I. Sadiq Gill - How To Increase Web Traffic To Websites And Traffic To Blogs

Guest Blog Post by Doug Champigny

When trying to increase web traffic to websites, most website owners and bloggers focus too much on increasing web traffic from search engines and don't spend enough time building web traffic using the myriad of other sources of free website and blog traffic.

Make no mistake, search engine optimization (SEO) is a very key element in successful traffic generation strategies, and proper SEO that leads to higher rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs) can have a major impact on the volume of targeted traffic to websites - but it's equally important to keep it in perspective. There are a great number of ways to drive targeted traffic to sites and blogs, and spending too much time on SEO tasks will prevent you from getting the most possible traffic to websites you're promoting.

Your website promotion activities should include a lot of different ways to drive free traffic to websites, especially those promotional efforts that have proven to be successful long-term traffic generating strategies.

Effective article marketing tops the list of long-term traffic generation techniques, since article submissions made 5 and 10 years ago still get exposure today, and many of those older articles have been consistently driving traffic to websites for years now. Time spent on article writing and submitting articles to a top article directory like EzineArticles will often rival, and can surpass, the effectiveness of spending the same amount of time on SEO activities when it comes to driving targeted traffic to websites.

Newer forms of e-marketing like social media marketing and social networking are also powerful ways to get more visitors to websites and blogs. Using the Twitter social network, the Facebook social network, etc... can be a major source of targeted traffic and targeted leads, with the bonus of being a great forum for branding yourself, your company and your website.

And when driving web traffic to blogs, your RSS feed opens up whole new avenues of website traffic generation. Blogging software creates and updates a feed that lists each new post you make, and that feed is referred to online as an RSS feed. While websites are limited to search engines and similar directories for promotional purposes, blogs can use those and a growing number of directories that only accept information from RSS feeds. As such, submitting your blogs' RSS feeds to as many of these directories as you can is one more online promotional activity that often outweighs SEO efforts in your efforts to increase website traffic.

And the list goes on and on - press releases, banner advertising, linking strategies like blog commenting, reciprocal linking and social media bookmarking, forum marketing, affiliate program marketing - each can have a profound effect on driving traffic to websites and increasing blog traffic. But each takes time, which is why your e-marketing plan can't be too heavily weighted in favor of the search engines and SEO activities.

As you can see, there are a number of ways to drive traffic to websites and increase blog traffic, and a balanced approach will always give you the most stable flow of traffic to websites and blogs you're promoting.

I. Sadiq Gill - Is SEO A Scam?

By Steve Devries






I frequent many SEO and Web Marketing forums on a daily basis and every so often there is a debate about the SEO industry and ethics. After being involved in a number of these debates, it has become really obvious that the main problems are the facts that no two SEO companies are alike and there is no unified methodology. It's very hard to make statements about the industry as a whole because it's debatable what exactly 'SEO' is. Mix in the fact that most SEO companies keep their methodology and campaign strategies secret and we have a situation where every company is totally different with very different results.

Fact 1 : There is no unified SEO methodology. SEO is actually defined by wikipedia as a process of improving traffic from SERPs to a site. Of course, HOW they do that is the real question and causes the debates.

Fact 2 : The effectiveness of an SEO campaign depends on the site structure, site content, keywords, methodology used, and how popular the site is. A site cannot just rank for any random keyword. SEO is also not voodoo. It is logic, problem solving, and Web marketing mixed together. If your site provides no value to users, it probably won't rank.

Fact 3 : Some 'SEOs' do search engine optimization and some do search engine manipulation. Of course, it is all marketed as SEO. Unethical optimization provides results at any cost and is always short term (usually ends in a banned domain name). Ethical optimization opens up the site to the search engines and provides long term benefits.

Fact 4 : Most SEO companies get paid whether or not your site gets any rankings. Unfortunately, this is the case with the industry. Most SEO companies implement A, B, and C and move on to the next client.
Hopefully, the site ranks. If it doesn't, they always have more clients.

Fact 5 : Most SEO companies use both ethical and unethical inbound linking strategies.To maximize profits, it is very common for SEO companies to buy bulk links from India, links on spam/scraper web sites, or sell large directory submission packages. It is also common for SEO companies to place huge amounts of the contract into inbound linking to make up for the poor quality of the site optimization.

