SEO To Become A Dinner Party Topic

Thanks to a ground-breaking agreement between Dell and Google, SEO may soon be a mainstream topic of conversation. Dell, the world's leading maker of personal computers, has announced that it is testing a pre-installed package of Google software, including a Google-powered Dell home page, Google Desktop Search, and a Google Toolbar.

While the home page and Desktop Search will be an undeniable boost to Google's share of the Search market, and maybe even a threat to Microsoft's desktop dominance, it's the pre-installation of the Google Toolbar that will be of most interest to SE marketers and optimizers around the world.

Currently a specialist 'industry tool' used predominantly by SE practitioners, the Google Toolbar may soon be automatically available to hundreds of thousands of mainstream computer users. As a result, Google PageRank and, by extension, search engine marketing and optimization look set to become part of mainstream vocabulary. (Well, maybe that's a little optimistic... Perhaps they're more likely to become part of the vocab of the computer savvy mainstream.)

So what does this all mean to SEO and SEM? In my humble opinion, the four most important implications of the Dell-Google agreement are:

1) Business decision makers will finally 'get' SEO

Although not overly helpful to SEMs and SEOs, Google PageRank is an ideal hook for busy decision makers. It's very simple (in that it's just a mark out of ten) and measurable, and it's just THERE; you don't have to go out of your way to see the PageRank of a site. It's exactly what decision makers need to get their collective heads around SEO. They don't have the time or inclination to understand the complexities of SERPs, IBLs, spiders, indexing, keyword phrases, metatags, article PR, SEO copywriting, etc. For better or worse, PageRank eliminates all shades of gray, leaving the two colors many decision makers understand best: black and white.

2) Business will become aware of the importance of PageRank

While most business decision makers are aware that a good search engine ranking is good for business, they're not yet aware that a bad PageRank is bad for business. But with the Google Toolbar at their disposal, they soon will be. Decision makers will immediately start to use PageRank as a one-shot assessment of the credibility and authority of every website they visit. And in the process, they'll become painfully aware of what their own PageRank says about their company.

3) Business will be more Search-proactive

Once decision makers realize that a bad PageRank is bad for business, they'll be more likely to be proactive about their search engine ranking.

4) More businesses will dedicate a budget to Search

PageRank will become just a part of 'doing business'. Just like TV, radio, and newspapers, it will be proactively communicating with decision makers, each and every day. While the mechanics of a high search ranking will remain a mystery to most, the Search DOMAIN will no longer be considered a black art, and SEMs and SEOs will no longer be considered witch-doctors. This will make decision makers far more comfortable dedicating a budget to Search (especially as they now have something measurable to grab a hold of - see point 1 above).

Conclusion

It appears that Google has once again made a very astute business decision. For better or worse, they've improved their position in Search and made significant inroads into the desktop software market. Will they threaten Microsoft's desktop dominance? We'll have to wait 'n see. Will they enrich the SEM / SEO industry? In my humble opinion, yes! Google may not be everyone's favorite search engine, but if they bring PageRank into the mainstream, the Search industry will finally attract the percentage of corporate advertising spend it deserves.

(See http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,18080942%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html for further details of the Dell-Google agreement.)

About the Author:
* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. Visit DivineWrite.com or ArticlePR.com for details.
Article Source: Free Articles Directory

How To Hire A Good SEO Consultant

The importance of choosing the right SEO is greater than many of us can imagine. Search engine optimizing is what keeps your site indexed and ranked by search engines and ensures you a good amount of traffic. Without it, your website is either dead, or struggling for survival, hoping to be noticed.

The area of SEO is very complex and it's permanently extending. New companies and consultants seem to appear out of the blue. SEOs use a wide variety of search engine optimizing tactics, with different efficiency levels. Consequently, before hiring an SEO consultant, it is very important to make sure you'll be getting what you need. Apart from what you'll be able to find out from the SEO itself, you can also perform a previous research on your own.

Things to find out on your own

• Find out for how long has the company been in business. This should be listed on their website.
• Search their website for previous projects to find out whether they have a marketing related experience.
• A reliable company also has client testimonials and case studies to prove they are able to keep their customers satisfied.
• Be skeptical with companies that email you out of the blue to advertise their SEO services.
• Beware of SEO companies that claim they can provide a #1 ranking guarantee. Ranking is determined by many factors that are beyond the SEO's control.
• Beware of SEOs that claim they have a priority submit or special relationships with Google or other search engines. There's no such thing.

Things to ask the SEO consultant

Do they include link building in their SEO services?

