When you get an e-mail from SEO Company with content similar to this:

"We submit your site on X00.000 search engines and directories…"

Stay far away from companies which offer you to submit your site on thousands of directories and search engines.

Why?

What they do is: they use submission software and advanced scripts and they submit your site to different guest books, local search engines, search engines in other languages, post your URL in comments in different Blogs, FFA etc…You will not have any benefit from this.

FFA stands for Free For All, pages which are designed to carry a designated amount of links on each page. Have in mind that when comes to link popularity relevancy counts and links form this pages will not going to help you much. Add to this that FFA pages have very limited life span, you will get the picture.

When some SEO company claims that they can guarantee #1 on Google

Why?

No one can guarantee #1 on any Search Engine! (Except the owner of course)

I can guarantee you first place in the search results in my Greek Business Directory, since I am the owner, but there is no chance that ethical and honest SEO company will give you such a guarantee in real life.

Even the biggest companies in SEO industry do not give such a guarantee. There are companies who claim that if they don’t achieve specific number of top 10 positions, you get your money back. Take even this with great caution, and be sure to read their guarantee 2 times, including the small letters on the bottom (if there are any). Many of them will attempt to propose you non competitive phrases, which will give you no traffic and therefore you will have no benefit from this.

When SEO Company offers you to get paid on base on delivered traffic

(Though THEIR domain)

Why?

Many SEO Companies offer to the prospective client’s deals on base on delivered traffic. This traffic to be measured easily, they propose new domain, or sub domain to be created, optimized and to deliver traffic though this domain. Be sure to ask which property will be that domain or sub domain.

If SEO Company told you that domain will be their property, your site will not be optimized. Here is what will follow: SEO Company will register domain name on THEIR name, and will optimize that domain for your keywords. They will redirect all traffic from that domain to your site.

You will be forced to pay monthly maintenance to that company and if you decide to stop their services, they will redirect their traffic to some other company in same industry. Keywords which worked well for you, will work well for your competitors too.

Fair and honest company might offer similar deal because of many reasons, but the domain from which the visitors will come will be YOURS, so if you want to change SEO Company, you will have the traffic directed to your site until the new company takes over, and your investment (optimized domain and the traffic) will remain your property.

In case that SEO Company doesn’t want to disclose the techniques which will use to rank high your website.

Why?

Legal and ethical SEO Company will give you very clear idea what they intent to do with your site, and will give you detailed plan of activities. You have to know that some SEO Companies use techniques forbidden by search engines and your site may get banned from the search engines because of this.

For example if your SEO company use thousands automatically created so called doorway pages, which are full of your keywords only and are useless to the visitors, your site might get banned because of this.

So be sure to ask your SEO Company what they intent to do, and which techniques they plan to use. Good SEO Company is always ready to educate their client to some level.

When SEO Company claim that you will see the results within 1 months

Why?

In this case, don’t walk away. Run!

If your site is brand new, it might take up to 3 months to get listed on major search engines. To get some results even in less competitive results, you should count that 4-6 months is the timeframe where you can expect to see first results. Note that if your website has 5-10 pages only, you will need much more content that this. SEO Company will have to add much new pages to your site, and that is time consuming task.

So, if the SEO Company claims that you will be on the top within a month, they have PPC (Pay per Click) in their mind, and that have nothing with Search Engine Optimization.

About The Author

Zoran Makrevski

Search Engine Positioning Firm

SEO.Goto.gr

In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more companies are turning to online marketing initiatives – specifically, search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization or (SEO) is the art and science of blending technical and marketing skills together into a finely tuned website that is both search engine-friendly, ranks well for specific keywords and phrases, and is tailored to your audience from a buyer and seller perspective.

According to a recent U.S. study, only 20% of all businesses outsource search engine optimization programs to professional SEO firms. The remaining 80% either do not conduct search engine optimization at all or they believe they have the resources and skills to do it in-house. Of this 80%, it is probable that 90% of these companies can’t be found on the web – they don’t exist. In order to generate any amount of significant web visibility, your website must typically rank within the top-30 results.

So, the question comes down to what is in your company’s best interests?

Conduct your SEO program in-house or out-source it. To answer this question, let’s first take a look at the knowledge, skills and resources necessary to implement and maintain a successful search engine optimization program.

SEO knowledge and skills required

1) Basic understanding of how search engines and directories work.

This may seem overly obvious, but you would be amazed how many people do not understand how they actually work. This knowledge provides the foundation for your SEO program.

