Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.
So, you are the marketing manager of your firm, and you've finally decided to pull the trigger and hire the search engine optimization company that you've been talking to for months. The budget has been cleared, the SEO firm is ready to start, and it should be just a matter of time before you start seeing a huge uptick in business. Right?
AOL, once considered a pioneer in internet technology, has fallen on hard times over the years, unable to devise an effective branding strategy. A failed merger with Time-Warner, a non-focus on search while Google built an empire (the AOL search engine eventually began serving up Google results on its portal site), and declining dial-up business are all contributing factors to the ongoing difficulties of AOL and its search engine.
Roughly a year ago, local search engine optimization was all the rage - the new frontier in search engine marketing. For a while, it seemed that everyone was interested in the local search angle - even multi-national companies. However, for many companies selling products or services to the entire United States, or even globally, it seemed like a non-starter.
As of this writing, there are five top Internet search engines: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com, and while Google and Yahoo! get a lot of the press (particularly lately), the Ask.com search engine is a rather interesting engine that deserves a closer look. This article will cover some of the highlights in its 12-year history, from its start as Ask Jeeves to its innovations, as well as the most recent developments behind the scenes.
Until recently, there were five major players in the search engine world: Google, MSN, AOL, Ask.com, and the Yahoo! search engine. These top Internet search engines quickly could be narrowed down to four, however; AOL uses the Google algorithm and will yield nearly identical results. Further narrowing is rapidly occurring - Ask.com seems to be stepping out of the spotlight to focus on specific markets, and in early March 2008, Microsoft began attempting to purchase the Yahoo! search engine. If there are just two top search engines with which to be concerned, what does this mean for your business and for SEO as a whole?
It's a common question that companies who are considering hiring a search engine optimization company often face - is this something that we can do in-house? More importantly, can we do this in-house and get the same results that an expert search engine optimization company would provide?
As any good search engine optimization company knows, in search, more so than any other medium, you have a very short window of opportunity in which to engage your prospect. The only way to get a solid competitive advantage in this arena is to utilize various techniques in order to make sure that you are giving a prospect exactly what it is that he or she is looking for. Otherwise, your prospect will simply click the back button and visit one of your competitors - a process that only takes seconds.
If the buzz is to be believed, Sam's Club is now a search engine optimization company that is targeting the local search market aggressively. The fact is, this isn't something new; it's just recently come to the forefront. Sam's Club has partnered with a company called Innuity to offer a program that is primarily targeted at small businesses looking to get noticed in the local search results....
Have you ever been surfing the web and come upon Internet advertising that provides a direct solution for something that you've been researching lately? Did you think that it might be related to your computer cookies, or did you chalk it up to serendipity?
Nearly all search engines utilize spiders (which are also known by their original name, robots) to go out and scour the web looking for web pages. These search engine spiders then bring the data back to be indexed by the engine.
What many people failed to realize was that when Google purchased DoubleClick, it now was also the owner of a very large search engine optimization company called Performics, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of DoubleClick. This fact is of course raising some eyebrows in the industry.
There are many keyphrase tools out there, but any quality search engine optimization company should know that they are in no way replacements for true market research. When one is embarking on a campaign of marketing on the Internet, it is important to select keyphrases that represent an understanding of one's audience. In this article, we'll discuss two crucial aspects of keyphrase research that your search engine optimization company should be taking into consideration: knowing the prospect and knowing the company.
The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results – that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory.
The future of search is unclear – what is clear is that change is rapidly happening for all of the top Internet search engines. Google as always is the front runner for many of these search trends, but even little guys like Ask.com are making waves. In this article, I will attempt to cover some of the more interesting search trends that are occurring today with the top Internet search engines – but I am by no means being comprehensive about the subject. Things are changing on a weekly, or sometimes even daily, basis, and future articles will cover additional developments in depth.
So you have decided to hire a search engine optimization company as a part of your overall marketing strategy. The firm that you choose will have a tremendous impact on the success of your campaign, but you knew that already. However, what are your evaluation criteria? For too many companies, the answer is plain, simple, and singular: rankings.
It's an unfortunate fact - no matter how good your search engine optimization company or in-house talent is, brand new websites have a more difficult time achieving search engine success for competitive phrases than their older counterparts, particularly on Google. However, the worst thing that a new site owner can possibly do is presume that they are "too late to the game" and decide not to pursue this marketing channel at all.
by Scott Buresh - There is quite a difference in what is seen by humans on a website and what is seen by a search engine "spider" (a program that routinely combs the Internet indexing websites). There are an untold numbers of expensive websites out there that are beautiful to behold from a human perspective, yet all but invisible to search engine spiders (and thus searchers).