I don't think it is fair to characterize the industry as a whole without figuring out what is wrong with it and how SEO companies can overcome it. So how exactly do we determine what is good and bad about the industry? I have now been involved with the Web for over 10 years and, specifically, with the SEO industry for almost 4 years and I've seen the inner workings of major SEO companies and worked with clients who had been burned by their previous SEO campaigns. Combined with numerous Web postings and forum debates talking about the same basic problems, I've compiled a list of the most common issues.

Problem 1: Responsibility for Results
It's no secret that the vast majority of SEO companies take no responsibility for results. It is a fact that no SEO company can guarantee results (and if they do, they are lying to you). It is also a fact that the client is taking a risk by spending money with an SEO company that basically says 'We'll do what we can'. SEO companies simply guarantee they'll do the work to 'optimize' the site, but without full disclosure of their methodology, what exactly is the client paying for? No other industry sells a product with no guarantees and no specific list of work that will be completed. Of course, SEO work is basically the sales of information and keeping the specifics of a methodology is important, but the combination of secrecy and no responsibility for results really makes SEO campaigns risky. So, how can an SEO company reduce the risk for the client and provide the best grade of service?

Answer 1: Incentive Based Pricing
The only real way to reduce the financial risk of the client is to share the risk. Through incentive-based pricing, the SEO company can charge a certain percentage of the total contract (say 70%) to cover their intellectual property and time while placing the rest of the contract price (remaining 30%) in incentives for success. Of course, incentives and their percentage of the contract would be totally relative depending on the campaign. This first step into sharing in the risk provides both reassurance to the client that the company believes in its methodology and places some of the financial burden of the campaign on the SEO company. At the moment, however, very few SEO companies are willing to share in the risk and charge the same price whether the client gets top rankings or no rankings at all (or possibly even lower rankings).

Problem 2: Unethical Optimization
Unfortunately, unethical (or blackhat) optimization is still very prominent on the Web. It's also unfortunate that 'SEO' has been mistakenly confused with 'Blackhat SEO'. This is still the biggest problem for SEO companies. Saying that all SEO companies deal in blackhat optimization is like saying everyone who emails is a spammer. Blackhat optimization is not optimization at all...it is search engine manipulation. Because there is so much money tied to top rankings, there will always be a market for unethical SEO and search engine spam. Until companies realize what is ethical and unethical and stop supporting those blackhat SEO companies, they will continue to thrive. This makes the industry as a whole look bad and does not reflect the ethics of good SEO companies. Blackhat provides fast, short term results, but is never a good option in the long run.

Answer 2: Ethical Optimization
There is no quick and easy solution to blackhat optimization's stain on the SEO industry. I would suggest that all marketing departments research optimization techniques and educate themselves on what techniques are unethical. No SEO company is going to say they do unethical optimization. It's also not a good idea to immediately trust a company or product based simply on their rankings. Unethical optimization DOES provide rankings...just not for the long run.

It would also be helpful if the major search engines would be more open and accessible to SEO companies. Currently, the major search engines and SEO companies do not deal with each other and have formed a sort of love-hate relationship. Because of this, many ethical SEOs have slowly moved into dark territory. Ethical optimization seeks to make sites more easily accessible to the engines and help to improve the engine's search results. The problem is that the search engines mainly clump all SEO companies together the same way as uninformed users do: search engine manipulation. This is just not the case. Search engines do not want to reveal what they consider unethical because it would basically be providing a list of holes in their algorithms that blackhat SEOs would be able to manipulate further, but a defined list of 'what not to do' would provide a definitive list for businesses looking for an SEO company.

Basic Rules of Ethical Optimization
Any campaign that does not abide by the following rules is dealing in unethical optimization techniques and should be avoided.
1.) What the user sees and what the search engine sees should be exactly the same. Do not hide anything.
2.) Your keywords (and the resulting optimization) should exactly reflect the content of the page.Keywords should always reflect what your site is about.
3.) Do not build out pages exclusively for search engines. The site should always cater to both audiences (users and search engines). Catering to only users is why optimization is necessary. Catering only to search engines is optimization gone too far into blackhat.
4.) Do not participate in manipulative inbound linking schemes like link farms, bulk links, triangle linking, or any other unethical manipulation of your Google PageRank or link authority. Inbound links should be relevant to the content of your site and you should always know who is linking to you and where your links come from.