2) Website design

Although SEO is not completely a technical marketing process, it does require a fair amount of technical knowledge of what constitutes search engine-friendly web design. Certain web design elements can either help your search engine rankings or hurt them. You simply have to know which is which.

3) SEO experience

This is the most important and most difficult knowledge to obtain. If you have never implemented a SEO program, then you are in for a big surprise. Search engine optimization programs require a lot of research and are extremely time consuming. Most importantly, they require actual SEO experience. This means knowing what SEO strategies and tactics work and which ones don’t.

In-house vs. out-sourced SEO programs

If your company is considering conducting your search engine optimization program in-house, here are some questions to consider.

IT Department

Typically your IT department handles multiple daily tasks from trouble-shooting your company’s LAN or WAN to fixing the sales department’s laptops? Out of a busy IT person’s day, what priority and focus do you think he or she will commit to for your SEO program? And even if your IT department has some skills in web design or development, these skills make up only a small percentage of the knowledge required for a successful search engine optimization program.

Marketing Department

Typically, your marketing department juggles many marketing projects at once and faces strict completion deadlines. From handling new print collateral campaigns to getting ready for new product or service launches, marketing personnel’s time is spread very thin. In addition, how knowledgeable is your marketing department in the technical aspects of web design and search engine optimization? Do they have the time to become well-versed? Do they have sufficient internal resources? Often the answer to both questions is no, they do not.

Other individual(s) within your company

Ok, so the responsibility falls onto someone outside of your Marketing or IT department. Who will that be and why are they responsible for your SEO program? Providing these individuals with a new “project of the month,” will typically result in another check mark off of their monthly to-do list and frustration by top management of why their website is not producing any sales results.

Summary

From a business standpoint, it makes sense to try to leverage internal resources to maximize your company’s productivity and profitability – whenever possible. However, there must be a line drawn in the sand between knowing what your organization’s capabilities are and what they are not.

As you can see, there is more to search engine optimization than meets the eye. In order to implement and maintain a SEO program, you must acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources. This can be done by hiring a professional search engine optimization firm. Professional SEO firms have dedicated resources and experience to support your company’s web marketing initiatives. By leveraging their experience and know-how, your company can quickly and more efficiently implement a successful search engine optimization program.

About The Author

Corey Wenger is owner of Key Position Web Marketing and is a professional Search Engine Optimizer and Consultant who has over three years of experience in helping companies increase sales and profitability through strategic web marketing programs. For more information, please visit www.key-position.com or email him at corey@key-position.com.

With all the “How To” articles, and great advice available online today, great website promotion and running a successful online business still comes down to the simple act of providing great service and helping people with their concerns and/or problems. This article will give 4 key points in providing great website promotion.

1. Fantastic Customer Service

2. Upfront and Visible Contact Information and Support Services

3. Useful and Informative Content

4. Keep it Simple

Incredibly, myself included, we always seem to get carried away with following the latest promotion tips and trends that seem to be the current craze at the time. Granted, it is imperative as entrepreneurs to always have an open mind to new technologies, and marketing techniques. However, we must not forget the simple and proven tasks of being available to help others out. Successful website promotion at its core is all about the customer, or the person browsing your website. In this age of virtually instant communication, positive “word of mouth” recommendations and feedback of other’s about your site/product is absolutely invaluable to the long term health, growth, and sustainability of your endeavors.

You might be saying “We all already know that fantastic customer service is important” However, do you realize how important? Large corporations spend literally hundreds of millions a year just on customer surveys which evaluate their companies effectiveness to their consumer. If you have not yet sent out a simple survey asking your customers/clients, etc of how you can serve them better, this should become your next project this coming week. Overall however there are a couple key things to remember in providing “Fantastic Customer Service”.

1. Prompt and quick response to any questions/comments received.

2. Provide prompt solutions and/or advice as soon as possible

3. Always keep customers/clients advised of the steps you are taking to help them.

(IE If you cannot find an immediate solution, advise them, of the additional steps you are attempting to take on their behalf)

5. Send out a quarterly survey to a random group asking them what you could improve on.

6. Finally, take steps to initiate at least one new tool every quarter to help improve the Fantastic Customer Service you already provide. (This is what wills et you apart)

Providing Visible customer contact information, and help resources is another important step in providing Fantastic customer service. In today’s world most customers like to be able to have resources available in order for them to resolve their own concerns/questions. By the time a customer calls or emails you it is often too late, and your customer is probably already agitated. Here are a few suggestions to help your consumer solve some of their own concerns, should they choose to do so. Remember, the faster a concern is addressed and solved, the more, and better recognition you will receive as that customers shares their experience about you, your product, and/or website.

