to those that wait, is when you are performing search engine optimization. Unlike placing sponsored ads via Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing, where results are almost instantaneous, the long-term return on investment for SEO is considerably better than most other forms of on- or off-line advertising. Unfortunately, SEO does not produce instantaneous results. And yes, patience is still a virtue.

Optimizing your site for your targeted key phrases won’t get you to #1 over night. You won’t find all your keywords to rank in the top 10 on Google in just a few days, nor will you get significant traffic improvement at the snap of the fingers. To use a simple analogy, SEO is like boiling water: you don’t get a hard boil the moment you turn on the burner, you have to wait for it.

The process of optimizing a site, or just specific pages in a site can take weeks, and that’s just the initial optimization phase. In a previous article I wrote about the making of a perfect SEO firm, highlighting all the different jobs that an SEO firm must perform for the optimization process. That article outlined only the overall human resources needed but didn’t go into the specific job functions that are required in the SEO process, when performed correctly. Here is where I let that particular cat out of the bag.

Can’t Find Your Way Out of a Paper Bag

On the front end of the optimization process hours and hours of research must be performed for each account. Everything from keyword research, industry research, competition research, marketing research, and more, all needs to be completed before any optimization can begin. We often get asked if research time can be shortened if we have performed optimization work for another site in the same industry recently. The short answer to that is, “no.”

Every site is constructed different, designed different, laid out different, has a unique history and targets the audience differently. These are all factors that are considered in the multiple levels of research performed. No two sites are the same; therefore no research is the same.

Nothing to Write Home About

A good SEO will actually write or rewrite your page content to properly (and effectively) work in your targeted keyword phrases. A professional writer should be able to take the SEO recommendations for keyword usage and incorporate that into existing content in a way that reads naturally (i.e. does not look as if you just tried to insert keywords here and there for search engine relevance) and maintains the ability to convert your visitors to paying customers. This is no small task and should be done with utmost time and care.

Take It or Leave It

Code bloat removal is probably the most overlooked part of the SEO process. Sure, everybody knows about titles, meta tags, alt tags, etc. and making them all search engine friendly. That’s not necessarily a small task either, but many times, eliminating page code bloat is an incredibly daunting task. Moving styles and javascripts is only part of the puzzle. Many times a page has to be almost completely rebuilt due to the excess amount of junk code that was put in place by whatever design programs were used.

Even a Broken Watch is Correct Twice a Day

On top of the code bloat removal process you also want to get your pages to validate to professional HTML standards set by the W3C. Validation is simply ensuring the correct coding elements are used and used correctly. While most validation issues are relatively small, they tend to come in multitudes thorough the site. Larger validation issues can often take time and substantial finessing of the code in order to correct.

All Things Being Equal

Site maps, custom 404-redirects and robots.txt files are all important to the overall construction of your site, even if they don’t necessarily have a direct effect on the actual on-page optimization of your site. Site maps help both search engines and visitors quickly and easily get to the information that is important. A custom 404 redirect eliminates that annoying “page not found” error and lets you keep visitors on your site if they somehow access a page via a bad link. The robots.txt file is useful to communicate with the search engine spiders about content they should or should not index. This allows the search engines to focus its time on the good stuff and not the irrelevant portions of your site.

There’s More Here than Meets the Eye

There are a lot of details that I left out simply because it can’t all be addressed in a single article, but you can get the gist of the amount work that goes into just the initial optimization of a site. Depending on the size of the site or the number of pages being optimized, the processes above can take several weeks to a few months to compete. Going back to our boiling water analogy, you just filled the pot, now its time to put the pot on the stove.

Very rarely is search engine optimization a one-time-only process, but takes a continuous ongoing effort to build site relevance, evaluate performance, analyze effectiveness, and adjust the campaign accordingly to achieve and maintain top rankings against active competitors and substantial algorithm changes.