Problem 3: Assembly Line / Software SEO
With the growth of the SEO industry has also come the automation of SEO. The absolute first thing any prospective SEO client should know is that all effective SEO campaigns are custom. There is no checklist of items that will work exactly the same on every site. If the SEO company claims there is, then they are not doing full optimization and the campaign is minimal. A good optimization campaign optimizes the site architecture, text content, and code of the site. Assembly line SEO does not take into consideration the unique needs/design of the site and may even deal in blackhat optimization. SEO software especially should be looked at closely. There are really only two things SEO software could do that would work for any site: doorway pages (showing engines one thing and users a different thing; which is unethical) or a system of pages build exclusively for search engines (often called info or information pages and linked in an out of the way part of the page). Doorway pages are 100% unethical and info pages are deep in the gray area. Neither of those two methods address the architecture of the site, proper keyword analysis, or effective text content. The following links are examples of automated SEO software freely available on the Web. All links contain 'nofollow' to prevent the sites from getting inbound link credit from our site. These sites are NOT recommended by TreeHouse SEM.

http://doorwaypagemaker.com/ - Doorway page system; UNETHICAL

http://www.doorway-wizard.com/ - Doorway page system; UNETHICAL

Answer 3: Custom Campaign and Assessment
'SEO Software' may be cheap and affordable, but you get what you pay for. Any campaign that is going to slap on additional pages are simply sell you links is NOT an effective SEO campaign. Any SEO effort that simply has you add a few 'optimized' pages to your site is not going to be optimal. If you wanted to convert a street car into a race car, you don't simply add racing strips to it. Don't think that dumping a few pages on your site targeted to some random keywords is the same as a real SEO campaign.

If your SEO company will not sit down and talk about the layout, architecture, and aim of your site, then it is not providing a top-end service. Remember that the vast majority of 'SEO software' either is for building doorway/landing pages or simply providing you with data about your site (data that is already free to everyone on the Web). Good SEO campaigns take into account both the user and the search engines...not one or the other. An SEO company should have a commanding understanding of user experience and search engine optimization and use these in combination to create a campaign that will provide the best ROI. The end goal should always be leads/sales. Bringing in piles of non-targeted traffic often leads to extremely high turn over rates and very low lead conversion.

Conclusion

Do your research. Find out what you want from an optimization campaign and then ask the right questions. Make sure that the sales representative you talk to knows what they are selling. If they do not, they are definitely not the person to get information from. A lot of SEO companies use hard sale tactics and the reps are less than knowledgeable about what they are selling. Ask the following questions and see what they have to say.

1.) How do you assess keywords? If an SEO company simply optimizes for whatever keywords are sent to them by the client, the SEO campaign starts off on very shaky ground. Keyword analysis should be performed that takes into account the number of searches in all the major search engines and the relative competition for those terms. The site should also be compared to the keywords to see if they support each other.

2.) Do you plan on building out pages specifically to house keywords? Landing pages and doorway pages are not effective long term SEO options. SEO companies like them because they do not have to touch the rest of the site and it's very easy to simply add band aids instead of performing surgery.

3.) Will my SEO campaign also help improve the user experience of the site? Proper architecture and usability goes hand in hand with SEO and helps increase ROI. You should want to bring in new traffic and convert it.

4.) Does my revenue model affect my keyword selection and the optimization as a whole? Any SEO company that does not optimize based on the target audience is NOT providing the most effective campaign. An ecommerce site marketing to comparative shoppers will want to optimize heavily for product names and model numbers. An online magazine wanting to bring in recurring traffic will want to optimize for article topics and specific themes. Local companies will want to optimize for geo-targeted keywords.

5.) I want to optimize my site, but do not want to change any of the existing content or layout...how would you go about this? Any SEO company that says they will simply add on landing pages or hide text is selling blackhat. This goes back to the earlier analogy. You are really saying that you have a car that you want to modify to be very fast, but do not want to modify the engine and the mechanic simply adds racking stripes and charges you full price.

Thank you for reading TreeHouse SEM [http://www.treehousesem.com/] articles. If you would like to know more about any of these topics, feel free to contact us.

About the Author: Steve comes from a rich Web background where he has worked on the design, development, and marketing aspects of hundreds of Web sites. Formerly from Mississippi where he attended Ole Miss, Steve moved to San Diego to pursue further challenges in the Web marketing arena.

To compete in the rapidly growing marketplace of SEM, Treehouse immediately set itself apart by placing Chief Technology Officer DeVries at the helm, who is one of the most coveted experts in the industry today. DeVries was previously a lead technical consultant at a competing local firm, achieving top rankings for major clients such as Entrepreneur, Vegas.com, Viacom, Workopolis, and Ziff Davis Media. DeVries' experience has brought him much industry attention and placed him in high demand as a speaker at industry events by those looking to pick his brain.

