Are These SEO Services What You Really Need?
It goes without saying that there are going to be many SEO services that will not suit your needs or will even make sense to you. Don’t be alarmed by these or get down-hearted and stop searching. The right company is out there for you, so just ignore those that you do not have any need of, and move on. Once you find a couple sites that seem good to you, click on each link to check to see if they are what you need to be able to get yourself up and running and/or keep your SEO Articles and web content fresh and up-to-date. Once you have looked the websites over and have decided which of these will be exactly what you need in terms of making yourself more noticeable in the world of SEO and all over the Internet, it is time to contact them and find out as much information as you can about them.

Make Sure That the Particular SEO Services Provider is Available When You Need Them
The next thing to look into is how easy is it to contact the SEO services providers that you have decided that you are going to be working with. Is there an e-mail address and a customer service department or technician’s e-mail address and/or phone number that you can use to easily get in touch with the customer service department and/or technician when you need them?  Most SEO Services providers have this information available to those who want to work with them. How are you supposed to get your SEO related problems solved if you cannot even get in touch with the team that deals with SEO matters?

Make Sure That Link Building is One of the SEO Services
Finally, make sure that Link Building is part of the package. Almost all of the present SEO services will provide link building services as part of their SEO tools, and almost everyone that has ever built a website, business or personal, needs access to the link building services so that you are getting the best SEO services.

Some of these services are a good start. What I tell most my readers looking for an SEO service provider is to make sure they understand what is being offered. One thing I have learned is to communicate as clearly as possible to clients. Samples of what is being offered is not a bad thing. The problem is most SEO service providers don’t want to share their nuts and bolts with “potential” clients. I firmly believe as long as the provider sends you the right information specific to your needs there is no reason why finding the right company should be a huge task.

• Does the professional SEO consultant know his or her business?
• How long have they been doing this type of work?
• Do the SEO writers write their own SEO articles?
• Do the SEO writers know about article submission and directory submission and how to use SEO tools in order to maximize effectiveness?
• Does the professional SEO specialist make pie in the sky promises, or are they very realistic and based on experience?
• Do they know the top ways to get Google ranking?
• Is the professional SEO consultant aware of the latest trends and knows just how to get clicks to your website by using Meta tag descriptions and top ranking?
• Do they offer SEO services that are custom built to you and your needs?
• Are their prices and services reasonable? What approaches and strategies do they employ to raise your search engine position? Does the company use doorway pages (the answer should be no)
• Is the professional SEO specialist willing or not to work with your competitors? (This is a must know! This must be agreed to before you let them work for you. Have the guarantee in writing and make certain that it is legally binding for the professional SEO services that you are thinking about choosing.)
• What are the SEO service provider’s track records? (Find out what search engines they have had success with and what keywords and phrases they have had the most results with. Also, find out if they have good results over an entire site.)

When dealing with a professional SEO specialist, you need to make sure that they have done the work they say they have done.  Ask your consultants if they can show you a report that shows rankings through many search engines for six months. Make sure the report that is shown to you is in a format that you can easily understand. SEO services are not cheap, so finances will have to figure into the equation. Most professional SEO consultants will also happily give you references and will answer any precise and specific questions. Finally, you will need to find out whether or not the professional SEO specialist’s work results/end in a higher rate of return.

These are just some general guidelines to go by when looking for a professional SEO specialist. If you get all of your questions answered, references checked and reports verified, then you are well on the way to hiring a true winner. By choosing the right consultants, you will not only be assured of a better return, but also you will be dealing with someone that is ethical and willing to do business just for you, not your competitors. One last thing to keep in mind is just because you have a higher page rank or are on Page #1 on Google does not mean you will get conversions… that has to do with online marketing and social networking not SEO. Choosing the right company can be a little bit of a hassle, but it is well worth it.

The fact of the matter is that you may find that some SEO techniques work exceedingly well, bringing you and the client the best possible results, more so than you could have even anticipated. Then again, some techniques are failures before they even leave your mind. No matter how many times you try a certain strategy (and this can differ by situations and change easily with trends), it just won`t work. The advice for the latter is pretty simple: do something different. Throw that technique away, or shelve it as an SEO memorial of days gone by, and move on to something else. This is often a problem that you will run into and one that you must learn to deal with, for the health and wealth of your client.

Unfortunately for some, the strategy known as Reciprocal linking fits into this latter category. The practice of `swapping off` links to other`s pages in an effort to boost traffic and bring in more bang for the buck simply is an archaic method and needs to be let go. Put the High School track trophy into another room, and place this strategy on the top shelf of your study`s bookcase. It is old news. And it will back fire on you more times than it helps you. This is due to the fact that searchers who you use your links are really using you to cross-connect – to get somewhere else other than your page. They don`t and won`t stay long enough to look around and possibly buy. So don`t waste your or their time.