There are Plenty of Fish in the Sea

Link building and management is an important aspect to the total optimization campaign. Optimizing your site without considering your link campaign is like trying to drive a car without tires. You don’t need great tires to make the car move forward, but you have to have some kind of tires in place, unless you’re towing your car on a flatbed truck. Same holds true for a web site, it can be a great site but without links you just won’t perform in the natural search results. (Just to complete the analogy, we can say that sponsored ads and off line marketing efforts are the flatbed truck.)

Linking has gotten more and more complex as the search engines fight link spam and seek to improve relevance. Whether you seek out one-way or reciprocal links, linked articles or directory submissions, or “authority” links, link building is a very time consuming process that undergoes constant re-evaluations. A good link today may not be a good link tomorrow, not because it was never a good link but because the linking site might become irrelevant to the search engines or become a search spammer, or whatever reason. A good half to two-thirds of the monthly man-hours assigned to ongoing optimization can easily be focused specifically on the link campaign.

Look at Both Sides of the Coin

Unless you are targeting no more than a single phrase for any given page of your site, inevitably it will take some finesse to achieve top rankings for all phrase being targeted. Good keyword research in the set-up process can greatly improve the ability to archive top rankings for multiple phrases per page, but no matter what there will always be certain elements working against each other. Adjust one phrase here and another one drops. Adjust that phrase and still another phrase drops.

With time, a good SEO will be effective at getting your keywords ranked well against the competition. That’s half the battle. The rest comes as new or existing competitors amp up their optimization efforts in order to take back what was achieved and as search engines adjust their algorithms. We’ve all heard of sites losing rankings with algo adjustments, even those that have never spammed. It happens and its the job of the SEO to see these things coming and adjust the site accordingly and should rankings dip, to move in and get them back in place.

Wait with Baited Breath

Again, this is just scratching the surface of what goes into the monthly optimization campaign. But all of these adjustments work over time. Even more so once you consider “sandboxing” and “aging delays” that are becoming a staple in the search engine algorithms.

If You’re Not Part of the Solution, You’re Part of the Problem

Don’t expect instant results with your optimization campaign. Many SEOs require a six or twelve month contract, simply because they know it can often take that much time to show solid results for all of your keywords. Expecting great results any sooner is simply wishful thinking.

We all heard the saying, “A watch pot never boils.” Well, in reality, it’ll take the same amount of time to boil as an unwatched pot, but it just seems longer because you’re there looking at it. Once you hire your SEO company, let them do their job and walk away. Don’t completely forget about them and check in from time to time just so you know what’s going on (and your SEO knows that you expect results), but just give it time for the process to work.

Go work on your site, your business and other marketing efforts. While your SEO is working to make your site successful in the search engines, look for other ways to bring success to you and, to use another cliche’; don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Search engine optimization should not be your only hope for success.

If you have done your research and chosen the right SEO company success will come, but only with time. Be willing to let the process work its course and good things will come… by the boatload.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: US Dollar credit card

A recent study showed that a majority of companies (64%) fail to implement some or all of their SEO company’s recommendations. According to the study the primary reasons company’s failed to implement the recommendations provided by their SEO were as follows:

1. 33.6% – Lack of human resources to implement the change
2. 16.8% – Lack of outsourced IT budget
3. 15.4% – Timing/frequency of update issues
4. 9.4% – Upper management decisions not to implement the recommendations
5. 8.7% – Agency failed to prioritize specific recommendations
6. 8.7% – Lack of agency implementation support
7. 8.1% – Branding issues/restrictions
8. 8.1% – Unpredictable ROI if changes were implemented
9. 6.7% – Other reasons
10. 6.0% – Predicted ROI did not justify such changes
11. 3.4% – Agency failed to education company on the required resources to implement recommendations

If you look closely at that list, most of the reasons cited for not implementing SEO changes can easily be remedied and eliminated by making one simple change: Hire an SEO that will make the changes themselves, rather than submitting a list of recommendations.