I. Sadiq Gill - Local SEO Industry: Current Status and Future Projections

By Ajay K. Prasad




What Is SEO?

This is a common question that most people especially those who are either new or not familiar with online marketing might be asking. SEO stands for search engine optimization. In layman's language, it the process of capturing traffic from the search engines such as Google listings. Through this read, I am going to give you facts about the SEO business, current market status of SEO as well as the future projections in this field.

The Major SEO Players

Like any other industry in the world, the online SEO business has its players. This includes SEO local tools providers such as small digital agencies, SEO free lancers and web-designers among others.

Returns for SEO Players

The major reason as to why people get into business is to profit and expand their economic status. In the field of SEO business, the rates of returns are promising. This is because a recent research on SEO returns for a period of 12 months shows that at least all the players had something to take home. However, the returns are varying depending on a players' hardwork and skills in the field. For example, according to this research, 34% of the interviewed SEOs said they received an amount less than $ 30,000 while another group of respondents, 17% said they received returns that were above $ 500,000.

From the above statistics, it is evident that the size of an organization played a role in the determination of the amount of returns received. It beats logic for one to expect a large organization to receive low amounts of returns and vice versa. In addition, the presence of part time SEOs as well as the entry of newbies into the market could have let to the low rates of turnover due to low operation capacity. However, it is hard to predict the course the SEO market is likely to take due to lack of clear shift in SEO earnings since the year 2011. However, the demand for local SEO services seems to be growing day in day out and this is attracting more players thereby tightening the competition among SEO service providers.

The Emerging Issues with the Current SEO Returns

With the above distribution of returns, several questions emerge. This includes the following:

• From the statistics, a large percentage of SEOs receive a low income something that suggests low pricing of SEO services.
• It is also possible that small and medium businesses do not understand the value of SEO services provided to them.
• The low SEO income earners, those who received less than $ 30,000 annual returns are also being doubted if they can provide quality services while earning that low.
• It is also unknown if most SEOs will still be in operation if their income remains static.

The Current SEOs Income Per Customer

Just like the annual SEO returns, SEO income per customer also varies. This is because there are those clients who would pay less than $100 a month while others will pay more than $5000 a month. This variation in income per client can be attributed to the type of services provided as well as the depth of services. The size of business a client is seeking SEO services for also play a role in determining the amount to be charged.
For example, small businesses are charged less simply because their requirements are much smaller as compared to large multi-location franchise businesses.

Research also shows that some SEO service providers operate on high volume basis. Such SEOs provide simple SEO services at very low monthly rates. As a result, such SEO service providers end up having a high customer churn with a large dedicated network of sales team.

Similarly, some SEO service providers provide services that are more comprehensive in a much more professional manner customized according to the client thereby leading to a low number of clients.

Due to the above statistics, it therefore becomes essential for any SEO service provider in the current market to operate in a manner that matches his/her setup.

Handling Capacity of the Modern SEOs

Currently, SEOs are handling more clients as compared to the previous years. Statistics show that about 40% of the SEOs in the market handle at least 11 clients while 23% SEOs handle at least 21 clients. Such large numbers of clients to handle lead to more audits to be done, lots of tasks, research, reports and even more calls from the clients to be attended to. The high numbers of clients also demand a high level of efficiency so that the clients can be assured of quality services.

Market Structure for Most SEOs

SEOs have been using several marketing techniques to promote their businesses. Offline marketing channels such as word of mouth has been cited by most SEOs as the most effective marketing technique. This can be attributed to the trust level, business reputation as well as relationships build during the offline campaigns.

Alongside offline marketing, SEOs also practice online marketing such as the use of LinkedIn and social media. However, most SEOs have cited LinkedIn as the best option as compared to the social networks because it is better placed for lead generation and networking.

Services Offered by SEOs

Majority of the SEO players offer onsite optimization with 91% of the SEOs practicing this. Google+ optimization has also a good number of SEOs practicing it as 86% claimed to be offering this service to their clients. For affiliate marketing, only a small percentage (11%) of SEOs are offering this service to their clients.

Other services offered by SEOs:

• Content creation/optimization
• Link building
• Citation building
• Social media marketing
• Website development
• PPC
• Mobile site development
• Video marketing and mobile marketing.

