As Internet search gains additional ground and companies realize the power of being found on Google, they seek professional help. However, since their knowledge of Internet marketing in general and SEO in particular may be limited, they are often faced with the challenge of how to choose the right company/consultant.

When it comes to smaller companies, most only have one shot at hiring the right SEO firm to make them successful. The investment, the waiting time and the possibility of being banned by Google are the reasons to make the right choice the first time.

Here are the questions you need to ask any SEO company before hiring them:

Success Rate:

How long have you been in the SEO world?
An SEO firm that has recently started, may not have the experience needed to get you on Google and most importantly keep you there.

How many successful SEO cases do you have?
- The more successful cases of SEO, the better the company. SEO success means only one thing: getting a client on the first page of Google for their important keywords.

What percentage of your clients do you get to #1 on Google?
- If they answer “All of them”, it is likely a lie. It’s impossible to get all of your clients to rank #1. For some clients/markets, being on the first page is enough to boost the traffic and sales, therefore, their objective is not the #1 spot. For some clients, Wikipedia ranks #1, and it is extremely difficult to rank better than Wikipedia. There are other examples.
- I’d say a really good SEO company can get at least 50 percent of its clients who target their local market at the top of Google. For international and very completive keywords, it’s enough to see they were able to get a couple of clients to the very top of Google.

How many of those successful cases can you share with us?
- If the SEO firm refrains from sharing their clients’ information with you and offers any kind of excuse (i.e. privacy of clients) drop them immediately. In the past several years we’ve been doing SEO, many of our clients are very happy to share their experience with the outside world. You can see a list here.

Search Engines:

What search engines do you get me ranked on?
- There is only one that counts: GOOGLE. Google receives over %75 of the US search market. If you rank well on Google, your business does well and if you don’t, it doesn’t matter if you rank well on Yahoo! or Bing. When was the last time you used any of these search engines?

Do you guarantee my rankings on Google?
- This is probably the most important question you need to ask. Although no one can guarantee Google results, there has to be some kind of a penalty for the SEO firm if they’re unable to get you solid results on Google (like a money-back guarantee).
- On the other hand, when you rank well on Google, you will certainly do well on Yahoo! and Bing.
- If the company says they do not guarantee placements on Google organic results, then find another firm that does.

Content:

Do you develop content for our site on a regular basis? Who writes them and how?
- Increasingly, Google is giving additional importance to content. Namely, how often a site is being updated and the quality of the content that is written. Text with grammatical or spelling errors on a site reflects a poor quality site.
- On the other hand, you need to be involved in content development because your feedback/approval is needed for anything that goes on your site.

Relevancy (Optimization):

How many times should my keywords be repeated in 100 words of one of my site’s pages?
- Most SEO newbies think the more the better. Some say 5-10 percent. But the reality of it is that Google can recognize a site’s relevance to a specific keyword even if the keyword is mentioned only once. Remember, the keywords are mentioned in a few important places of your site: URL, title tag, description tag, header tag, and finally, your site’s text.

How often do you update my site with new optimization?
- Most common people assume that optimization of a site is an ongoing task. And unfortunately, most SEO companies do not correct this misconception. Optimization of a site needs to be done only once. If the SEO consultant/company knows how Google algorithm ranks sites, he or she knows how to optimize the site to get the best placement on Google without over-optimizing it. As long as the site remains intact, there is no need for reoptimization.

Popularity (Link-Building):

Where do you buy links for our business?
- This is a trick question. Buying links is forbidden for those who want to be at the top for a very long time. If the company engages in any link-buying schemes, stay away from them.

How many back-links do you plan on getting for our site?
- The quantity is as important as the quality of the back-links. But if they refrain from answering the question directly, then they probably don’t have a method of acquiring links for your site.

What are the page ranks of sites you get links for us?
- The page rank could be from 1-9, however, this question shows the prospect that you care about the quality of the back-links they’re getting for you. At the same time, if all back-links come from PR 1-3 sites, then the SEO efforts will not have the best results.

Reports

How often do you send us ranking reports?
- Ranking reports show your site’s overall improvements or lack of improvements on Google search results. We send our clients weekly ranking reports for all of their main keywords. But even monthly ranking reports would show the results of the work and save you lots of time trying to figure out how your site is doing on Google.

How often do you send us a performance report?
- SEO, if done right, will bear fruit in three to six months. If the SEO consultant/company keeps you in the dark as to what they’re doing, then you may end up wasting your money and more importantly your time in waiting for the results that never come. High-end SEO firms always send performance reports to their clients on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Search engine optimization (SEO) was named that many years ago because “optimization” was pretty much the only thing that needed to be done. Today, optimization is only about 5-10% of the total SEO work. The rest lies with content development and popularity which we’ve discussed in part I and part III of these series.

