published by Hannah in General | SEO Services
Gary and a few of our readers have mentioned the problem with “partially educated” SEO clients. If you have read one of my first posts here on PhoenixRealm you would know that I too have had run-ins with clients that knew/have heard something of SEO which has made them set on their ways but know too little to realise that what they know doesn’t adhere to best practices or is simply unethical. Clearly the answer to this problem is simply more education.
As SEOs it is our duty to educate our own clients. In educating them you do not need to reveal your industry secrets nor do you even have to go into detailed discussions about the technical aspects. In my opinion what we need to educate them about are the basics, the “unspoken ethical standards”, and the real purpose and effects of SEO. We need to educate them about proper expectations as well as the real work SEO entails. We also need to educate them regarding actionable items, which simply means the things they themselves can or should take care of.
Let me put it this way. Doctors are all for educating their patients so that patients will take the right actions concerning their health. Educating people about their health involves everything from habits that help prevent medical conditions to being able to choose soundly between available treatment options. This is what we should also do with our clients. We should explain best practices so that they do not commit common SEO mistakes before and after their websites/blogs are optimised. This is even more important with blogs since clients are the ones that update their own blogs. We need to explain the importance of keywords in titles, the use of alt tags when inserting images, importance of quality content, disadvantage of keyword stuffing, etc.
When it comes to “treatment” we do not have to explain all the technical details that go into “operating on the website” but we do need to educate them about what we hope to do and achieve and how they can tell whether the website “is getting well”. In the end a doctor with good bedside manners and that explains things to patients are the ones patients return to and refer to others. Of course you also need to do a good job, but with lots of competition it sometimes boils down to who can make laymen understand and appreciate the importance of what is being done for them.
Popularity: 30%
published by Hannah in General | News
The Microhoo possibility is still very possible after all despite Yahoo’s continuous refusal to Microsoft’s unsolicited bids. Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer sent a new letter to Yahoo’s board of directors dated April 5 this time giving an three weeks for Yahoo to accept their proposal. In the letter an ultimatum was given stating that they [...]
Popularity: 27%
Continue reading “Hostile Takeover Here We Go”
published by Hannah in General | SEO
I really liked the comments in the previous post on SEO Standards because they got me to thinking more about the issue. I see that mostly people DO NOT want standards because…
having standards wouldn’t stop black hats anyway
of problems with enforcement
resistance to being policed
While it is true that it won’t fully stop black hats I [...]
Popularity: 24%
Continue reading “What Standards?”
published by Gary in Online Marketing
Wanting your entire website to do well in search listings is good but emphasis should be put in optimising one’s landing page. The landing page is important because it is should be the primary starting point of visitors when searching for information in your website. Sure it would be good for certain informative pages to [...]
Popularity: 23%
Continue reading “MarketingSherpa - Landing Page Handbook 2008”
published by Hannah in General | SEO
Last month’s SMX West Search Insights track topic “Is it time for Search Marketing Standards?” sparked a debate not just on SEM standards but also SEO standards. On one side we have Jill Whalen of Search Engine Land telling us that we DO NOT need SEO standards. On the other hand we have Lisa Barone [...]
Popularity: 29%
Continue reading “The SEO Standards Debate”
published by Hannah in News
If you weren’t able to come to any of the SES Forums/Trainings/Conferences yet this year here’s a quick list of the other venues for the rest of the year. Go ahead and check which one’s nearest you or which one you can squeeze in during a trip.
SES Denver Search Training May 6, 2008
SES Milan Forum [...]
Popularity: 29%
Continue reading “SES Fever”
published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO
I have been posting about keyword selection in my last two posts and I thought that this would be a good time to discuss how and why you should factor in user habits when selecting keywords.
First of all I want to emphasise that internet users’ habits evolve rapidly. This is probably both a reason and [...]
Popularity: 32%
Continue reading “User Habits and Keyword Selection”
published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO
On my last post I discussed how targeting keywords that are related to simple primary keywords are important, especially with the advent of Yahoo! search assist. Even without search assist though you should also give attention to more specialised keywords. Why is this?
As we all know very generic keywords, though they do have a very [...]
Popularity: 32%
Continue reading “Keyword Competitiveness”
published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO | SEO Tips
Though Yahoo! Search Assist was launched in Yahoo! Search US back in October, Yahoo’s announcement (just a few hours ago!) of search assist being rolled out in other countries made me remember the importance of choosing your keywords.
One of the biggest mistakes you can commit in SEO is choosing only primary keywords that are too [...]
Popularity: 39%
Continue reading “Related Keywords and Yahoo! Search Assist”
published by Hannah in Article Writing | Copywriting | General | SEO
I was reading Randfish’s list of common features of spam domains. I was thinking about ticking each feature off and seeing how well we do but this one caught my eye:
“Rarely contains high grade level text content (as measured by metrics like Fleisch-Kincaid Reading Level)”
The geeky part of me fondly remembered my college days when [...]
Popularity: 48%
Continue reading “Flesch, Formulas and Highfaluting Fluff”
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