The most demanded service by SEO clients is onsite marketing, while the least demanded service is affiliate marketing. The other services are somehow averagely demanded. However, most small and medium businesses do not understand the opportunities that video and mobile marketing can unlock to them and therefore tend not to use these services. SEOs therefore need to educate their clients on these marketing channels so that they can go for them.

When asked about the online SEO services SEOs feel are effective, 82% of them said that the General search is the most effective for generating leads. Local search appears to be the second best after 62% of the respondents in an SEO survey voted in its favor. PPC is the 3rd with 53% while social media is the 4th with 26%. Daily deals appear to be an appealing to most SEOs because only 1% voted in favor of it.

Tedious SEO Tasks

55% of the current SEOs in the market find link building to be the most tedious and time-consuming work. Others, though 15% only believe that content writing is the most tedious and time consuming task among all the tasks they do. It therefore emerges that to the 55% who find link building tedious, this task is also boring to them.

Future Projections

This is an outline of what we expect in the near future as far as SEO business is of concern.

Expansion of SEO Businesses

Compared to the previous years, SEO businesses has been growing and expanding steadily. Most SEOs (about 93%) are not only optimistic about expanding their businesses, but are also expecting to grow their business. In what seems to be a determined move to grow their businesses, most SEOs (82%) are willing to recruit more staff members so as to realize their desired levels of growth.

The social media is also expected to grow and be more effective even than the local directories. This is because most SEOs believe that social media can perform better because of recommendations from friends.

Mobile usage is also expected to grow further and become relevant for local businesses.

Upsurge of Confidence in SEO Business

Unlike other businesses, the SEO business is showing a positive growth of confidence among the players.

Despite this being a dynamic and innovative industry, most SEOs are still willing to recruit more staff to help drive their businesses ahead. 84% of the sampled SEOs in the SEO research are also optimistic that the SEO business is going to be more profitable starting this year 2013.

Confidence is also running high that if the SEO players increase the understanding of SEO/social among the business owners they serve in future, they will not only increase the business owners' rate of investment, but also make them transfer their marketing budgets from other channels to the digital channels.

Ajay Prasad is the Founder and President of GMR Web Team, a leading Internet strategy, marketing and development firm. Ajay guides small and medium size businesses in designing their online strategy, marketing and development campaigns for maximum impact. Ajay focuses on a client's products and services and their target market's needs to achieve the best possible results.

I. Sadiq Gill - The Current Status of SEO

Blog Published by I. Sadiq Gill

Guest Blog Post by Ajay K. Prasad

What Is SEO?

This is a common question that most people especially those who are either new or not familiar with online marketing might be asking. SEO stands for search engine optimization. In layman's language, it the process of capturing traffic from the search engines such as Google listings. Through this read, I am going to give you facts about the SEO business, current market status of SEO as well as the future projections in this field.

The Major SEO Players

Like any other industry in the world, the online SEO business has its players. This includes SEO local tools providers such as small digital agencies, SEO free lancers and web-designers among others.

Returns for SEO Players

The major reason as to why people get into business is to profit and expand their economic status. In the field of SEO business, the rates of returns are promising. This is because a recent research on SEO returns for a period of 12 months shows that at least all the players had something to take home. However, the returns are varying depending on a players' hardwork and skills in the field. For example, according to this research, 34% of the interviewed SEOs said they received an amount less than $ 30,000 while another group of respondents, 17% said they received returns that were above $ 500,000.

From the above statistics, it is evident that the size of an organization played a role in the determination of the amount of returns received. It beats logic for one to expect a large organization to receive low amounts of returns and vice versa. In addition, the presence of part time SEOs as well as the entry of newbies into the market could have let to the low rates of turnover due to low operation capacity. However, it is hard to predict the course the SEO market is likely to take due to lack of clear shift in SEO earnings since the year 2011. However, the demand for local SEO services seems to be growing day in day out and this is attracting more players thereby tightening the competition among SEO service providers.

The Emerging Issues with the Current SEO Returns

With the above distribution of returns, several questions emerge. This includes the following:

• From the statistics, a large percentage of SEOs receive a low income something that suggests low pricing of SEO services.
• It is also possible that small and medium businesses do not understand the value of SEO services provided to them.
• The low SEO income earners, those who received less than $ 30,000 annual returns are also being doubted if they can provide quality services while earning that low.
• It is also unknown if most SEOs will still be in operation if their income remains static.