That’s the big issue here, many SEOs simply do not make SEO changes for their client but instead they provide a list of changes that the client must make in order for the SEO campaign to be successful. No wonder why so many SEO campaigns miss the mark on success.

Let’s look at that list again after removing factors involving the client having to implement the recommendations themselves.

1. 9.4% – Upper management decisions not to implement the recommendations
2. 8.1% – Branding issues/restrictions
3. 6.7% – Other reasons

Reasons for SEO not being able to be properly implemented on a site will always crop up over the course of a campaign. Sometimes it’s technological issues with how the site is designed, other times it’s client preferences on how the changes should be implemented.

For security reasons, some client’s refuse to allow their SEO access to their site. That’s fair, and certainly their right to do so, but that company must also take on the responsibility of making all such changes and bear the blame if the results of the SEO campaign are less than expected.

This makes a strong argument toward selecting an SEO provider that does more than simply provide recommended changes, but actually implements those changes for their clients. Excuses for lack of SEO implementations can be significantly minimized and in many cases eliminated when the client gives the SEO the responsibility of implementing all the optimization changes themselves. This removes the client from the process allowing for faster implementation of more changes for increases ranking results.

Before selecting an search engine marketing company, you need to do a little internal and external research. Are you willing to give the SEO access to your site to make the changes necessary that will produce results? If so, be select an SEO that includes implementation as part of their optimization services. Not only will that save you time and money, it will also ensure that your SEO campaign can and will be more effective.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Creditcard Currency Conversion Fee

You’ve heard of people that are so good at sales that they could sell ice to an Eskimo, water to a fish and prescription glasses the blind. Every company wants to employ such a salesman for their products or services. Big sales producers such as this are invaluable to the companies that have them.

For many companies, the sell-at-all-cost approach can often come back to bite. The good salesperson is doing his job, but a problem arises when the products or services don’t live up to the sales rhetoric being to entice the buyer. It’s the result of a salesperson that oversells and over promises but the products or services don’t (or can’t) meet the expectations of the buyer.

This happens frequently with search engine optimization companies. It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear: “19 days to #1!”, “Ranked in the top three!”, “First page placement for all your key phrases,” it’s something more to actually be able to fulfill such promises. In a previous article I debunked SEO top ranking guarantees. Others in the industry have discussed this topic, quite extensively and even Google has weighed in with their own statement, saying “no one can guarantee a #1 ranking“. Still there are lots of “SEO” companies out there that insist that they’ll magically make your site appear in the number one position. The truth is that they actually might be able to achieve this, but for keywords that nobody really searches for, or for a very limited time until getting your site banned in the process. And if the SEO doesn’t live up to these promises, he or she simply points you to the many loopholes spelled out in small print in the contract.

The SEO industry is aggressive; every SEO’s motive is to convince potential clients that the services he or she provides are a cut above those offered by competitors. This is why so many oversell with the promise of spectacular results that may or may not be achievable. Few SEOs go out of their way to provide a truthful assessment of what is possible and on what kind of timeline. New sites will take a year or more. Competitive industries require a bigger budget. And, poor websites… well, top rankings can be achieved, but you may need to make drastic changes if you want to improve conversions.

SEOs that are honest with potential clients find that they lose many who are looking for the quick fix, instant results or a guarantee. But they’ll also discover that those who do become clients have a much better grasp on what’s at stake, how long it’ll take and what kind of results to expect. And if you’re both honest and capable, you’ll always be able to meet and often exceed the client’s expectations.

My firm makes it a point to let our clients know that we set benchmarks for achievement throughout the fist year of their campaign. Currently 70% of our clients are performing better than expected and over 80% are performing at or above expectations. Yes, that means 20% are currently performing below expected levels, but this isn’t necessarily a failure rate. In reality it reflects the percentage of clients that are not performing as strongly as we hoped, but many of them have shown significant improvement in targeted traffic and ROI since the campaigns inception.

