Small business owners usually have “insufficient” time or “limited” budget to invest on SEO that can actually skyrocket the success of their website.
Without SEO, your website will be just like any other flyers or business card you will hand out to people, which will through personal contacts and word of mouth. This will take an enormous time on your part to build a substantial number of views to really make a good online income.
However, an “optimized” website will help bring you plenty of traffic to your site!
That means a properly optimized website will you reach out to your “targeted” audience who are searching for similar products and services you’re offering, right at the time they’re looking for it.
And your website will be promoting itself 24/7, even while you’re sleeping! Awesome, isn’t it?
SEO is definitely here to save your day!
Do SEO right, and you’ll get FREE traffic (lead) on a daily basis. Yes, SEO is one of the most “cost-effective” marketing strategies that will get you lead on a daily basis without burning your pocket.
Not to mention, a business website “optimized” for SEO gives you an unparallel chance to compete with the bigger guns out there.

 

Do it yourself vs. Hire SEO Agency?

If you can afford to hire a “professional” SEO consultant, by all means do it to optimize your website correctly to see high ROI on your online marketing efforts.
Related article: Pros and Cons of Having an In-house SEO Department
If you cannot afford hiring a professional to perform your SEO, then sit in the drive seat and do it yourself. If you’re spending time doing SEO yourself, better do it properly to get the maximum benefits in terms of getting more traffic and exploding your search engine ranking.

 

Here are few reasons why SEO will help save your business:

 

search-enging

 

1. More than 250 million people search businesses through the Internet (search engines) –

SEO is definitely the most “cost-effective” way to market your business website and reach out “laser targeted” audience in the least amount of time possible.
Just optimize your website properly by taking care of both on-page and off-page SEO and watch the explosion of FREE website traffic to your site.
According to a recent study, more than 250 million people in UK use Google, Yahoo, and Bing to search for business as it’s the most convenient and cost effective way to learn more about the brand and its products and services.
That means, business websites is no more only a yellow page listing or a business card. These days, people use their website to make profits online. And you should too.
Related article: 5 Hot Tips to Brand Yourself Online

 

results

 

2. More than 88% of people find you from search engine’s 1st page results –

People usually find the most “relevant” websites through the first page of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing as they’re optimized to be there in the first place.
These websites will likely contain the MOST relevant information that people are searching for.
So if your site (page) is ranking in the first page of these search engines for certain keyword terms that people search in high volume, be prepared to thousands of views, click-through-rate, and conversion on your website.
It’s been found that more than 88% people find you through the Google’s 1st page. Proper SEO strategies will help you get to the 1st page that most people crave for.

 

SEO helps drive “laser targeted” traffic directly to your site –

 

3. SEO helps drive “laser targeted” traffic directly to your site –

SEO includes a vital step known as “Keyword research” that will help actually target your website content – blog posts, product and services pages – directly to people who are looking for.
Keyword research will help you find the “top keywords phrase” that your targeted audience frequently uses to find products and services you are offering.
Once you have the “profitable list of keywords” at your disposal, all you have to do is try to rank for those keyword terms by doing proper “on-page” and “off-page” SEO techniques.

 

SEO helps build a positive online presence –

 

4. SEO helps build a positive online presence –

If you’re website is on the 1st page of a search result page but when people click through it, they do not find “relevant” information on it, they’ll be skeptical about buying product and services from you.
On the other hand, if you have a strong online presence – positive reviews on third-party websites, strong social media presence, blogs, press releases, and YouTube channels among others – people will have no problem trusting your brand and purchasing what you have to offer.
Related article: Top 10 Contributing Google Ranking Factors

 

If you’re a small business, hiring a SEO agency will not be a viable answer to your SEO needs. Having an in-house SEO department will be sufficient.
However, if you’re running a large corporation that needs SEO service, having an in-house SEO department will be somewhat limiting for the growth of your business as your SEO requirements may be greater than what your internal department can handle.
Things can go pretty nasty especially when the in-house SEO department do not have the “right” SEO tools and know-how to solve the pressing issues.
In this case you’ll have to seek the help from a third-party SEO provider/agency.
SEO agency may be costly for small business, but for large corporations, their services might be bliss in terms of costs, time, and productivity. They can get things done rather quickly and smoothly, saving you plenty of time and money, which an in-house SEO department may lack.
So, let’s discuss the pros and cons of having an In-house SEO department and know when to utilize each other’s services depending upon different situation you will face.

