A set of salary estimates for SEO people. I understand the marketing value of having an “SEO Salary” post, but I don’t see the point for people working in SEO. If you have to argue about your salary level using outside references, you need Challenger Gray & Christmas or Robert Half or something based on data. But the article did remind me of the importance of staying aware of the real money in SEO work.
As I read, I see that Firm SEO work is quite different from Independent SEO or in-house SEO work. According to Rand’s descriptions, Firm SEO (like his SEO company) is a group of people working together on client projects, guided by an SEO Boss. Rand admits he hires inexperienced talent and the salaries he pays are “on the low side”. This is the opposite of what I do in my own SEO consulting, and what my better clients do with their competitive web and Internet projects. I am not an SEO Firm, so again this is perhaps highlighting yet another a different perspective of the unusual industry we call Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Steve Jobs once said something like “A people hire A people; B people hire C people” and I have always carried that around in my head. I often see it in action. The best people tend to want the best people to work for them. Less-than-the-best often hire people “lesser” than them, for what I suppose is a myriad of reasons. Please note I am not suggesting Rand is hiring people lesser than he is (nor am I suggesting that Rand might be an “A” person). I am simply saying that his description of Firm SEO is opposite of my SEO consulting experience, where the better clients seek out the best SEOs, the best web designers, the best developers, and the best marketers to work on projects. In fact, more times than not, my clients have experienced extreme frustration dealing with “agencies”. From advertising agencies to web design agencies, the expertise and dedication of the individuals assigned by that agency to the projects turns out to be significantly below the caliber of the leaders of that “agency”. Sometimes we collectively wonder if the agency actually has anyone at all of adequate caliber beyond the founder. Other times we know they do, but we wonder why those people are not available to our projects, even when price is not a barrier. Perhaps it is just an “agency” mentality?
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/SEO-Salary/330848
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Search Engine Marketing - A New Start
Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet Marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, SEM methods include: Search Engine Optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the New York Times, define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings with the goal of obtaining better free search listings.
As the number of sites on the Web increased in the mid-to-late 90s, search engines started appearing to help people find information quickly. Search engines developed business models to finance their services, such as pay per click programs offered by Open Text in 1996 and then Goto.com in 1998. Goto.com later changed its name to Overture in 2001, and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, and now offers paid search opportunities for advertisers through Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google also began to offer advertisements on search results pages in 2000 through the Google AdWords program. By 2007 pay-per-click programs proved to be primary money-makers for search engines.
Paid search advertising hasn't been without controversy, and issues around how many search engines present advertising on their pages of search result sets have been the target of a series of studies and reports by Consumer Reports WebWatch, from Consumers Union. The FTC also issued a letter in 2002 about the importance of disclosure of paid advertising on search engines, in response to a complaint from Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader.
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Search-Engine-Marketing---A-New-Start/330845
As the number of sites on the Web increased in the mid-to-late 90s, search engines started appearing to help people find information quickly. Search engines developed business models to finance their services, such as pay per click programs offered by Open Text in 1996 and then Goto.com in 1998. Goto.com later changed its name to Overture in 2001, and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, and now offers paid search opportunities for advertisers through Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google also began to offer advertisements on search results pages in 2000 through the Google AdWords program. By 2007 pay-per-click programs proved to be primary money-makers for search engines.
Paid search advertising hasn't been without controversy, and issues around how many search engines present advertising on their pages of search result sets have been the target of a series of studies and reports by Consumer Reports WebWatch, from Consumers Union. The FTC also issued a letter in 2002 about the importance of disclosure of paid advertising on search engines, in response to a complaint from Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader.
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Search-Engine-Marketing---A-New-Start/330845
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Stay on top with search engine marketing firm
Internet is a living network as it is inevitably changing day by bay. That is the reason why strategies and tips that did well in past are not that effective in present circumstances. Today every business needs to stay on top to be able to understand and control the ever changing situation. Businesses need to analyze and adapt these changes so that they may walk shoulder to shoulder with their competitors. To help business with that task of analyzing and adapting changes search engine marketing firms provide them with affordable and power powerful solutions. It provides you guidance regarding safe proceedings of maze and makes your task easier. However, all strategic decisions will be yours as only you are the caption of your ship. Ultimately it is up to you that how efficient you are in doing wonders with the help of search engine marketing support.
