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Actual for You - How to Hire a Good SEO Marketer
She was waiting for me when I returned from a meeting. Standing outside my office door, I could tell by her downward glance, Jodie was not there to give me good news on the project. Despite her confident, enthusiastic and definitive style, she failed to deliver what she had pitched. It was not the first time.Jodie operated counter to the Scottish proverb advising: "Never let your feet run faster than your shoes." She was full of ideas, full of promise, full of idealism, and short on results. Her over-promising was stalling her career. You see, results are what differentiate people who are winning at working from people who aren't. Results are how both companies, and people, prosper. As much as Jodie talked, with absolute confidence, about what she was going to do, she didn't do it.There's no shortage of Jodies in the workplace. There are too many people talking about what they're going to do, want to do, or are thinking about doing. They paint intriguing pictures with their exuberance and that helps them get the assignment. But they fail to deliver on the promise. In my twenty years in management, I found them in both consultants and in-house staffs. I've even hired a few. I guess I wanted to believe they could do what they said.But I learned they're mu
How to Hire a Good SEO Professional
Let's first look at some of the signs that indicate the possibility of a blackhat SEO marketer
- If you hear anything like "we guarantee top placement", don't hire them. A good SEO marketer cannot guarantee you a good ranking any more than your broker can guarantee you a great return. All they can do is a good job, or not.
- If the company representative talks to you about the advantages of Meta Tags, don't hire them. Meta Tags are very obsolete in terms of search engine marketing (SEM).
- Get a list of previous clients and check their current site and rankings. If their rankings are now low, or if the client sites seem to have spammy content, or little content, don't hire them.
- If first contact with the SEO company is made through an unsolicited phone call or email, be wary. Why? SEO is not an aggressive marketing technique. SEO is the art and science of providing people with what they were looking for anyway. It is fulfilling a need in response to a request about that need. In a sense, it is an entirely passive marketing technique, because it is only triggered when a person is actually seeking it. Be wary of search engine marketers that seem overly aggressive.
My personal pet peeve is the ones that call and announce that we are not at the top of the search engines but they can "help" us. Rest assured, we are listed at the top for every keyphrase we've ever really targeted. When they
A lot of people never start businesses because they believe they don't have enough money to do so. Unfortunately, these same people don't realize that many of the world's most successful companies were started on a shoe-string budget by an entrepreneur with limited resources. Below is a list of tips to help you save money when you're first starting a company: Manage your finances in MS Excel, not Quickbooks. Manage your contacts in MS Outlook, not ACT. Get free legal and accounting advice from law/business students or lawyers/accountants who are willing to do pro-bono (free) work. Look for and join organizations that support youth entrepreneurs and small business owners. Hire unpaid interns and make their job exciting. Partner with somebody instead of paying them. Use credit cards. Get free, professional advice from SCORE, Teachers, and Professors. Get investments from family and friends. Find organizations who incubate startup companies or companies who might have office space that might be willing to let an aspiring en
It is not true that you have no control over what appears in the search engines. The content that you put on your site determines where you appear in the search engine results page (SERP). If your site is about "widgets", you're probably not going to appear in search results about "bus fares". The most important thing you can do on the web is to represent yourself honestly. If your site is about "widgets", and the content on your site talks about "widgets" then you'll probably appear somewhere in the SERP for "widgets". A good SEO professional can help you rank higher for "widgets", among other well-researched, and relevant keywords.
What is the Difference Between a "Good" SEO Service, and a "Bad" One?
A bad ("blackhat") SEO marketer is like a vendor walking down the street selling snake oil. You may think you're getting a deal, but you can't be sure of the consequences. A good SEO marketer is like a pharmacist. They have studied all the tried and true techniques to solve your problem and probably have a good idea of how to safely and effectively address your issue.
