Lets examine an example: a local moving company decided to optimize its website. It knows (or assumes that it does) that the most popular keywords for their type of business are movers and moving. At a first glance, looks like everythings fine: the keywords seem to be relevant, and should produce good results. However, there are two mistakes made here.

The first one is keyword relevancy. Whats the use for our local moving company of people that are looking for movers or moving in Denver, CO, Boston, MA or New York, NY, if they are located and offering services in and around San Francisco only?

Another mistake is keyword effectiveness. Itll take much more time and effort to get top rankings for such popular and competitive general keywords as moving and movers than to get same results for something more specific and relevant, such as movers San Francisco or moving San Francisco. Not only are these keywords more likely to convert visitors to buyers, but also its a much easier and less time-consuming task.

If the world we live in consists of atoms, the smallest and most important particles in search engine optimization world are keywords. In fact, theres nothing complicated about them, if one remembers three things about keywords: relevancy, effectiveness and Wordtracker.

Wordtracker.com is an UK based company that offers an irreplaceable search engine marketing service tool: keyword research and analysis. It helps to find and pick keywords that are both relevant and competitive. Relevant mean that the keywords are related to your website, and that these are the words people are typing in Google, Yahoo or MSN in order to find your kind of business. Another important factor in determining a good keyword is its effectiveness. Lets say we have a keyword movers which has a record of appearing in Google search list for 1009 times; there are 15400000 different web pages competing for this keyword. This means that this keywords effectiveness index is 1009/15400000=0.066. This index shows that the keyword is far too competitive and youll probably end up somewhere in the middle of Googles search results if you try to optimize your webpage for this particular keyword. A rule of thumb is to find keywords that are quite popular and at the same time have fewer webpages competing for them. A good keyword is considered to have an effectiveness index of over 100, although anything in between 10 and 100 can be targeted as well.

Needless to say, without having the right keywords that are both relevant and competitive its impossible to succeed in any search engine optimization campaign. Without knowing your niche words, youll probably end up competing against web sites with thousands of inbound links optimized by search engine optimization gurus and will be lost in millions of search results no one will even ever find out you exist. On the other hand, all it takes to get your web traffic from 0 to couple hundreds a day might be something as simple and cost-effective as Wordtracker.

What IS the goal of search engine optimization?

The goal of search engine optimization is to bring new customers to your web site. Liverpool SEO is about being found by the right people. It’s about matching a prospect with the right offer. It is as simple as that.

What is NOT the goal of search engine optimization?

Liverpool SEO is NOT about getting listed for every possible keyword. This is the biggest mistake that is made by webmasters and web designers. Most people try to get as many high search engine rankings as possible, AND for as many keywords as possible. That is not only a lot of work, it is also a complete waste of time.

It is not important that your web site is listed for a lot of keywords. It is important that your web site is listed for the right keywords, and that your web site then turns visitors into buyers. Without achieving this you will not be successful.

How can YOU improve your search engine optimization results?

1.Create convincing web pages

That really is a very important step. If you do not have web pages that appeal to your target group, then do not bother with trying to get visitors.

Your web pages must be designed so that your visitors become buyers.

2.You must also first create trust, and convince your visitors by making your web pages easy to use.

3.Find the right keywords

You must find the keywords that work best for you, and for your website. Build a keyword lists that is related to your business. There are many Free Keyword Generators that can help you with finding the right keywords for you.

Yahoo offer one here:

http://inventory.overture.com

4.You can then use the keywords that you find in a pay per click (PPC) campaign on say Google’s Adwords, or with Yahoo’s Overture. What this will do is give you a quick way of testing your new keywords. It is also important that you then track these keywords with a conversion tracking tool, which will tell you which keywords lead to sales, and which keywords are just a waste of both time and money.

5.Optimize your web pages for these keywords

Once you know the keywords that lead to conversions, (sales) you should then set about optimizing your web pages for these keywords. While PPC allows you to quickly test keywords, and you can see the results within only a few days, optimizing your web pages allows you to get targeted visitors, WITHOUT you having to pay for them.

