SEO Consultants | What to look for

So you’re thinking SEO (search engine optimization) is something that can help your website? Here are some things you should examine when you’re looking for the right SEO company to invest your business’s hard earned money into.

SEO only starts on your site.

In the development or renovation of your site optimization begins through meta titles, meta descriptions, meta keywords, having relevant content, using the proper HTML tags and so forth. However, there are a lot of things that are off site which go into SEO such as link building, putting relevant content elsewhere online, and making sure your site is appropriately indexed. The biggest mistake people make is not keeping up with their outside SEO thinking it starts and ends on their site. If you aren’t actively trying to get organic traffic to your website your rankings and organic traffic can never meet your goals. Having a long term SEO plan that goes beyond your site is going to ensure your organic marketing strategy is well rounded.

Don’t think is the cheapest or fastest means of marketing a site.

Unless you find a company that is doing a lot of work for free, or is offering a great discount, don’t expect your SEO work to be cheap. Search engine optimization is a full time job. In order to get the results most businesses are looking for, it requires constant monitoring and updating. Flat out, with a good SEO strategy there is simply a plethora of things that need to be done often and with a high level of quality. Proper SEO also takes time for content to be searched, relationships to be built with related sites, and submissions to be accepted. When looking to get SEO work done don’t fall into the traps of sites offering prices that are too good to be true or promising quick traffic.

Black Hat techniques hurt more than they help.

Although Google doesn’t say how they weight positive factors going into their ranking, they are clear that black hat techniques are a road that will only take you in the wrong direction. A quality SEO company will support only ethical SEO techniques. If you decide to mess with black hat techniques you can be red flagged loosing all representation within search engines—effectively setting you back and making all of your SEO efforts worthless. Make sure to be very clear on the marketing strategy of your SEO consultants ensuring the integrity of their plan. Stay away from anything that sounds illigitimate ie keyword stuffing, invisible text, meta spamming, etc.

SEO be your site’s biggest ally, or your biggest wast of resources. The difference is in ensuring that it is done correctly! Never be satisfied with your SEO, as there is always be something that can be improved or be done. Look around and contact multiple companies to find the right SEO company for your needs and your budget.

Web Design & Text: SEO vs Style

When coming into the world of online marketing and web design there is a fine line that must be walked. That line is working with the rendering of text. Text is an important aspect to design as well as a page’s ranking so a site simply cannot be designed for one or the other— you have to find the right balance.

The tricky part is trying to keep page content coded in the proper HTML tags (h1, p, strong) for search engine and accessibility purposes, but not to limit the designer. Different operating systems, browsers, screens, and settings can all alter the way a web page is displayed. For example some users will have different fonts on their computers leading to the site appearing differently for different users. Consequently, choosing a particular font does not guarantee that your text will actually display in this font to all of your users and back up fonts will are necessary.

You might ask, what’s the big deal if text shows up in Times New Roman instead of Monotype Corsiva? Well, it doesn’t affect your SEO, but it will effect your user experience in two primary ways. First is stylistically— the fonts you use emphasize important text, help develop your site’s branding, and play a huge role in design. The second is more function than form. A change in font can make content more or less legible and even cause layout issues stemming from variations in font spacing and sizes. A change like that can play a huge role in if a visitor stays on your site and where they navigate. These two factors alone can drastically hurt your conversion rate. This leads us to the question, what is the best way to display the fonts you want across multiple platforms and still remain search engine friendly?

While there is no perfect solution there are a few options for the designer to navigate while adapting their design to the needs of the user.

CSS
Most sites today are going to be largely designed based on some form of CSS. However, like the other options straight CSS does have a downfall. If the font you desire to use is not something that comes standard on most computers there is a large chance that the average user will not see the full potential of your site as previously mentioned. You have the ability to select your primary and alternative fonts, and even a font family that allows the closest option if your specified choices are not available.

Image Replacement
Web designers can cope with font issues by using images of the text exactly how they want it to appear instead of coded text. But like I said, none of these options are perfect. The use of image replacement limits you to the use of “alt” tags for SEO purposes. Alt tags are meant to represent the image using text, however they are considered less relevant when compared to properly coded content. There are black hat techniques such as hiding your text and primarily displaying your images, however Google does warn that “Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors.” It can be interpreted that “untrustworthy” feelings can lead to negative repercussions within your rankings— leading back to the ideal motto, do it right the first time.

FLIR
Face Lift Image Replacement, or FLIR, plays off of the concept of image replacement using PHP. Text can still be coded correctly in HTML for search engines, but be swapped out with an image for the viewer ensuring consistency across users. Sounds like we have found the best solution right? Well as FLIR is reliant on PHP’s dynamic interface the text cannot be selected, which decreases site usability. Again close, but still a considerable downside.

sIFR 2.0
Our last option is Scalable Inman Flash Replacement, or sIFR. sIFR combines Flash, Javascript, and CSS to create the text replacement. Just like when using FLIR, you still get the SEO benefits, however instead of an image your end result is a Flash file. sIFR still has some major drawbacks including the dependance of Flash (which with the development of HTML 5 may be on the way out), increased load times, and difficult to predict changes in CSS layouts.

With the development of new technologies every day we may have a solution to this problem right around the corner— but for now, when choosing a web designer make sure you are both on the same page of how you would like your site for both form and function.

What's in a Niche Market?

What is in a niche market? No, but really. The perspective on what a niche market actually is and why it may or may not benefit your marketing approach has become muddled.

Here we will evaluate what a niche market is, the goal niche marketing will serve and the beginnings of how it can be achieved.

Originally this term would have referred to a person coining a trade and becoming the only available specialist for commercial purposes. Like for instance, watchmaking. Today this form of a niche market is nearly impossible--especially with internet business marketing.

Today a niche market could be more accurately termed as a “focused market.” Meaning that when marketing online the approach will be completely different than any other form of marketing. While the purpose is still the same--to catch and keep attention. The way attention is achieved is by tapping into what keywords individuals are searching and capitalizing on them. Just as a corporation would want to advertise their business during a television show receiving the highest views of a certain age their product would be of interest the same can occur online, but even better.

To begin marketing in the niche fashion you first need to evaluate which keywords are being searched most often that are relevant to your product. If the demand is their you will have something to work with. In addition, other areas of research for determining a focused market should be:

* Competition & Saturation
* Potential Cost (for PPC budgeting)
* Commercial Intention (is there any?)

Once the keywords indicative of the niche market are located it is time to go to work. Some general rules to ensure you are achieving the overall goal while marketing online should be:

Provide Direct Results

If your target market revolves around a product such as the specific type of baby stroller like a “Travel System,” not only is it important to achieve a conversion through the advertisment placed on a Google or the content created on an exterior site. It is also important to optimize the landing page for the succinct purpose it has been marketed. Do not worry about placing your Umbrella or Double Strollers there as well. This was not your focused purpose and will decrease your probability for sales.

Test Your Market

Keywords are never enough to tell us the intention of our market. We will need to test our ads, content and pricing. Never assume you have completed the test market phase, because in reality you haven’t. There will always be more traffic to drive and more sales to produce.

For more on a niche market approach and the most effective business internet marketing techniques follow ideal this.