Optimization means making a site “relevant” to specific search terms (keywords) so that Google or other search engines recognize these keywords and rank the site better for them. Thus, the term “relevancy” was derived from this notion.

Here I should note that most of the “black-hat” SEO concentrates on optimization. In a future post, we’ll discuss some of the no-no’s when it comes to Google SEO and  more specifically optimization for Google.

Our team’s focus is on Google optimization. Everything we do is approved and accepted by Google as explained by Matt Cutts through Google Webmaster Guidelines. And here is a glimpse of what our team considers best optimization practices that we conduct on a daily basis for our new client (not everything serves to better the ranks, some are simply for monitoring purposes):

1. Adding you website to our Google analytics and setting up the tracking code (to monitor traffic coming through your site).
2. Adding your site to our Google webmaster tools and completing the verification process (the reports through webmaster tools identify any optimization issues your site may have).
3. Creating a sitemap.xml file and submitting it to Google webmaster tools (and keeping this sitemap.xml file up to date).
4. Creating/updating the HTML sitemap page of the website.
5. Make sure the search engines are not blocked through no index Meta tag or robots.txt file or anything else that blocks search engines from accessing/indexing your website.
6. Exterminate any instances of duplicate content.
7. Remove any instances of black hat SEO (hidden text or link, <noembed> tags, link farming, Meta redirection, cloaking, doorway pages, long keyword-rich comment tags).
8. Redirecting the non-www URL to www version. For example, http://mastergoogle.com will be redirected to http://www.mastergoogle.com/.
9. Trailing slash redirection. In other words making the site pages consistent. For example all the pages should have the trailing slash at the end of the URL.
10. Creating keyword rich URL’s for all the pages.
11. One version URL for home page (Any references to index.php or default.aspx and any other versions of the home page URL should be redirected to the main URL: ie. http://www.mastergoogle.com/).
12. Building a blog for the site and hosting it on the site. Example: http://www.mastergoogle.com/blog/.
13. Creating and optimizing permalinks for blog posts.
14. Installing “SEO” plug-ins for the blog.
15. Installing a “Sitemap” plug-in for blog.
16. URL canonicalization for CMS website (Very important for eCommerce websites and blogs).
17. Adding your blog links to the footer links and/or top menus.
18. Adding latest blog post section to the home page (important for fresh content development – discussed in Part I).
19. Text optimization. Inserting the appropriate keywords in the right places.
20. Meta description and title tag optimization (unique Meta tags for each page is very important).
21. Image alt tag and co-text optimization (co-text is a notion we borrowed from linguistics to refer to any textual content surrounding an image or any specific keyword).
22. Domain renewal for 5 years or more.
23. Avoid excessive use of “Meta redirection” and use “301 redirection” instead.

Also note that Google web master accounts should be observed on a weekly basis to make sure there are no not-found pages.

ORANGE, CA—Search engine optimization is an often confusing, constantly changing science but, at the same time, an absolutely essential part of marketing your business on the Internet. So what’s an overwhelmed newcomer to do?

According to Ali Husayni—industry expert and founder of SEO company Master Google—a newbie should do anything but give up.

“Without a strong SEO campaign, it is very difficult to compete in today’s market,” he said. “With the economy down, people spend their money wisely. Potential customers research anything and everything on the Internet before they contact any retailer or decide on services. If your site is not easily found, you are not able to compete effectively.”

I know what you’re thinking. “Okay, so it’s essential, but what is SEO, exactly?”

Husayni explained that SEO is “the art of changing sites and their popularity on the Internet so that search engines perceive them as highly valuable, thereby placing them at the top of their search results.”

What search engine should my SEO campaign focus on?

Now that we have established what SEO is and why it’s so important, it’s time to decide which search engine you should focus your campaign on. Husayni said that, while Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing do get some traffic, those search numbers are nothing compared to Google.

“Google receives more than 75 percent of the global search market and about 65 percent of the domestic market,” Husayni said. “Google is the giant of search engines. If you are visible on Google, you’ll be attracting customers.”

How do I go about initiating my SEO work?

This should all be becoming a bit clearer, but we still need a plan of action. Husayni advised that there are multiple ways to go about SEO, such as hiring a company to do the work for you, employing an in-house SEO professional or working with an experienced SEO consultant.

“The path you choose to take depends on your market, your budget and your level of Internet savvy,” Husayni said.