 

Pros and Cons of Having an In-House SEO Department

 

Pros of having an In-house SEO department:

1. A Fully “Dedicated” and “Focused” SEO Team for Your Business

SEO agencies have several projects at their plate on any given time. Even if they’re working for your SEO projects, they’ll still be working along with other clients. That means your projects may not always be their number 1 priority. As a result, your projects suffer due to lack of commitment.
On the other hand, having an in-house SEO means your SEO staffs will be spending their entire time focusing solely on your projects only. Your SEO requirements will be their priority.
As a result, you’ll likely get higher ROI and within deadlines too!

 

2. Foster Better Communication/ Higher Productivity between Departments

Having an in-house SEO department is an added bonus for your business. Instead of mixing marketing with SEO, keeping a separate small department in your business (depending upon your company size) will help foster group cohesion and communication among members of different group.
Throughout the day, your SEO staff may be working together with the marketing, or creative, and even web design experts. As a result, any bottlenecks in terms of communication will dissolve, issues will begin to subside, and productivity will increase.
Well, those are the two benefits of having an in-house SEO department at your company. Now let’s see some disadvantages you may face.

 

 

Cons of having an In-house SEO department:

1. Costly in Terms of Resources – Time, Money, and Tools

Having an in-house SEO department may mean additional cost for your business, especially if you’re in a budget.
A separate department means purchasing new furniture (desk and chairs), computers, find additional office space, and software and tools, all of could add up to serious money. You’ll also have to offer employee benefits such as allowance, offer vacations, insurance, and other perks that comes with hiring an employee.
On the other hand, you can have all you SEO needs fulfilled by simply hiring a professional SEO agency/consultant and pay for their services, without having to hire anyone!

 

2. In-House SEO May Not Be For You

If you’re looking to grow your business, SEO is crucial to quickly set yourself as an industry expert, build a strong brand, and increase web traffic to online sales. However, if you’re just starting out your business as a small business, you’ll want to be careful while setting up a different SEO department.
As discussed above, not it can be costly for your business, but SEO department may actually hinder your success too, especially when you do NOT have experienced and well-trained SEO staffs. You’re never sure until you get results.
In addition, hiring SEO staffs doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get higher ranking. You’ll also need an effective copy (content) that needs to be produced on a regular basis. Or there must be a solid link building strategies that needs to be care of.
Other times, you’ll also have to use pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to grow your business to the next level. All these marketing tasks cannot be handled by the SEO department only.
You’ll have to get a help from a professional SEO consultant who are qualified and result-oriented to offer SEO and Internet Marketing services too.

 

Build a STRONG online presence and increase search engine rankings by submitting your website on these top 5 online directories, starting today!
Online directories, unlike search engines where sites are listed according to relevance and search engine rankings, list websites in alphabetical order. This means your potential customers can quickly and easily find you from your name and business category.
In addition to basic information, some online directories (see the list of top directories below) also let you add a description of your business, thereby giving you a leverage to attract MORE potential customers.
If you want to BOOST your website ranking on search engines, you need to submit your blog in these top 5 online directories, from today!

 

Top 5 Online Directories Your Website Should be In

 

#1 DMOZ (the Open Directory Project) -

 

#1 DMOZ (the Open Directory Project) –

The Open Directory Product (ODP), also widely known as DMOZ, is a non-commercial, multi-lingual, and open web directory that is owned by AOL but run by a group of volunteers editors.
ODP list website based on topics and organizes similar topics into categories, which is again indexed into smaller categories.
As of October 2013, the Alexa ranking of ODP was 840, which means only one thing – most of your buyers are using this free online directory to search and buy products and services you have to offer.

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So what’s the best ways to increase your website traffic?
Well, it’s the pressing issue of every bloggers and site owner to get MORE traffic to their site because it is the only way generate more sales revenues.
But most people worry when they do NOT see any rise in web traffic. There could be several reasons for that – lack of fresh content, backlinking methods, search engine rankings, among other things.
With that said, let me share you 7 simple yet highly effective tips to BOOST your website traffic for FREE. The best thing about these methods is that you do NOT have to be a “techy,” or even be an industry expert.
There are other options, i.e. paid methods like paid per click methods (PPC), to INCREASE website traffic, but it isn’t organic (FREE), and you’ll probably NOT have budget to spend money on this, especially if you’re just starting out.
Instead, use these 7 FREE killer ways to increase your website traffic, starting today.

