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engine optimization has come a long way over the past
two decades. When I entered the field in the mid 90’s
most SEO was just entering a few lines of Meta tags
and making sure your keywords were prominent on the
page without overdoing it. Of course, back then there
were maybe 25,000 to 50,000 competing web pages for
any given keyword. Today typical competition ranges
from 800,000 to 1,100,000. That’s a big difference!
Go ahead and type in any keyword phrase into Google,
Yahoo or Bing to see what I mean. Crazy, isn’t
it?
OK, so we know that SEO has become a lot more complicated
than it once was, while also becoming much more competitive.
This is not exactly new news to most of us.
We already knew SEO was a big deal. Even if we did not
know exactly how big a deal, it becomes apparent that
it must be both valuable and difficult when you see
how much it costs to pay an SEO company.
As of June 2011, the average cost of SEO services in
the United States hovers around $9,000.- to $14,000.-
per year for a typical service industry company such
as plumber or electrician. It is also about the same
(high-end at 14k to 18k) for accountants and even more
for legal practices going after ultra competitive keywords
that bring in the big bucks in clientele (20k plus!).
When all is said and done, the typical business owner
will invest ten to twenty thousand dollars per year
in SEO. And although it sounds steep, they would not
be doing it if they were not making even more money
in return. In most cases; much more money. As I guess
as the old joke goes – why is SEO so expensive?
Because it’s worth it.
But how does that help you? Unless you have the money
to invest, it does not help you at all. In fact, it
hurts your position because now you are competing against
those with a huge advantage. And that advantage is helping
them pull even further ahead, steal your customers and
make even more money. You have heard the old saying
about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?
This is a great example of how it happens in business.
But it does not have to be this way. They might have
money but you have brains. Now if you are willing to
match those smarts with a little hard work, you can
take on your biggest competitor and never look back.
First of all, use a free keyword suggestion tool to
find the best keywords to target. Just run a search
for “free keyword tool” and try a couple
out. If you use Google’s free keyword suggestion
tool you can even just enter your domain name (or that
of a competitor) and let it suggest which keywords are
best to target.
Second, make a list of three to five keywords that you
think are right up your alley. If you sell items locally,
be sure the keywords include your geo… IE/ “plumber
in Boston” or “Boston plumber”. Of
course, make sure there is plenty of search volume for
the whole keyword, including the geo qualifier (city,
town, etc.)
Third, run a search for each of those keywords on Google,
Yahoo and Bing to see if your site comes up. If you
do not see it in the first page or two, there is no
need to look any deeper because nobody is going to find
it anyway. Tip: You can also look into a piece of SEO
software to do this for you by running a search for
“rank tracking software.”
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Now,
make note of the keywords that show the most promise
and make this your target list.
Note: If any of these keywords show up within the top
ten pages of the search engine results, then you probably
do not have to do any onsite SEO like adding SEO copywriting
or updating Meta tags. In fact, you can do it all by
just building quality one-way inbound links so you can
skip to that step.
Finally, if you find you need to update the on-page
factors such as SEO copy and Meta tags, follow these
simple steps.
1.) Make sure you have at least 300 words of text per
page and that your keyword in question shows up at least
once per 100 words (1.5 times is optimal), without going
over five mentions total.
2.) Most search engines will expect to see your main
keyword mentioned more at the top of the page and less
as you get toward the bottom. Please note however that
you need at least one mention in the final paragraph
to keep it feeling legit.
3.) Pay special attention to your Title Meta tag and
keep it simple. Having each keyword separated by a “pipe”
is a great way to handle this tag with the company name
put toward the end. Just don’t use the geo too
often and feel free to follow-up with the state abbreviation
and state name spelled out. For our example it might
be “Boston Plumber | Boston Plumbing Company |
Emergency Plumbers | Boston | MA | Massachusetts.”
4.) Get as many high quality backlinks as possible from
authority sites. An easy way to do this is to register
with as many directories as possible. Easy, but it can
be very time consuming as it typically involves setting
up a user account, writing a good title, writing an
SEO optimized description, verifying your account setup
through an email, submitting your request and entering
a captcha code to prove you are human and not an automated
bot, and finally verifying your submission via email.
There are plenty of other ways to get links, and you
will need several to really succeed. If you do not mind
spending $75 you can hire a link building company. If
you don’t want to continue spending that money
you might want to look into buying a piece of SEO software
for $150 to $200. if you go this route, get one that
does automatic rank tracking for you too and save a
ton of time and effort.
Please note that as an SEO professional I am happiest
when people choose to hire out the work. However, as
a small business owner, I must say that if you can invest
$150 or so, you can scoop up a tool that does it all
for you. Most SEO professionals have at least this one
in their toolbox; http://www.seoeliteweb.com but there
are many out there.
Just shop around and spend wisely. You can save an absolute
bundle on your SEO efforts, and eat your competition’s
lunch, if you do!!
Email:
admin@websiteoptimaliseren.com
Tel: + 31 (0)
615 189 209
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