But this is something most SEOs won’t tell you, especially those that make pie in the sky claims. They know that they have oversold their service and largely underperformed in results. When our clients call asking about their ranking performance, we give them an honest assessment, which includes letting them know if we feel they should be performing better. We also let them know that their site is being aggressively analyzed, tweaked and linked and we expect to bring them up to perform at or above benchmark levels soon. We are rarely wrong.

We go by the Scottie Principle, based on Scottie of the original Star Trek series, which is all about underselling your capabilities and then overachieving in results. While the client might be expecting certain results in top rankings, you can overachieve by having actually helped them increase their sales and return on investment. If you can do that, top search engine rankings don’t matter as much because the client is busy handling the new sales that they are getting as a result of the optimization and marketing efforts.

SEOs don’t need to oversell by making promises and increasing expectations beyond their ability to deliver. Those that educate clients, providing a truthful assessment of expectations, then work aggressively to achieve results beyond those expectations will find they have to worry less about getting their next client to replace the three that just left. Focus can instead center on developing and maintaining a strong and profitable relationship with each client for years to come.

You’ve heard of people that are so good at sales that they could sell ice to an Eskimo, water to a fish and prescription glasses the blind. Every company wants to employ such a salesman for their products or services. Big sales producers such as this are invaluable to the companies that have them.

For many companies, the sell-at-all-cost approach can often come back to bite. The good salesperson is doing his job, but a problem arises when the products or services don’t live up to the sales rhetoric being to entice the buyer. It’s the result of a salesperson that oversells and over promises but the products or services don’t (or can’t) meet the expectations of the buyer.

This happens frequently with search engine optimization companies. It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear: “19 days to #1!”, “Ranked in the top three!”, “First page placement for all your key phrases,” it’s something more to actually be able to fulfill such promises. In a previous article I debunked SEO top ranking guarantees. Others in the industry have discussed this topic, quite extensively and even Google has weighed in with their own statement, saying “no one can guarantee a #1 ranking”. Still there are lots of “SEO” companies out there that insist that they’ll magically make your site appear in the number one position. The truth is that they actually might be able to achieve this, but for keywords that nobody really searches for, or for a very limited time until getting your site banned in the process. And if the SEO doesn’t live up to these promises, he or she simply points you to the many loopholes spelled out in small print in the contract.

The SEO industry is aggressive; every SEO’s motive is to convince potential clients that the services he or she provides are a cut above those offered by competitors. This is why so many oversell with the promise of spectacular results that may or may not be achievable. Few SEOs go out of their way to provide a truthful assessment of what is possible and on what kind of timeline. New sites will take a year or more. Competitive industries require a bigger budget. And, poor websites… well, top rankings can be achieved, but you may need to make drastic changes if you want to improve conversions.

SEOs that are honest with potential clients find that they lose many who are looking for the quick fix, instant results or a guarantee. But they’ll also discover that those who do become clients have a much better grasp on what’s at stake, how long it’ll take and what kind of results to expect. And if you’re both honest and capable, you’ll always be able to meet and often exceed the client’s expectations.

My firm makes it a point to let our clients know that we set benchmarks for achievement throughout the fist year of their campaign. Currently 70% of our clients are performing better than expected and over 80% are performing at or above expectations. Yes, that means 20% are currently performing below expected levels, but this isn’t necessarily a failure rate. In reality it reflects the percentage of clients that are not performing as strongly as we hoped, but many of them have shown significant improvement in targeted traffic and ROI since the campaigns inception.

But this is something most SEOs won’t tell you, especially those that make pie in the sky claims. They know that they have oversold their service and largely underperformed in results. When our clients call asking about their ranking performance, we give them an honest assessment, which includes letting them know if we feel they should be performing better. We also let them know that their site is being aggressively analyzed, tweaked and linked and we expect to bring them up to perform at or above benchmark levels soon. We are rarely wrong.