 

7 Killer Ways to Increase Your Web Traffic:

 

1. “Content” Is Still the “King”

 

1. “Content” Is Still the “King”

Does your site contain only few static pages, like the “about us,” “services,” “products,” “testimonials,” and “contact us” pages? But you see, people want to know about your products and services as they probably aren’t ready to buy it yet. They just want to know more about what you do, what you offer, and how they’ll solve their problems.
So, simply putting up a product page with a sales pitch isn’t sufficient. You’ll have to promote it, and the best way to do that is post useful and factual content regarding those product and services to your targeted audience not only on your website, but in several different places like forums, blogs, and guest posts relevant to your niche.
The more presence you have on the Internet, the more search engine will trust your site and then rank your site higher than others.
Start posting helpful and interesting content using your blog posts, regularly.

 

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Before posting anything on your site, it’s also vital that you optimize your site as it is content for search engines.
Put it this way – if you can rank on the first page on Google search result page for all the major keywords related to your industry, you will get flood of traffic to your site as most site traffic usually comes from the 1st page on Google, especially from the first, second, and third position.
There are two types of SEO – on-page SEO (site and content optimization) and off-page SEO (backlinking).
If you’re a DIY, you may want to learn the basics of SEO to optimize the content and site on your own, but if you’re pressed for time and effort, then consider hiring a professional SEO consultant to optimize your site.

 

Microsoft Word - web 2.0 logos.doc

 

4. Social Media

Do you know that more than 1 billion users are active on Facebook, and almost 300 million of people using Google+ to connect with others? Twitter has become a popular tool to get real-time feedback from viewers for popular TV media. Yes, social media sites are very powerful tool to BOOST traffic to your site, and it’s never slowing down.
There are hundreds of social media sites, but you do NOT have to create an account with every one of them.
If you have social media accounts on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Pinterest, that would be sufficient to flood your site with FREE traffic to your site, really fast.

 

5. Become Active on Blogs and Forums

 

5. Become Active on Blogs and Forums

In addition to social media sites, most people often visit forums and blogs to learn more about your product and services to see if they’re really making a wise decision in investing in what you have to offer. They are looking for reviews from other authority figure to know if you’re the real deal.
So, if you’re active on forums and blogs relevant to your industry, you might already be an authority figure there. When potential customers see positive reviews, comments, mentions of your products (especially when you’re active on it yourself) it becomes very easy for them to trust you.
This trust alone is enough to bring more traffic to your site. Do not forget to include a link back on the signature box when posting a response to a forum thread or blog comments.

 

6. Create Viral Content

 

6. Create Viral Content

Viral content has a unique property that makes it a powerful tool to increase website traffic to your site. It tends to distribute on its own as readers reading through it can quickly make a deep connection with the content, whether it’s positive or negative.
No wonder why most successful bloggers create viral content, over and over again.
They know how to arouse the emotion of their readers by crafting content that attacks the angle is a different way. That is what makes a content go viral, and it’s a definite way to increase your website traffic.

7. Encourage Guest Posts on Your Site

 

7. Encourage Guest Posts on Your Site

Another way to dramatically increase the web site traffic is to ask others (bloggers in your niche) to write a guest post on your site. After they’ve written a guest post for you, they’ll likely share that content on their own blog or social media profiles which will in turn help boost traffic to your site.
We would like to hear from you. Tell us some killer ways to increase your website traffic!

 

An important aspect of building your online reputation is to keep track of what is already been said!
Here are few tools designed to assist you in keeping track of important happenings around your business so that you can handle small problems before they grow out of control, identify opportunities to get involved, and locate people whom you want to engage.

 

Tools you can use to keep track of your online reputation

Setting up alerts is the best way to keep track of every mention of your name, business, brand, domain, employees, on the internet. In other words, you want to receive alerts before any problems blow out of controls and enter the search engine result pages.
And there are plenty of tools that can assist you in monitoring your online reputation, but if you’re just a small business owner or an individual, here are the most complete as well as user-friendly tools we have found for you.

 

Top 10 Tools YOU Can Use to Monitor Your Reputation Online

 

Feed Reader –

 

1. Feed Reader –

It’ WISE to  set up a feed reader to assist you in viewing custom feeds that you will be monitoring for your specific set of keyword phrases. The reader can be something as simple as a gadget on your iGoogle page or a feed service like Google reader.