A search engine marketing firm is paves your way to get top position in your field. In order to secure concrete positive results these firms do whatever they can to make you website noticeable on web but it can serve its purpose best if you are also ready to accompany it in every step. Accompanying the hired firm does not mean that you will also have to sit with them to discuss everything but it refers to the support that you may provide by entrusting them your site completely. Well you may have an excellent site with plenty of content and vibrant graphics but if you are not visible at search engine rankings then your site can never give desired results. Search engine marketing firm decides what content is needed to get identification among consumers. Though big traffic does not mean big profit but getting heavy traffic represents that people are taking interest in your product and a bit more convincing can turn them in to regular consumers.
Many products that are in mass demand, fails in touching estimated sales figure just because of unremarkable presence. To gain real visibility and trust of your online consumers you need to market it properly so that the real and steady traffic can move to your website. Whether you are going to sell product or offer services, analyze which section of society will be your chief consumer. It is going to be youngsters, housewives, professionals, businesses or students, your website must speak the language they understand means it should contain exact information they are looking for.
Using irrelevant and misleading keywords can affect the traffic. Search engine marketing firm emphasizes on correct usage of keywords and supportive keywords so that your site may solve it very purpose. If your website has plenty of meaningful content that cannot be replaced by keyword containing text then search engine marketing firm uses invisible text improve your search engine ranking. Such firms provide their clients with advanced methods that are helpful in increasing traffic and turning the visitors in to regular customers. They go beyond the regular search engine optimization and profit your business beyond your expectations.
http://www.articlebliss.com/Article/Stay-on-top-with-search-engine-marketing-firm/156277
A search engine marketing firm is paves your way to get top position in your field. In order to secure concrete positive results these firms do whatever they can to make you website noticeable on web but it can serve its purpose best if you are also ready to accompany it in every step. Accompanying the hired firm does not mean that you will also have to sit with them to discuss everything but it refers to the support that you may provide by entrusting them your site completely. Well you may have an excellent site with plenty of content and vibrant graphics but if you are not visible at search engine rankings then your site can never give desired results. Search engine marketing firm decides what content is needed to get identification among consumers. Though big traffic does not mean big profit but getting heavy traffic represents that people are taking interest in your product and a bit more convincing can turn them in to regular consumers.
Many products that are in mass demand, fails in touching estimated sales figure just because of unremarkable presence. To gain real visibility and trust of your online consumers you need to market it properly so that the real and steady traffic can move to your website. Whether you are going to sell product or offer services, analyze which section of society will be your chief consumer. It is going to be youngsters, housewives, professionals, businesses or students, your website must speak the language they understand means it should contain exact information they are looking for.
Using irrelevant and misleading keywords can affect the traffic. Search engine marketing firm emphasizes on correct usage of keywords and supportive keywords so that your site may solve it very purpose. If your website has plenty of meaningful content that cannot be replaced by keyword containing text then search engine marketing firm uses invisible text improve your search engine ranking. Such firms provide their clients with advanced methods that are helpful in increasing traffic and turning the visitors in to regular customers. They go beyond the regular search engine optimization and profit your business beyond your expectations.
http://www.articlebliss.com/Article/Stay-on-top-with-search-engine-marketing-firm/156277
Why Good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is Important
Many people new to internet marketing wonder why search engine optimization, or SEO, is so important. In explaining why, this article could be very short or very long, according to how much of the topic I wish to write on, although the answer is basically a matter of common sense.
Anybody who uses search engines to find out information, which is the vast majority of internet users, uses phrases to find the information they are seeking. These phrases, to them, best describe the information they seek. Thus, if the are looking for information on what to look for when buying a second hand car they might use the term ‘buying second hand cars’, or ‘buying used cars’, or ‘how to buy used cars’ and so on. Each of these terms is commonly termed a ‘keyword’, and searching for the most used keywords, or even lesser used keywords, is big business on the internet.
If you have a website, or even just one web page, dealing with that topic, you can optimize it only for one of these keywords if you want the bets results. Many people make the mistake of trying to optimize a webpage for all the keywords they can think of, totally ignorant of the fact that if they have 20 keywords then they should have 20 web pages, each optimized for one keyword.
Some people make millions of dollars explaining to others how to find and use these keywords on their websites, even though it is historical information. Yesterdays most frequently used keyword could never be used again for the rest of the year. Let me give you an example of that.
When I was new to internet marketing, I wrote a website to sell my trivia quizzes. I run trivia quizzes in my local pub, and at that time also sold them to pubs in nearby towns and cities and wrote a book on how to go about it. I decided to advertise it online and also to sell my trivia quizzes. I paid $6,500 for a mentor from Corey Rudl’s Internet Marketing Center to teach me how to do it, and I was shown how to use keyword research to publicise my book.