We go by the Scottie Principle, based on Scottie of the original Star Trek series, which is all about underselling your capabilities and then overachieving in results. While the client might be expecting certain results in top rankings, you can overachieve by having actually helped them increase their sales and return on investment. If you can do that, top search engine rankings don’t matter as much because the client is busy handling the new sales that they are getting as a result of the optimization and marketing efforts.

SEOs don’t need to oversell by making promises and increasing expectations beyond their ability to deliver. Those that educate clients, providing a truthful assessment of expectations, then work aggressively to achieve results beyond those expectations will find they have to worry less about getting their next client to replace the three that just left. Focus can instead center on developing and maintaining a strong and profitable relationship with each client for years to come.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Humorous photo captions

Every once in a while–and probably more often than we should–we find ourselves reviewing our SEO pricing models. Pricing SEO has always been a real sticking point for me because there is no one-size-fits-all pricing metric. As I began our most recent review of our pricing something really starting to become quite obvious; search engine optimization is requiring more and more research and analysis than it ever did before.

After doing SEO for several years (since 1998) I recently put all of our regular SEO duties into a spreadsheet and noting the amount of time spent on each activity on a one-time basis, monthly basis, and a per-page basis (both one-time and monthly). This format allows me to quite easily see the man-hours and costs involved in each distinct duty that we perform over the course of an SEO campaign. It also allows me to see the changes that occur in our SEO processes.

A year ago, the bulk of our optimization occurred in the set-up phase, with the monthly optimization consisting of a few hours of link building, rankings monitoring and on-page tweaking. Now, the set-up is just a mere fraction of the hours that go into each optimization campaign. The continual analysis performed on each account every month does not exceed that of the set-up, but add a couple months worth of optimization together and it does. Expand that to a six or twelve month campaign and the man hours of research and analysis performed far exceeds the initial set-up process. And believe me, we do a considerable amount of research up front!

Differing Pricing Models Between SEO Companies

SEO providers come in all shapes and sizes. We often have potential clients come to me price shopping. They are not comparing our services with our competitors, but they are comparing our pricing with our competitors. In that battle we lose almost every time, and the reason for that is because there is always an “SEO” company that will work for less. With SEO, however, you usually get what you pay for. If you want a cheap service, you’ll get cheap results.

“But isn’t SEO all about top rankings? If firm X can provide top rankings for less, shouldn’t I go with them?” This is standard fare from bargain shoppers, but the basic questions to ask yourself is this: do you want top rankings or do you want more business? Most SEO companies are in the business of achieving top rankings and everything else is not their problem. Even still, it is rare to find inexpensive SEOs that can achieve top rankings for competitive, high ROI terms, maintain those top rankings through constant algorithm changes, and continue to beat out your competition which are optimizing for the same keyword phrases.

If you’re paying someone only a few hundred or even just a few thousand dollars each year to work on your site, how many man-hours do you really think they are giving you each month? When your site gets dropped or rankings mysteriously crash, how much time do they spend trying to find potential issues and problems? Even the best sites–and those optimized by the best SEOs in the world–can suddenly disappear from the search engines. Sometimes it’s a temporary issue, sometimes it’s because of something the client did, and sometimes it’s due to other external factors. Whatever the reason, the SEO needs to thoroughly investigate so the issue can be corrected.

Continuous Optimization Services

Recently we’ve changed our overall outlook on the month-to-month SEO services we provide. This is largely due to the number of clients that come to us each month after having been penalized by one or more engines because of previous SEO work performed which ran afoul of the search engines. Rarely do these cases allow for a quick fix which puts them back into the top positions overnight. With the suspected Google sandbox, over-optimization penalties and aging delays, many of these sites must go through a rather lengthy period before they are placed back in the index and allowed to perform well in the search results, long after penalization issues have been resolved.

