So a little while back I received a call from a gentleman representing a rather large, reputable firm.  Apparently he had Googled “Utah search engine marketing” and our company popped on the first page (dare I say first result?).  Anyways, he mentioned his company was in dire need of SEO services and had used the keyword Utah SEO because he was from Utah and knew that it was “a mecca for SEO and internet marketing companies” (his words, not mine).

Is that so?  I am nothing more than a humble copywriter, but I only know a handful of competing firms within this localized area.  Is the Beehive state known as a big SEO hot spot?  Good Fabulous news for us if it is !

Ok, so I received an email with the following message (I’ll call the company Firm X, located in Arizona):

Your site is strong enough for top placement on Yahoo! and Google! Allow us to give you a free site review. If you want to be in the top three positions with page one exposure - we can show you at no charge how we can increase your online placement. Email us at (blank)@speedy.com.pe today and we will give you a free web site review. Our results are guaranteed. See how you can change the landscape of your online business. Remember to include all the site(s) you want us to look at and how you would like to be contacted

Sincerely,
Client Care

The funny thing about this is they’re an SEO firm sending this to me, someone that works at a utah seo company. They need to do their homework before spamming companies. The other funny thing is that my company is actually ranking on keywords while Firm X doesn’t rank on anything. (Or at least nothing worthwhile.) I googled Arizona Internet Marketing, and they didn’t show up on the first 3 pages, nor were they anywhere in the sponsored results.

I’ll use this as a word of warning to anyone searching for an internet marketing company. If an internet marketing firm “guarantees” their results - run. No reputable SEO firm will ever guarantee results because no one can predict what Google will do next, nor can they know what other SEO firms are doing to rank your competitors.

Also, see how well the firm is doing for their own website. Are their title tags well optimized? (Sorry, Firm X - another blunder you’re making.) What kind of a backlink profile do they have? What keywords do they rank on?

There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re picking an SEO firm, but do your homework so you’re not throwing your money away. There are a lot of good SEO companys out there, but there are also a lot of clowns straight out of clown college.

I recently spoke with a very small company about marketing their website, which happens to be in a very competitive industry. The owner told me he was currently speaking with an internet marketing company in Chicago, and for the one time fee of $2,500, they would submit his website to the search engines (monthly), obtain 15 inbound links for him (total!), and “optimize” his meta tags.

Unfortunately, after letting the client know that it would be very costly and time consuming to rank on keywords such as the ones he wanted to target, he decided to go with the Chicago firm. I mentioned that it would be easier and most cost effective to rank on more tail terms (which would also provide him with excellent conversion rates), but this firm in Chicago convinced him that he would rank well on any keywords if he just gave them $2,500.

To me, this Chicago firm sounds shady. With only 15 inbound links and “optimized” meta tags, this small business won’t see many results, if any at all. They won’t rank well for the keywords they’re targeting. The owner remained convinced, however, that this was the way to go, since they promised him good rankings on tough keywords for a small price.

If you’re looking for an SEO firm, beware the ones that say by submitting your site to the search engines, you’ll rank well. If this is the majority of the work they’re doing for you, you’re getting ripped off. If they only promise you 15 inbound links, again, this is a ripoff.

And, as a reminder, optimized meta tags, while they may entice users to click on your website, don’t do much to help you rank in the search engines. Do your homework before hiring any SEO firm, and beware any company that pushes the importance of submitting your site to the search engines, and altering your meta tags. While these are important things, they make up about 5% of what you need to be doing to rank well.

Talk to several different companies, get quotes, and go with what seems the best. To be a little cliche, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

All companies have competition. Usually, the competition will play fair and not use dirty or underhanded tactics to try to get ahead. Sometimes, however, companies that cannot compete on service or quality or price will use guerilla marketing to trash the reputation of a company they’re competing with. When this happens, SEO or search engine optimization can be greatly beneficial.

Writing high quality articles or press releases, or just optimizing your website for your company’s name will help you get ahead in the days of dirty competition. It is important to rank well on your company’s name, and to outrank any false reports or reviews that may be out there.

I’m not trying to advocate censorship - everyone deserves a voice. You just want to be the loudest voice out there.

If you have spent any time researching SEO or PPC you have probably come across the phrases “head terms” and “tail terms.”

In order to understand what this means imagine a graph that starts really high on the left, but falls steeply toward 0 as you go to the right. Imagine, however, that the graph just approaches 0, but never reaches it, for miles (yes, that’s a long piece of paper).

This is a pretty accurate depiction of search engine queries every month - there are a few really high-traffic keywords (iraq, plasma tv, etc.) and then an astoundingly high number of keywords (more specifically, phrases) which may only receive one search per month (”where can i find news about the war in iraq,” “plasma tv 32″ wall-mounted,” etc.)

Five years ago when I started getting involved with SEO everybody wanted to own the head - meaning they wanted to rank well on the high-traffic terms. It’s pretty easy to figure out why - without as much competition as you face today they were easy to own and would result in a ton of traffic.

In the past couple years, however, I have seen more people focus on the tail. There is a lot to like about targeted queries such as the ones that have low search volume - while the volume of searches per query is very low, often there are several similar queries which produce an impressive aggregated volume.

I think, however, that the importance of the tail terms may have been overemphasized in the past few years and we strongly recommend that you consider your business model before making a decision - and don’t be fooled, this is an important decision to make before even choosing an SEO. Some are much better at getting head terms while others focus on the tail.

Do a bit of research and as your potential SEO what they recommend - make sure to talk to a few companies and ask for specific referrals for both head and tail keywords. Figure out what you need in an SEO and then seek out the best overall fit.

There are many ways to drive traffic to websites, but the most cost effective, in the long run, is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization allows websites to rank well on certain keywords that are being targeted. SEO is beneficial for anyone with a website needing more traffic. I first came into contact with it several years ago when my husband started marketing a local internet retail company. They had a limited budget, but needed to market the products they were selling online. The most cost-effective way of marketing was using SEO to drive traffic to the website. The results were not as immediate as PPC, however, in the long run it paid off because they didn’t have to worry about paying for each click in the organic results like they would with PPC.
Another benefit to SEO over PPC is people tend to trust the “natural” results more than the “paid” results. Whether this is logical or not doesn’t really matter - people just tend to believe that because these companies show up first in Google, Yahoo, or MSN, they must be more trustworthy. This isn’t to say don’t use PPC - pay per click has its many benefits, which I’ll discuss in another post.
The ROI with SEO has been proven time and again. Once the campaign has been around for several months, and websites are ranking well for targeted keywords, it’s a great investment that will continue to pay off. The key for website owners is patience - sometimes SEO can take months (or even years on very competitive terms) to see good results, but once those results are showing up, the traffic will only increase with time.