My mentor ended up recommending I use the keyword ‘black american history quiz’ since it had a very high demand and low supply: so I did. Silly me! He was Canadian, and he didn’t know that the word ‘quiz’ in the USA can also apply to a school exam, and the ‘black american history quiz’ was in demand by American high school kids for an exam on the topic.
I spent a fortune and made zilch. That is the last time I paid for information, and I was ripped off by the late Corey Rudl and his so-called Internet Marketing Center. At least that is my experience. It was only later that I found I could have got the same information free by registering for a few newsletters from other marketers.
I ended up losing many thousands of dollars through that experience, and using the bad information I was given, and am only now making up for it. That is the importance of knowing how to use SEO in your website. Learn how to select and use proper keywords, and do not be mislead by trends or spikes due to high school exams or current news as I was.
There are techniques to use to ensure that your website gets traffic from people browsing the web for information. If you know these techniques, you can make money from any topic, or niche, even if you personally know nothing about it. I have many websites on a number of topics, each of which makes me money in many different ways. There is no reason why you should do the same.
However, to do that, you must learn how to optimize each of the pages on your website. Stop regarding the site as an entity. It is the collection of pages that is important, each of those of which has to be treated as a separate entity. Every page will be listed separately in the search engines, and you need to know how to treat each differently, and how to optimize each so that every one will be listed in the search results when somebody uses your keyword to find the information they are seeking.
Good search engine optimization is very important, and without a good understanding of SEO, your internet business will have less a chance of success.
http://www.articlebliss.com/Article/Why-Good-Search-Engine-Optimization--SEO--is-Important/156357
Anybody who uses search engines to find out information, which is the vast majority of internet users, uses phrases to find the information they are seeking. These phrases, to them, best describe the information they seek. Thus, if the are looking for information on what to look for when buying a second hand car they might use the term ‘buying second hand cars’, or ‘buying used cars’, or ‘how to buy used cars’ and so on. Each of these terms is commonly termed a ‘keyword’, and searching for the most used keywords, or even lesser used keywords, is big business on the internet.
If you have a website, or even just one web page, dealing with that topic, you can optimize it only for one of these keywords if you want the bets results. Many people make the mistake of trying to optimize a webpage for all the keywords they can think of, totally ignorant of the fact that if they have 20 keywords then they should have 20 web pages, each optimized for one keyword.
Some people make millions of dollars explaining to others how to find and use these keywords on their websites, even though it is historical information. Yesterdays most frequently used keyword could never be used again for the rest of the year. Let me give you an example of that.
When I was new to internet marketing, I wrote a website to sell my trivia quizzes. I run trivia quizzes in my local pub, and at that time also sold them to pubs in nearby towns and cities and wrote a book on how to go about it. I decided to advertise it online and also to sell my trivia quizzes. I paid $6,500 for a mentor from Corey Rudl’s Internet Marketing Center to teach me how to do it, and I was shown how to use keyword research to publicise my book.
My mentor ended up recommending I use the keyword ‘black american history quiz’ since it had a very high demand and low supply: so I did. Silly me! He was Canadian, and he didn’t know that the word ‘quiz’ in the USA can also apply to a school exam, and the ‘black american history quiz’ was in demand by American high school kids for an exam on the topic.
I spent a fortune and made zilch. That is the last time I paid for information, and I was ripped off by the late Corey Rudl and his so-called Internet Marketing Center. At least that is my experience. It was only later that I found I could have got the same information free by registering for a few newsletters from other marketers.
I ended up losing many thousands of dollars through that experience, and using the bad information I was given, and am only now making up for it. That is the importance of knowing how to use SEO in your website. Learn how to select and use proper keywords, and do not be mislead by trends or spikes due to high school exams or current news as I was.
There are techniques to use to ensure that your website gets traffic from people browsing the web for information. If you know these techniques, you can make money from any topic, or niche, even if you personally know nothing about it. I have many websites on a number of topics, each of which makes me money in many different ways. There is no reason why you should do the same.
However, to do that, you must learn how to optimize each of the pages on your website. Stop regarding the site as an entity. It is the collection of pages that is important, each of those of which has to be treated as a separate entity. Every page will be listed separately in the search engines, and you need to know how to treat each differently, and how to optimize each so that every one will be listed in the search results when somebody uses your keyword to find the information they are seeking.
Good search engine optimization is very important, and without a good understanding of SEO, your internet business will have less a chance of success.
http://www.articlebliss.com/Article/Why-Good-Search-Engine-Optimization--SEO--is-Important/156357
Friday, October 19, 2007
Why Google is so popular?
