Search Engine Optimization

New SEO companies are born about as often as you blink and many of these companies make grandiose claims, so how on earth can you figure out which ones are trustworthy? In order to wade through all the lies and find an SEO company that knows its onions, you have to know what to interview several companies to see what they’re all about. The following are 8 questions to ask when you’re shopping around for an SEO company.

1. Do you have references?

Don’t hire an SEO company unless they can provide you with references. It is very helpful to speak with a company’s previous clients to determine whether or not their service is indeed reliable and efficient. Be wary of SEO companies that are reluctant to provide you with the contact information of their previous clients or that don’t have any previous clients to speak of.

2. Ask the SEO company you want to hire exactly what SEO techniques they plan to use.

Choose an SEO company that can explain to you exactly what they are going to do and why. You shouldn’t trust an SEO company that’s secretive about their SEO process or that isn’t able to explain their process to you in plain English. Beware of jargon.

3. What are your pricing options?

Pricing is a good indicator of whether or not an SEO company is worth your time. Good SEO companies are typically expensive, and they’re picky about which clients they take on. If an SEO company’s pricing model sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. You may as well flush money down the toilet if you’re going to buy a package that costs, say, $39.95 per month.

4. What kind of off-site SEO techniques do you use?

If an SEO company doesn’t mention a word about off-site SEO techniques, run in the other direction. Off-site SEO is an essential component of any and every SEO campaign. A good SEO company will implement ethical SEO tactics and understand which social media sites and directories are worth your time.

5. Have you worked with businesses that are similar to mine?

Find out if an SEO company has worked with businesses that are similar to yours. An SEO company that has had success with similar websites will be better able to replicate that success with your site.

6. How long will it take to see results?

It may take months for you to see results, so be suspicious of any SEO company that guarantees you overnight success.

7. Do you use any black hat SEO techniques?

Beware of SEO companies that use questionable tactics. Black hat techniques may bring you temporary results but they could get you banned from the search engines in the long run. Only hire SEO companies that use ethical, white hat techniques.

8. Do you have a portfolio of your work?

Any experienced SEO company that’s worth its salt will be able to show you a portfolio of its work. Don’t hire an SEO company that doesn’t have a portfolio because they probably don’t have enough experience to live up to their guarantees!

One commonly overlooked SEO technique is image optimization. Among blogging, news, shopping, and other search niches, image search is growing the fastest. So, if you’re not optimizing the images on your website for search engines, you could be losing out on tons of traffic and better search rankings. To capitalize on image search traffic, follow these simple tips.

Use a Descriptive Image File Name

When naming your images, be very descriptive and put dashes between the words. Incorporate your website’s target keywords into the file name if applicable.

Use a Caption

Place a caption on top, under, or on the side of each image on your site. Captions are a good place to describe images in further detail.

Save Photos as JPG Files and Images as GIF Files

Save photos on your site as JPG files and images as GIF files. The search engines interpret JPG files as photos because they have millions of colors, while they interpret GIF files as standard graphic images.

Use the Alt Attribute of the Image Tag

Use the alt attribute of image tags so that you can tell search engines exactly what your photos contain. It’s good to be descriptive and use lots of your target keywords, but don’t go overboard; make sure that it sounds natural. Stuffing Alt tags with keywords can get you penalized by the search engines.

Use Descriptive Anchor Text

Any time you link to an image on your site on other pages of your site or on different sites altogether, use descriptive anchor text that contains your target keywords. Anchor text tells search engines exactly what your images are about and assists them in ranking for your target keywords.

Use Large, High Quality Images

In general, the search engines prefer large, high quality images, as searchers are more likely to click on them.

Optimize the Page on Which the Image Appears

In addition to using optimized Alt tags, file names, and anchor text, you need to be sure that your images are placed on optimized pages. Context is very important in SEO, so if your images are completely irrelevant to the surrounding content, they won’t rank as well. Follow on-page SEO best practices to ensure that each page of your site is optimized for search engines and relevant to the images that they contain.

Add Images to Articles and Press Releases

Are you distributing press releases and articles as part of your online marketing campaign? If so, add optimized images to those press releases and articles and make sure that they link back to your website. Images improve your website’s search ranking because they provide backlinks. As an added benefit, press releases and articles that include images tend to be more appealing to searchers.

Use Descriptive Tags

On social networking and sharing websites, you can typically add tags to each image you upload. Tagging is beneficial in image search because it helps searchers find your images more easily and enables search engines to determine what your images contain.

Contrary to popular belief, SEO copywriting is not dead.  In fact, writing for SEO is more important than ever before because of the sheer amount of competition that’s out there.  There are over 200 million websites online, so you have to write copy that’s optimized for the keywords that people are searching for to find websites like yours.  Besides, what’s the point of writing if no one is going to be able to read your stuff? 