We look at what we provide similar to having an investigator on retainer. Our job, each month, is to continue to seek out potential problems that may now, or in the future, be keeping our client’s sites from performing as best as they can possibly be. If our clients are not in the first page for all their targeted ROI phrases, then our job is to find out why. And then if they are not in the top 5, our job is to analyze what it takes to get them there. And if they are not in the top 3 then we need to see what the competition has going for them that our client doesn’t. And if they are not in the Pole Position, our job is to find and eliminate all potential external barriers, no matter how small. And all of this must be done while maintaining the integrity, usability, and performance of the client’s site.

Sometimes all this is as simple as finding a duplicate URL somewhere that we didn’t know about and other times after months of research we find that a client links out to sites that link out to other sites using spammy techniques. These types of things have to be under constant analysis, even if a site performs well. Heading off problems before they occur is a big part of the SEO game, and plays heavily into pricing.

Pricing is a big deal for the average business owner and it should be. However, pricing alone should not be the deciding factor in which SEO provider you choose. Find out what services you’ll be getting. If you get the impression that the SEO is done after a few hours of up front work, you may not be getting enough investigation for potential or existent, yet unknown, problems. This can cost you later on.

On the other hand, just because someone charges huge fees does not mean they’ll do you well either. This is a symptom of many very large SEO companies. Do your homework and find the company that will treat you as their only client. If you get that kind of service, you will undoubtedly reap a very significant return on your investment.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rate

SEO companies come in all shapes and sizes. You’ve got your solo SEOs that either a) do everything themselves and/or b) sub-contract out many aspects of each campaign while maintaining a tight control on the quality and results of the project. Then you have your big SEO firms that employ 20+ employees that handle various aspects of your account. These firms can often turn into SEO factories and can lack the ability to treat each client individually, because everything is done in bulk.

A third SEO firm is a smaller firm that employs a small handful of employees and may also sub-out a few various aspects of the campaign, but overall each client is treated with a personal hands-on approach with most of the campaign handled in-house with strict quality control measures.

The perfect SEM firm needs at least one (or more) of the following:

• Project Manager
  The project manager is responsible for overseeing every aspect of the SEM campaign. Their job is to ensure that each aspect of the project is given to the appropriate person to complete and double checks all work to ensure that the highest standards are met before it is passed on to the client. The Project Manager is the primary contact with the client and bears the responsibility of ensuring that the client knows that their campaign is a top priority.
• Lead Search Engine Optimizer
  The Lead SEO spends much of their time doing nothing but research. Researching SEO trends, search engine functionality, patents, white papers, etc. Their job is to ensure that they stay on the cutting edge of the technological changes that are coming down the pike. It is also their job to take this knowledge and apply it to each and every optimization campaign. From keyword research and organization to implementation of the on-page optimization factors. The lead SEO also overseas any optimization techniques implemented by sub-seos, link builders, etc. that may be managing the day-to-day tracking and tweaking of any site.
• Search Engine Optimizer
  All other SEOs work directly under the lead SEO and work to implement his “vision” of the perfectly optimized page. Each should do their own research and knowledge building but any implementations should follow the outline presented by the lead SEO. These SEOs should be responsible for the day-to-day optimization changes, as well as continuous research to ensure that any client’s site’s are free from potential currently unknowns search engine roadblocks.
• Coder/Programmer
  While all SEOs must have a significant knowledge of HTML, XHTML and CSS coding, it is helpful to have an additional person who is primarily responsible for the code optimization aspects. Optimizing and streamlining code can be a significantly time-consuming process, especially when ensuring each optimized page has full cross-browser compatibility. When not working on the optimization code, such a person would be working on developing and improving in-house tools, reporting systems, as well as publicly available tools.
• Copywriter
  The importance of a professional copywriter cannot be understated. SEO methods that simply take your keywords and try to place them into text are becoming less and less effective, not only for search engine placement, but for ensuring a quality user experience. Each optimized page should have its content re-written by a professional copywriter following project-specific keyword guidelines established by the lead SEO. SEO copywriter should have a marketing background and experience with ad testing and writing press releases, as well as general article content.
• Link Researchers
  This may be controversial to some, but it is increasingly important to have full-time link researchers continuously working on each campaign. Link researchers are responsible for seeking out other quality and related sites to do one or more of the following: Link to important sites, request links from important and/or related sites and submitting links to quality relevant directories.