The Benefits of Hiring bad SEO:
- Your site could shoot straight to the top, ranking #1 for your keywords
- You could earn a few new customers quickly and make a quick buck
- The cost is far less than what your friends and competitors are paying for SEO
The Costs of Hiring bad SEO:
- When the search engines catch on, your site could be penalized (drastically downgraded) in the rankings, ending up worse than before
- Your site could be temporarily banned from the search engine (completely unfindable - expect 6-12 months)
- Your site could be permanently banned from the search engine (completely unfindable - for good)
- When any of the above occurs, there will be lost productivity from having to remove all the search engine spam from your site
- It could be hard to track down all the tricks the SEO marketer used to artificially boost the rankings, and therefore it could take a long time to get back into the results pages
- Once penalized or banned, you will lose all the potential customers you would have gained had it been done correctly
- A professional SEO consultant will probably have to be hired at additional cost to fix it and do the job right
Don't believe it? In February 2006, BMW was given the Google Death Penalty for employing blackhat SEO practices. They presented a slick design to anyone with JavaScript, and showed everyone else (that means the search engines) a keyword-rich page. Showing one content to visitors and another to Google is a no-no. BMW Germany was banned from Google.
The Costs of Hiring Good SEO:
- The initial cost will be higher
- There will probably be an ongoing subscription fee
- The implementation time will be longer (for the site to rank high)
- There will be changes to the content of the actual site, and probably the structure, as well
The Benefits of Hiring Good SEO:
- Higher rankings overall
- The high rankings tend to stay there
- The keywords you are ranking high for are relevant to your organization and the people who are trying to find you
- It is more cost-effective in the long-term
- Future pages that you add the the site will be easier and faster to rank higher
- No blackout periods or customer loss because of penalty
What Is "Bad" SEO, and Why is it So Undesirable?
First, let's examine some of the techniques available to the blackhat SEO marketer. Here are just a few:
- Doorway Pages: Many pages stuffed with keywords are placed on the web, and all link back to your site
- Cloaking: Showing one version of the site to visitors, and another to search engines.
- Dynamic Content: Not all dynamic content is bad; in fact, most is perfectly legitimate. But having the server generate large lists of keywords that change frequently is generally a bad idea.
- Scraping: Some sites visit high ranking sites, copy bits of the content that has the keyword they want, and post it on their site. This is a very good way to really annoy other websites.
- Hidden Text: Keywords on a page that are the same colour as the background, or that are hidden by CSS are a bad idea
- Setting up links pages that use the keyword-rich link text of other sites to gain ranking. This makes the link page appear to be more relevant for the desired keywords. This annoys not only the search engines, but also the visitors.
- Keyword Stuffing: Writing almost meaningless text in the site that is basically a long list of keywords. Responsible SEO will use keywords carefully in the text, but like all things, you can overdo it. Search engines appreciate good grammar.
- Overdoing RSS: Go ahead and syndicate large portions of your website. But syndicating all of your website may raise a flag. There are rumors suggesting that there might possibly be changes in the way Google indexes RSS in the future.
- Bait-and-Switch: Submitting the search-engine friendly page to the search engine, then after it's indexed, uploading the "real" page. This is a very temporary boost in your rankings.
- Irrelevant Keywords: WHY would you promote the keyword "sex" on your site about "widgets"? Do you honestly think someone looking for "sex" will see your site and say, "oh wait a minute, I think I wanted a widget"? If you sell "widgets", then promote "widgets", so people who want to buy "widgets" can find your "widgets".
Why do Search Engines Dislike All This?
Search engines are in the information business. Specifically, search engines provide helpful answers to questions. Sites which use these techniques dilute the relevancy and usefulness of the search engines. The search engine that allows their results to become irrelevant is useless and out of business. No-one will search that engine, no-one will click on their ads, no-one will want to buy or display their ads, and eventually no-one will want to invest in them. Search engines are protecting their investments and their future by ensuring the continuing relevancy and usefulness of their results.
How to Hire a Good SEO Professional
Let's first look at some of the signs that indicate the possibility of a blackhat SEO marketer
- If you hear anything like "we guarantee top placement", don't hire them. A good SEO marketer cannot guarantee you a good ranking any more than your broker can guarantee you a great return. All they can do is a good job, or not.
- If the company representative talks to you about the advantages of Meta Tags, don't hire them. Meta Tags are very obsolete in terms of search engine marketing (SEM).
- Get a list of previous clients and check their current site and rankings. If their rankings are now low, or if the client sites seem to have spammy content, or little content, don't hire them.