Nowadays everyone seems to talk about Google. What makes Google so popular and great? Well the answer lies in these facts. Only this search engine has the capability to search more than 9 million urls. Google is able to crawl and index multiple pages at the same time and increase the chances of getting what you have been looking for. This returns more relevant results for your website. On the basis of a query Google returns the result that most likely match with your query and criteria. So you are able to get information on the top.
Google is fast and simple to use. In less than a second you are able to find the most results. Google also shows the cached version of the web page. Day by day Google is improving their results continuously. It provides results with information and links related to your query. Google helps to make and quickly find what you are searching for.
Lot of people trusts Google and this is the biggest search engine. People in good companies want to use it and put ads in these. There are also many choices in Google. There can be different results for different countries. So you can have a variety of choice and information forms all other world. Besides these Google are most dominant search engines in web. It is hard to think about web without Google. Google has entered in almost every aspect our our life.
Google marketing feature have covered various products like Google analytics, Google alerts, Google checkout, Google eblogger, Google toolbar-enterprise version. Google groups, Google adsense etc. and continuously research is going on these products to enhance it further.
The most popular online advertising tool these days has been Google AdWords. People are moving towards Google ad words that have something to offer by the way of products and services. Some people generally loose money through fraud clicks and bad techniques adopted by them. Google adword has become one of the top ways of money earning program and you can also implement ways to use get and use this program free of cost.
Adsense has been vital part of Google marketing. This has allowed webmasters to put content relevant advertisements on their websites. If a visitor clicks one of the adsense ads served to the website, the owner is credited for referral
Thus Google on its 9th birthday has become online electronic hub of human knowledge as it hold the distinction of indexing around billions of web pages as well as images ,books and vides . Google was registered in 1997 and it was officially launched one year later. People faith on Google has been growing as they are able to get the most exact and reliable information. Happy birth day Google. Go ahead with more innovations in the near future.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Why-Google-is-so-popular-/1816
Google is fast and simple to use. In less than a second you are able to find the most results. Google also shows the cached version of the web page. Day by day Google is improving their results continuously. It provides results with information and links related to your query. Google helps to make and quickly find what you are searching for.
Lot of people trusts Google and this is the biggest search engine. People in good companies want to use it and put ads in these. There are also many choices in Google. There can be different results for different countries. So you can have a variety of choice and information forms all other world. Besides these Google are most dominant search engines in web. It is hard to think about web without Google. Google has entered in almost every aspect our our life.
Google marketing feature have covered various products like Google analytics, Google alerts, Google checkout, Google eblogger, Google toolbar-enterprise version. Google groups, Google adsense etc. and continuously research is going on these products to enhance it further.
The most popular online advertising tool these days has been Google AdWords. People are moving towards Google ad words that have something to offer by the way of products and services. Some people generally loose money through fraud clicks and bad techniques adopted by them. Google adword has become one of the top ways of money earning program and you can also implement ways to use get and use this program free of cost.
Adsense has been vital part of Google marketing. This has allowed webmasters to put content relevant advertisements on their websites. If a visitor clicks one of the adsense ads served to the website, the owner is credited for referral
Thus Google on its 9th birthday has become online electronic hub of human knowledge as it hold the distinction of indexing around billions of web pages as well as images ,books and vides . Google was registered in 1997 and it was officially launched one year later. People faith on Google has been growing as they are able to get the most exact and reliable information. Happy birth day Google. Go ahead with more innovations in the near future.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Why-Google-is-so-popular-/1816
What is Google pagerank?
Everyone will have heard of the phrase ‘Google pagerank’ being mentioned from time to time, most people don’t even know what it is or how much of an important role is plays on the performance of your website. By learning basic methods that can increase your page rank you will be able to get the full potential out of your website. The scale goes from 0 – 10 with each step being harder to achieve, it doesn’t necessarily go up one level at a time, you could be page rank (pr for short) 0 when you first do your site and then after the first update, it could jump to pr 4. It depends solely on how much work you put into it, there are no set periods when Google decides to update but it’s generally around every 3 months or so. Basically Google page rank is the method of which Google uses to establish where in the search engine you will be place and your sites authority.
This does not mean if you have a pr 5 site you will outrank every competing page below you. There are a lot of factors that decide where you will actually rank which is why it’s important you do your research to ensure you don’t miss anything out that could severely affect your ranking. The pr of your website doesn’t really alter the search engine results that much compared to the content level and link building you will of performed, but if there are two or more identical pages, Google would place the one with highest pr above the rest.