Search engine optimization can lead to great results if you concentrate on the right goals. Search engine optimization is about improving your business. It is not about getting as much traffic as possible. Focus on your target group, and on keywords that work best for you. You will save a lot of work while at the same time increasing your profits.

There have been many innovations presented since then as a way of simplifying the submission process and eliminate most of the drudgery that has been associated with this task. With the development Google Sitemaps, the process has indeed been a big help to many webmasters and business owners. In fact, many people contend that Google Sitemaps is probably the most important development on the internet since the RSS, blogs and ping.

RSS, blog and ping had actually been used by webmasters as tools in informing search engines about new additions to their websites even though this function was not the primary purpose of the aforementioned innovations. Of course, Google Sitemaps is so much faster and easier to use compared to the said systems and this is the reason why it has risen in popularity and is now acknowledged as the most effective way of updating a website to search engines. In fact, this new innovation of using sitemaps for the search engine submission process has become a very vital part of operating a website and a webmaster can ignore it at his own risk.

There may still be some sceptics who may still not believe that a sitemap method of submitting new web pages or new content to a website is very effective. One reason why using the sitemap method like Google Sitemaps is that the technology was developed from the ground up with solely one primary goal, which is to alert and direct the Google search engine spiders to the web pages that you have specified. All the other methods are considered as indirect and submissions to search engines are not their primary purpose either.

Clearly, using Google sitemaps provides a win-win situation for webmasters and online business owners.

First, Google sitemaps limits the huge waste of the resources needed to crawl web site that have not changed. The technology allows webmasters to inform Google which pages have changed or if there are new content added to a website and then direct Googles spiders directly to those pertinent pages.

Google Sitemaps also radically speeds up the process of discovery and addition of pages to Googles web site index. This can only be achieved if you use the technology and nothing else.

Google Sitemaps offers a level of usability that is different from conventional sitemaps because it offers a directory of all the web pages in the web site that the webmaster or online business owner wants the search engine to visit.

Without the assistance of sitemaps like Googles, it may become hard for a web page to be found by the search engine crawlers. There is even a chance that the page may not be found at all.

In order to get maximum exposure on the internet your site must be promoted and advertised in the online environment. Nine of ten users who visit your web site through search engine make up your target audience. These are the people who want to find as much information on products and services that you provide as possible, who would like to obtain a detailed description of your company and find out uniqueness and distinctiveness of your business. There is no need to explain that sites that are located on the top of the search list are capable to get more visitors than those who are in the end. The rating of the site in the search system might affect the business development of your company as well. So we have to find the answer to a one very important question: How can one get the attention of such famous search engines as Yahoo Google and MSN?! Here where Search Engine Optimization comes.

The content has to be clear both for customers understanding and should be visible by major search engines. Optimizing your site you should take into account the relevance of the text and ratings of your web site. For that you must analyze the market you operate in, exchange topical links and register in meaningful for the search engine catalogues. Every search system estimates the value and use of your document in relation to inquiry made by web visitors. Search Engine Optimization is a non interrupting process. Sometimes clear results can be received in several weeks or even months. As a rule people use the first words occurring to them. So, Manchester SEO optimizers have to concentrate on these words or phrases.

Every company offering Birmingham SEO related services promises results but few deliver on that promise. To be the exception when it comes to delivering on that promise a Birmingham SEO partner must take an approach that ensures quality results that meet YOUR business objectives.

There are lots of ‘unethical’ approaches to Birmingham SEO that can actually get you banned from search engines. Unfortunately, some Birmingham SEO companies still use these as a ‘quick-fix.’ Unfortunately, you get left holding the bag. Make sure the Birmingham SEO company can explain their approach in terms you can explain and if they can’t you should keep searching.

Here’s what to look for:

First, they should demonstrate that they understand your business need.

Just giving you a questionnaire is not enough. At the beginning of any engagement, they should take the time to understand your business objectives. Your business is unique and a one-size-fits-all approach rarely actually fits every business. By taking the time to understand your business they should be able to tailor their services to best meet your business objectives as well as your budget.

Second, they should use a proven model of optimization that offers ‘realistic’ expectations.