Now, a warning must be given: don`t turn a deaf ear to this; please listen. The temptation for those who are used to this strategy is to stop up their ears, turn the music up louder and pretend that you don`t hear me. If you do that, you won`t be listening or receiving the information that can (and will) give you the edge that you are looking for. Look, if I have said once, I have said it a 1000 times. The world of SEO is not a solid rock on which we all stand and bask in the sunlight. More times than not it feels more like sinking sand. To avoid losing your footing and to stay upright, you will have to be flexible. Don`t make things worse off or more complicated for yourself by sticking to what you think worked in the past. It`s just not that simple anymore.

The problem is that this is not going to work for very much longer, folks. The SEO structure is completely changing as Google and the other main search engines are switching their focus from keyword-dense content to what is called “organic” content. A roadblock has been built on your “established” way, and it is time to find a detour.

What is meant by “organic” web content? Simply put, organic content is articles, blogs and other mediums that are not loaded with keywords and/or are highlighted in any way; instead, they are naturally written material that stand out because they have relevant, relatable information for whatever is put into the search engine. Another way of defining “organic” would be to say that they are not paid results in any way, but are grouped according to what the crawlers consider to be the answer to the search inquiry. This is a drastic departure from the older SEO approach.

For those new to all of this, this is how the older approach worked. The SEO-based content is the stuff that has all of those keywords that are either bolded or highlighted in color, mostly red, so that the search engine crawlers can find the keywords and be able to “rank” the webpage or article in order of how many times it is clicked on, read and used more often than the other material that contains the same or similar information. Then, those web pages and articles are “ranked” according to the keyword content.

By going “organic” Google and the other major search engines are about to turn the search engine world on its ears by totally changing the way content is ranked. Pretty soon, there will no longer be much need for SEO-based content, and that has many of the people who gain their living and reputations by mastering the SEO-based content running around like chickens with their heads cut off. But now is not the time to lose your head. Nor is now the time to press forward on your proverbial path, even if there is a roadblock staring you in the face. The key here is to start switching the focus of your writing style from SEO-based to organic-based content that will actually do better in the long run.

Gain control. Take a detour. Be willing to adapt and go “organic.” This is where the market is heading, and this is your best way to stay competitive and current.

Look, maybe I have been in this industry long enough to differentiate between ideal clients and the clients you want to stay away from. Nevertheless, for the sake of this article let’s discuss clues and information that should give you a red flag or a green one in this venture.

Check Out a Complete List of Services Offered

You are probably thinking, “Well that’s obvious”. However, what I am referring to is other than the obvious:

Full Service Search Engine Optimization
SEO Consultation
Link building
Directory Submissions
SEO Training
SEO KEI
Landing Pages

Do They Have Excellent Customer Service?

Now that in itself would sell me. Can they respond to your questions without getting too complicated? I know I sometimes contact SEO service providers to see how they respond – just for kicks.

Let me explain something; no one can guarantee you top page on Google, and that seems to always be the first thing out of their mouths. They need to understand your specific needs in more than just a diagram. You see, the basics work for everyone, but what will make the best provider different is they will plan and brainstorm with you regarding your goals.

Are These SEO Services What You Really Need?

It goes without saying that there are going to be SEO providers offering you irrelevant things that sound good. My favorite is link building. Inevitably they will get you links with some obscure website that “may be” relevant to your niche market.

You see, in order to make the SEO service provider work for you they have to do their homework. They have to know the “basics” of link building strategy. Let me clarify: they will offer articles, blogs, forums, etc. for the purpose of link building, but I would insist they outline their approach clearly. This would save you a ton of headaches in the future. This can help you build and establish yourself in your market.

As SEO consultants, we think of various strategies for each client. To some we may suggest landing pages and split testing them. Some we may even send them to our sister company who handles PPC. Make sure your search ultimately gives you a progressive thinking SEO provider.

Make Sure That the Particular SEO Services Provider is Available When You Need Them

This is one of my pet peeves. I have actually been guilty of talking for hours with clients. Look, we live in a competitive world. Everyone is an SEO Guru and there are some great ones out there.

More importantly, consider how this provider is treating you as a potential client. Can you contact them easily? How fast do they return your calls? You know the drill – you want to know the provider is there for their success. They have to participate in the process. Unless they are willing to pay for all the man hours involved in the Social media side of things you can only guarantee them organic traffic. Keep in mind SMO is where SEO is going.

In all fairness, I should mention if you are a client reading this, make sure you have your questions ready. I know the reason I have been caught in the “talking to the client” for hours – I was teaching them about SEO. I resolved that by sending people to our blogs.

