First of all – familiarize yourself with basic SEO jargon like: internal/external links, meta tags, titles, pagerank, etc. 

This way at least you know what the SEO company is talking about when they make the sales pitch.

Personally, I noticed that the shady ones are often hiding behind geek lingo trying to paint you in a corner by throwing these words at you, thus proving that they know what they are talking about.

You can cut that conversation short and find out how credible and professional they are by asking 5 little questions. Here they are:

1. What kind of results should you be able to see and how long will it take to get there?
2. What experience do you have in my industry and how long have you been doing this?
3. Show/send me examples of your previous work and success stories. Can I contact some of these people?
4. Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
5. What other marketing services do you offer besides SEO?

Just keep this list by your phone and take notes while they answer these questions. I’m sure you are a pretty seasoned business individual so you should be able to spot the shady ones right away. You can download a quick and easy PDF document of “Questions to ask a SEO company” right here.

Step 1: Create a sitemap.xml using this free site: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Step 2: Use Google webmaster tools to get Google to crawl your site: www.google.com/webmasters/

Step 3: Feed the Googlebot your sitemap by directing it to your robots.txt file:
[within the robots.txt file include this line: Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml]

Step 4: Submit your sitemap to other search engines:
http://submission.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Another blog project on Defacto Mind; there are only 18 days left until New Year and I decided to schedule 2 more activities and write about in the Defacto Mind blog.

For the next 3 weeks I will write a book review every Tuesday and I’ll call it “Cool Blue Tuesday Book Review”. There is really no reason why Tuesdays would be blue or cool for that matter but I just thought it sounds catchy. So, every Tuesday, after reading a book about SEO, marketing, design or social media, I’ll share with you my impressions about a particular book and recommend it (or not) to you – the reader.

On the same token, every Thursday will be reserved for a small summary of a blog with information covering the same items mentioned above. I will call this “Thursday Blog Talk”.

At this point, I don’t know which blog or book I will review so I guess it will be a surprise for everyone. If all works well, I might continue this practice throughout 2010.

In the same time, I’ll continue with “Creative Friday” with articles about design resources for everyone who wants to improve their skills and craft.
In summary, my blogging schedule for the next 18 days will as follows:

Tuesday – Cool Blue Tuesday Book Review – December 15th, 22nd and 29th
Thursday – Blog Talk Thursday – December 17th, 24th and 31st
Friday – Creative Friday – December 18th and 25th

…and the madness continues…

“Sign up with us for just $$ per month and we’ll guarantee you #1 on Google”

When I hear this type of sales pitch I just want to start screaming. How can someone guarantee a #1 spot on the most dynamic and ever changing medium in the world – the world wide web? Yahoo cannot even guarantee to be listed at #1 on Google’s index. What makes you believe that Junior from ABC-SEO company would be able to deliver?

Unfortunately, lots of businesses believe this baloney and go for it, to later find out that being #1 it’s a bit impossible to realize. Actually, I take it back – you CAN occupy position #1 in Google with one condition:

- The search is based on a keyword is so rare that not even Webster Dictionary hasn’t heard about it. So if your website is about “blue aluminum monkeys” then…yeah – you could be on Google’s #1 position.

You don’t believe me? Just go to any search engine like Google or Yahoo and check their “disclaimer” page. They all mention the fact that there are no guarantees for future positions of a website within a search engine listing; as no stockbroker cannot guarantee future earnings.

Here’s a myth: SEM Guarantees Permanent Top Position

Well, yeah, that’s almost true only if you pay for your Google AdWords and your ad has received the most clicks. SEO however cannot guarantee that because search engines are ultimately the ones making the “decision” based on their complex algorithms.

Show me one SEO specialist who can predict the future of a search engine algorithm and I’ll show you a stockbroker who will guarantee you a million dollars by the end of the week.

In addition, I am not so sure that search engines would really want the same sites to be listed again and again on the same position. That is why search engines change their algorithms almost daily.

New websites, full of fresh content are being added every single day. Very often, they are optimized better built and contain much more interesting material than data posted several months back. The fluctuation of the search engine index is permanent, and that’s the only thing that is permanent about the web.

Just for kicks, try this: Call a friend or a relative (preferably one that lives several hundred miles from where you are) and agree on a keyword to search on. Now type it in Google, both in the same time. Compare the results. Amazing! Right?
For more SEO Killer tips read this article

If a website brings in revenue do you care if it’s not  #1 in Google? You might want to invest a bit of money and experiment with Pay-Per-Clicks to see if your customer base will grow. If the changes in your SEO strategy do not bring more revenue don’t even bother.

Focus on search engine visibility and good user experience rather than be obsessed with Google positioning.

Useful Tips Every Web Designer Should Know About SEO

In the process of developing a web site, there are many professional profile that work on it, one of this is the SEO profile (Search Engine Optimization). If you are working in a web agency, usually there’s a professional …

Read on Woorkup

Understanding Your Brain for Better Design: Left vs. Right

The concept of the left and right brain only lately popped up in the late 1960’s, but since has become a well-known part of human psychology.While we all use both sides of the brain, each of us has a dominant …

Read on Webdesigner Depot

Google Analytics (abbreviated GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about who is visiting your website. Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics give you a wealth of information on your visitors and how they visit, browse and exit your site, but the code has to be installed on every page, and in the correct position. In order to accomplish this you will need a Gmail account to login and access your GA dashboard.

Google Analytics is implemented by including what is known as a “page tag”. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. Google Analytics provides a rough mechanism called “segmentation” to track your users based on data.