A professional SEO consultant doesn't limit to building keyword rich content, but also incoming links from relevant website to increase your PageRank.

What are they doing for website conversion enhancement?

A high traffic is meaningless unless your website provides what the users are looking for. A good SEO consultant uses several conversion enhancement techniques, such as copywriting strategies, site usability, call to action tactics and advanced conversion reporting.

Do they help you with calculating your ROI (Return of Investment)?

SEO services can be quite expensive and you need to calculate your potential returns. ROI depends on various factors, such as target population, size of your market place, the sales value of your services and the number of people searching for them on the Internet etc. An experienced SEO should be able to help you predict your ROI.

Do they use SEO best practice and anti-spam methods?

There are many SEOs that use various strategies to trick search engines in thinking your page is more relevant than it actually is. No SEO consultant will admit to using spamming and other unethical strategies, so you can't ask him the question directly. However, ask as many questions as possible about the methods they will be using and make sure you receive straight answers.

Do they put a limit on the number of search phrases?

Many SEOs have a limited number of phrases they will optimize for. However, if you're paying a monthly retainer to the SEO Company, they shouldn't do this. Even though there are a few phrases more important than others, the rest shouldn't be neglected either.

The first thing a good SEO consultant will do is perform an analysis on the current state of your website and provide a Website Analyzing report. Further analysis should be performed on a regular basis and your website traffic should be permanently monitored. A professional consultant understands the difference between bulk traffic, getting to your website for irrelevant keywords, and qualified traffic. Making the right choice will provide you with qualified traffic, as well as well-structured pages and a high usability level.

Copyright © 2006 Andreas Obermueller

About the Author:
Andreas Obermueller is webmaster of Hit4Biz.com - Marketing Related Information and recommends Marble Host as reliable Web Host
Article Source: http://www.articles411.com

Google Page Rank - important or just another number?

In my last newsletter I wrote about how your websites Alexa rating is not actually that important to the success of your online business. In this issue, I want to look at another popular statistic - Google Page Rank - and ask a similar question - is it that important?

First a quick overview as to what the Google Page Rank actually is...

Google Page Rank (or PR as it is often referred to as) is simply an indication of the number of websites that link to a specific website. It also attempts to indicate the quality of those links. PR ranges from 0 to 10 (with 10 being the 'best' PR and 0 being the 'worst'). The vast majority of small business websites will usually find they have a PR of between 0 and 5.

To calculate a particular sites PR, Google uses a fairly complicated algorithm based on the number of web links that it is aware of that link to the site in question. This algorithm will also take into account the PR of the page that is providing the link, thus a link from a web page that has a PR of 7 will be considered more valuable than a link from a page with a PR of 4.

Because of the way in which links from higher PR-ranked sites are considered more important, many people are choosing to buy links from websites with high PR's just so that they can increase their own PR. I have seen sites selling a simple text link on their home page for over $700 a month purely based on the fact that they have a PR of 7 or above. This may seem like a lot of money but when you consider that the website owners that are buying these links often have websites that are in no way relevant to the content of the site linking to them, it is absolutely ridiculous.

Take this example, let's say you have a website about health and fitness and you buy a link for $500 a month from a random website because it has a PR of 7. This random website has no relevance to your health and fitness site so what is going to happen? Well, your own PR may increase as a result of the link. You may get a bit of extra traffic but probably not much since people don't click on links that that they are not interested in. You will definitely be $500 poorer at the end of the month!

Instead, why not spend the $500 on pay-per-click advertising and benefit from some quality, targeted traffic?

Of course, there is a bit more to it than that and the reason that most people want to increase their PR is because Google takes this statistic into account when determining where a website will be displayed in their search results. Many people assume that a high PR automatically equals a high search engine placement for their chosen keywords. Not so....

PR is just one of over 100 different factors that Google takes into account when deciding where your website will feature (and these factors and the main algorithm change on a very regular basis). It is perfectly possible for a website with a PR of 5 to get a higher ranking than a PR 7 site if it has better content or is more relevant for the search term in question.

Remember that relevance is all important with Google and a link from a website that is not relevant to your own site will be considered far less important than a relevant one (which makes buying links from random sites purely because they have a high PR even more crazy).

I have read several rumours lately that Google haven't updated PR's for a couple of months and they are considering phasing PR out or modifying it in some way. This is pure speculation but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. PR is easily manipulated (for example by purchasing links as described above) and Google doesn't like to have their calculations or search results manipulated. It stands to reason that they will be looking at ways of preventing this.