1. Keep an updated and thorough FAQ section. (Make sure it is easy to find)

2. If possible integrate a trouble ticket support system (This way the customer can always access, and see the status of their question/concern)

3. Consider integrating a live help system(Again, offering an immediate solution vs. making customers wait for a response.) I would recommend http://www.phplivesupport.com/

5. Consider creating a support forum for all users to ask questions and be able to search through answers to past questions.

In this section I will combine the “Useful and Informative Content” with “Keeping it Simple”. There have been many articles written on the importance of having useful and informative content on your website. Not only does this help you in your quest to achieve a high search engine ranking, especially with Google, but perhaps even more importantly you are once again providing a useful service to your customers and/or clients. I realize much should not have to be said about this topic, however I will finish this article stressing the importance of “Keeping it Simple” I have seen many websites that do have large volumes of great and useful information.

Many times this is done in hopes of achieving a greater ranking in the search engines. However, what these websites have gained in content, they have lost in simple website navigation. Keep in mind, that studies have shown, that that average website visitor is looking to find a solution in under one minute. Combining great content with a simple and easy user interface will not only improve your website’s functionality, but produce even more satisfied and repeat customers.

With only a few simple adjustments to your customer service policies, can result in the best promotional campaign you have ever implemented. This will start you well on your way in achieving exponential growth in website traffic, revenue, and customer satisfaction.

Darren currently owns and is involved with various online marketing and management companies. He is the author of “How to get Listed in Google within 72 Hours” and prides himself on offering support and helping many individuals and business customers achieve top 10 rankings within Google in an extremely short time frame. http://www.marketingoutlet.com/google_article.htm

A search engine optimization maintenance service plan will ensure that your site will continue to increase in its rankings, attract more visitors and make more sales. It’s not enough to simply design your web site, have it optimized for the search engines and expect it to continually rank well. If left alone, you may soon lose the business your web site initially generated.

What should be included in a SEO maintenance service plan?

1. Monitor search engine rankings - there will be many fluctuations in your search engine rankings. This may be due to search engines changing their ranking formulas, or competitors trying to get ahead of you. More sites are added to the web each day so you need to monitor your search engine rankings to be competitive. I create monthly ranking reports on where your site is currently ranked for each of the major search engines.

2. Traffic Tracking - it’s essential to know where most of your traffic is coming from so you can make adjustments to your marketing strategies. For example if most of your traffic is coming from one particular page, you may want to place your best products on that page to get more sales. I analyze your site statistics (if they are available from your web host) to check how much traffic you are receiving, where is it coming from and what keywords are being used to find your site.

3. Keyword research - web sites are being added to the web every day, therefore keywords that once got high rankings may no longer work. You may have high search engine positions for your most important keyword phrases but if you are not receiving any traffic from those phrases, you will need to evaluate the keywords that you have used. Attaining a number 1 ranking for keywords that no one will search for, will not increase your traffic.

Researching new keywords is essential to maintain good rankings. I analyze the current keywords used on your site and research and add new ones. Once the keywords have been chosen, the content should be updated to reflect them. This may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles and text headings; or it could involve adding additional sections to the site, rewriting content and reorganizing the web site’s structure. It all depends on the specific requirements of the site and market.

4. Competitive analysis - an integral part of search engine optimization is determining what keywords your competitors are using. I analyze where your competitors are currently ranked for the same keywords you are using for your web pages. I also check how many competitors you have for each of the major search engines. If there are too many competitors for a particular keyword it may be better to use less competitive keywords for your web pages or use them in conjunction with the most popular ones.

I will also analyze the link popularity of your competitors to determine how many incoming links they have and what the quality of those links are. You should not link to unrelated sites and ideally link to sites that already attract a lot of traffic.

5. Adding fresh content - web sites that continuously update and/or expand their content, usually experience higher rankings than stagnant web sites. New keywords should first be researched before adding new content. This will help boost your traffic and rankings because visitors will have more ways to land on your site based on the keywords they entered in the search engines. One great way to achieve this is to add new articles to your site on a regular basis.

6. Web copy analysis - getting a lot of traffic to your site does not guarantee sales. It primarily depends on how effective your web copy is. (Read my article: " How to Write Effective Web Copy " www.isitebuild.com/web-copy). You want to convert visitors into sales. I analyze how your web copy is structured on the page, what words you use, if it is written for your visitors plus check it for spelling and grammatical errors.

