Search engines are the basis of Internet existence and survival. Recent studies have concluded that over 90 percent of all web surfers use search engines to find what they are looking for. Thus, in order to be successful on the Internet, your website must be search engine friendly. If people who search the Internet for your products or services are not finding your Web site, you need search engine optimization (SEO).

Now some of you may take on the task of optimizing your own sites. For those people, there are plenty of “how to” articles on the Internet that can help you. If you need more help, drop me an email and I’ll give you some ideas. However, many webmasters decide instead to let an SEO company handle their marketing. Search Engine Optimization is a full time job, and many companies need to hire someone to do it for them. If this is your intent, you should know what to look for, and what to watch for, when selecting the right SEO company.

1. Make Sure They, and Their Clients, are Successful and Well Optimized

If your SEO company does not rank high on most major search engines under their specific services, then they probably won’t have the ability to get you high ranking on yours. For example, if you’re located in Boston, your SEO company should at least rank on the first page in Google, Yahoo, and MSN under such search terms as “Boston SEO,” “Boston Internet Marketing,” “Boston Web Marketing,” or even “Boston Web Design.” If you found them through pay-per-click or sponsored listings, this only means that they do not have the ability to optimize their own websites and are forced to pay for their clientele.

In addition, it is a good idea to check the success of their clients. All SEO companies have a client listing, if for no other reason than to offer front page links to their big spenders. Take a good look at these clients’ sites. Check for quality of content and keywords. View the source and see how well the meta tags are structured and how well they apply to the content given. And most importantly, go to the major search engines and find where these clients land on the search terms they are targeting. If the SEO company has created a successful marketing campaign for each of its clients, chances are you’re looking at a good SEO firm. However, if neither the SEO company or its listed clients have high rankings, I would recommend you find a firm that does.

2. Make Sure Someone Answers the Phone or Responds to Email

Although this may sound funny, I can’t stress how important it is to find a SEO company that will be there when you need them. Before choosing an SEO company, call them. If they pick up, you’re in good shape. If they don’t pick up, but call back within 2 hours, you’re still looking pretty good. If it takes you a handful of phone calls and emails, or a number of days to get a response, you might be in bad shape.

Say you’ve just received a new product that you would like to market. Say that product is seasonal, only for the holiday season, and your ability to sell it relies on the timeliness with which you can get it seen on the search engines. You need a company that you can contact to put immediate marketing efforts to your new pages and products. If it takes 3 to 4 weeks for your SEO firm to make changes and improvements, you might want to look for a company that can keep up with your fast-paced business and demanding customers.

3. Make Sure They Understand How Search Engines Work

Keeping a website at the top of the search engines has become a science. The best search engines frequently modify the way their databases list Web sites, and constantly change the search criteria used to find and present web pages.

To understand the quality of a company’s search engine optimization services, you must first understand how search engines work. Search engines list websites in two distinct manners: pay per click listings and organically optimized listings.

Pay per click listings are the listings that appear on the top or right side of most search engines under the heading “Sponsored Links”, or some related term. This type of listing is paid for. Web sites that wish to get top search engine placement without optimization can pay a certain cost that is charged to their search engine accounts every time their sponsored link is clicked on by a prospective client. Cost per click rates range anywhere between $0.10 and $10.00 per search. Some bigger-budget eCommerce businesses can spend up to $50,000 a month on pay per click marketing.

Organically optimized listings are the listings that appear at the top of search engine pages without having to pay for these listings. This type of listing is free. However, your website must be properly optimized to appear at the top of all search engines using organic optimization. Search engines use unique programs which send agents referred to as “spiders” and “robots” to your Web site to collect data. Your website must be structured properly to aid these robots in their search for information.

A quality SEO firm will know how to properly structure your website for top organic optimization and, ultimately, top search engine placement. Watch out for SEO firms that take your money and invest in pay-per-click marketing. Although this will get you immediate results, it does nothing to optimize your site in the long run, will not be as profitable as an organic marketing campaign, and will keep you dependent on SEO companies for your success. And pay-per-click marketing is something you can easily do yourself; if that’s the route you wish to take.