Google is now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users, and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to "Do No Evil," as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the trust is well-placed, or if people are willing to trust search engines with this type of data at all....
Organic search engine optimization, until recently, had been a fairly straightforward endeavor. The goal was to optimize the content on a website so that it would show up in the organic results on one or more of the major search engines – results that were comprised of nothing but other websites....
When a company is considering embarking upon a search engine optimization campaign, the first discussion that normally is had is whether to take care of the campaign in house or to hire an outside SEO firm. Companies making this choice need to compare the actual cost of an in-house campaign if you are expecting the same type of results that you would get with an outside SEO firm....
Many companies are not aware of the different roles that various departments in their organization will fill when they begin to work with an outside SEO firm. What follows is a demonstration, in play form (bear with me), of which internal departments are involved in a typical SEO campaign and why. It also demonstrates some of the resistance that may be felt by those departments as well as what valuable contributions a company can make to help its SEO firm craft a successful campaign....
Let's face it - any search engine optimization company knows that the industry has carried a collective black eye for many years. This is unfortunate, because there are many firms out there that do outstanding work and who must struggle for simple legitimacy simply because there are so many fly-by-night companies and snake oil salesmen out there....
While both paid search advertising and organic optimization have their merits in terms of increasing a company’s online exposure, it is important to understand the differences in the respective investments and to determine why cost per click is not a fair indicator of the performance of a search engine optimization company....
Many websites currently offer a resource library for visitors – an area filled with articles covering relevant topics to the industry with which the site is connected. While it's true that a resource library, on the surface, exists to benefit site visitors, it doesn't end there -- they also provide benefits that can directly impact any business....
If your prospective search engine optimization company has satisfactorily answered all of your questions as outlined in the first two articles, it may indeed be a perfect fit for your business. However, there are still some important areas that need to be covered - primarily related to business assurances and expectations....
Last month, I went over questions that you should ask your potential search engine optimization company regarding its tactics. That set of questions is critical, as before moving forward with any of the myriad of search engine optimization companies out there, you should always determine whether or not they will put your site at risk of penalization in the major search engines (leaving your website worse off than when your campaign started)....
The following is the first of a three-part series that provides a list of questions to help you to determine if the company you are considering is deserving of your trust. In this installment, we’ll focus on the tactics that search engine optimization companies might use that could put your website at risk of penalization or removal from the major search engines....
When people hear about online marketing, they often think of two of the more popular methods that a company can use to enhance its visibility on the Web: organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. In an ideal world, you would use both strategically to maximize your site's profile. However, budgetary constraints often make this impossible, and trying to do both on a limited budget or with minimal resources can result in neither campaign producing ideal results....
The average search engine optimization company is in high demand, and with rising pay-per-click costs and growing exposure of SEO in the mainstream media, this is unlikely to soon subside. Unfortunately, many organizations that willingly embrace SEO as a marketing tool also unknowingly sabotage the efforts of the search engine optimization company they have chosen....
If your internal resources are already strained to the breaking point, you are probably considering outsourcing your SEO efforts. The search engine optimization company that you select should have the capability to handle all aspects of the project with minimal involvement from your company to save you time and keep your branding strategy intact....
The search engine marketing industry is not for the faint-hearted or those who abhor change. However, savvy search engine marketing firms try to look ahead to anticipate trends. Here are my predictions of issues that search engine marketing services will face in the short term....
There is, with only a few exceptions, a common denominator in the websites that remain highly ranked throughout these algorithm shifts. They offer something of value to their visitors and are considered a resource for their industry....
Search engine optimization is still a very new concept to most companies. Even the most respected companies can make mistakes in this arena, either by choosing the wrong SEO service, or by trying to avoid hiring an SEO service altogether by bringing it in house with well-intentioned but unqualified people....
Even those familiar with search engine optimization have common misconceptions about the value of SEO in business to business marketing. While e-commerce companies can and do benefit tremendously from SEO as a marketing tool, there are many factors in search engine optimization that actually favor B2B companies in terms of overall benefit from the channel....
Guarantees have been around for at least as long as leprechauns have been hoarding breakfast cereal and starring in bad horror films. A good guarantee should not only appeal to the base emotion of a potential purchaser, but it should also afford some real protection that the purchase he or she is making will provide meaningful results....