7. Boost link popularity - this refers to the amount of other quality web sites that have links pointing back to yours. The more quality links there are, the better you will rank on the major search engines. I extensively research other sites related to yours and add or exchange links with them. This may require a links/resources page to be added to your site.

8. Tweaking web site structure and navigation - if visitors are having a difficult time navigating your site, reading the content or experience broken links, then I will repair or tweak the site to make it more suitable for your visitors.

Conclusion - your web site should be an integral part of your business plan. It may be the first view your visitors have of your business. You therefore should update and maintain it regularly so your visitors will want to revisit and keep doing business with you.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com.

Choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site. Visit: http://www.isitebuild.com/sitepromotion

It is estimated that at least 340 million people use search engines to find products and services every day. That’s a lot of people. The top search engines use link popularity to decide which sights come up first when you do a search. Wouldn’t it be nice if your website came up at the top of the list? It is a possibility with search engine optimization, or SEO. With the right SEO training, you can be on your way to a more successful business and much higher web traffic.

Before you start SEO training, you should first understand what SEO is. SEO basically means optimizing the results of a persons search on the web to lead to your website. When someone does a search, say on google.com, they type in a keyword and start the search. The search results then list several websites that fit the category of the search. The top websites are always listed first. Hence, the person doing the search is more likely to use the websites listed first. With the proper SEO training, you can learn how to make your website be listed at the top of the search engine lists.

SEO training can be provided through many different means. A great deal of people receive their SEO training at special seminars. These seminars can last several days and vary in price. Some are as low as $300 and some are as high as $1500. These seminars usually have limited seating available so sign up as soon as you can. There is also SEO training courses offered online with downloadable SEO training material. Most online SEO Training courses are self paced, so you can learn it at your own pace for a set price. There are even some free courses offered online as well.

Most of these courses teach the basics of SEO. This includes: learning how to use link popularity, keyword usage, and marketing techniques that can work best with SEO. Some courses even teach you how to start your very own SEO business, which has become quite popular in the recent years. Many of these SEO training courses offer certification in SEO so that you may officially start an SEO business.

All SEO training courses guarantee that with completion of the course, you will have a dramatic increase in your website traffic. Some say as much as a 500% increase. For business owners, this means a lot more money. If you are interested in SEO training, get on a search engine and see what results you get. The top websites listed are sure to be the ones that used search engine optimization. If it works for them, maybe you should give it a try.

Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.altaenbuscadoresonline.com a website specialized on Alta En Buscadores, resources and articles. This site provides updated information on Alta En Buscadores. For more info visit his site: Alta En Buscadores

The internet is surely brimming with all sorts of money-making ideas and possibilities that can surely bring out the entrepreneur in you, one great example of this are service leads. If you think you’ve been running in the dark for quite some time, in spite of being tech-savvy and goal-oriented, you apparently have been having some tough luck trying to get some traffic into your site, a perfect way to (literally) get to your desired customers is to use leads services. If you’re not quite sure what leads services are, they’re actually advertisement links in reverse. Instead of the merchants trying to reach out to the customers, it’s the customers trying to seek out the merchants for products and services that they’re interested to avail.

Leads services is really a dream come true for every entrepreneur - those who wants to have their business take flight as well those who just wants to give their earnings a boost.

There are so many things that leads services offer, it’s basically a give and take set-up wherein a potential customer may post an advertisement for something that he/she needs or wants while merchants may just browse through leads services sights and see for themselves if there are people trying to look for the services or products that they’re offering. It really is a win-win situation, everybody gets what he/she wants.

Examples of leads services are quite long and varied but here are some of the popular ones that are available in the market today:

Home Business Seekers: these are people who are trying to jump on the bandwagon of starting up a home business of their own, one that would help them find the time for the other important things/persons in their life, such as their family, their hobbies and one’s self while generating a lot of profits for themselves.

Weight Loss: clearly suited (mostly) to women, this leads service aims to help out women who wants to lose unwanted flabs through a fast and easy way. Although there are also some products and services that doesn’t include taking drugs or getting a surgery, this kind of leads service can also gym memberships as well as exercise equipment for those who are dead serious to get back in shape, the natural way.

Magazine aficionados: these are people who’s main tool for information are the various glossies available in the market today, it may just be out of sheer enjoyment, while for others who are heavily into collecting each and every issue of their favorite magazine, this leads service is perfect for them.