4. Make Sure They Follow-Up with Internet Research

In addition to knowing how to optimize correctly, an SEO firm should be constantly investigating the Internet’s most popular search engines in order to stay aware of the latest techniques for promoting a Web site on the Internet. If they are not giving you monthly reports on the status of your listings, the increasing quantity of your links, and the number of unique visitors to your site, you might not be working with the right SEO company. These reports should not only show where your site is ranked on each of the major search engines for each of the major terms you target, but also show you how you have improved from the previous month and where your competitors stand.

5. Make Sure You Constantly Know What They’re Doing

The major problem most people have with internet marketing guys is that they don’t see them everyday. It’s not like these guys come into the office everyday, or even sit down with the boss for a daily conference call. Most of them work out of their homes, spending 12 hours a day on the computer. Now I’m not saying that they will take your money and do nothing for you, but it’s good to keep your eyes on them like you would any employee. On the days that they work for you, have them send you day-end reports detailing the pages they optimized, the content they added, the keywords they marketed, and the links they added. This will allow you a better understanding of what they do on your clock, and allow you to keep your eye on their progress and effectiveness.

Overall, you can find a good SEO company. There are hundreds out there. But it is your responsibility to make sure you find the right one. Don’t just pick the first firm you find, then complain when you see no results. Find your results before you hire any SEO company, and you will put your business on the right track for Internet success.

Nathaniel Long is an Internet marketing specialist for Allied Internet Productions, a Denver-based web design and marketing company specializing in graphic and flash design, internet marketing and search engine optimization. Visit their site at http://www.alliedinternetproductions.com, or call them toll free at 800-935-1820.

However, some people are so obsessed with top search engine listing that they tend to undermine the importance of other web traffic generation techniques. These “trances” are partly caused by some misleading myths that surround the search engine marketing subject. Below are two of those myths with some empirical facts that contradict and refute them.

Myth #1: “You can’t get loads of targeted traffic without the top search engine listing.”

This is completely wrong. Jack Humphrey, the power linking guy, has given us a picture that it is possible to get huge amount of targeted traffic without the top search engine listing. In his Special Report, “What if Google Didn’t Exist?,” he shared one of his sites’ stat in April 2004 and guess what? From 71,444 unique visitors that he got at that month, “google search” referred only a small portion of them, i.e. 0.07%.

You can read Jack’s complete report at http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/weblog/index.php/weblog/googleexist/.

I also found another similar fact from Tinu Abayomi-Paul, the free traffic chick. In her blog post, “Site Promotion is Multi-Faceted,” she said that the search engines only constitute 6 – 10% of her traffic in any given month. While she didn’t tell us about the monthly amount of traffic to her website, I believe that her site gets huge traffic every month, because she has an Alexa ranking of 38,371 (that’s what my Alexa toolbar showed me at the time I wrote this article).

You can read Tinu’s complete blog post at http://www.freetraffictip.com/2005/06/site-promotion-is-multi-faceted.php.

Myth #2: “The major search engines are reliable sources of sustainable, residual, traffic.”

This is also inaccurate. Look at what happened to Alice Seba from Internet Based Moms. One of her websites, http://malcolmsweb.com, has been banned by Google, even though that website was full with good content. Since May 21, 2005, her visitors instantly dropped from about 700-800 per day to 200-250 per day.

You can read Alice’s complete story at her blog post, ‘Alice “White Hat” Seba Has Been Banned,’ at http://www.aliceseba.com/2005/06/alice-white-hat-seba-has-been-banned.html.

Now I don’t mean to undermine the importance of the major search engines. The major search engines are one of the biggest sources of targeted traffic on the net and so, you should do proper optimization and try to get top search engine listing.

But, don’t let yourself be misled by these myths and ignore many other web traffic generation techniques. With the unstable nature of the search engines, it would be wise to use the search engines only as one of your traffic sources and look for other traffic generation techniques to build multiple sources of traffic.

Mohamad Zaki Hussein is the webmaster of http://www.webtrafficideas.com. To learn how to increase web site traffic to your website by using a combination of Viral Marketing, RSS and Blog, grab the FREE “Instant Traffic Formula” report at http://www.webtrafficideas.com/getviral.

It may seem like a strange thing to talk about but before I begin, I’ll say this. There are many folks out there offering various SEO services and they are still not getting the profits that they would like to make. They are not REALLY profiting the way they might if they took a little different approach. The solutions that business owners need to really make a difference in the bottom line, require more than just bringing volumes of traffic to a site. You need targeted traffic mixed with a web strategy to compel response.

