Why You Should Hire an SEO Firm

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Posted on 15th June 2009 by Nick Hantge in Uncategorized

Looking into hiring an SEO Firm, Can they really help with your internet marketing?

Looking into hiring an SEO Firm. Can they really help with your internet marketing?

Written by:  Nick Hantge

Hiring an SEO firm is something many business owners are contemplating these days. Since the widespread popularity of search engine optimization (SEO) and its benefits, there have been many marketing firms offering to run SEO campaigns for other businesses. There have also been some do-it-yourself business owners who feel they can optimize their own website as well. From an overall marketing standpoint, the case can be made that investing in online advertisement will potentially reach more prospective customers through SEO than other forms of advertising such as print ads. Whether you are contemplating optimization on your website or thinking about running your own SEO campaign, here are a few reasons why you should hire an SEO firm to help land you in front of more potential customers looking for your product or services.

1. They have the Expertise
Even though the stereotypical web developer/SEO professional is thought to play video games all day and work at night in his mother’s basement, they should still be respected as a professional. After all, do you know how to change a cascading style sheet or create a dynamic sitemap? A main reason you hire an SEO Firm is for the same reason you hire an attorney to write up your legal documents or represent you in court; they are the expert! I personally do not change the brakes on my car or put a crown on my own tooth. Granted, I could learn how to do it on my own but I know it will save me in the long run to hire someone who specializes in these services. Now don’t get me wrong, there are a few companies out there claiming they know SEO and how to get you on the first page of Google so they can get a piece of the pie but choosing a good SEO firm comes later…

2. An SEO Firm will save you time
When you hire an SEO firm to handle your online marketing and SEO, it will save you loads and loads of time! I cannot stress enough how much time goes into a worthwhile SEO campaign. SEO firms have years of experience under their belt (hopefully) and a full knowledgeable team to work on optimizing and marketing your website for you.

Like anything, there is a learning curve to search engine optimization. I would be ignorant to say it has the steepest learning curve of any profession but I honestly believe it is in the top 25%. The time an SEO professional has but into gaining all of the knowledge they have gained is shocking! The lucky thing for someone who hires an SEO firm is they have already previously put in the time learning which ensures the website will rise in the search engines much quicker than someone who tries to optimize themselves. There is also a pretty good chance the SEO Firm will be able to utilize the connections they have with other professionals to help speed the campaign along.

Not only will the SEO firm you hire know the latest tricks to optimization, they also know what doesn’t work. As an SEO professional, we have learned through trial and error what effort to consume our time with.

3. It’s all in the numbers
Can you imagine paying employees that you cannot track the work or hours they put into their job? You would not be able to justify if paying them has been profitable for you or your company. The same holds true for hiring an SEO Firm. All of the good SEO firms have a tracking system on the website they are optimizing. In this tracking system you will be able to see daily visitors, what keywords they are typing in to find your website, what search engine or source they came to your website from, how long the individual was on your site, where the location of your visitors are coming from and the list goes on and on. SEO firms also have access to very useful web based tools such as a keyword tool that will tell you the monthly volume of searchers typing in certain keywords or keyword phrases. This is extremely beneficial to recognize and understand what keywords should be targeted in your SEO campaign.

If a business owner runs their own seo campaign are they going to create monthly reports to keep track of progress? Is a business owner going to focus on key point indicators such as bounce rate and new visitors in their SEO campaign to ensure prime results?

4. You Get to Focus on your own Business
Probably the greatest part about hiring an SEO firm to help with your online marketing is you get to concentrate on your own business; what you are good at! I have previously stated how much time goes into an SEO campaign and the truth is for the first six months you need to be constantly working on building links, writing articles and creating PR for your website every day. You have to admit, if you had to just concentrate on running your business and manage your staff efficiently while the leads came in you would be sitting pretty happy. There is no reason for a business to be concerned with trying to manage their online marketing and the day to day activities as well; that is hard enough.

Rely on a professional with years of experience and the time and team to fully optimize your website. Although the thought of not spending money on something you think you could do yourself is nice, hiring an SEO firm will pay for itself and then some in just 4-6 months!

If you would like more information on how an SEO Firm can help your business grow with Internet Marketing, check out SEO Information or send me an email: nick@thisisiniquitous.com. I would love to answer any questions you have!  (303) 999-7963

For More Articles like this:  Do It Yourself SEO | Optimizing your Google Profile

Twitter is severely misunderstood!

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Posted on 15th June 2009 by iansheldon in Uncategorized

I get alot of questions at the moment about Twitter and how it can help people to promote their business.  I’m finding that the main problem is that many see it as just ‘another’ social media site and as such seems to have a damanged reputation (without having been tried & tested)  based on peoples views of Facebook and My Space.

First of all – let me tell you that Twitter should be an essential part to every one’s online marketing campaign.  If you haven’t yet got a Twitter account – sign up right now!

So what is Twitter?

Basically, Twitter is a micro-blogging site which allows people to easily write very short (140 characters) posts, visible to people who are ‘following’ them.   You can view our Twitter feed here.

Why do people use Twitter? 

Twitter is a tool that allows you to build a network of ‘followers’ (contacts) to share information.  This information can be absolutely anything you want.  You can tell people what you are doing (although I wouldnt recommend telling people ‘I am typing on Twitter’!), you can promote your online services, alert people of interesting blog posts and news articles and much more!  Generally people ‘follow’ you on Twitter because you have something in common, so you are ‘tweeting’ to a targeted audience.  The more your Twitter network grows, the wider the audience for your ‘tweets’

A simple and easy place to start is to create a simple feed on Twitter and publish all or at least some of the most interesting new pages on it.  Note that the URLs will be shorterned to stay in the 140 character limit!

Twitter should become a place of interaction between you and your clients (and potential clients).  It was recently reported that Dell made $3m dollars by providing discount codes for their followers to purchase computers and laptops online.  With this is mind can you really afford not to spend a few minutes a day ‘tweeting’?

For more information on how Twitter can help with your online marketing, or how we can manage your Twitter account and Tweet on your behalf, contact eSoftware Solutions, a UK SEO Company, on 0845 838 8588.

Microsites – Black hat SEO or sound marketing tactic?

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Posted on 15th June 2009 by iansheldon in Uncategorized

Some link-building schemes and services may involve a range of activities that skim around the edge of Google’s rules on creating ‘linking schemes’. 

Included in this is the generation of creating a network of mini or micro-sites each built around a keyword, to provide relevant back links to your main web site.  By creating these micro sites (and I include Blogs in this category) the SEO’s have full control over the content relevance and back links to the main web sites. This micro-site strategy for search engine optimisation can work well – although it takes time to work and generally has to be done through third-parties. It is also recommended that you host the micro sites on different servers to your main site  as Google will be able to spot the association.

Ranking highly for extremely competitive keywords can sometimes be a tricky task, and not only do mini sites help to build content rich and relevant sources for back links, they can also help to promote specific products or services that you offer – which in itself is a great marketing tactic to help get your brand mentioned.  Whilst your main site will most definately have a URL containing the company name, you can get more creative with the domains of your micro sites by including the product names and keywords.

The important thing to remember when creating these micro sites is to stick to SEO guidelines at all times.  If you want your micro sites to get a good Page Rank (to pass back to your main site) then you need to consider how you will acheive this by referencing them in blog posts and social media posts such as Twitter.

If you are looking to optimise your web site to improve your search engine rankings then contact eSoftware Solutions, a UK SEO Company, on 0845 838 8588.