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Stomping
the Search Engines --
Professional Search Engine Consultant Reveals his
Blue Print for Search Engine Domination
So, you want your Web site to rank high on Google and
other search engines.
To do that, you're planning on hiring a search engine
optimization (SEO) firm. Good move -- maybe. A good SEO firm
can help make your rankings and sales skyrocket. That's the
good news. The bad news is there are a lot of SEO firms out
there that will charge you big bucks without delivering
results. As someone in the SEO business myself, I've heard
countless horror stories about people who have gotten ripped
off by paying for services they didn't need, or simply not
understanding what their SEO firm is supposed to be doing on
their behalf.
Below are some of the things most SEO firms will never tell
you. Knowing these insider secrets can save you thousands of
dollars and many hours of frustration.
1. Most SEO work follows the 80/20 rule. In other words, 20%
of the work will account for 80% of the results. If that's
true (and believe me, from personal experience I know that
it is), you should make sure that the fee structure reflects
this. Ask for an itemized quote, so you can make sure that
you aren't paying too much for the other 80%. For example, a
lot of SEO experts will tell you they're going to spend X
number of hours tweaking your site's keywords and meta tags,
but there's really no hard evidence that those techniques
have a significant impact on your rankings. Doing simple
things like making sure your page structure is "search
engine friendly" (ensuring all your pages can be indexed by
search engines) is infinitely more important. As part of a
comprehensive SEO strategy, you still want to do the other
80%, but you want to make sure that the bulk of the priority
(and cost) is focused the effort that will produce the most
results.
2. You can receive a guarantee. Most big SEO firms say to
watch out for anyone who guarantees results. They'll tell
you most places that do so are nothing but scam artists.
Here's the truth: I can absolutely guarantee any business I
can get you ranked in the top 10 on Google for any keyword
you choose. It all depends on how much money you're willing
to spend and how long you're willing to wait for the
results. If an SEO firm is confident in their ability to
improve your rankings, why wouldn't they offer you a
guarantee?
3. You can see immediate results. Most SEO firms will try to
tell you it takes months to see tangible results. Wrong. In
fact, it's often possible to see results within a week,
depending on the keywords you're targeting. I know because
I've accomplished this for my clients time and time again.
Unless you're going after extremely competitive keywords, if
the SEO firm bidding for your business says it will take
three months to accomplish anything, they're probably just
looking to sign you up for a lucrative long-term retainer.
4. SEO work is not too complicated to explain in detail. Too
many SEO experts will balk if you ask them to explain in
detail the work they're going to do for you. But don't let
them off the hook. While some strategies may indeed be
technical, most of the techniques are easily explained --
especially some of the most important ones (see point #1
above about the 80/20 rule). If you're going to pay someone
a lot of money to work for you, you deserve and explanation
of exactly what they're going to do.
5. The greatest factor in SEO has nothing to do with your
web site. In my research, I've found that around 80% of the
Google ranking factors have nothing to do with the web site
itself. The real determining factors are links to your site
from other web sites. As long as your site is easily crawled
by Google, most of the energy should be focused on getting
these outside links. If an SEO firm tries to sell you an
expensive package to simply "optimize" your site for Google,
it's probably going to cost you a lot of money for very
little result.
For more information about
achieving Top Search Engine Rankings -
click
here.
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