Blog

Guest Article: Telling the Fakes From the Real SEO Experts

So you found a company that claims to be a Search Engine Optimization Expert, but you are not sure if they really are the Expert they say they are. So how can you weed out the fakes and the incompetents from one who is a real SEO wizard?

A real Search Engine Optimization Expert is one who understands that SEO has two functions: to foresee what the customers or potential visitors to your website would like to see as content of your website; and to work within the constraints set by the preferred search engines.

Your chosen SEO specialist should be able to identify the special keywords that are most likely to be used by your end users, readers or visitors. Some SEO teams will provide you with hundreds of keywords to use in your website content, but that is not effective or efficient because many of those target words and phrases may not be used by many people. Effective marketing by your Search Engine Optimization Expert means targetting the search process for your target visitors to a select list of keywords and key phrases that are very popular among the Internet population.

Your SEO specialist should also know that basic keyword research still contributes a lot to effective marketing efforts. This means targetting quality hits from the right visitors over just hiking the number of hits you get from the world at large. This is because a real Search Engine Optimization Expert knows that you need revenues so that your business can thrive, rather than just being a popular site for people to browse through. Even if you are the most-visited site on the Internet, if that doesn’t translate to revenues for you, then hiring an SEO marketer becomes an useless effort.

Something that is not commonly known except by real Search Engine Optimization Experts is that text is not the sole content being considered by search engines when ranking websites anymore. Nowadays, they should understand that content like news articles, videos and images are also part of the content which are scrutinized by search engines and contribute to your rankings. So a so-called Search Engine Optimization Expert who only optimises textual content has clearly missed the bus so you need to look elsewhere for a better SEO practitioner to consult and hire.

Does your Search Engine Optimization Expert know how to use online press releases? Online press releases can be used by your SEO guy (or gal) by submitting them to formats like RSS feeds and news sites – and yes, even search engines. Online press releases (in the hands of a competent SEO guru) can prove to be an effective way for link building to be conducted. But your online press releases should not concentrate on promoting your company name. If your expert doesn’t know that, tell him to focus instead on providing information and news articles that act as a supplemental service to the Internet community. The SEi practitioner should create this type of content from the perspective of the reader, audience or end user. Online press releases are best sent out to target channels at least two times per month. Online press releases are also a good way to integrate target words and phrases into the content so that your SEO effort is hitting two birds with one stone: keyword usage and promotion of the website.

Your SEO efforts must focus on certain areas that will make it more effective. Very popular keywords must be placed in the title tag, with less priority on the company name. Your website URL should be as short as possible, yet very concise with good use of information. Adding a keyword or two to the URL is also a good idea. User-friendly content that has been written by competent writers is great and always a good addition to the website.

Prioritize quality links over mass link building. And have your SEO practitioner place a site map on your website for the convenience of your visitors so they don’t get lost (this also helps with search engine positioning).

If you find outsourcing SEO work rather costly, consider hiring an in-house SEO manager instead. This may drive down your expenses by a large margin, and also gives you more control over what your SEO team is doing for you. You might, for example, opt for a multidisciplinary Search Engine Optimization team that has IT and Marketing expertise for best results.