Once you find the right SEO providers, make sure they take the time to understand your business. They have to deliver “general” SEO services, that’s a given, but make sure they have a strong understanding of who you are. This takes more than writing articles, blogs etc. This takes creative conceptualization on their part, and that, my friends, is where the SEO Guru’s can outshine the others.

The real point (and advantage) of SEO Articles is that the keywords/phrases are designed to get the attention of the search engine “crawlers” – electronic spiders that go searching the entire Internet for the information that you are looking for based upon what you have just typed into the search box. SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is designed to help the search engine “crawlers” in finding what you want based upon how those SEO Articles are ranked by the search engines themselves.

How do you write SEO Articles? First of all you need to know the basics. The main thing is to pick out a word or phrase that characterizes your item, product or idea. This can be anything from the name of a specific product or place to something like the keyword “writing SEO articles.” The point of the keywords/phrases is to highlight the main idea of what the SEO article is all about. If you are writing SEO articles for someone else, they are likely to give you the necessary keywords that they need used in the article and how often those keywords need to be there. Now, this might still bring you, and possibly your client, right back to the original question here: when is SEO necessary?

Is SEO necessary to make your mark in this very competitive marketplace? This is one of those questions that people have been asking for quite a while, and the answer is a resounding YES folks! SEO Articles are meant to draw the attention of not only the search engine crawlers but also those readers that you really want to reach. The purpose that you are trying to achieve with your SEO Articles is to get the reader to go to a certain website and/or to buy the product or service that you are talking about. Some of these SEO Articles, for example, will give you all of the information that you could possibly want about certain travel destinations all across the globe – places that you might be interested in traveling to in vacation. When you have all of that great information about places that you don’t know anything or that much about, it will help you to decide if you want to make that place you next travel destination. See how it works?

This is why it is so important that you keep on top of things in the world of SEO Articles and keep up with the changing trends and the rules involved in this type of article writing. Many businesses think that they don’t need to know anything about SEO Articles, but they are very wrong indeed. This kind of thinking is what leads them to ask the question in the first place. So when is SEO necessary? To put it bluntly and honestly: all the time, indeed.

If you’re starting at the bottom as a new website owner, it’s an unrealistic outlook to consider the head dogs – who have been in place for years – as your competition; good SEO service providers will tell you this.  When building a web-based business, the competition isn’t necessarily those that sell what you sell.  Instead, you’re competing for placement, with SEO as a main way to wrestle your way to the top of the Google SERP (search engine results page) dog pile; and SEO means keywords.  Those keywords are the first step to finding your direct competition.

Finding Your Competition
Though all SEO service providers have their own methods for competitive benchmarking, you can take some basic steps on your own to get an idea of whom your competitors are.
1. Put the keyword or phrase in the search bar and see how many results come up.
2. Write down (or copy/paste into Word) the number one site for each search phrase you use.
3. Use the same keyword search with the “intitle:” command and “inanchor:” command.
4. Write down the sites that come up in these results.

The sites in the number one positions and those that come up for the “intitle:” and “inanchor:” searches are your most likely competition.  Although there are other things SEO service providers can do to narrow down the list, you now have a broad idea of who you’re fighting with for the top position in your field.

Researching the Competition
Now that you know who they are, find out what they’re doing that makes their site more visible.  To do this, first look over their content and ask:

Is it informative, interesting and high quality?
Does it stand out?
How is it different from yours?

If content is an issue and writing isn’t your forte, most reputable providers offer SEO copywriting services.

Look at their navigation and take in the details.  If yours is more complicated, perhaps that’s an issue.  You want your navigation to be as uncomplicated as possible, but set up in such a way as to guide your visitors to interesting places on your site.

A word to the wise: While you’re looking over the competitors’ sites, don’t make the mistake of some SEO service providers.  Don’t get so stuck on the idea of “I can do better” that you forget the bottom line, which is taking the best of all their sites and forging a top of the line site of your own.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to take notes!  That way, when you’re ready to hire your own SEO service providers you’ll actually understand a little bit more of what they talk about and how they do it.

Professional SEO writers will know that the first thing that you do is create SEO articles with keywords pertinent to the business.  While you are designing your site, most SEO writers will tell you that you have to create keyword optimized content. This is done by using keywords-rich articles that pertain to the product or service that you are selling. Then you will go about the process of article submission and directory submission in order to drive traffic to your site. By submitting these articles to directories, you can increase your traffic which, in turn, increases your business.

Now your next step is to make sure that your Hyperlinks are all working and formatted correctly. It does no good for an SEO consultant to get the hyperlinks wrong on a page. This is one part of SEO web design that you simply must know about in order to get the maximum benefit of the SEO optimized site. You will also have to have the hyperlinks correct in order to get clicks to your website. You must also know how to create Meta tags, Meta tags descriptions and top ranking in order to place highly on Google or any other search engine.