Ignore marketing hype like “Rank #1 in Google in 24 hours” Search engines do not make public the process or rules they use to crawl, rank pages or index website pages. Further the processes and rules change often as the search engines attempt to increase the value of search results. Of course if your keyword phrase is “one of a kind white unicorns hand made by a grandmother in Peoria” then you actually have a good shot of # 1 ranking if anyone actually ever searched for that. Otherwise, it takes time and lots of work to get high rankings.

To compensate for this lack of public information, an Birmingham SEO partner should rely on a proven model to uncover the rules.

1. Analyze Determine where your pages rank today. From this you can learn what may be right about these higher ranking that can be applied to other pages.

2. Target Every web site is unique. Rather than a set of canned optimization recommendations they should determine the right optimization options for your website. To accomplish this they should use a range of methods:
Expert Review. While many Birmingham SEO partners have great in-house experience they should also turn to other experts who study search engines to determine the most likely rules used to determine how pages are indexed and ranked.
Best Practices. They should look at the top ranking competitors in your space to determine how they optimized their pages, particularly those aspects that could influence page rankings.
Learn as they Optimize. They should consider implementing changes to larger sites in stages. Start by optimizing your highest value pages first, then, based on the results modify the optimization approach if needed before continuing.
Its More than Google. While organic search results are a key portion of any optimization effort, they should know that it takes much more to get quality traffic to your website. They should be able to help you go beyond the search engines to find your new traffic.

3. Optimize They should be able to provide the detailed information you need to understand what needs to be done to your website. They should also be willing to let you make the changes rather than forcing you to allow them to make the changes at substantial per hour fees.

4. Analyze – Birmingham SEO is not a one-time effort. Your business changes, your competitors change, your prospects and customers change and the search engines refine rules. This means you will need to periodically review your ranking and re-optimize your site. You should expect your Birmingham SEO partner to provide ‘follow-ups’ to ensure that you got results.

Third, their approach should be comprehensive and include all the aspects that bring traffic to your website, not just search engines. Make sure they will provide

Detailed Site Analysis – You need to understand from where your site is starting.
Keyword Analysis – All keywords are not created equal. They should help you understand which ones to use, and as importantly, which ones not to use.
Page Structure Recommendations – Content, headers, keyword placement, it all matters.
Engine Submissions – Each engine is unique. ‘Submit a link’ programs are not effective.
Paid Search – The internet is like any business, sometimes ‘free’ isn’t worth even that.
Reciprocal Links – As with keywords, all links are not created equally.

Finally, the right Birmingham SEO partner should work hand in hand with you to make sure the changes recommended for your website are the best fit for you. They should share their approach to making the changes to your website and should be flexible to make changes in a way that best supports your business needs.

Selecting a Birmingham SEO partner can be intimidating. With all the marketing hype, it is easy to get fooled. In the end Birmingham SEO is like any other business service you use. You should be able to understand the benefits, and limitations, it offers and make an informed decision about how to invest your money.

By the way, if you find the hand-made unicorns please pass me the URL. I’m in the market :>)

Aubrey Jones is President and founder of Riverbank Consulting, Inc. Through Webs 4 Small Business he is able to bring Birmingham SEO and other internet services to Small Business owners. He has been in the technology and internet industry for over 10 years building and managing large commercial internet services.

* The Absence Of Risk often, paid advertising is subject to click-fraud risks and competitors unfair techniques ( examples of these techniques would be the usage of software that will click your ads for hundreds of times without any noticeable profit to your site; however, you will pay for each and every single click to ). Pay-for-performance programs like Google AdWords have advanced protection against this harmful behavior but the risk will never be eliminated. However, Liverpool SEO is free of any potential risk unless you make obvious mistakes like spamming.

* Reliability paid search engine placement or banner ads work right until the moment when the marketing budget depletes. After that moment the site disappears from the listings and the returning customers will not find you again ( nor will the new visitors ). Liverpool SEO services will help buffer this process so you can gradually minimize the advertising budget as you will be increasing your results that are obtained from the organic search engine listings. Another advantage of this would be the fact that consumers prefer purchasing from a site that is ranked high in the search engine results rather than purchasing from an evidently placed advertisement.