The Current SEOs Income Per Customer

Just like the annual SEO returns, SEO income per customer also varies. This is because there are those clients who would pay less than $100 a month while others will pay more than $5000 a month. This variation in income per client can be attributed to the type of services provided as well as the depth of services. The size of business a client is seeking SEO services for also play a role in determining the amount to be charged.

For example, small businesses are charged less simply because their requirements are much smaller as compared to large multi-location franchise businesses.

Research also shows that some SEO service providers operate on high volume basis. Such SEOs provide simple SEO services at very low monthly rates. As a result, such SEO service providers end up having a high customer churn with a large dedicated network of sales team.

Similarly, some SEO service providers provide services that are more comprehensive in a much more professional manner customized according to the client thereby leading to a low number of clients.

Due to the above statistics, it therefore becomes essential for any SEO service provider in the current market to operate in a manner that matches his/her setup.

Handling Capacity of the Modern SEOs

Currently, SEOs are handling more clients as compared to the previous years. Statistics show that about 40% of the SEOs in the market handle at least 11 clients while 23% SEOs handle at least 21 clients. Such large numbers of clients to handle lead to more audits to be done, lots of tasks, research, reports and even more calls from the clients to be attended to. The high numbers of clients also demand a high level of efficiency so that the clients can be assured of quality services.

Market Structure for Most SEOs

SEOs have been using several marketing techniques to promote their businesses. Offline marketing channels such as word of mouth has been cited by most SEOs as the most effective marketing technique. This can be attributed to the trust level, business reputation as well as relationships build during the offline campaigns.

Alongside offline marketing, SEOs also practice online marketing such as the use of LinkedIn and social media. However, most SEOs have cited LinkedIn as the best option as compared to the social networks because it is better placed for lead generation and networking.

Services Offered by SEOs

Majority of the SEO players offer onsite optimization with 91% of the SEOs practicing this. Google+ optimization has also a good number of SEOs practicing it as 86% claimed to be offering this service to their clients. For affiliate marketing, only a small percentage (11%) of SEOs are offering this service to their clients.

Other services offered by SEOs:

• Content creation/optimization
• Link building
• Citation building
• Social media marketing
• Website development
• PPC
• Mobile site development
• Video marketing and mobile marketing.

The most demanded service by SEO clients is onsite marketing, while the least demanded service is affiliate marketing. The other services are somehow averagely demanded. However, most small and medium businesses do not understand the opportunities that video and mobile marketing can unlock to them and therefore tend not to use these services. SEOs therefore need to educate their clients on these marketing channels so that they can go for them.

When asked about the online SEO services SEOs feel are effective, 82% of them said that the General search is the most effective for generating leads. Local search appears to be the second best after 62% of the respondents in an SEO survey voted in its favor. PPC is the 3rd with 53% while social media is the 4th with 26%. Daily deals appear to be an appealing to most SEOs because only 1% voted in favor of it.

Tedious SEO Tasks

55% of the current SEOs in the market find link building to be the most tedious and time-consuming work. Others, though 15% only believe that content writing is the most tedious and time consuming task among all the tasks they do. It therefore emerges that to the 55% who find link building tedious, this task is also boring to them.

Future Projections

This is an outline of what we expect in the near future as far as SEO business is of concern.

Expansion of SEO Businesses

Compared to the previous years, SEO businesses has been growing and expanding steadily. Most SEOs (about 93%) are not only optimistic about expanding their businesses, but are also expecting to grow their business. In what seems to be a determined move to grow their businesses, most SEOs (82%) are willing to recruit more staff members so as to realize their desired levels of growth.

The social media is also expected to grow and be more effective even than the local directories. This is because most SEOs believe that social media can perform better because of recommendations from friends.

Mobile usage is also expected to grow further and become relevant for local businesses.

Upsurge of Confidence in SEO Business

Unlike other businesses, the SEO business is showing a positive growth of confidence among the players.

Despite this being a dynamic and innovative industry, most SEOs are still willing to recruit more staff to help drive their businesses ahead. 84% of the sampled SEOs in the SEO research are also optimistic that the SEO business is going to be more profitable starting this year 2013.

Confidence is also running high that if the SEO players increase the understanding of SEO/social among the business owners they serve in future, they will not only increase the business owners' rate of investment, but also make them transfer their marketing budgets from other channels to the digital channels.