Female Shoppers: this is is for every woman who was born to shop, those who’s idea of a good time is blowing their paychecks at the mall or a online catalogs or mail order ones. They’re pretty much the impulsive ones who tend to buy anything (and everything) of their fancy in just a whim. It can go to something as little as a lipstick to an expensive vintage ensemble. These are women who’d go the extra mile for anything that they covet.

There’s really a lot of opportunities just waiting to be tapped in leads services, all you need is the proper know-how, creativity and lots of patience it’s easy to turn this convenient money-making venture into your favor.

Dirk Wagner is the CEO of http://www.internetmarketingoasis.com a powerful resource for needed marketing tools and creator of the #1 IMO Marketing Toolbar. He also is the publisher of a free home business online course at http://www.team4success.biz.

Seeking effective affordable website promotion should begin with listing your site with the top search engines. High rankings in search engines can drive a significant amount of traffic and business into your website. Submitting your web site to directories isn’t difficult and not very time consuming. The main search engines to submit your website include Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Just send information about what your site does, keywords, and what people can find there. Many exciting and effective ways exist for you to generate traffic for no or little cost. Even if you do not have a large marketing budget, you too can operate a successful website promotion.

Banner exchanges are another good form of effective affordable website promotion. There are many website on their Internet willing to advertise your information for free as long as you do likewise. Some of them offer you free banner designs to customize to your business. These types of promotion are very low cost (usually free) and attract a wide range of new customers to your website.

Another effective affordable website promotion is search engine optimization. To develop the highest rankings possible is the goal of search engine optimization. When someone looks for a keyword, your site will pop up high on the search engines results. The web crawlers that search engine companies use to scan the Web pick up on the use of these words and determine how they apply to your site. The more often the keywords are used, the more they apply to a keyword search and thus the higher you ranking in a search. Use keywords that apply to your website often in the text of your web pages.

Effective affordable website promotion is crucial. You must get the word out on your website as affordable as possible while your business is young, otherwise your sales will suffer. There are numerous ways to get the word out on your business if you just look. The Internet is full of companies wishing to tap into new markets just like you. Link exchanges are another way to achieve effective affordable website promotion.

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SEO companies come in all shapes and sizes. You’ve got your solo SEOs that either a) do everything themselves and/or b) sub-contract out many aspects of each campaign while maintaining a tight control on the quality and results of the project. Then you have your big SEO firms that employ 20+ employees that handle various aspects of your account. These firms can often turn into SEO factories and can lack the ability to treat each client individually, because everything is done in bulk.

A third SEO firm is a smaller firm that employs a small handful of employees and may also sub-out a few various aspects of the campaign, but overall each client is treated with a personal hands-on approach with most of the campaign handled in-house with strict quality control measures.

The perfect SEM firm needs at least one (or more) of the following:

As SEO becomes more marketing oriented, many more positions must be added for a firm to properly service their clients needs. Speaking strictly from an SEO aspect, these jobs are each an important aspect of achieving success with you optimization campaign.

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a professional search engine optimization and marketing firm based in Reno, NV, providing quality SEO services since 1997. Stoney has is also a moderator in the Search Engine Forums and Small Business Ideas Forum. You can read his SEM blog at (EMP) E-Marketing Performance. You can email him with any questions at stoney@polepositionmarketing.com

14 November Google released a new service with the name Google Analytics. Google Analytics is basically a rebranded version of Urchin, a web analytics service that Google purchased a few months ago.

Web Tracking Analytics Services

Like other web analytics services Opentracker.net, shinystat.com, or truehits.net Google Analytics is a service that tells you where visitors to your site are coming from, what links on the site are getting the most traffic, what pages visitors are viewing, how long people stay on the site, which products on merchant sites are being sold and where people give up in multistep checkout processes. The difference between these tools or website analyzers is that Google tracking is not done in real-time, they use a system what’s similar to log analyzers. That mean it will not measure human behavior or what’s done by the visitor.

Google Analytics vs Other Website Tracking Services

Another difference between Google Analytics and other web tracking services is that Google Analytics is free and unreliable. Google Analytics doesn’t work with Safari and Mac OS X. In order to view a Google Analytics report on Mac OS X, you have to be using a Mozilla based brower, IE. or Firefox. But for sharing your data with the company, Google doesn’t require you to pay directly for their web analytics service.

But unfortunaly if you want to open an account with Google Analytics you will get this answer:

New account signups are temporarily suspended. If you want to be notified when signups re-open, please enter your e-mail address on our signup page. Thank you!

Should you use Google Analytics or should you pay for a better service?