- If first contact with the SEO company is made through an unsolicited phone call or email, be wary. Why? SEO is not an aggressive marketing technique. SEO is the art and science of providing people with what they were looking for anyway. It is fulfilling a need in response to a request about that need. In a sense, it is an entirely passive marketing technique, because it is only triggered when a person is actually seeking it. Be wary of search engine marketers that seem overly aggressive.
My personal pet peeve is the ones that call and announce that we are not at the top of the search engines but they can "help" us. Rest assured, we are listed at the top for every keyphrase we've ever really targeted. When they
For any special event, promotional products make such an experience even more meaningful. Take your carefully planned occasion and enhance it. You can accomplish this by creating enthusiasm, incorporating a creative theme, instilling motivation, and manifesting positive impressions. Promotional products help make your happening distinguished.Regardless of how much time and effort you have spent in planning, it is important to remember the importance of promotional products and their integration into your special day. Don’t miss the opportunity to engender long-lasting positive memories of your organization or event. Be sure that it is happily remembered for months or even years afterward by including promotional products.Create AnticipationSend out promotional products in advance as reminders of that upcoming special event. Generating interest beforehand is key. Incorporate your unique theme into the promotional product concept and establish that feeling of excitement.Motivational RemindersPerhaps your event relates to employees achieving outstanding sales or other work-related goals. Keeping your participants focused and enthusiastic requires even more advance notice. Also important here is involving a larger quantity of promotional
The Costs of Hiring bad SEO:
- When the search engines catch on, your site could be penalized (drastically downgraded) in the rankings, ending up worse than before
- Your site could be temporarily banned from the search engine (completely unfindable - expect 6-12 months)
- Your site could be permanently banned from the search engine (completely unfindable - for good)
- When any of the above occurs, there will be lost productivity from having to remove all the search engine spam from your site
- It could be hard to track down all the tricks the SEO marketer used to artificially boost the rankings, and therefore it could take a long time to get back into the results pages
- Once penalized or banned, you will lose all the potential customers you would have gained had it been done correctly
- A professional SEO consultant will probably have to be hired at additional cost to fix it and do the job right
Don't believe it? In February 2006, BMW was given the Google Death Penalty for employing blackhat SEO practices. They presented a slick design to anyone with JavaScript, and showed everyone else (that means the search engines) a keyword-rich page. Showing one content to visitors and another to Google is a no-no. BMW Germany was banned from Google.
The Costs of Hiring Good SEO:
- The initial cost will be higher
- There will probably be an ongoing subscription fee
- The implementation time will be longer (for the site to rank high)
- There will be changes to the content of the actual site, and probably the structure, as well
The Benefits of Hiring Good SEO:
- Higher rankings overall
- The high rankings tend to stay there
- The keywords you are ranking high for are relevant to your organization and the people who are trying to find you
- It is more cost-effective in the long-term
- Future pages that you add the the site will be easier and faster to rank higher
- No blackout periods or customer loss because of penalty
What Is "Bad" SEO, and Why is it So Undesirable?
First, let's examine some of the techniques available to the blackhat SEO marketer. Here are just a few:
- Doorway Pages: Many pages stuffed with keywords are placed on the web, and all link back to your site
- Cloaking: Showing one version of the site to visitors, and another to search engines.
- Dynamic Content: Not all dynamic content is bad; in fact, most is perfectly legitimate. But having the server generate large lists of keywords that change frequently is generally a bad idea.
- Scraping: Some sites visit high ranking sites, copy bits of the content that has the keyword they want, and post it on their site. This is a very good way to really annoy other websites.
- Hidden Text: Keywords on a page that are the same colour as the background, or that are hidden by CSS are a bad idea
- Setting up links pages that use the keyword-rich link text of other sites to gain ranking. This makes the link page appear to be more relevant for the desired keywords. This annoys not only the search engines, but also the visitors.
- Keyword Stuffing: Writing almost meaningless text in the site that is basically a long list of keywords. Responsible SEO will use keywords carefully in the text, but like all things, you can overdo it. Search engines appreciate good grammar.