 

Google Alerts –

 

2. Google Alerts –

Next, set up a free account with Google Alerts to keep track of your web results, blogs, video, news, and groups. Either use a feed or subscribe via email.

 

Yahoo Alerts –

3. Yahoo Alerts –

Sign up for Yahoo Alerts (free) to keep track of stocks, news by keyword, local news and feeds, and must more. You can get notifications either via email or through Yahoo Messenger, or through mobile.

 

 

Twitter Search –

4. Twitter Search –

This tool makes it extremely simple to search Twitter for any particular keyword phrase. Plus, the advanced search options lets you search by dates, location, links, sentiment, and by person, and more.

 

Technorati –

 

5. Technorati –

You can also search Technorati to find if someone mentions anything related with your business, blog, or any other specific keywords across wide variety of blogs. Simply subscribe to their search results feed and get instant notification of new mentions.

 

BackType –

 

6. BackType –

It is probably one of the best comment solutions available on the internet because with it, you can find comments that mention a keyword, claim your comments on blogs, and view conversations through a post or article and subscribe to them.

 

Social Mention –

 

7. Social Mention –

Like Google Alerts, Social Mention is very powerful and the results are particularly customized for social media. As Google Alerts often seems to be buggy, Social Mention, on the other hand, can immediately catch conversations pertaining to a particular keyword.
Simply subscribe to their feed, and get email notifications or you may download the report on the Excel file too.

BoardReader –

8. BoardReader –

With this tool, you can easily track conversations across various message boards and forums. You can even filter out results by a particular domain, or by date, or even by relevance.

 

Q&A

 

9. Q&A Tracking –

If anyone is talking about you, or asking questions about your company, or a particular keyword, you can easily sign up at Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers and then keep track of those conversations.
Plus, perform an advanced search for any particular keyword in your niche and don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed that is at the bottom of the page so that you can keep track of future mentions.

 

Trackur –

 

10. Trackur –

Finally, Trackur grabs all those keywords mentions from wide variety of sources, not only from Google Alerts. The biggest usually comes from the ability to tag, share, save, and subscribe to particular feeds.
It only cost less than $20 a month and an ultimate online reputation monitoring tool for small businesses.

 

 

Personal brand is similar to your “reputation” and indicates how others perceive you – i.e. they want to know who are you, what you offer, whether you are trustworthy, an expert, or a genius?
If you’ve been active on your business for a while, then you probably have already developed some sort of personal brand for yourself, without even realizing it, especially when people already know your name, what you offer, and stand for.
But if your personal brand is WEAK or UNORGANIZED, you need to take proper steps to truly stand out from the crowd.
You will need to make it STRONGER, UNIQUE, and MEMORABLE in people’s mind.

 

Brand Yourself

Just think about Coca cola, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Facebook for example. They have a formidable brand, don’t they?
Don’t get overwhelmed. I am not asking you to compete with these guys, but if you consider your personal brand is not very popular, this guide will give you tools and key components of a SUCCESSFUL and STRONG brand.

 

5 Simple Ways to Build a STRONG & FORMIDABLE Brand:

 

Consider Brand as an Investment

 

1. Consider Brand as an Investment

Your personal brand will help to add value to each new project you create. It has the potential to last longer than your own lifespan. It’s that important!
To sustain your business for a longer period, and hopefully grow exponentially, whether you are in an art business, or selling homes, or selling products via online store, a good personal brand is always an invaluable investment.
If people feel connected, or can relate with what you’re saying, then undoubtedly, they’ll follow your brand automatically, from one project to another. If your audience supports you, you’ll less likely struggle launching new projects as you do NOT have to start from scratch – your personal brand takes care of it all.

 

Set up a Blog:Site that is all about YOU

 

2. Set up a Blog/Site that is all about YOU

We don’t care if it’s your first priority, or a second priority. Setting up a blog/site will give you a wonderful opportunity to develop a STRONGER relationship with your clients. Follow these content tips:
  1. Include a mini-bio at the end of each post.
  2. Create an “About” page and make it unique and personal and talk about your ideal brand.
  3. People may forget most things about you, but they remember personal stories about you.
In addition, STOP being business-oriented for a minute, and FOCUS on telling interesting stories about yourself, and your future visions so that people can quickly relate with you.