* Brand Awareness a website that has a high rank among search engine listings means that more people will see the companys name and become more and more familiar with the products as well as the company although they still havent made one single purchase. A recent survey clearly shows that consumers are twice as likely to recognize businesses that are ranked high ( top three ) in the search engine listings in comparison to those that are appearing in the regular banner ads.

* Targeted Traffic the Liverpool SEO services will bring paying customers right to your door step. These customers that we are talking about have entered your websites keywords or phrases into the search engines and the results showed your business. The Liverpool SEO services will help you transform regular visitors into real buyers by analyzing their behavior once they locate your site. By utilizing the content of your website you will learn how to transform these visitors into buyers in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
* Affordability comparing banner ads with Liverpool SEO services in terms of costs, the money that you will pay for these services wont reach staggering sums like $15,000 that people pay for banner ads.
Now we are going to offer you a small list of techniques that should be avoided at all costs:

* Keyword stuffing

* Automatically generated doorway pages

* Misspelling of well-known websites

* Hidden text or hidden links

* Cloaking and false redirects

* Duplicated content on multiple pages

* Other methods that try to trick search engines

All in all, Liverpool SEO is highly recommended if you want to make your business popular because popularity over the Internet is crucial as you will attract more visitors and if you play your cards the right way, these visitors will be transformed into first time buyers and with a bit of luck, customers.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s address why optimization is important. For starters, who doesn’t want more business, right? I mean business is money and almost everyone I know enjoys making more money.
So, with that being said, Manchester SEO is an essential part of the online community when it comes to actually making money.

The reason I’m saying this is because the web is a vast place.
Whatever your company sells or offers as a service is more than likely offered by many others. Some of your competitors have probably already had their site optimized. My point being is that there are probably 100′s if not 1000′s of sites ahead of you in the search engines.

A professional Manchester SEO can rank your site and bring EFFECTIVE traffic your way. Let’s use an example. Let’s say you’re selling candles and you want your site to come up in Google when some one types in “candles”.

Now there is definitely some competition going on to rank for that key term, but not a whole lot. You’re competing with roughly 7 million other sites using that term. Now you’re probably saying to yourself 7 million! That’s a lot! It may sound like a lot, but it’s not that bad.

The term “candles” was searched a total of 2,580 times over the last 110 days. This is according to a very accurate tool we use to find key terms to use. Let’s say you rank #1 for that term and you get everyone who searched for that term to click on your site. Now, assuming you get 10% of the total traffic to complete a sale, that is 258 sales.

Assuming a candle is 5 dollars and each person only purchased ONE candle. 5×258 = $1290 Not bad right? The hard part is done. That’s getting people to your site. Now all you have to do is sit back, relax, and watch sales increase. The possibilities are endless!

Almost daily, I see a report about a company or individuals who is trying to fool Google through Bristol SEO. When are they going to learn that you just cant fool Google? Why would you even want to try it, with when you risk being banned from the biggest search engine in the world? Many people seem to try just because they wonder if it could ever be done. As a general rule of thumb: it can’t!

There are some instances in which people think that they have tricked google. They believe that something that they have done has rocketed their site to the top of Google’s listings and they truly believe that they have managed to “stick it to the man.” Nine times out of ten when this happens they either performed an Bristol SEO procedure that Google allows or even endorses or they just happened to fill Google’s criteria better than other sites in their category without even realizing it.

Once in a while someone will actually come up with a way to fool Goggle. They will be enjoy a nice high spot on google’s listings for maybe even several months, but then the end comes for these proud sites. As soon as Goggle notices that it has been cheated, these sites are removed from the index; sometimes permanently.

The fact is that these people dont understand the power that Goggle has. Anyone with a real interest in making money from the web should consider that getting banned from the search engines effectively removes your site from the web. They dont have to let you back in, and they dont have to give you any right to respond youre entirely at their mercy. You dont want to get in their bad books.

Aside from the fact that Goggle will remove you from its listings, there is another incentive against trying to fool Goggle. If you fool Goggle, you are fooling your clients. There is no reason to try to lure visitors onto your page expecting to get something and really giving them something else. This is a poor way to conduct business and more often than not it will chase the customer away for good.