Then another group that seems to be doing well at first but the truth is they are making lots of promises and sales but they are not able to hang on to clients very long because they are not delivering long term results.

Many of my SEO clients have been with me 5 years plus. (I am still taking on new ones too.)

Let’s talk about the benefits of SEO to you as a search engine marketer, then we’ll give you 5 ways to profit:

Here are just a few legitimate benefits of offering SEO services to your clients.

–Increase your sales There’s no telling how many sales you can make when you not only can talk the talk but you can walk the walk and REALLY deliver results. Prospects can sense there is something different about you and your services. You are known as the one who fixes up Web sites that don’t work.

–Increase your repeat business I learned that just because someone buys a web site, it does not mean that they are happy with it. But if you can turn that Web site around and make it work, then that same client may even BUY a second or a third Web site, not to mention, buy various promotional services. All they need to see is, that what you do… really does work!

–Increase your referral business What can I say, but word gets around quick! Business owners talk to other business owners and every time you help someone out and make them successful on the net, it’s like they tell everyone else they know. Referral business is wonderful!

–Increase your credibility With the right training and talent, your client comes to think of you as simply brilliant. This is not because you are REALLY brilliant, but you just look after your client’s business as if it were your own. If your client insists that they have the best web marketer and SEO on the planet, why burst their bubble? You make them prosper and they make you prosper.

–Increase your confidence There is a difference your client notices in you…right down to your body language and that inner knowing that if I’ve gotten other folks awesome results last week, I can do it again no problem this week.

–Increase your authority I can not say enough about solid communication and managing client’s expectations honestly.

–Build Client loyalty Let the competitor just try and steal your clients with false promises or tricky claims. You’ve done a great job of educating your client and making them web wise. Now these things are quite profitable sounding but honestly, they are really just fringe benefits. Lets move on to talk about real profit options.

5 Ways to Profit from SEO: Here’s how it starts:

1. Stop focusing on sales and start focusing on your clients success!

There are so many “webmasters”, web designers, graphic artists in this business. Does it not just scare you a little bit? Don’t we have to enter into competition with other web developers and does it not become a rat race?

Start focusing on your client’s success.

Do all that you can do to make them successful. Pour all of your talents into making their projects work. So many folks I talk to can never stop thinking about where they will make their next sale instead of delivering results to the clients they ALREADY have and in so doing, you establish lifetime residuals.

Make your client successful and they will literally become part of YOUR sales team.

2. If you’re not up to speed, you better catch up fast. A difference in your performance is a difference in your profits!

If you are not up to speed on solid SEO marketing techniques and methods, start learning now. Take a course or study at a live workshop, but however you do it, get your SEO skills up to speed so you can really help people. If you can show them a strategy that really puts dollars in their pocket, they’ll put dollars in YOUR pocket!

3. How’s your batting average? How about profit sharing?

If your skills are medium to above average, why not share in the profits yourself. I am referring to offering someone a vertical contract. This would be a deal where you own part of the company in return for making it successful with your SEO skills. Don’t brush this off. There are some exceptional deals to be had if you start thinking laterally.

4. Don’t forget your community and charitable work.

When’s the last time you helped promoting a charitable work at NO cost. Build a site and promote it for the Literacy counsel or the Easter Seals Society or your Local Rotary Group or your Chamber of Commerce. Don’t forget that this work will often open unusual and even surprising doors. Help make others successful and you will not fail. Many important leaders within your local community will be serving on these committees right next to you! A great way to network and meet new people and help the cause.

5. Watch the latest SEO trends and position yourself to take advantage.

The study and practice of SEO has been very good to me. Five years ago, I never dreamed that my study of Optimization would lead to the Internet lifestyle. I look after my clients well and sometimes go a little beyond what some might do in the call of duty. I have clients that pay me well for my services and demonstrate that they care about my business. As a result of the work I have done, I have enjoyed wonderful repeat business and client loyalty. Referral business is the best type of business going because it does not really involve a lot of preparation or hard work. You know that when you arrive, that they really want YOU to do the job because of your track record. It’s wonderful business.

I could write a lot more but I hope you get the picture. If you have not been enjoying good profits, a rewarding lifestyle and being appreciated by your clients your need a plan of action.

SUGGESTIONS:

1. You MUST be able to “deliver” and really make a difference. Do whatever it takes to get your SEO skills and lateral thinking skills up to speed.