 

Be ubiquitous WITHOUT trying hard

 

3. Be ubiquitous WITHOUT trying hard

To make your online presence felt everywhere, participate in social media, online forums, guest blogging, and other sources WITHOUT going overboard.
If people will hear your name enough, they will definitely want to know MORE about you (it may not happen the first time, or on the second time, or even the third, but they will eventually click that button).

 

No Matter What, Keep Your Brand Fresh

 

4. No Matter What, Keep Your Brand Fresh

If people sense you are repetitive or going stale as you promote the same business idea that was once a phenomenon, then its high-time you add something new to keep things interesting and fresh.
Keep adding new layers to what you do and represent.
You cannot always ride on the same idea, forever.

 

Keep Yourself Updated Frequently, and Continue to Learn

 

5. Keep Yourself Updated Frequently, and Continue to Learn

Keep yourself updated on your expertise and knowledge of your industry, especially in the online world. The Internet changes drastically day to day, new tools, methodologies always pop up.
So what if you were an “expert” a few years ago? If you have stopped challenging and educating yourself, you’re NOT expert anymore!
Keep on learning and updating

Bonus Tip- Interact, Talk, and Respond

6. Bonus Tip: Interact, Talk, and Respond

Do you respond back to people’s concerns, questions, and comments by replying through comments/emails, or re-tweeting their tweets, or you simply skip this step?
Well, if you don’t, you seriously need to change that strategy immediately and get people talking with you. Get them to comment, share, like, post positive things about you by adding value to their life.
If you can’t reply to everyone who sends you emails, make sure to mention this on your contact pages, or write a post that solves the answer to the generic questions people ask commonly.
Heck, you can even set up a FAQ section on your site.
Remember, if you make it clear in your posts and emails that you can’t respond to every queries and comments, people will understand and they will less likely be disappointed with you.
In this guide, we discussed how to build a personal brand in 5 simple ways.
Go on, what are your thoughts and comments about this? How do you make a STRONG brand image for your business, especially if it’s your online business? And has it worked for YOU?
Please, COMMENT BELOW …
If you are operating an online business, but struggling to rank for keyword phrases related with your niche, then you may probably look for a SEO company to propel your online efforts with their “specialized knowledge.”
Why should you hire an SEO company to take your business to the next level?
Because, after a certain stage, and most likely with your limited amount of knowledge on SEO and limited resources, it become very difficult to keep up with the SEO updates, rank for your major keyword, particularly if it’s highly competitive.
Yes, using the specialized SEO knowledge of a professional company is best way to gain MORE visibility for any business, especially if they have all the right tools, techniques, experience, and proven results so that you stay one more step above your competition, gain all the traffic you’ve craving for, and then, literally profits from MASSIVE online sales.

 

Here’s how you can propel your online efforts with specialized knowledge:

 

Keep Your Content Up-to-Date –

 

1. Keep Your Content Up-to-Date

Does your site contain the same old, outdated, or worse, irrelevant content on it? If it does, you will probably irritate your potential clients.
Don’t do this as your visitors spend plenty of time to come up with search terms to find exactly what they need. They want to land on sites that provide relevant and up-to-date information for their search terms.
Here’s how you can propel your online efforts – start creating relevant, unique, and helpful articles, with engaging pictures, and other documents. Keep them updated, frequently.
Remember the golden rule to online success – always keep it real and fresh.

 

2. Use Proper:Relevant Keywords on Your Site -

 

2. Use Proper/Relevant Keywords on Your Site –

People will find your site faster and easier when you use proper (relevant) keywords on your site and its content. This is because search engines often want to redirect customers to the most relevant site for their search terms.
So when you use highly relevant and popular keywords that best describe your business, then MORE targeted people will start visiting your site and purchase what you have to sell.
Plus, they will less likely visit your competitor’s site too.

Happy group of finger smileys with social network icon

3. Establish Social Networks –

Do you want to gain higher search engine rankings for your site, quickly? Why not use social media networks and become active to engage, inform, and attract your customers?
Create a Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other bunch of popular social media accounts for FREE and start interacting and building genuine relationship with our potential customers by adding value to them.
If they like what you have to say, they’ll not only purchase from you, but they’ll help make it go viral by sharing it to their friends, families, or someone they know who may benefit from it.
Not to mention, you’ll also likely see surge in rankings you’ve been imagining before.