The problem with lots of SEO copywriting you’ll find on the web is that it’s chock full of keywords.  Take the following paragraph for example, which is optimized for the keyword, “online dating.”

“Online dating websites are all the rage because people love to meet people through online dating.  Online dating is convenient and online dating doesn’t require you to hang out in seedy bars and flirt with creepy guys.  Online dating is the best choice for anyone who wants to meet a special someone because online dating rocks.”

Basically, many SEO writers are so focused on optimizing for keywords that everything they write sounds absolutely ridiculous.  If you want people to read your content and link to it, you have to write in a compelling, entertaining style.  Sure, content and copy needs to contain keywords in order to rank well, but that is only a small part of the SEO equation.  Online writing also has to attract backlinks in order to rank well.

Say No to Keyword Stuffing

If all you have on your website is keyword-stuffed content, you’re going to have to hustle to get links.  On the other hand, if you write valuable, informative content that people enjoy, you’ll be able to attract organic links over time. 

But Don’t Ignore Keywords

The point is not to ignore keywords altogether.  Keywords are important.  Researching keywords and incorporating them into your writing will help your website get found and allow you to reach your target audience.  The problem lies in going overboard. 

If you want your site to rank but you also want to attract a readership and accumulate some valuable backlinks, you need to write with human readers in mind.  Just add your target keyword to your headline and in a couple of spots within your content.  You don’t have to aim for 5% keyword density in order to achieve a decent ranking.  But do bear in mind that keywords have more weight when they are placed in the headlines and sub-headlines of content.  

The keywords on the page account for approximately 15% of the total factors used to determine the page’s ranking.  That means that keyword frequency actually matters far less than you think.  So, if you want to create content that boosts your website’s search engine ranking, focus on writing content that entertains people and provides them with value, as it will prove more beneficial your ranking in the long run since attracting backlinks is the most important ranking factor of all.  

There are many advantages to using WordPress as a content management system.  Whether you use WordPress solely for your blog or to manage your entire website, it is a great choice because of its search engine friendliness, resistance to spam, and easily customizable interface.  To maximize your WordPress website’s search engine visibility, download these top 10 SEO plugins.

1. Related posts

The Related posts plugin posts entries with related tags or words after each of your blog posts.  This plugin is good for SEO because it improves your website’s internal linking structure.

2. All in one SEO pack

The All in one SEO pack plugin is the Cadillac of all SEO plugins for WordPress.  It allows you to add title tags, keywords, and descriptions to each page of your website. It also helps you avoid duplicate content.

3. SEO slugs

This plugin removes words that the search engines ignore from your site’s permalinks (unique URLs of your blog posts) so that they rank better for target keywords.  For example, if you write a post titled, “Why you should use this WordPress SEO plugin,” the permalink normally looks like this: “/why-you-should-use-this-WordPress-SEO-Plugin.”  The SEO slugs plugin removes the unnecessary words so that the permalink looks like this: “/WordPress-SEO-plugin.”

4. Nofollow case by case

By default, the comments on WordPress blogs have the nofollow attribute, meaning that commenters do not get any SEO value from providing a link back to their site.  The Nofollow case by case plugin enables you to make the links on blog comments dofollow.  This plugin is beneficial for new websites because it encourages people to comment, drives more traffic to your site, and builds community.

5. Google positioner

The Google positioner plugin helps you choose the right keywords to target in your content.  Rather than blindly targeting keywords that you think people might use to find your site, you can use this plugin to determine exactly which keywords are leading searchers to your site and then optimize your content for those specific keywords.

6. SEO friendly images

This plugin will help to ensure that all of the images on your site have alt and title tags so that they are indexed properly by the search engines.  Images are often a great source of traffic, particularly when they are optimized for search.

7. Google XML sitemaps

This essential plugin creates an XML sitemap that is readable for Google, Ask, Yahoo, and MSN.

8. Redirection

Whenever you make changes to your blog, the permalinks also change.  The Redirection plugin will ensure that visitors are redirected to the new permalinks in order to reduce the amount of traffic you get to pages that no longer exist.

9. SEO blog roll

To prevent the blogs listed in your blog roll from feeding off of your page rank, install the SEO blog roll plug in so that all of them receive the nofollow attribute.

10. Automatic SEO links

With this plugin, you can choose a word or phrase for automatic linking (internal or external), set anchor text, and then choose the dofollow or nofollow attribute.  This plugin will only create an automatic link for the first mention of the word or phrase in a post, so the same page isn’t linked to multiple times in one post.