Ajay Prasad is the Founder and President of GMR Web Team, a leading Internet strategy, marketing and development firm. Ajay guides small and medium size businesses in designing their online strategy, marketing and development campaigns for maximum impact. Ajay focuses on a client's products and services and their target market's needs to achieve the best possible results.

I. Sadiq Gill Keirin: Online Reputation Management

By I. Sadiq Gill Keirin

The best time to do online reputation management is when you don't need
online reputation management.

Whether you like it or not, people  –  customers, prospects, competitors
and haters –  are talking about your business and its products and
services on the Internet.

They're writing blogs.

They're commenting on forums.

They're writing reviews, some of which are written only to cause you harm.

They're asking their Facebook friends about you.

They're complaining about the tiniest details on Twitter.

Are you listening?

Before you are forced to react to an immediate online reputation
management (ORM) issue, you must be proactive in establishing a strong
reputation on the Internet.

If you're not actively reviewing your online reputation and you don't
have a plan in place, then you're setting yourself –  and your business
–  up for disaster.

Don't worry. It's never too late to get started. Even if some damage has
already been done (i.e., bad reviews, negative comments, etc.), you can
create a plan to begin mending a few "fences" and moving forward.

The first steps to being proactive with your online reputation are as
follows: check for current damage, make repairs if necessary, and then
take action to become more assertive and engaging with your online audience.

Step One: Check your personal and professional online history.

Begin with simple Google searches of your name. Check for previous
addresses, photos, videos, comments, etc., connected to your name.
Sources such as www.123people.com are excellent tools for reviewing your
personal history. Make sure you check your full legal name, too (e.g.,
search for “Robert A. Smith” instead of just “Bob Smith”).

Always check Facebook. Facebook is a potential source of personal and
professional disasters, such as that which may occur when someone from
your college days decides to post a picture of you getting hammered at a
toga party.

If your company has other executives (president, vice president, etc.)
or a board of directors, check their personal and professional online
history as well. One Midwestern company is currently catching some grief
from local media (and customers) because a member of its board of
directors made an unpopular move with a separate company he owned. His
online reputation has put the company he advises in an uncomfortable
situation.

Step Two: Research your company name and brand.

After performing basic searches in Google, create Google Alerts (free
service) so that you’ll be alerted via e-mail anytime someone mentions
your company name or brand online.

Be sure to conduct initial searches on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and
YouTube, as well.

You can also sign up for paid services that will monitor your company’s
online reputation activity – good or bad – and notify you of any events
within the hour.

Step Three: Repair any damage, if necessary.

As a result of your research, you may discover that your reputation has
already suffered a little damage online. This might include bad or fake
reviews, forum comments, Twitter posts about poor service, etc.

Depending on the amount of damage, you might be able to respond to each
negative comment or review   in a professional manner. In some cases, a
simple (but sincere) apology will go a long way to show that you are
willing to fix the problem. This will also give potential customers the
impression that you’re an engaged business owner who will listen and
respond to customers.

If the damage is more serious – bad press, court proceedings, lawsuits,
legal matters, etc. – then you should consider working with an online
reputation management professional or service to help you rebuild your
online reputation. Keep in mind, however, that repairing a badly damaged
reputation is a slow process, requiring a lot of time and work.

Step Four: Write awesome content for your website.

You can start improving your online reputation and online audience
engagement by writing and providing better content on your website.
Articles and white papers offer more information about your products and
services. Write and post a “Frequently Asked Questions” document that
answers some common questions about your company.

Write and share up-to-date information on your company’s blog. Plan on
posting one (or more) blog posts per week; you’re not going to seem very
engaged if you only post once a month. Here, you can share industry
news, opinions, brief overviews of articles and white papers (with links
pointing to where customers can find them on your website), and more.
Encourage and allow readers to comment on your blog. Start a conversion
with them on your blog.

Step Five: Get busy with social media.

Like it or not, you’re going to have to join the social media club.

Again, your customers and potential customers are talking about your
company and its products and services on Facebook, Twitter and other
social networks. You should be there to “listen” and engage them in
conversation.

Bad news can travel fast on social media. However, people appreciate it
when someone listens to their complaints about a product or service and
helps them solve their problems. You can regularly check on your social
media reputation management status with the help of an ORM subscription
service, or you can become more proactive by creating Twitter searches
and filters on targeted keywords.

Don’t wait for something bad to happen. Get involved now. Answer
questions on social media, even if it doesn’t result in a sale. Show
that you are willing to help and educate.