Google already knows a lot of things about you. If you also use their new tracking service or log analyzer system, you will tell Google how much you earn, when you earn it, which products you sell, how often you sell them, how much you spend for ads on other sites and you will reveal much more information about your personal online business and company details.

Ask yourself if you want Google to know that much about you and your company. Do you really want to share your revenue information with Google that also wants your advertising money? Do you want to share your revenue information with any other company at all?

Google officials have declined that they will use the data to better understand how much you are willing to pay for ads, based on conversions. They also claim that they do not plan to tap into the data as a means of improving regular search results or to identify bad sites. Nevertheless, these things are easily possible if you use Google Analytics also your ranking would be in danger. Google engineer Matt Cutts even writes in his blog: "Blackhat SEO companies may be leery of using Google for analytics, but regular site owners should be reassured. That sounds as if Google might actually use the information for other purposes.

Think twice before using anything that is free

While Google’s new analytics tool looks great at first place, you should think twice before using this tool. The market power of Google can make your business highly dependent on Google if you decide to use all of Google’s services. The more Google knows about you, the better they can get your cash. If a company in the real world asked you to tell them everything about your interests, the shops you visit, the news papers you read, your full address and telephone number, your revenue and a lot of other information, then you probably wouldn’t give that information to the company.

When it comes to Google, many people reveal information they wouldn’t even tell their family or friends. Be Aware.!

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Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without modification, including all information. Please include a hyperlink to http://www.opentracker.in.th or http://www.opentracker.net when using this article in newsletters or online.

Consultancy is hard to sell to Internet search engines, because search engines rank by popularity and unique, original and focused text content. Clients and competitors most likely will not link to a consulting firm’s Web site, so where to gain topical link popularity? Links from the local chamber of commerce plus a few Web directories aren’t enough.

Creation of unique and original content is the second major issue. The consultant usually cannot reveal details about consulting projects, also every project has a different focus, so without interesting stories there is nothing to write about?

Wait! The consultant’s broad competence as well as extensive knowledge and experience should lead to a few pages of text content. Not really, most consultants are afraid to publish knowledge which may be sellable some day.

As a matter of fact, mission statements, visions, and similar sales pitches based on a finite number of catchwords will not attract organic search engine traffic. There are only so many ways to praise a consulting firm, none of them is unique any more. The search engines’ indexes are flooded with variations of the same yada yada yada, they consider it (near) duplicated text content, and refuse to deliver the consultant’s Web pages on their first search result pages (SERPs).

How to escape the dilemma? You really want to reach the potential clients querying their preferred search engine with questions like [how can I achieve "insert goal" in a "insert industry" shop?] or [what exactly is "your special subject here" and how can I implement it?]. You cannot attract this highly targeted search engine traffic by focusing phrases like "our Business Management Consultants are skilled management consultants with extensive combined experience gained at first addresses" on your Web site.

Search engine users don’t search for a consultant’s philosophy or academic background. They do search for solutions to particular problems, and they do use natural search queries as well as industry specific terms, including brands and abbreviations.

If you don’t change your attitude, those potential clients will never join your clientele. You must provide tons of freebies to attract converting search engine traffic. You must plaster your Web site with valuable information, for example knowledge bases, state of the art tutorials and guides, (anonymized) case studies, up to date articles and white papers, free tools like branded checklists or spread sheets, online services like KPMG’s Alumni or weekly tax briefings … be creative in revealing all your business secrets.

Actually, besides your payroll and such stuff you can’t reveal crucial business secrets, because the toolset of a consultant consists of knowledge which is available to the public (even if buried in university libraries or obscure periodicals), common sense, and experience. Publishing knowledge in the context of consulting experience –applying all the phrases search engine users may search for– will not make the reader a good consultant, but it pleases the readers mind. Pleased visitors more likely subscribe to your RSS feeds or newsletters and they bookmark your Web pages. Chances are good that a recurring visitor will get used to your site, making use of your service request form –or at least the contact page– one day.

Above all, frequent online publishing is a great way to become noticed as an expert on a topic, which leads to increased popularity, and popularity on the Internet gets expressed as link love. Outstanding content combined with the power of link love –that is naturally earned inbound links– leads to nicely targeted search engine traffic. It doesn’t hurt to consult a smart search engine optimizer for some fine tuning of your SEO strategy, and to take care of the technical aspects like crawlability (info) and Web site structuring (info), but basically a good Web developer/designer will be able to get your thoughts on the World Wide Web.

Sebastian is a freelance IT consultant specialized in search engine friendly Web development. He is the author of several SEO guides and articles on Web site design published by Smart-IT-Consulting.