If you want your website to be found in categories that dont apply to it, try purchasing ads on pages that are listed towards the top of the Goggle listings in these categories. You can actually increase your sites reputation in Googles eyes rather than hurting it by adding another link to your site. This is an excellent form of marketing because it allows you to reach out beyond your market simply by dishing out a few dollars a month.

Some of the most popular methods of trying to fool Google’s PageRank system are link farms and link exchanges. Link farms are basically websites that exist only to get links to specific sites counted by the search engines. Link exchanges are groups of websites that each pay a monthly fee to link to each other like link farms, only more expensive and dodgy. In both cases, the websites involved are attempting to climb the ranks of Google’s search results through the sheer quantity of links to them this is known as Googlebombing. But it doesnt always work.

Goggle knows that cheaters can ruin their search engine for the rest of us. After all, if link farms inflate the rankings of less-useful Websites, then well all start seeing worse search results. Thats why Goggle constantly updates PageRank to keep those kinds of sites away. The Page Rank formula that Goggle implements is mysterious and ever changing. This is the primary reason that Goggle cannot be fooled.

It has been found recently that Goggle is now sending out cloak bots, disobeying robots.txt to find out whether sites are cloaking serving a different page to search engines than what visitors see. These cloak bots are controversial but seem to have some positive effects on the Googles results.

Unethical methods make it difficult for people who are trying to do Bristol SEO the proper way, which is one of the reasons why it needs to be monitored so carefully. If people stopped trying to find ways to manipulate the system, it would be much easier to keep up with whats going on.

As you may already know, Goggle publishes a list of guidelines suggesting legitimate ways to improve a site’s ranking, by making it more accessible and better. One of the tips is to make pages for users and not for search engines. Youd do well to listen to their advice.

Internet Marketers assign names to these updates much the same way the weather service names hurricanes. Last October it was Jagger, before that we had the infamous Florida Update in late 2003, and Austin in early 2004.

Each update is designed to improve search results by either doing a better job of identifying high-quality content on the Internet, or by doing a better job of suppressing low-quality content.

Over the last two or three weeks, many website owners have seen traffic to their sites from Google fluctuate quite a bit. This is normal for algorithm updates as the index is updated on one data center, a site will change positions. The fluctuations occur because the index in the new data center is not completely built, and therefore a site may be placed artificially high or low until all the data is brought into equilibrium.

A few days ago, Google completed a major overhaul of its algorithm this one dubbed BigDaddy and in the world of search engine updates its a category 5 hurricane; well, sort of.

You see, after all the turmoil of the past three weeks or so, most marketers are probably seeing their websites ranked more or less where they were about a month ago. This is unusual. Usually major algorithm changes result in significant changes in site rankings for virtually all sites on the Internet. Both the Florida and Jagger updates changed the landscape of Googles Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) dramatically.

So, Whats the Big Deal About BigDaddy?

At first glance, the BigDaddy update seems to be much ado about nothing. However, there are some welcome changes that have been included in this update that should make Google a much friendlier place for those of us who build valuable content-rich websites.

* Increasing size and scope of the index One of the purposes of this latest update was to increase the size of the index itself. This will allow Google to dig deeper into your site and catalog even more of your content (HTML, JavaScripts, Flash, etc).
* URL Canonicalization Yes, its a scary word, but its actually quite simple. Essentially, canonicalization is determining which URL is the most appropriate for a given page. For example, the following URLs are all valid ways of reaching the homepage of SomeWebsite.com:
– http://www.somewebsite.com
– http://somewebsite.com
– http://www.somewebsite.com/index.asp
– http://somewebsite.com/index.asp
By improving URL Canonicalization, Google is attempting to make sure your site gets credit even though the URLs might be spelled differently on different websites.
* No More Page Hijacking Although not a common problem, there are unscrupulous jerks out there who will find a popular site and hijack its content by using 302 redirects. Google is attempting to eliminated the ability to do this effectively hopefully they are succeeding.
* New Spider You will also see a new Google spider called Mozilla Bot instead of the old familiar GoogleBot. If you are into looking at server logs, the new agent is Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
* Less Search Engine Spam continuing with the recent trends, Google seems hell-bent on eliminating the effectiveness of purchased keywords and link farms. If you are still employing these black-hat techniques, then you probably just found out about the BigDaddy update the hard way. If you didnt, then you will probably be hearing from BigDaddy soon.