- Overdoing RSS: Go ahead and syndicate large portions of your website. But syndicating all of your website may raise a flag. There are rumors suggesting that there might possibly be changes in the way Google indexes RSS in the future.
- Bait-and-Switch: Submitting the search-engine friendly page to the search engine, then after it's indexed, uploading the "real" page. This is a very temporary boost in your rankings.
- Irrelevant Keywords: WHY would you promote the keyword "sex" on your site about "widgets"? Do you honestly think someone looking for "sex" will see your site and say, "oh wait a minute, I think I wanted a widget"? If you sell "widgets", then promote "widgets", so people who want to buy "widgets" can find your "widgets".
Why do Search Engines Dislike All This?
Search engines are in the information business. Specifically, search engines provide helpful answers to questions. Sites which use these techniques dilute the relevancy and usefulness of the search engines. The search engine that allows their results to become irrelevant is useless and out of business. No-one will search that engine, no-one will click on their ads, no-one will want to buy or display their ads, and eventually no-one will want to invest in them. Search engines are protecting their investments and their future by ensuring the continuing relevancy and usefulness of their results.
How to Hire a Good SEO Professional
Let's first look at some of the signs that indicate the possibility of a blackhat SEO marketer
- If you hear anything like "we guarantee top placement", don't hire them. A good SEO marketer cannot guarantee you a good ranking any more than your broker can guarantee you a great return. All they can do is a good job, or not.
- If the company representative talks to you about the advantages of Meta Tags, don't hire them. Meta Tags are very obsolete in terms of search engine marketing (SEM).
- Get a list of previous clients and check their current site and rankings. If their rankings are now low, or if the client sites seem to have spammy content, or little content, don't hire them.
- If first contact with the SEO company is made through an unsolicited phone call or email, be wary. Why? SEO is not an aggressive marketing technique. SEO is the art and science of providing people with what they were looking for anyway. It is fulfilling a need in response to a request about that need. In a sense, it is an entirely passive marketing technique, because it is only triggered when a person is actually seeking it. Be wary of search engine marketers that seem overly aggressive.
My personal pet peeve is the ones that call and announce that we are not at the top of the search engines but they can "help" us. Rest assured, we are listed at the top for every keyphrase we've ever really targeted. When they
Have you ever walked into a retail store where the salesperson was extremely rude and sounded annoyed when you asked about a product their store was selling? Or you received a cold call from a salesperson trying to sell you something over the phone and he/she was just rambling in your ear not allowing you to get in a word edge wise? Or you wanted to return or exchange something and the salesperson gave you a hard time even though you had a legitimate complaint?Many salespeople are inexperienced, not qualified to be in sales or are simply in the wrong profession.So what does it take to be a great salesperson? In part, it starts with some fundamental traits.To quickly determine if you have the qualities or personality traits to become a great salesperson, answer Yes or No to the following questions: 1) Are you goal-oriented? 2) Do you act on what you say you will do? 3) Do you genuinely care about your customers & their needs? 4) Are you a good listener? 5) Are you good with people? 6) Are you confident & have a desire to succeed? 7) Do you have a willingness to learn from failure
The Benefits of Hiring Good SEO:
- Higher rankings overall
- The high rankings tend to stay there
- The keywords you are ranking high for are relevant to your organization and the people who are trying to find you
- It is more cost-effective in the long-term
- Future pages that you add the the site will be easier and faster to rank higher
- No blackout periods or customer loss because of penalty
What Is "Bad" SEO, and Why is it So Undesirable?
First, let's examine some of the techniques available to the blackhat SEO marketer. Here are just a few:
- Doorway Pages: Many pages stuffed with keywords are placed on the web, and all link back to your site
- Cloaking: Showing one version of the site to visitors, and another to search engines.
- Dynamic Content: Not all dynamic content is bad; in fact, most is perfectly legitimate. But having the server generate large lists of keywords that change frequently is generally a bad idea.
- Scraping: Some sites visit high ranking sites, copy bits of the content that has the keyword they want, and post it on their site. This is a very good way to really annoy other websites.