Small companies, he said, are better off hiring a professional SEO company who can place them at the top of search engines at an affordable price. On the other hand, a larger firm working with a bigger budget could benefit from having an in-house SEO team, supplemented with coaching help from a reputable SEO company to keep them in check. And, of course, the more ambitious business owner with minimal time constraints could learn SEO practices himself, though Husayni recommends receiving some guidance from a seasoned professional.

What do I need to know about SEO before I begin?

Even if you choose to hire a SEO company to do your optimization work, it’s still important to know the main elements that will help you increase your site’s ranking. Husayni said that the three most crucial aspects of any Internet marketing campaign are optimization, lots of fresh content and popularity, also referred to as link building.

“The optimization gives Google the information it needs to understand the theme of each site,” he said. “Content gives Google the impression that the site is being updated with valuable information on a regular basis, thus providing useful information for its visitors.”

But remember, “Google is a machine with limitations and language barriers,” Husayni warned.

“The only two ways for Google crawlers to determine if your site is valuable are by measuring how often you update your content and by gauging whether or not you’ve copied your content from elsewhere, or written it yourself.”

Google’s algorithm is always changing, too. For example, Husayni said that, with the development of Google+, the search engine has “added the +1 button to further determine your site’s usefulness.”

I’ve started my SEO campaign, but how long will it take until I see results?

After learning the basics of SEO and how to get started, you still have a long, albeit rewarding, journey ahead.

“While changes to optimization are viewed by Google almost immediately—provided you have quality back links—other SEO components are built over time,” Husayni said. “So, initially, when we optimize a site, there is a jump in its ranking on Google. Then, slowly thereafter, the site gets ranked better and better.”

And it’s a journey you have to stick to in order to see lasting results.

“Google revamps its algorithm every few months, making it important to stay on top of new techniques,” Husayni said. “And your competition is not sitting idle. They’re also doing SEO and, depending on how many resources they allocate, they could replace your number one listing in a matter of months. So, take a deep breath and get ready for a long SEO battle.”

Gmail, Adwords, Analytics, Google+, Places, Images and Videos are only a handful of services Google offers the business world. Small and yet successful businesses have long used these tools to further succeed in their ventures.

But Google also poses a big challenge for everyone who wants to gain business from them. It’s way too complicated.

Google adds new services way too often- sometimes faster than business owners can learn about them. Yet, many of its important features, such as its standard search, change drastically over time, making it difficult for companies to stay up to speed. Even JC Penny and Walmart couldn’t predict Google’s behavior and lost a great deal of business as a result.

One way to approach this obstacle is to identify which of these services is vital to your business and use it to your advantage.

Without a doubt,  Google Places (combined with organic SEO) is the most important for small businesses. Why? Because if your site is among the top five listings on Google Places, your customers will find you. It won’t matter if you don’t know how to use Adwords, Analytics, or Google+.

Being seen at the top of search results is equivalent to purchasing a large, eye-catching ad in your local Yellow Pages that everyone owned 10 years ago. If your ad was the first, your phone would not stop ringing.

If your business is listed high on Google Places, you will witness firsthand Google’s power to send customers your way. In a survey we performed, our clients that appeared on Google Places showed an increase of $45,000-to $274,000 in their annual revenue compared with when they didn’t show up on Google Places. On average, they spent just a small fraction of that money promoting their site. No other advertising method can beat that.

Now, the question is how to get on Google Places. Or, if you are already there, then how do you improve your rank to reach that number one spot?

If you are not listed, the first thing you ought to do is register your business with Google. The steps are simple and are explained in this video: how to get on Google Places.

If you are listed but you’re not at the top, then you need to improve your business’s reputation online. Here is the blueprint for accomplishing just that:

1- Get your customers to write positive reviews for you on your Google Places page. If they search for your business name along with the city you are listed under in Google Maps and then click on the letter associated with your business, a window will open at the top of your listing on the map that has a rating stars link. Clicking on the rating stars will get you to the reviews page. If you don’t have any reviews yet, then there will be a “write a review” link in this window.

2- Add the +1 button to your site’s pages and encourage your friends, family and customers to +1 your site. This will improve your site’s ranking on Google (for those who +1’ed your site’s page and those in their Google+ circles).

3- Improve your site’s link popularity. This means running a campaign that gets you natural, quality links from related Web sites. Since this is going to be the most important factor in helping you rank better on Google Places, I’ll explain it in greater depth in an upcoming article.

Keep your questions in mind and stay tuned.

A brief explanation on what works and doesn’t work for Google…

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SEO for Google consists of three main parts: optimization, content, and popularity. By understanding these factors in Google SEO, you can rank any Web site at the top of the search results.