BigDaddy Foretells More Changes To Come

In the immediate aftermath of a major update like BigDaddy, there are a number of things you can expect to happen.

The first is that your websites PageRank (PR) will probably change over the next few weeks. If youve been doing the things that Google likes, then you will likely see your PR improve, if you are engaged in unscrupulous (by Googles standards) activities, then you can expect your PR to go down. To see a list of what Google likes visit http://www.google.com/webmasters/.
In addition, some of your sites older content will be re-crawled and older, unlinked content will probably be removed from the index.
Over the next few months, there will also likely be a series of smaller updates that will take advantage of the new infrastructure provided by the BigDaddy update. Flash-heavy sites that were held artificially low may move up in the rankings while sites that rely heavily on reciprocal linking will likely go down.

BigDaddy Not Such A Big Deal
In short, as long as you are not engaged in Black-hat Birmingham SEO, BigDaddy itself is probably no cause for alarm. If your site has recently bounced around in Googles results, then you will notice that things have probably returned to normal in the last week or so, and your rankings have probably improved a little bit.

Moving forward, in the next few weeks you can expect changes to your PageRank, and perhaps deeper crawls by Googles new spider, Mozilla Bot. In the next few months there will likely be a number of smaller updates, mostly pertaining to issues like Flash content and niche-specific algorithm changes.

As with all algorithm changes, there is no reason to panic just because “BigDaddy” blew through town. Like hurricanes in the real world, algo changes blow a lot of loose material around; but if your website’s foundation is sound, you will weather the storm and be ready for business once the storm has passed.

Once you’ve started your Google AdWords campaign and chosen a great set of keywords, your ads may still need some work. No matter how relevant your keywords are, your campaign needs to woo your potential customers, not just freebie seekers.

This seems to be an area that most London PPC marketers fall down on. With all this talk about click thru rate, people miss the bigger issue: the clicks are next to worthless if they dont convert to sales. In fact, they arent even worthless they lose you money. Return on investment is what matters, and everything else is subordinate to that, including (perhaps especially) how many people click on your ads.

So, how do we target buying customers and get rid of the click-hungry tire kickers? Well, there are several strategies I use, and taken together they ensure I get healthy returns on my clicks.

Firstly, pay very close attention to your keywords. By on large, the broader the keyword, the greater the chance of random non-buyers clicking on your ad and costing you money. For example, someone searching for Adwords might want to log into their Adwords account, they might be searching for free content, or they could just be killing time.

Contrast this with a very targeted keyword such as buy Adwords e-book. Well, there is no comparison, the second will tend to convert at ten times the rate of the first, more general keyword but people tend to pay the same for each keyword. I dont know if its because no-one tracks their conversions properly anymore, but in any event dont fall into the trap of believing that all keywords are created equal.

If you are a merchant and have conversion tracking setup on Adwords, pay close attention to where your sales are coming from. The truth might surprise you.

Secondly, add free as a negative keyword to your campaign this will cut out the blatant tyre kickers before they even get a chance to click on our ads.

A third possible strategy is to put your price in the ad, possibly in the headline, eg super new gizmo only $50. However, I dont like this method too much the reason being that the freebie hunters will click anyway, and many potential buyers will be dissuaded from clicking (many copywriters make their price as invisible as possible on the sales letter, why advertise it before they have even read the benefits?)

What I tend to do instead is make a subtle reference to the fact that the information does come with a price tag, using a word such as cheap, low cost, inexpensive, limited offer, discounted price etc. This tends to not only dissuade the hardcore freebie hunters, but will actually make borderline potential buyers curious and more willing to read the sales copy. And that can only be a good thing.

Remember, click through rate is important but only if the people who click are buying. If not, you would be better off pausing your campaigns and trying a more forgiving advertising method.