Remember, your reputation’s at stake.

Imran Sadiq Gill Keirin - Introduction to Content Marketing (Part II)

By Imran Sadiq Gill Keirin

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed why quality content is important for SEO and how to use social media as a distribution channel to get your best content out to your audience. In Part 2, we’ll outline how you’re going to produce all that great content.

The first, and easiest, way to produce content for your website is to repurpose some of your existing content. For example, you may have an article on your website that you wrote a couple years ago and maybe that article just needs to be updated. This way, you don’t need to start from scratch. 

Besides updating old articles, you can also repurpose content by converting podcasts, reports or white papers into blog posts. Say you have a white paper, for example. Maybe you can break that white paper up into ten blog posts. Genius! You can also mention in the blog post that this particular tip is from this white paper, and provide a link to download the white paper. You never know -- maybe your white papers will start getting downloaded more if you repurpose content in this way!

You also probably have content that you have that you’ve never used. Maybe you have a video on YouTube but you don’t have a link on your website to pull that video in. Or, maybe the video’s on your website but it’s not in your blog. You may have separate followings for your site and blog, so be sure to post (or link to) your best content in both.

Now, what about all the writing? Let’s say that you’ve repurposed all of your existing content and now you need some fresh content. How about starting a blog? Although blogging requires a lot of writing, it shouldn’t be hard to find guest bloggers. There are many bloggers in your industry who would be happy to write a guest blog for you in exchange for a link back to their website or blog. Now, you have free content.

You can also get your whole staff involved in writing your blog. Maybe each month, X number of people on your staff is responsible for writing one blog post. They might just enjoy it!

Need more help to produce blog posts, articles, press releases, etc.? Don’t be afraid to hire freelance writers. There are a lot of good freelance writers out there for hire. And you don’t necessarily have to pay them a lot. Find them on Elance.com, Guru.com, Craigslist, or a number of other sites that connect freelance writers with employers. You may make a good connection with a freelance writer that you can use on a regular basis.

So, start filling in your content holes. Determine what your website is missing. Is it press releases? Videos? Infographics? Podcasts? A blog? Next, determine who will write the content. You? Your staff? Freelancers? Get your team together. Then, create an editorial calendar for the next six to twelve months. 

Make sure all content is keyword-optimized and distributed via your social media channels. Once you have good content and start distributing it, monitor your analytics. See how many people are coming to look at that content. Is your strategy working? Are your rankings going up?

Imran Sadiq Gill Keirin - Introduction to Content Marketing (Part I)

By Imran Sadiq Gill Keirin

Does your firm have “sticky content” for effective content marketing? Anybody can write an article, write a blog post or make a video. But what’s going to make your web content really pop and get people’s attention? 

Great, “sticky” content is content that is unique and it solves a problem. Junk content is, well, the opposite of those things. SEO rewards great content and punishes junk content. Not too long ago, 

Google rolled out an algorithm update that was called Panda. Panda was specifically designed to 
reward websites that followed value-added content recommendations. It also punished those websites that didn’t offer any value or they published junk content. 


Examples of junk content include poorly-written content, duplicate content and content produced via software or services called “content scrapers.” These packages scour the Internet for articles on a particular topic, scrape a sentence or two out of each one, and put it together to form “an article.” 

Even if your content was keyword-optimized, if it was “scraped,” it was punished by Google Panda.


You’ve probably heard the expression, “Content is king.” But when it comes to SEO, is it really? The answer is yes. Content has an 82 percent impact on search results. So if you’re not writing great content for your website, whether it’s articles, or videos, or pictures, or graphics, or presentations, then you’re focusing on the wrong things. (After content, by the way, the most important SEO factor is link building. So, it would be true to say, “Content is king; link building is queen.”)


Consider that while social media impacts search results, it’s far less important than content when it comes to search engine marketing -- social media only has a seven percent impact on search results. 

While you should have social media profiles, you shouldn’t maintain these profiles at the expense of your website. Use them in conjunction with your website content, to promote your “stickiest” stuff.


When you write new content for your website, or upload new videos, graphics or articles, use use social media as a content distribution channel. Publish links to your best content on Twitter, Facebook, etc. If you’re regularly publishing good, useful content, i.e., newsletters, press releases, blog posts, free downloads, etc., you’ll be able to market those items on social media to earn more traffic to your website. 


Find out more content marketing tips in Part 2 of this series!