So, in summary, is Google Page Rank important to your business?

Well, it is a good indicator of how many other sites link to yours and how important Google considers your site to be BUT I personally don't place too much importance on this statistic and I certainly won't be paying out for a link from a website just because it has a high PR.

As I said above, Google changes it's rules on a regular basis and I see little point in chasing a particular PR on the basis that it might get you higher search engine rankings. If Google do decide to do away with PR, all your work will have been for nothing.

Instead, concentrate on building quality, relevant links from sites that are connected in some way to your own site content. This will ensure that any traffic you receive via these links will at least have an interest in your site. Building links on this basis will automatically increase your PR over time (without the need to pay out for overpriced, irrelevant links). If you do things this way and Google does scrap the PR indicator, it shouldn't affect you in any way and the links you have in place will continue to benefit you.

Remember, in the same way that a low Alexa rating doesn't guarantee traffic or sales, neither does a high PR. Sure a high PR is a 'nice to have' but lots of traffic and high sales is even nicer :-)

Copyright 2004 Richard Grady

About the author:
Richard Grady has been helping people earn online since 1998. Find out more about Richard at: http://www.thetraderonline.com Free wholesale search engines: UK- http://www.wholesale118.co.uk and US http://www.thewholesaletrader.com
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Internet Users Benefit From The Search Engine / Seo Cat-and-mouse

A constant cat-and-mouse game between the major Internet search engines and search engine optimization (SEO) companies has an interesting result: As these two groups try to psych each other out to beat the other’s system, search capabilities are constantly improving for the consumer of Internet services.

Here’s what happens: Each search engine develops a formula for producing the most accurate, relevant results according to the Internet user’s keyword search, and then the SEO companies analyze the search engine’s function and develop a system of strategies to allow their customers to take advantage of that formula. Common strategies include providing enriched text blocks (a few paragraphs of text containing multiple keywords likely to be picked up by the search engines), general interest articles, with embedded links, on particular topics relevant to the customer, development of multiple links to the customer’s site from other websites, and a combination of sponsored links and pay-per-click ads (paid ads which appear on other websites). This combination of strategies promises to improve a website’s ranking in the search results, a valuable asset in cyberspace; if a company can land on the first page of a keyword search, the probability of the Internet user visiting its website skyrockets.

Of course, as soon as the SEO companies figure out a particular search engine’s formula, the search engine changes the rules, since the search engine’s honchos want to provide the most accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information, and not allow website owners to game the system. And of course the SEO companies respond with new, more sophisticated strategies. The result to Internet users is a constantly improving ability to search efficiently for the goods, services, and information they need.

Google is the biggest game in town, but other search engines have their following; Alta Vista is popular among college students and serious researchers, for instance. There’s also dogpile.com, a search engine that searches all the other major search engines and pulls up the most relevant results from each. And new search engines pop up all the time – Ask.com and AskJeeves.com are two examples of newer search engines with popular followings. A good SEO company will develop strategies not just for Google, but for all the major search engines.

Search engines aren’t perfect, of course, and one thing they can’t do at the moment is access specific information contained in the multitude of databases available on the Internet. Federal, state, and some local governments have searchable, free databases which allow users to access this information; other databases, such as Ancestry.com, charge a subscription fee for their use. For public information on the federal level in the U.S., FirstGov.gov is a great place to start.

Search strategies exist for the web surfer as well. Just try doing a Google search for tax information, for instance. Type “taxes” into the keyword search bar and click on Search. In the U.S. you’ll see irs.com, and then numerous companies advertising their tax services. But type in “taxes .gov” and you’ll pull up the same IRS site, followed by many more government website pages, some of which may provide more direct access to the information you need than going through irs.com, and without having to wade through a bunch of accounting firms. Type in “taxes UK .gov” and you pull up government information for the United Kingdom, and so on. Doing a keyword search on the general topic you’re researching should pull up relevant database sites. (By the way, if you want to see an example of great search engine optimization strategies, do a search on “genealogy” and look at all the links to Ancestry.com on the websites you find—they’re everywhere!)

As the cat-and-mouse game continues between search engine companies and SEO firms, the result promises to be ever more sophisticated, powerful, and accurate techniques for accessing valuable information over the Internet. As the continuing success of more and more new search engines suggests, we may have only scratched the surface of our Internet information technology capabilities.

About the Author:
Sam Vogel writes about search engine optimization-seo www.albaengine.com
Article Source: NewFREEArticles.com