As many companies are discovering, professional SEO is an incredibly powerful and cost-effective addition to the existing marketing mix....
Companies often fear that they are paying ongoing fees for one-time work, and, unfortunately, these fears are often justified....
The Independent Search Engine and Directory Network (ISEDN), founded in June 2005, is an alliance of approximately 48 niche search engines and directories....
If your company is considering doing SEO in-house, there are some critical questions that you should address before you proceed....
When it comes to search engine optimization strategy, there are basically two camps – those who view search engines as adversaries to be conquered at any cost and those who regard search engines as partners in their online marketing efforts....
In general, if a prospect can’t explain what he or she hopes to achieve beyond “higher rankings” or “more traffic,” we’ll first try to educate, and, if that person can’t move beyond these base subjects, we’ll kindly refer them elsewhere....
Often, the cost of effectively performing SEO in-house, when fully calculated, will be equal to or greater than the costs of outsourcing (due to a sizable learning curve and the necessary testing and experimentation required)....
There are three major components of SEM. These three primary parts are often used individually to great effect- but it is only when they are effectively used in unison that the "whole" can become "greater than the sum of its parts"....
Brad Hill has worked in the online field since 1992, and is a recognized authority on search engines. His popular books, among them Google For Dummies, Yahoo! For Dummies, and Internet Searching For Dummies, share a knack for taking what are often highly technical concepts and presenting them in ways that are immediately useful to the average reader. His latest book, Building Your Business with Google For Dummies, was released June 14th. I recently had the opportunity to ask Brad some questions about his background, his take on the current and future search engine landscape, and his latest book....
Welcome to the world of natural search- a world where mom-and-pop shops compete with million dollar companies, where million dollar companies compete with billion dollar corporations. And, while many will argue to the contrary, the playing field is more or less level. Small companies can and do dominate their behemoth competitors in this world, for a variety of reasons....
Modifiers in search engine phrases are used for two main reasons: to increase the percentage of ideal prospects in the traffic the phrase attracts, and to find terms that are easier to target on search engines. Adding the right type of modifiers to your search engine keyphrases will increase your chances of success....
Many search engine optimization experts, this author included, find Wordtracker research to be an invaluable part of the search engine optimization process. I recently interviewed Andy Mindel, Wordtracker’s founder and president, to learn more about the London-based company and the service that it provides....
If you know exactly what you expect to get out of your campaign, have realistic expectations, and are committed to getting the most out of your investment, you are probably ready to look into hiring a search engine optimization firm....
While more and more sites begin to include search terms in their web page copy in order to rank higher in web searches, high search engine rankings are really only a part of the equation. Another large part is whether each of your pages is directly addressing the searcher’s topic of interest....
One of the many options available to promote a website on search engines is called paid inclusion. Although there are several different kinds of paid inclusion this article deals specifically with the simplest form, in which an annual fee is paid for each page included in a search engine index....
There are many factors to consider when selecting a search engine optimization company. Unfortunately, many businesses that haven’t previously used search engine optimization to promote themselves are unsure how to evaluate potential vendors, and many are intimidated by the entire concept. This article is intended to help in the selection process....
There is an abundance of search engine information available on the web- some of it valuable, much of it contradictory. With search engine marketing, as with anything else, it is important to treat everything with a healthy dose of skepticism....
The most important thing to remember when styling body copy and headlines for search engines is not to compromise the visitor experience....
A properly executed link building campaign will help boost your ranking with many search engines, but this is only part of the benefit. The quality sites that have agreed to link to you will also send you highly relevant traffic....
It is crucial to the success of the campaign that you pay a reasonable price for each visitor, that each visitor is highly targeted, and that you monitor your positions to maintain your exposure over time....
The beauty of the content-driven approach is that there is no risk, and what works well today will almost certainly work well in the future. On the other hand, many of the current techniques employed to manipulate rank are likely to become just as obsolete as hidden text is today....
Monitoring high rankings, once attained, is critical to the ongoing success of any search engine marketing initiative. It is also important to approach your monitoring efforts with a solid strategy and a proper mindset. The following five tips can help....
While most search engines are becoming more and more adept at detecting spam pages and penalizing or removing them, there is an unfortunate side effect to this efficiency - some companies that are innocent of intentional wrongdoing unknowingly have sites that fall into the spam category....
Keyphrases (those phrases that potential customers are using to find products or services on search engines) are the building block of any search engine marketing strategy. It is essential that they are chosen carefully, or else the remainder of the campaign, no matter how effective the implementation, will likely be in vain....
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