BOULDER, CO -   The Internet is changing all the time, and along with it, the way businesses operate, advertise and function online also fluctuates – so much that professionals may wonder if they need to hire search engine optimization firms to help them out.

Many people may think right away they can do it themselves. Why pay someone outside their company?

“That is very common thinking,” says expert Ali Husayni. “Business people often assume that if they have computer experts as employees, that’s all they need in order to obtain top Google ranking for their industry. But the reality is that businesses like ours are in operation for a very good reason. We are needed, and we make a big difference.”

Is this just a sales pitch? Not at all, says Husayni, who works to build trust with clients with his offer of a money back guarantee. There are many who have had a bad experience with an SEO company, or fear they might have the misfortune of ending up with a disreputable company.

Robin Bingeman, of Forensic & Compliance Systems (FCS), makers of Cryoserver, says he has had a positive experience in retaining an SEO.

“Master Google has expertise in SEO, and is a caring organization interested in our business and guiding us with optimizing our web presence,” he says. “We would highly recommend Master Google to anyone, including our customers.”

It is worth the effort to identify and retain a solid SEO company, Husayni says, because they really are a necessity. If you hire an SEO company, you will be given website traffic reports and ranking reports, letting you know just where you are in position on the search engines. If you have hired the right company, you will see improvements.

“It is as simple as that,” Husayni says. “But SEO itself is not simple. A good company knows what Google is looking for.”

There is a cost benefit to hiring an SEO service.  Clients are often provided with guaranteed rankings, and projected dates on when they can see success.

“Time is money,” Husayni says. “Clients can rely on a good SEO company to get rankings up within a certain amount of time, and often are provided with a guarantee of delivery on those improvements. It can provide you with peace of mind, for no hassle optimization. We combine our expertise and skill in Google ranking with the experience of working with our highly skilled writers to compile press releases and articles.”

“I see the business of my clients as my own business, one and the same, so I work hard for us all to obtain the best results,” Husayni says. “Their success is literally my success.”

A good SEO company makes it their job to stay up-to-date on what’s new in the industry, to help you obtain and maintain a higher ranking on Google.

“Most businesses have other things to worry about than how to rank higher on search engines,” Husayni says. “If you are not a builder, you are probably going to hire someone to build your house. If you are not a doctor, you are going to see a physician if you are sick. If you want higher rankings, see an SEO expert.”

“If you have hired a good one, you can just sit back and enjoy the benefits of higher rankings. It is well worth it to try.”

© 2010 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Sinai Marketing dba Master Google are credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this press release is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

It’s almost been one year since we’ve launched our Free SEO program. We’re honored to announce that we’ve optimized over 700 sites within the past year without charging a dime. These sites have benefited from the following SEO services:

-          Keyword Analysis
-          Home-page Optimization
-          Weekly Ranking Reports
-          Google Analytics Setup

The work that each of these sites received was valued at $500. In return, we’ve placed a text-ad on these sites promoting our services, which also proves to be very valuable to us.

We’ve recently adjusted this service to only include sites that have a PR3 or more (check your site’s PR here). And now, in exchange for a link to our site, we now do the following:

-          Multiple Keyword Analysis
-          Optimization of your entire site, instead of just the homepage
-          Submit a XML Site Map to Google
-          Fix any Webmaster Central Errors
-          Lifetime Weekly Ranking Reports
-          Google Analytics Setup

The perceived value now stands at $1,000.

So, if you or your friends own a site or blog that has a PR3 or higher, you should contact us now.

The optimization work has helped everyone’s ranking on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. In addition, we have received many comments on our blog privately thanking us for our services. We also want to thank all of you for your support.

On the other hand, if you are serious about Google SEO and you want your site to rank atop Google, you will need many natural links pointing to your site. To encourage sites to link to yours, you need to have fresh, high-quality content and network with hundreds of other sites to promote yourself. This counts for over 90% of the work that goes into SEO and it’s what we’re really good at. Sorry, we’ll have to charge you for it, though.

So, please fill out the form on our home-page and we’ll be happy to look at your site to see if you qualify for our Top of Google SEO program.

SEO companies are like car dealerships. There are honest ones and there are crooks. Just like cars, you don’t know what goes into SEO work, so the SEO guy can easily manipulate and lie to you or sell you something that has little value or benefit, if any. Here are some lines SEO companies and their salespeople use to make you believe they’re great, while in reality, they’re not.

1 – “We will guarantee your site’s position.”

Everyone says that. But when you hear the above, the first question you should ask is: “on what search engines?” If they say, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc. then you need to tell them that you’re only interested in Google. Ask them if they can get you ranked at the top of Google. Read more…