A great way of increasing your page rank is to get other sites with high pr linking to your site, this will show to Google that highly respected sites think that you have a quality site which in turn will boost your pr. You need to put a lot of thought into your link building campaign, try to go for quality over quantity. Many people waste time grabbing thousands of pr0 sites which won’t have that much of an effect, Google may even penalise you for spamming. If you can get 10 pr5 links to your site it would give a better result than the thousands of pr0 would, if you get them on targeted sites you will have more chance of targeted traffic coming through to your website which has more chance of converting.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/What-is-Google-pagerank-/2353
This does not mean if you have a pr 5 site you will outrank every competing page below you. There are a lot of factors that decide where you will actually rank which is why it’s important you do your research to ensure you don’t miss anything out that could severely affect your ranking. The pr of your website doesn’t really alter the search engine results that much compared to the content level and link building you will of performed, but if there are two or more identical pages, Google would place the one with highest pr above the rest.
A great way of increasing your page rank is to get other sites with high pr linking to your site, this will show to Google that highly respected sites think that you have a quality site which in turn will boost your pr. You need to put a lot of thought into your link building campaign, try to go for quality over quantity. Many people waste time grabbing thousands of pr0 sites which won’t have that much of an effect, Google may even penalise you for spamming. If you can get 10 pr5 links to your site it would give a better result than the thousands of pr0 would, if you get them on targeted sites you will have more chance of targeted traffic coming through to your website which has more chance of converting.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/What-is-Google-pagerank-/2353
Optimize PDFs for search engines
As competitive as the online world becomes, it also is crucial that a website is noticed online.
As repetitive as this might be, Search Engine Optimization ensures that your web content appears when a user is searching for it. It is essential that search engines can read the content from a website therefore optimizing PDF files as well as normal HTML/ XHTML web content would be an excellent step to take.
Search Engines rate websites based on their relevancy to content and keywords, but also on many quality links the sites has - outgoing and incoming. The same way Search Engine Optimization specialists can optimize websites, PDF documents can be optimized too.
How to optimize a PDF file:
* Make all PDF's in text format, so that the search engine can read it;
* Complete the document's properties, (especially the title) - what usually happens is that people forget to set a title, that way the search engine will pick content from the PDF file and it might not be exactly what you would want.
* Optimize text, by making sure that selected keywords are there and can easily be identified;
* Add links to PDF files, so that readers can always be redirected to your website;
* Save files at the lowest possible Acrobat version, so that readers can easily open it, and search engines can find it;
* Sizes should be kept as small as possible, if files take too long to download users will abandon the site;
* Place links to your files on your web page where it can easily be found, i.e. closer to the root level of the site’s file structure.
* Specify reading order, in terms of text and headlines;
* Publish articles in different directories that directly link to your PDF documents
In order to achieve a higher ranking, it is important to use a set of well chosen keywords and relevant content, by optimizing PDF files. They can achieve a higher number of links and the opportunity to have more content associated with your website and your business, which would ultimately affect one's ranking on the most popular search engines.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Optimize-PDFs-for-search-engines/2540
As repetitive as this might be, Search Engine Optimization ensures that your web content appears when a user is searching for it. It is essential that search engines can read the content from a website therefore optimizing PDF files as well as normal HTML/ XHTML web content would be an excellent step to take.
Search Engines rate websites based on their relevancy to content and keywords, but also on many quality links the sites has - outgoing and incoming. The same way Search Engine Optimization specialists can optimize websites, PDF documents can be optimized too.
How to optimize a PDF file:
* Make all PDF's in text format, so that the search engine can read it;
* Complete the document's properties, (especially the title) - what usually happens is that people forget to set a title, that way the search engine will pick content from the PDF file and it might not be exactly what you would want.
* Optimize text, by making sure that selected keywords are there and can easily be identified;
* Add links to PDF files, so that readers can always be redirected to your website;
* Save files at the lowest possible Acrobat version, so that readers can easily open it, and search engines can find it;
* Sizes should be kept as small as possible, if files take too long to download users will abandon the site;
* Place links to your files on your web page where it can easily be found, i.e. closer to the root level of the site’s file structure.
* Specify reading order, in terms of text and headlines;
* Publish articles in different directories that directly link to your PDF documents
In order to achieve a higher ranking, it is important to use a set of well chosen keywords and relevant content, by optimizing PDF files. They can achieve a higher number of links and the opportunity to have more content associated with your website and your business, which would ultimately affect one's ranking on the most popular search engines.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Optimize-PDFs-for-search-engines/2540
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