2. Run a balanced business. Are you charging for what your services are worth?

There are some folks who charge steeply and don’t know how to get the results. For gosh sakes, if you’re good at what you do, make sure you are charging well for your services. You DESERVE fair reward if your considerable skills are helping other business owners to prosper. (some people are afraid to charge for their work)

Note: The ones that charge steeply but DON’T deliver may make a few dollars initially, but they won’t enjoy the customer loyalty, the referral business, repeat business that you do and they won’t have a “customer for life” like you will.

3. Don’t forget to recognize and be thankful for the progress you’ve already made. Be sure to benchmark your victories but even more important, celebrate your CLIENT’S VICTORIES too! After all, you helped bring them about.

4. Give something back to your community (with gladness). Look for opportunities to help others who genuinely need help and avoid those who are only after your talents to exploit them. (Trust me, when your SEO talents and success stories increase, you’ll have strangers coming out of the woodwork to take you to dinner and pick your brain). Proceed with wisdom.

5. You must be willing to change and take action! Performing the way you perform now has delivered a certain result. So if your happy with that result, carry on exactly the same way and you should get very similar results. If you are not happy with your results now, then you must change the way you do things.

Same action = same result

Different action = new results

Are you looking for new results?

Is it a time for a change of action?

Here’s wishing you the ultimate success.

About The Author

John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive “hands on” http://www.searchengineworkshops.com in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team at http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html.

john@searchengineworkshops.com

Whether deliberately or accidentally, these websites get caught by so called (GOOGLE
POLICE CRAWLER) and in a similar fashion your site domain goes to a prison cell.
While staying in this prison cell for 2-3 or maybe 4 months, google police
crawlers revisit the cell to check the status of the website domain.

If the site webmaster or whosoever handling the site notices that the site is not showing on google or any other search engine, and manages to pin point the defect
in the site, your website gets back to life, otherwise your site gets
life imprisonment for rest of its life, and no one can bring it back, unless you
are a hacker and go inside google database to modify your site details.

Normally people ignore POLICE CRAWLER’s in the first place, and later find that it’s too late. If you detect any fluctuations in google rankings, it could be possible that your site is entering Google’s Sandbox.

Google has a rule book of a fickle minded child which changes every 2-3 months,
and several sites which do not keep their sites updated with the changes in the
algorithm google is using to crawl your site, gets off the track, and ultimately
die a slow death.

It’s more like a slow poison, where your site dies not in a single day, but
slowly, without your knowledge, because google would never disclose openly that your site has indeed been penalized.

Earlier the sites used to get penalized, and were immediately removed from the
google search engine. Like for example, I was given task to restore the site
www.yxz.com, about 4 months ago

Now some of the problems facing with the site were

1)Their url was not even showing on google.

Now closely examining site page by page I came to know that one of their pages
was pointing to their partner site www.abc.com, which received life imprisonment on google.

2) Moreover both were sharing same IP address, and the site received penalty on google.

Now if you are hiding a criminal in your house, you are also a part of active crime, and police will certainly punish you in the same manner, maybe in a mild fashion.

I explained my theory, and recommended them to remove the link pointing to abc.com, and certain redirections on certain page, but they the owner was bit skeptical about what I was talking and gave me a lecture on “what’s the importance of
www.abc.com” for their business, and other Business Jargon

“OK I said”, why not go for flash link on that particular page. and, problem got resolved and site got restored within a month.

The site was banned for more than a years, and nobody in the company looked into the matter why their site is not showing on google.

Thankfully the site got restored, but unluckily manager decided to close the company site since it has suffered great loss over a period of last one year due to several factors, one of them was their ranking on google, which was bringing them customers 30-50 every month from google and other search engines.

Similarly its important for any WEBMASTER, or the owner of the site to keep track
of its rankings on google, because if some updates are done to the algorithm, it could be possible that your site is not adhering to the latest algorithm.

Good Luck

Name: Bhupinder Singh

Occupation: Working as webmaster for BSOLUTIONS, http://www.bsolutions.s5.com, and seoexpert in http://www.seohawk.com. I have worked for several international clients from UK, US, CANADA, and India. Having experience of more than 3 years in web development and Search Engine Optimization, I have evolved a wide expertise in Search Engine Optimization Techniques.

Contact me: bhupinder@bsolutions.s5.com OR bhupinder@seohawk.com