As SEO becomes more marketing oriented, many more positions must be added for a firm to properly service their clients needs. Speaking strictly from an SEO aspect, these jobs are each an important aspect of achieving success with you optimization campaign.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Mobile device news

1. The SEO has a right to receive payment from the client for entire amount contracted. A contract is a contract is a contract. Don’t try to weasel out of it.
2. The SEO has a right not to have to justify to the client payment due in terms of actual time spent on account unless payment is based on an hourly fee. Package priced contract fees are due regardless of time spent provided work outlined in the contract is performed.
3. The SEO has a right not to put the client’s account on “hold” when requested. A contract is still a contract regardless of your financial situation, business restructuring, etc.
4. The SEO has a right to charge the client for services that fall outside the scope of the contract. If additional work is requested, expect to pay for it.
5. The SEO has a right to collect payment from the client on-time. Seriously, it’s your job to make sure payments are submitted and received no later than the payment due date.
6. The SEO has a right to charge the client a late payment fee.
7. The SEO has a right to suspend the client’s account if payment is not received in a timely manner. If you’re not paying, don’t expect work to continue until you’re paid up.
8. The SEO has a right to undo all work performed for the client due to non-payment. If the SEO fulfills the contract but you’re not paying, you’re stealing time and money from the SEO you hired.
9. The SEO has a right to seek legal remedies for force payment from the client for services rendered. Still not paying? The courts will work it out.
10. The SEO has a right to cancel services and refund the client’s money at any time. Don’t be a problem client and you won’t have to worry about getting fired by your SEO.

Billable Rights of the SEO Client

1. The client has a right to expect the SEO to fulfill contract in full. If you don’t have time to work on the account, refund my money so I can hire someone who does.
2. The client has a right to know what will be done to his site by the SEO. Don’t give me any nonsense about “proprietary strategies. You’re messing with my site, I want to know what you’re doing.
3. The client has a right to know the SEO tactics to be implemented externally. I’m paying you so tell me what you’re doing for me.
4. The client has a right not to have their site penalized or thrown out of the search engines due to SEO tactics.
5. The client has a right to question SEO results and value of the work performed. If I don’t see results I’ll be asking you why. Maybe I just need you to show me how to see the results.
6. The client has a right to consult other SEO experts about the value of the work performed.
7. The client has a right to buy out of the SEO contract at any time. If I don’t want your services anymore, let me pay for the full contract so I can move on.
8. The client has a right to maintain ownership of all work performed by the SEO. I’m not paying per click, so anything you do with my money is mine to keep.
9. The client has a right to expect SEO work performed to increase traffic and sales/conversions. If I’m not seeing more sales then I’m not getting my money’s worth.
10. The client has a right to not have site hijacked, mutilated or destroyed by SEO. I expect quality work for my money.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

The Negative Perception of SEO

You hear a lot about the negative perception that many in the business world have of SEO. I think a lot of this is inevitable for any new industry just emerging. For years SEO has been relatively easy to jump into and “expert” SEO firms were known to appear overnight, only to disappear months later. I often cringe when reading forums where somebody with a online name of “SEOprophet” (I pulled this name out of my hat, I apologize if it’s yours!) asks a basic SEO question that not only has been asked and answered many times over the past few years but is completely irrelevant to the optimization process today.