Traffic

Google wants you to attract more of the traffic you are looking for, and help you turn more visitors into customers. It seems Google loves to know more about website traffic by offering this service free. Make informed site design improvements, drive targeted traffic, and increase your conversions and profits.

Some of Google Analytics features include tracking how users found a site by listing referral traffic from search engines, tracking what keywords were searched, how a site was explored, displays what links were clicked on and how long users were on the site. Search Engine Traffic – Knowing which search engines are sending the most traffic and how well its converting can help you optimize your spend and SEO efforts.

Marketing

Marketing professionals may want to know where visitors come from, what they do, how to convert more visitors into sales, which keywords are working the best and which ad copy converts. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

GA can track visitors from all referrers, including search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click networks, email marketing and digital collateral such as links within PDF documents. You’ll get the information you need to write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites.

While Google will likely provide you the most traffic, if Yahoo or Ask converts better, you might want to see how you can get more visitors from them. Examine every aspect of the available reports, including visitors, traffic sources, content, and goals.

• 
  Here’s a Google Analytics trick everybody should know about
• Other Analytics Software Packages

Marketing Partners

As a business owner you are probably very good at what you are doing. One thing you should probably let the experts do is marketing – especially online marketing.

Why especially that? Because the image of your business is present in front of your customers even when you are sleeping. Because that’s where the trend is and you need to adapt to survive the market.

Without trying to emphasize the obvious let’s just all agree that in order for any business to succeed you HAVE TO BE ON THE WEB.

As a small business owner you have 2 choices:

1. Do it all Yourself (email marketing, web design, blog participation)
2. Partner up with a reputable company that can do all that for you without crippling your marketing budget. (visit my Web Design & Marketing Company that fits these requirements)

Let’s review one by one:

1. Do it Yourself
This requires that you learn all the skills necessary for you to create a powerful online marketing plan. As mentioned in the article “3 Marketing Must haves for Businesses”, they are: email, website, blog. You probably are proficient in email and maybe in doing some snazzy little graphics to insert into your emails. What about the website? How about the blog?

Here’s what you would need to cover the last 2 items:

• HTML editor
• CSS knowledge
• FTP – File Transfer Software
• Graphics Editor
• Statistics Reporting Software
• eCommerce software (if you are planning to sell anything on your web site)

Let’s say you have all of the above. My guess is that you are a web design & SEO company. No? Well – when do you have the time to do all this then?

2. Partner with a web design & marketing company
Your other option is to build a strong relationship with a company that can do all that for you. After all – time is money and you need to concentrate on your own business (unless you are running a web shop, and in which case disregard this option).

Wouldn’t you rather spend your time coding and twittering or working to grow your business?

If you are in need of surgery you don’t learn how to do it. You just go to a specialist. Find your specialist in marketing and stick with him/her until you see results in your business. Of course that doesn’t mean you have to be stuck with one person or one company but remember that you also have to give some time until all works well.

Marketing is not a “build it and they will come” idea. There are millions of other businesses trying to do better than you and they compete with a strong marketing plan backed by a strong marketing team. Ca you, by yourself compete with that?

Conclusion:

• Create your marketing plan, including a budget and stick with it
• Make a list of things you can do without cutting too much in your time spent on your own business
• Calculate the ratio of lost time doing it yourself vs. paying someone else to do it
• Find a good design and SEO company that can relate to your needs
• Pick their brain and listen if they bring new ideas that can enhance your profits

Use the Title tag and get high rankings with Google

Get a Title – Would You?

Don’t underestimate the power of one of the most common elements of your website/blog – the title tag (<title>). Google puts much emphasis on this tag and you should strongly consider it next time you update or construct your site. 

You need to know the rules and how to apply them accordingly. This article will give you the edge over your competitors and rank higher in all Google searches.

In short, here are the rules:

1. Every page should have a title and each should be different
2. The tile should contain no more than 65 characters (including spaces)
3. The title should start with the name of your business
4. The title should incorporate a CTA (Call To Action), even a provocative statement (usually a verb-noun combination)
5. Each page should contain and/or reflect the same keywords used in the iys title

And there you have it. 5 easy rules you should abide by and make it easy for Google to find your site, so you can find it in Google’s first page.

Best Practices - SEO - Google Image Optimization

Find out why this is a bad idea

So you have a blog up but it doesn’t look all that snazzy. Pictures…you need some pictures. But wait – Google’s search engine doesn’t really understand pictures. Does it?

The short answer is Yes – but there is a right way and a wrong way to serve Google with pictures. Find out here how to do it (the right way) – and increase your blog exposure.

It’s called “Image Optimization” and is crucial in getting a big BANG for the…BLOG.

So, do you need some fancy coding? No – not really. You just have to keep in mind 5 elements the Google Search engine is looking for:

1. An alt attribute that describes the content of the image (don’t leave home without it!)
2. A title attribute – meaning text that will be displayed when you move the mouse over the image
3. A src attribute – indicating the location of the image
4. A width declaration – meaning the width of the image (in pixels)
5. A height declaration – meaning the height of the image (in pixels)

That’s it! If you are running a WordPress theme – even better. When adding the image to your media category in the WordPress dashboard, you can specify the following elements:,/p>

• Title
• Caption
• Description
• File URL

Do this now! You will probably have to go back to your images and start reloading them with descriptions, title, etc. Image optimization produces extremely tangible results and you will see your traffic spike almost instantly.

If you have the time and patience do it for everyone of your articles. If not, take in consideration at least the ones which best promote the theme of your blog.

Note:

Make sure the picture is describing the essence of the article itself. If they are not related, Google will probably slap your wrist for tricking it and move on without paying any attention to your article.