Using SEO tools on a SEO web design is a sure-fire way to have all the search spiders’ crawl all over your site. Bear in mind, the more uncluttered and simply designed that your site is, the farther up in the rankings you will be. Another way, if you listen to latest trends, is to become W3C compliant and use the newest version of HTML, which is #5. Bear in mind that this doesn’t work for everyone. By hiring an SEO professional to do the SEO articles, if you don’t do it yourself is an investment that is money well spent.

Now you have some idea of what SEO web design is all about.  By using SEO articles and using SEO tools, you will be better able to develop your site for search engine optimization. By making sure that article submission and directory submission is done correctly, you have laid the ground work for making your site very successful and profitable indeed – not to mention the coveted higher rankings on Google. So bear in mind that both professional SEO writers and professional SEO consultants will get your site “ship shape” in no time flat, and, if you so desire, by following the information in this article, you, too, can also do this.

The first thing that you need to be aware of is that it takes quite a bit of searching online and reading through the material that you find to begin to understand how to get started in the process of Directory submission. You will have to sift through a lot of information and read carefully. There are many different choices and sites out there, so you will have to be able to make some choices. One way of doing this is by looking at their Terms of Service section.

Once you land on a site that you prefer, spend time with the Terms of Service section/page to know exactly what it is that you are getting yourself into. This section will tell you what you, as the client, need to do to live up to the agreement with the Directory submission website and company as well what both you and the Directory submission provider will be responsible for in terms of the content of the SEO articles and websites that you intend to submit. All sites are different, and the requirements vary.

So don’t read one and then decide to skip all the rest. Read them thoroughly. Once you do thoroughly understand, in the greatest detail possible and with as much depth as is required, everything that is expected of you and what steps are involved in the processes of both Directory submission and Article submission, then you will be able to decide if this is the website for you or not.

The next step is to contact those in charge of the website and to begin to set things up. They will know where, when and how to place your submissions in the best possible spots where they will get the maximum exposure that will drive great amounts of web traffic “to your door,” so to speak. These folks already know which article and website submission directories are the very best ones to get you noticed, and they know how to really bring the traffic to your website. Trust them.

Now, there is no doubt that all of this might leave you asking the question “what am I going to do if none of the Directory submission services even comes close to being what I need for my business and/or personal needs?” This is also a very common question that is heard all the time. The answer is that there might not be an absolutely perfect service for you out there, but that should not stop you from choosing a site. Honestly, what you are looking for is submission and exposure. As long as you get your articles and web pages out, then you are good to go.

“Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.”  Google Guidelines, 2008

There’s been an argument for a long time between SEO services about whether there should be SEO standards or not.  In depth arguments under this topic include whether or not a set of standards is actually a “best practices” list or an inhibiting factor for SEO.

Now Google has published a set of “optimization guidelines”. Is this best practice or SEO inhibition?

Consider this: Google is the number one search engine.  The big Kahuna.  If Google says, “This guide will help make your website more ‘crawlable’… these are the basic guidelines for optimizing for our search engine”, should we really be worrying about semantics?  Does it really make a difference if they’re best practices or constricting standards?

Better yet, as companies that provide SEO services, aren’t we obligated by our positions to at least look them over?  I mean, if anybody knows what works and what doesn’t for sure, wouldn’t it BE Google?

Google Guidelines for Optimization
Providers of SEO services may or may not disagree with the guidelines.  After all, SEO is a school of many theories.  However, most, if not all, of these guidelines make sense; to turn away because you don’t want to be “hemmed in” by rules or structure is to turn away from success for your clients:

•    Make every page accessible with at least one static text link. Definitely “best practices” for SEO services and web designers.  Just like users, engines don’t like to have to search for informational pages.

•    Have information-rich pages that describe your content well. Again, “best practices”. For example, what good is it to have a site with information that isn’t related?

•    Use text to display important content instead of images. While you can put text over an image, using an image to display the text cuts down on the effectiveness of the copy your SEO services provide.

•    Check your site with a text browser. If you can’t see all of your site because of fancy flash and script, neither can Google.

•    Use an XTML Sitemap. For those sites that are too complicated to be crawled, an XTML Sitemap is especially helpful.  If the spiders get lost, they can refer back to the sitemap.

•    Don’t try to trick the search engines to improve ranking. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done for a client to a competitor, don’t do it.

The guidelines also lay out a list of “don’t-do’s”, including cloaking, automated queries, and pages with irrelevant keywords, among others.

This is just a small portion of the list; there are many more tips in the Google guidelines.  So, to all the other SEO services out there I say, forget semantics, unless it’s semantic web, and read the guide.  Whether best practices or SEO standards, the guidelines are there to show us the way. Can I get an Amen!