- Hidden Text: Keywords on a page that are the same colour as the background, or that are hidden by CSS are a bad idea
- Setting up links pages that use the keyword-rich link text of other sites to gain ranking. This makes the link page appear to be more relevant for the desired keywords. This annoys not only the search engines, but also the visitors.
- Keyword Stuffing: Writing almost meaningless text in the site that is basically a long list of keywords. Responsible SEO will use keywords carefully in the text, but like all things, you can overdo it. Search engines appreciate good grammar.
- Overdoing RSS: Go ahead and syndicate large portions of your website. But syndicating all of your website may raise a flag. There are rumors suggesting that there might possibly be changes in the way Google indexes RSS in the future.
- Bait-and-Switch: Submitting the search-engine friendly page to the search engine, then after it's indexed, uploading the "real" page. This is a very temporary boost in your rankings.
- Irrelevant Keywords: WHY would you promote the keyword "sex" on your site about "widgets"? Do you honestly think someone looking for "sex" will see your site and say, "oh wait a minute, I think I wanted a widget"? If you sell "widgets", then promote "widgets", so people who want to buy "widgets" can find your "widgets".
Why do Search Engines Dislike All This?
Search engines are in the information business. Specifically, search engines provide helpful answers to questions. Sites which use these techniques dilute the relevancy and usefulness of the search engines. The search engine that allows their results to become irrelevant is useless and out of business. No-one will search that engine, no-one will click on their ads, no-one will want to buy or display their ads, and eventually no-one will want to invest in them. Search engines are protecting their investments and their future by ensuring the continuing relevancy and usefulness of their results.
How to Hire a Good SEO Professional
Let's first look at some of the signs that indicate the possibility of a blackhat SEO marketer
- If you hear anything like "we guarantee top placement", don't hire them. A good SEO marketer cannot guarantee you a good ranking any more than your broker can guarantee you a great return. All they can do is a good job, or not.
- If the company representative talks to you about the advantages of Meta Tags, don't hire them. Meta Tags are very obsolete in terms of search engine marketing (SEM).
- Get a list of previous clients and check their current site and rankings. If their rankings are now low, or if the client sites seem to have spammy content, or little content, don't hire them.
- If first contact with the SEO company is made through an unsolicited phone call or email, be wary. Why? SEO is not an aggressive marketing technique. SEO is the art and science of providing people with what they were looking for anyway. It is fulfilling a need in response to a request about that need. In a sense, it is an entirely passive marketing technique, because it is only triggered when a person is actually seeking it. Be wary of search engine marketers that seem overly aggressive.
My personal pet peeve is the ones that call and announce that we are not at the top of the search engines but they can "help" us. Rest assured, we are listed at the top for every keyphrase we've ever really targeted. When they
Teamwork is not something that is easy to learn or teach. When it comes down to it, most of learning to work together as a team is developing the skill of communicating with and trusting the members of your team. When you are forming a team keep this in mind and try to create an environment where individuals can learn how to communicate and trust each other.Often you can improve your team by creating a temporary environment that requires everyone to learn to communicate and trust each other. Many of the infamous corporate games and simulations help achieve this. One of the easiest ways to improve communication and trust is put individuals in a challenging situation and let them work their way out of it. Here are two ideas of ways to help create a temporary favorable to team growth:Take your team out to paint walls at a local charity. In painting it is easy to see how much you’ve accomplished. This gets everyone working together in hands one way and solving problems. With the right activities it can really help improve the trust between team members. There is a lot of benefit in just forcing individuals to work together in a different type of environment.Participate in one of the survival simulation type games. In these simulations your team has to w
Why do Search Engines Dislike All This?
Search engines are in the information business. Specifically, search engines provide helpful answers to questions. Sites which use these techniques dilute the relevancy and usefulness of the search engines. The search engine that allows their results to become irrelevant is useless and out of business. No-one will search that engine, no-one will click on their ads, no-one will want to buy or display their ads, and eventually no-one will want to invest in them. Search engines are protecting their investments and their future by ensuring the continuing relevancy and usefulness of their results.