4. Post Videos to Engage Your Visitors on Your Site –

4. Post Videos to Engage Your Visitors on Your Site –

Most people who visit your site are in a hurry, and they want helpful information quickly. As a result, they only spend few minutes and leave after they’ve found the information they need.
But if you want to keep you visitors longer on your site, there’s a better way to do so – upload relevant and helpful videos. Videos offer an effective and easy way to learn MORE about your services and products.
Not only people will understand what you offer, but they will also start to trust you more, and hopefully do a business with you, soon.

 

Get a HELP of a Professional SEO Company –

 

5. Get a HELP of a Professional SEO Company –

If you are newbie on the Internet, or simply don’t have the right tools, resources, and expertise to develop and maintain an engaging site, then you can hire a professional SEO company who have specialize knowledge to make your site relevant, popular, and highly profitable.
Hiring a professional SEO company is the best way to benefit your business and take it to the level you’ve always imagined.

 

To Sum it ALL …

Setting up a strong online presence and maintaining it requires that you are well-versed in the latest SEO methods and practices so that your business is always a step ahead of your competitors.
However, if you do not have the tools, time, and resources to follow effective SEO strategies, then you can hire a professional SEO consultant who can handle all these technical stuffs for you.

Contact us to get ethical, latest, and effective SEO services.

Hiring a professional SEO consultant may be your first step towards promoting your site/blog, but the wrong choice could be disastrous to you – pouring tons of money, hiring the wrong consultant, not ranking in search engines, and so on.
You get the picture?
So make sure you are aware of the advantages of hiring an SEO specialist as well as all the risks involved and potential damage a bad SEO consultant can do to your business and your site.

1. Don’t believe their “Hype”

1. Don’t believe their “Hype”

If an SEO consultant or a company guarantees “#1 ranking in Google” in a very short span of time, within a week, inquire about their SEO tactics. If they hesitate, just move and find another one.
Fast ranking is possible, however, it takes time.
In fact, it takes a lot of time, probably 3 to 6 months at minimum to rank for a competitive market/ keywords.
So do me a favor – ensure that your potential SEO consultant is not going to get you there by using Google Adwords paid service!
Well, there’s nothing wrong using Google Adwords paid service to bring more traffic to your site, but if your potential SEO consultant tells you that you are not going to rank well in search engines without pouring money in “Google paid service,” its time your move on.
Remember, paid service (ads) is not search results!
It is acceptable to supplement traffic to your site using Google ads in order to rank, but just ensure what you are paying for. Nobody can predict high SERPs rankings, but many SEO firms do make unrealistic guarantees.
Watch out when they make wild promises to submit your business site/blog to 1000s of directories, or any other “apple in the sky” schemes that are impossible to achieve.
Heard about the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t true?”

Inquire About the SEO Consultant and Accept No Secrets

2. Inquire About the SEO Consultant and Accept No Secrets

Sit down and talk with your potential SEO consultant and figure out what you will be getting and also how they will plan to achieve those results.
Just remember – you are putting your business reputation on line when you submit your site to a SEO consultant. How your site will rank and get in the 1st page of Google could either make or break your business.
For instance, if the potential SEO consultant are using “black hat SEO” tactics or by violating Google’s rules, it is YOUR site/blog that will get penalized or even banned from SERPs.
Of course, most SEO consultants won’t tell you all the details about their SEO tactics as it would be tiring and time consuming.
Sometimes, the best search engine marketers also don’t know everything about the SEO methods they will use until they actually get “into” the project. If search engine optimization was that simple, you could have done that all by yourself wouldn’t you?
In fact, SEO is not only a time consuming process, but also a very complex and evolving process.
So, if a SEO consultant sighs away from giving you at least an overview of their optimization process and claim that it’s their “well-kept secret,” then they are someone you don’t want to trust your business with.

In order to avoid hiring a “Bad” SEO consultant, you can ask these questions during an interview-

In order to avoid hiring a “Bad” SEO consultant, you can ask these questions during an interview:

  1. Ask them to show past success stories – i.e. examples of their work
  2. How do they figure out what keywords phrase to target for your business?
  3. Do they comply with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines?
  4. Do they have marketing experiences besides search engine optimization service and backlink building?
  5. Do they offer any other type of marketing services?
  6. What kind of result you will likely expect from them and the timeframe to achieve it? How will they measure the site’s success?
  7. How do they get backlinks? Do they use paid link schemes in low-quality sites that won’t do anything useful in search engine rankings?
  8. Localization is very important! Do they have experience in local marketing – in your country, city, or region?
  9. What different SEO strategies they use and what do they consider the most important?
See, finding a trustworthy SEO consultant can be really difficult, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t take time to make an informed decision.
Take plenty of time and select SEO Company wisely as it can not only save you lot of time and effort on your part, but also give you the results and awesome ROI your business desperately needs in order to excel online.
Remember – if your SEO specialist doesn’t know proper SEO, you’ll only attract more potential hazards and downfall than promoting your site online successfully.
Of course, you may want to choose us as your SEO consultant. We perform SEO (on-page and off-page) very well, and we do it right. Here is why.
Contact us and feel free to ask us anything you have in your mind to know about our professional SEO consultancy service.
The main objective of B2B marketing is to get MORE clients. No one can doubt on this fact, but how to perform B2B marketing in order to get clients is the question!
In this guide, we’ll cover some of the cost-effective yet high-impact important steps you can follow to attract MORE clients. You perform B2B marketing in a way that won’t make you shrink away, gamble your hard earned money on long term campaigns, or endure cold calling rejections.
But most importantly, these 7 ways you can reach out to B2B customer will forge a relationship with your prospect a respectful, genuine, and spam-free way.
You want to make your prospects to feel fortunate to have found you, rather than, willing to do anything to avoid you. So, in this guide, we will uncover few golden rules you can employ to treat people in a friendly and professional manner just like you would want others do to you.

Find 10 Companies:Contact Persons You Want to Do Business With

 

1. Find 10 Companies/Contact Persons You Want to Do Business With

You want to find an ideal prospect. You want to know what industry they are in. How large should they be in order to fit and afford your business products and services?
Similarly, don’t go and hunt for 1000 of different prospectus. If 10 is good, then stick to that number as you cannot give your undivided attention to all those 1000 customers.
Starting with small lets you work smarter, complete the process faster, and make a great impact.

Inquire About the SEO Consultant and Accept No Secrets Get active ONLINE as a person, NOT as a salesman

2. Get active ONLINE as a person, NOT as a salesman

– Setup up a Google Alerts to receive daily summary of news, reports, and other information from the list of 10 companies and right into your inbox.
Through Google Alert, you can quickly scan to see if there is any relevant news you can respond to. If there are, grab a note card, jot down a quick and relevant message, drop your business card, and send it off.
Likewise, visit their website to know if they participate in social networks. People often participate in Social Media to engage with like-minded people, get attention, and promote their message and brand.
So, follow them on Twitter, or “Like” their Facebook page. Are they in Google+? Well, give “+1” on appropriate updates. Do they have a blog? Find out what topics they write about, leave a thoughtful comment – but refrain from leaving any hints of sales.

Use LinkedIn to Find Common Contacts

3. Use LinkedIn to Find Common Contacts

If you’re in LinkedIn, use its search tool to find more connections. On the right side, scroll down to see a sandbox of connections. At the top, you will see any connections you may have in common.
This is a precious piece of information because you can now ask the person who is in common to make an introduction.
When it comes to introduction, a face-to-face introduction is always the best method; however, an email introduction is “okay” too. After you get a face-to-face or email introduction, it’s probably a good time to ask the person to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Don’t Spam People, Instead Court them

4. Don’t Spam People, Instead Court them

After you’ve made a connection to contacts on your list, court them, and not spam them! Remember, there are several stages the prospect needs to go in order to become an ideal client.
If you are tempted to skip a stage, you may get customers who doesn’t value you or your products and your services and is less than happy to buy. If you try to prematurely skip steps, like trying to sell before building value, you may also risk damaging the relationship you have built with them earlier.
Worse still, if someone in common had made the introduction on your behalf, they won’t be eager to make another introduction for you once they hear you went for hard sell with their colleague or friend.

Show Genuine interest!

5. Show Genuine interest!

Find ways to Strengthen the Relationship

6. Find ways to Strengthen the Relationship

As you begin to learn more about your ideal prospect, you will also likely find out who their ideal prospect is. Is there someone you know you could refer to them who requires their products and services?
Have you come across white papers, articles, or blog posts, that you think would be of interest to them? Likewise, if they have something commendable, and if you have a connection with a reporter, you may want to look to make for an introduction.
Have you read an interesting business book? Why not send them 10 copies of it to each of your client in the top 10 list? Include a note mentioning what you think is interesting about the book and what they might find interesting.
For example, I use stickers with my business information on the front. I stick them on the books I give out. So, after months, they will still remember who sent them.

