So called SEO Gurus love to throw out tons of industry buzz words in hopes of confusing their prospects into thinking that all things SEO is rocket science.  While SEO is a learned skill, there are some very simple philosophies that need to be embraced prior to kicking of any Organic SEO campaign.  I’ll spend some time in subsequent blogs discussing some more basic SEO foundations, but in this blog, I thought I’d touch a bit on link building.

Link building is the process of getting inbound links pointing to your web site.  The more inbound links that point to your web site, the more Google and other search engines may think that your web site is relevant.  It’s really quite simple, BUT, has turned into a free for all for fly by night SEO types who read a few tweets on Twitter about growing their web site traffic from the latest MLM Internet marketing scammer.  TRUE link building is about building relationships, it’s about building a truly relevant web of important, fresh information.  So, for example, your distributor in Seattle has a great web site and is constantly writing relevant white papers and blog articles about their products and services.  You can contribute to his conversations online and so you chime in about xyz product and offer your expertise.  He, then follows your link back and contributes to your web site.  This is what the Internet was intended for, communication and the exchange of ideas.  Now, the side effect is that Google loves the site in Seattle and crawls your comments / inputs back to your web site.  Your web site is similar in nature, therefore, it’s more relevant in Google’s eyes.  Rinse and repeat.

Be a contributor on other like minded industry related web sites and grow your credibility as an expert in your field. That’s what TRUE link building and TRUE SEO is all about.  It’s more than getting your web site found in the organic search engine rankings, it’s about contributing and being a relevant resource.

My next blog will talk about the latest craze, videos and SEO.  Stay tuned for some truth.

If you like this blog, be sure to check out my other SEO related site, TheSEOCEO.com

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Business owners get solicited everyday now by so called SEO experts, Gurus, Chiefs, etc. via email spam, fax spam and phone spam, so I thought it would be helpful to list some of the top reasons to NOT hire a  SEO company:

1.) They Cold Called You. I don’t know about you, but I have ZERO tolerance for Spam, I consider unsolicited phone calls to be spam, if a so called SEO company calls you, it usually means one thing: they have NO Internet presence which means you can’t find them in Google, Bing or Yahoo.  Translation: no results for you.

2.) They Emailed You. I get about 10 emails a day from so called seo gurus who are going to get me number one rankings in Google tomorrow by 12:25 p.m. if I just reply for a quote.  Again, if you can’t promote your own web site in the search engines and you have to resort to spamming every web site on the Internet in order to MAYBE get one poor soul to hit reply, time to hang it up and go back to serving fries and burgers.

3.) Top Ten Results GUARANTEED OVERNIGHT! Ok, this is perhaps the most sinister claim.  I love instant and immediate gratification as much as the next business owner, HOWEVER: SEO does NOT work like this.  Not only can NO ONE guarantee you top ten results overnight in Google, Bing or Yahoo, SEO is not just a one time ‘thing’.  SEO is an ongoing process over time.  Steer WAY clear of any instant results claims.

4.) They have a terrible web site that you can’t find in the search engines. I was solicited by an Indian company this morning that asked me to help them with their SEO web site.  The company claims to just ‘DO SEO CHEAPER”. They have a hideous web site, they don’t really have a firm grasp of proper English / sentence structure and are focusing on throwing tons of POINTLESS garbled, non relevant garbage on a web site in order to get ‘results cheaper.’ Isn’t it important that your SEO company cares about on site web optimization as well? Shouldn’t their web site convert and MAKE SENSE to you? If they can’t do it for themselves, how can they do it for you?

5.) They claim to submit your web site to over 40,321 search engines and directories for only $19.95. Wow.  Didn’t even know that there were that many search engines and directories out there.  I guess if you include Auntie Annie’s Embroidery Search Engine or Fred’s Quick Marble Finder, or the Istanbul Daily search engine as a search engine that people actually use to search for companies like yours for, then, sure. Here’s the bottom line: your clients and prospects use Google, Yahoo and Bing to search (and those last two are questionable.) SEO is so much more than button mashing and submitting web sites.  I get a kick out of some hosting packages that sell the SEO add on: We’ll submit your web site every quarter for an SEO Blast…… Nonsense. Again, SEO is about providing relevant and unique quality information to your web site visitors that will also interest Google Bot, Bing & Slurp (Yahoo’s robot).