How to Hire a Good SEO Professional
Let's first look at some of the signs that indicate the possibility of a blackhat SEO marketer
- If you hear anything like "we guarantee top placement", don't hire them. A good SEO marketer cannot guarantee you a good ranking any more than your broker can guarantee you a great return. All they can do is a good job, or not.
- If the company representative talks to you about the advantages of Meta Tags, don't hire them. Meta Tags are very obsolete in terms of search engine marketing (SEM).
- Get a list of previous clients and check their current site and rankings. If their rankings are now low, or if the client sites seem to have spammy content, or little content, don't hire them.
- If first contact with the SEO company is made through an unsolicited phone call or email, be wary. Why? SEO is not an aggressive marketing technique. SEO is the art and science of providing people with what they were looking for anyway. It is fulfilling a need in response to a request about that need. In a sense, it is an entirely passive marketing technique, because it is only triggered when a person is actually seeking it. Be wary of search engine marketers that seem overly aggressive.
My personal pet peeve is the ones that call and announce that we are not at the top of the search engines but they can "help" us. Rest assured, we are listed at the top for every keyphrase we've ever really targeted. When they
Travel auctions are a marketplace where you can "Bid On" or "Buy Now" airline tickets, room nights, tours, cruises and all-inclusive vacations. They provide enthusiastic travelers a means to get more from their travel dollars than they ever thought possible!If you’ve never bid on airfare through online travel auctions site there are a few things you need to be mindful of. You can’t just jump into an auctions and expect to get a killer steal and/or deal on a discount flight to Cancun. Each travel auction is set up differently and has different bidding requirements. That’s why before you ever place a bid on travel auctions you need to do the following:Research all the travel auctions. Most online travel auctions run independently of each other. Each one has its own auction set up, bidding requirements, and terms and conditions. This means that not all online travel auctions are the same. Some require membership fees while others allow you to sign up for free but have restrictions on how you bid. It’s important to get as much information as you can about the travel auctions you find online. Read through all the information provided on each website (including “terms and conditions”) and get a feel for how you bid on airfare through each travel auction.Browse
How to Hire a Good SEO Professional
Let's first look at some of the signs that indicate the possibility of a blackhat SEO marketer
- If you hear anything like "we guarantee top placement", don't hire them. A good SEO marketer cannot guarantee you a good ranking any more than your broker can guarantee you a great return. All they can do is a good job, or not.
- If the company representative talks to you about the advantages of Meta Tags, don't hire them. Meta Tags are very obsolete in terms of search engine marketing (SEM).
- Get a list of previous clients and check their current site and rankings. If their rankings are now low, or if the client sites seem to have spammy content, or little content, don't hire them.
- If first contact with the SEO company is made through an unsolicited phone call or email, be wary. Why? SEO is not an aggressive marketing technique. SEO is the art and science of providing people with what they were looking for anyway. It is fulfilling a need in response to a request about that need. In a sense, it is an entirely passive marketing technique, because it is only triggered when a person is actually seeking it. Be wary of search engine marketers that seem overly aggressive.
My personal pet peeve is the ones that call and announce that we are not at the top of the search engines but they can "help" us. Rest assured, we are listed at the top for every keyphrase we've ever really targeted. When they are informed that we are at the top, they start demanding to know which keywords we rank high for. Such valuable keyphrases should not be given away so cheaply. I politely hang up on these people.
These are a few signs of a good SEO marketer
- A good SEO marketer will insist on content changes to the website, and perhaps the structure of the site
- A good marketer will thoroughly research the keywords they are going to be targeting, making sure that the keywords or phrases are relevant to the people trying to find you
- They will generally provide you with regular reports, or at least suggest a strategy for collecting reporting data
- Good SEO marketers will probably charge an ongoing subscription fee. This is because the web is a growing, organic network, and web marketing is an ongoing process.
- Good SEO should be able to provide client names & sites from a few years ago that you can look up online. If you are unsure, then feel free to contact the owners of the site for a reference.
Life provides us with so few quick fixes. As in all things, hard work and dedication pay off, and those looking for the "quick buck" generally get it, and not much more. If you are serious about your online business, or the ongoing "findability" of your website, it is absolutely worth investing in long term strategies for search engine success. After all, search engines are not going away any time soon.
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