Many of these SEOs found ways to get businesses to lay down their money only to prove that they could not meet the expectations they portrayed they would. Expectations are a two way street and its important for any SEO to lay them out clearly and early so the client doesn’t think she’ll be getting something she won’t. In most cases, the high/impossible expectations come from the SEO themselves as they try to sell their service on the unsuspecting business owner. Promises are made which the SEO knows they can’t keep, but closing the sale is more important than full disclosure.

Fly-by-night SEO gurus are not the only reason that many businesses have soured on SEO. There seem to be a few big companies that do pretty much the same thing. These companies stay in business by employing a host of telemarketers who sign dozens of unsuspecting clients daily. Sometimes these firms do their job well, but just as often clients are found to have fallen through the cracks of the machinery. These firms have so many clients that none get the individual attention they deserve.

Balancing the SEO Expectations

We often find ourselves signing up clients that have come to us from other SEO consultants or firms who didn’t serve them well, or as well as they had hoped. One of the things I’m most amazed about is that the clients often don’t even know what their SEO is doing for them. They get periodic ranking reports, maybe the SEO asks them to make a change or two here and there, but by and large, the client has no idea how much (or how little) effort is being put into their website for optimization.

SEO is often hard to quantify and the amount of hours spent on any one client can fluctuate wildly from month to month depending on circumstances. I think those that perform SEO but initiate very little contact with their clients do so simply because they don’t want the client to know exactly how much time is spent from one month to the next. If an SEO puts in 100 hours one month for a client, the client may expect to receive 100 hours of work EVERY month. This goes back to the whole idea of communicating expectations up front.

A lot of work that is performed for clients stems from hours of research and the continuous education that is necessary to keep up with the search engine and their technologies. Even if the SEO is not an algorithm chaser, it’s their job to stay educated. These hours cannot be considered as “billable” time as one would pay a lawyer performing research that pertains to a particular case. A large portion of research hours performed by SEOs is hours spent on forums, blogs, studying search patents, testing, etc., and cannot be attributed to any one particular client. This is why the SEOs time working on an account is so much more valuable, and why the good SEOs charge a lot for their services.

Creating a Positive SEO Experience

When it comes to communicating with clients, we have found that the more you do, the better. Not only will the SEO have a better relationship with the client, but the client will have a more positive experience overall. Communication causes the unachievable expectations to be put down, while the client becomes more aware of the total process and can therefore better appreciate the work that is being performed on their account.

Our client management/communication/reporting system is built in such a way that allows us to be inconsistent communication with our clients about the progress and status of their campaign. It’s not just a matter of providing monthly reports, but offering a transparent system of communication that keeps the client “in the loop” as to who is working on their account and what in particular they are doing.

We don’t have to be overly specific in a way that creates more unwarranted expectations, but we do make sure the client is aware when each team member works on their account and they are kept updated of ongoing progress. On average, our clients get two to three email updates each week. If I work on their account, I document this and the client is emailed this documentation. Whenever any team member works on their account the same thing happens.

Even clients that are performing strongly still get their updates because we continue to work on their account regularly. We don’t believe that a strong performing account should rest so we are constantly analyzing, linking, adding and tweaking. We have found that this matters just as much to the clients that are performing strongly as much as it matters to those that may not be performing as well as we would like at any given period of time. Clients performing well need justification to keep paying us just as much clients who may feel that their campaign has not progressed as they expected. In both cases, this constant communication let’s them know we are on the job, and problems or not, we’re working diligently to overcome any barriers to continued long-term success.

Inevitably, there will come a time, even if temporarily, when a client questions the value of the services being performed. Whether it’s the thought processes of, “I’m doing well so I don’t need you anymore,” or “Why aren’t we number one and Google, MSN and Yahoo this week for our ultra-competitive phrase,” effective communication helps establish a relationship that can smooth over any bumps in the road. Not only will the SEO be more likely to keep the client for the long-term but if client does leave, they won’t necessarily be soured on the whole SEO industry.

Author: Stoney DeGeyter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rate