 

7. Add Another 5 Companies on Your List, Every month

At the end of each month, make sure you add another 5 companies to your list. Don’t be tempted to add 100 of new connections as you know you won’t be able to put your energy and attention to all of them. If this happens, you will likely lose more connections.
Start with small number of connection with them. Provide your best and complete services to them before including another client. This way, you will provide a formidable service to your clients.

 

Recap of 7 Ways You Can Reach out to B2B Customers:

Unlike direct marketing strategies, where most companies send their connection request to the mass with no differentiation or personalization, these 7 relationship-building ways will make you stand out. You will have a prospect that will be more eager to do business with you. If they aren’t ready to do business with you, at least they’ll be very likely to refer you to someone who is.

 

Do you know the MOST overlooked factor in SEO?
Well, it’s user behavior!
Go and approach any SEO consultants and they will offer you incredible services like:
But they overlook one  very basic point – the user behavior!
SEO will no doubt get you at the TOP of the search engine result pages (SERPs), however, user behavior will help you be there. But often times, most SEO consultant will offer you a very bad piece of advice, i.e. set up a blog/site and then perform SEO second.
This is a wrong mentality!

 

In fact, you need to understand there are 3 steps to SEO,



On-page SEO

1.    On-page SEO

– Is creating content (pages and blog posts) that would be easy for search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing to read and understand what your pages are about, index it, and display it to people (potential customers) for relevant search terms.

Off-page SEO

2.    Off-page SEO

– Refers to link building to other RELEVANT sites (forums, blogs, article directories) in order to build backlinks (link back to your site) so that people can visit your site other than search engine page.
Here are some great ways to build yourself quality backlinks.

User behavior

3.    User behavior

– How internet users interact to your site (blog commenting, forum thread posting) will tell search engines whether your site rankings is correct.

 

What Search Engine Robots CAN’T see?

When search engine robots crawls through your website, they can READ the content, however, they can’t gain an emotional response to it.
Consider this example “How to get more free traffic to your site.”
Search engine robots can quickly tell this site is about SEO and also understand that there’s a lot of “How to” guides out there.
But how does it know it’s better than other websites?
The main job of search engine is to offer best search result pages (SERPs) for any keyword phrase, but it must be for humans, not for robots.

 

How search engine robots get emotional

So far, a robot can find this site and understand its’ context but to assess if it is a good site it needs some help from humans and internet users.

 

Search engine can only measure:

1.    Click through rate (CTR) – The percentage of internet users who click on the site link displayed on search result page.
2.    Bounce Rate – After click through, what percentage of visitors pressed the BACK button and how quickly they pressed the button?
Google has few more advantage!
Internet marketers serious about SEO have Google Analytics installed on their site which can tell a whole lot more like:
1.    After the click through, where do visitors go?
2.    How much time they spend on your site/ on each page
So, you see, the search engine robot calculates where a site/page should rank for a particular keyword phrase.
Then they utilize the “user behavior” to determine if that first calculation was good or bad. And then, they decide whether your site should move up or move down in the search results page.
Simple, eh?

 

SEO UPs and DOWNs

That generally means that it’s okay to use both content and code in order to gain better rankings, but only to see them drop back again.
Unless you are getting a help of an SEO consultant that knows and understand “user-behavior” is equally important as your page URLs, titles, headers, and other SEO factors.
So, user-behavior must be a key part of any SEO campaign.
While boosting your CTR depends upon the code, however, reducing your site’s/ page’s bounce rate or increasing the average time your visitors spend on your site is a whole different ball game.

 

Good Design + Great Content + Coding + Links = Positive User Behavior

Most companies try to keep web design and content (SEO) separate, however, we DON’T.
Why?
How your site looks, how easy it is to navigate, and the way it encourages visitors to explore other content … all affects the bounce rate as well as average time spent on site.
That means good web design is a vital part of SEO, just like coding, content, and links are.

 

So, how come sites that are UGLY still rank HIGHER than other?

With SEO, everything is about competition. For example, website A with poor design but great content can rank higher provided that there isn’t a site with a great design as well as great content and SEOed in order to compete.
But it also means that Website A can topple anytime from the higher rankings as soon as another site with great content and design comes along.
Just ask online store owners!

 

All Round SEO Services

So, if you would like to discuss about overall SEO services, please contact us for a FREE 1 hour SEO consultation.