If you are seeking to boost your online presence and get serious about pulling clients and prospects to your web site, call me: 866-998-6886. I’ve been doing this for over a decade, I will never cold call you, I will never spam you and I’ll never make promises or guarantees that I can’t deliver. When you call my company, you’ll speak to a human being located in Orlando, Florida (provided you don’t call at 2:00 a.m.), you will at some point speak to me personally about your web site and your Internet Marketing plan.

SEO Tips: The Open Directory Project and Google organic search results:

Ok, this blog won’t be getting nominated for any brilliance or amusement awards, BUT, this can be a stumbling block to ranking well in Google under the key terms you are after….. Way back when, the Open Directory Project or DMOZ.org was the place to submit your website.  Getting into DMOZ was a big deal, it was a volunteer human edited directory with a Utopian vision.  Google saw value in DMOZ and would put some weight on your web site in their listings if you were listed there.  It was always a challenge to get the perfect title and description as the human editors would change it 9 times out of 10.  The more that the volunteers hacked away at your submitted title and description tags, the lesser the possibility that your website would be found in Google under your desired search terms, that was reality.

Today, the open directory project (in my humble opinion) has lost a lot of steam.  We have waited well over a year on certain sites on getting them accepted or indexed in DMOZ.org. Volunteers have lost interest, corruption has reared it’s ugly head etc., BUT, if your web site has been around the block for quite some time, it is quite possible that Google is using DMOZ’s title and description for your web site and ignoring any customized titles and descriptions that you have installed.  How can you see what title and description that Google is using for your web site? Google your company domain : yourwebsite.com and observe what title and description is being used.  Browse to your web site and glance at your own title tag (you should see your title tag in the very top of your browser).  If the title tags match, Google is pulling the title directly off of your web site (which is good.) If the titles don’t match, it’s a good possibility that Google is still using the DMOZ title and description for your web site….. here’s the fix:

Add this line of code in the head portion of your web site home page:

. This tells Google and other crawlers to ignore the open directory project listing and to pull your own title and meta description. It may take some time for Google to start displaying your custom meta tags in the search results, so patience will be key here.

Have any SEO questions? Give me a call, I’m happy to help.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit my web site for more information on SEO / Search engine optimization.

When it comes to relevancy in a search engine, inbound links pointing to your web site can be a huge contributor to how important Google thinks that your page / information is and subsequently, how your page can be ranked for particular search terms. Link building is of course one facet of SEO that should be focused on by your search engine optimization team, but I’m a huge believer in quality over quantity: here’s why…..

Many people have read a book, or a blog article, or a tweet about how important it is to get inbound links from everywhere, I firmly believe that it’s much more important to focus on quality inbound links rather than a multitude of non related, non quality links.  When you put yourself in the shoes of the Great Google, you have to realize that Google is ranking sites based on relevancy, if your inbound links are all coming from a non-relevant source (based on your web site content or genre) and pointing to your web site, how can Google determine the relevancy of your web site? For example, Your new non-profit organization that is driven to save the elusive carpet beetle from extinction wants some inbound links, you find a great resource of free page rank 3 inbound links from Bob’s discount mail order brides and submit….. Is this relevant? Nope, not even close. Wasted time, and potentially hazardous to your web site and it’s Google rankings.   Now, if you submitted your non-profit to the friends of Carpet Beetle foundation web site, or the study for the enrichment of the Carpet Beetle’s web site, you’d have a tight connection and a more targeted inbound link.

Bad Neighborhoods: Just like you would not locate your non-profit carpet beetle’s non-profit office in a bad section of town, you also need to be cautious of web sites from the wrong side of town.  Google can penalize a site if it has an inbound link coming to it from a bad neighborhood, this includes link farms, shady porn sites, dangerous or malicious code sites, etc.

Give & Take: Don’t forget to share the love.  The more you give, the more you get.  Be sure to start a links page on your web site to offer a link back if you get some link love from others.  This is good Karma and just an over-all swell thing to do for your fellow humanity.

Bottom line: submit when it makes sense.  Seek relevancy, seek out sites that make sense to your content and seek out sites that have been tried and trusted by Google.