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Getting the services of an outside company or consultant for your SEO concerns may be an expensive and daunting experience.

In today's workplace and business environment, a credible and professional search engine optimizer generally uses a combination of tools that web designers, copywriters, developers, marketers, advertisers, and entrepreneurs use everyday. Though it may be quite difficult to find someone with all these attributes, some are good at perfecting the art. However, if you're running an online business, you may not have the time to do search engine optimizing yourself.

What To Ask When Hiring A Consultant

For beginners who have yet to have a full grasp on the complexities of search engine optimization, here are some important questions to ask potential SEO consultants or companies.

- What changes are you going to make on my site?

Crafting meaningful changes and alterations are vital, especially on the aspects that deal with the content and structure within your site. If your Web site has a lot of graphics, flash and other items with pull-down menus that the spiders simply can't track, then your site has a serious problem.

If a prospective search engine expert says he or she is going to do this, try asking him or her for some referrals of past projects, and if possible, visit some of the sites they have optimized and see what methods or tactics they have implemented. In addition, start to think about the types of content you could write for your Web site today by using popular, searched keywords.

- Ask them what guarantees would they be providing.

You also need to ask a prospective SEO consultant how their methods will help you achieve better rankings on the search engines, and verify their guarantees. If the answer is anything but "none," then look for someone else. You might tell them you heard that ranking on top of the list can't be guaranteed, since nobody owns the search engines, except search companies. Good search firm may say that while ranking is important, using relevant keywords and getting a steady increase in traffic that turns into potential sales are more important. Stick to your goals, ask and the experts a lot of questions, and get some references.

Advantages Of Getting Professional SEO Assistance

Acquiring the services of a professional SEO expert or agency for your online business may be the best thing to do if you want to pull ahead of the competition. What exactly are the advantages of getting the services of a professional firm? Here are a few of the many benefits of hiring good SEO experts.

- Professional SEO consultants and companies know the methods to improve the page rank of your site in search engine result pages, and can do it quickly. By doing so, it helps your site generate a larger volume of targeted traffic.

- An increase in the volume of traffic generated could also mean an increase in sales or subscribers of your products and services. An optimization expert will employ marketing strategies on your site, to make it more appealing to your customers.

- SEO companies and experts will give you better information and advice on effective online marketing methods. You can also refer to them for finding the best ways to raise interest among target readers, and give you advice on what programs to join.

http://7seo.com - 7 SEO

Vanessa A. Doctor from Jump2Top - SEO Company

Secrets to Successful Mortgage Marketing Ideas

Are you wondering if your mortgage marketing ideas are paying off? Here's an easy test: if your current marketing campaign isn't bringing in leads, resulting in new clients, or closing more sales, it's time to rethink your strategy.

The best mortgage marketing campaign needn't be complex or costly. You can implement effective mortgage marketing ideas easily - especially when you remember the three golden rules of marketing.

Rule #1 - Have a Specific Target.

Lots of marketing campaigns rely on the "shoot first, then move the target" idea. These campaigns have broad, undefined target clients. If you can't define who your target is, your campaign isn't doing the job. Imagine a campaign that targets "people who want to refinance." You won't connect with clients because you aren't generating a target that clearly identifies them. If however, your target was "people that need to refinance, are over 55 years of age and plan to retire in the next five years", you have an entirely different focus. You can connect with your prospects on an emotional level and be specific. The more specific you are in identifying your target, the larger percentage of your target market you will attract.

Rule #2 - Keep it Measurable.

Once you have a mortgage marketing campaign in place, how do you measure the success of the campaign? Yes, it should bring in more leads and more sales. But you should be able to quantify exactly how successful the campaign was - and to do it, you need to keep track of numbers. If you start a mailing campaign by sending out 2000 mail pieces, there's a lot of data to track. How much did you pay for the materials? How much did you pay in postage? What was your response rate? What percentage of responses resulted in sales? By carefully tracking the costs associated with any campaign, you can easily determine whether the campaign is beneficial, and just as easily eliminate the unsuccessful or unprofitable campaigns.

Rule #3 - Use a Strong Call to Action.

The best-designed mortgage marketing ideas are worthless if it doesn't tell the prospect what to do next. Your call to action should be clear and direct. Don't make assumptions about prospects calling. If you don't tell them what to do, they won't do it. Again, be specific - "Call me today for a free copy of my report" or "Go to my website to receive a free copy of my money saving article." A simple call to action can make all the difference to your marketing campaign and completely change your response rate.

These golden rules of a winning mortgage marketing strategy might not be complex, but they are guaranteed to make the difference between success and failure in your marketing campaigns. Use these secrets to success with your mortgage marketing ideas and you will turn your campaigns into money makers.

Jeffrey Nelson helps loan officers increase loan originations by getting referrals from real estate agents.

Click here to get a free Video Book. It shows Jeffrey's exclusive marketing solution for getting clients from real estate agents in as little as 30 days.

Visit us at http://www.AgentMagnet.com

You may have asked the question, "How can I improve my site's ranking in Google?"

Well, here is the answer from the Google Webmaster Help Center:

"In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages."

By using a systematic approach, you'll have sites linking to you in no time.

Lets call our approach "FARMing" for links and break it down in steps...

F for Find

In the Google search box, type in the keyword you want to improve your rank on and with the sites that show up on the top ten, find out who links to them by using the "link:" (without quotes) command before their URLs. Each of these sites can be your potential link partners. With this list of sites, you can take the next step

A for Analyze

Evaluate the quality of the sites you found in the previous step. See if their topic is similar to yours. Find out if their Alexa ranking suggests it can deliver traffic. If getting Page Rank from your link is important, look for sites that don't have too many competing outbound links. Scan their page for any keyword phrases you are targeting. If everything looks good, go to the next step

R for Request

Place their link on your link page first and then send a well-written email asking each webmaster if they would like to exchange links. It's easier to get a link from a site that already has a link page or provides a web form to fill in your website information.

M for Monitor

Once you get your links on other sites, you need to make sure they stay there. Some sites change owners, so every once in awhile check that the content is still similar to your own site. Other times sites shutdown and you need to remove those dead links from your own link page.

Having your links on high-quality sites are free and "permanent." Usually webmasters will leave your link alone after they have added it to their link page. You will continue to receive traffic from those links years later. Therefore, finding sites for a link exchange following the steps in the FARM approach is a good investment for your time and effort.

Copyright 2007 by Leroy Chan

Rank higher in Google using the seo software that automates finding high-quality link partners, sends them requests, generates link pages and monitors backlinks. Visit http://www.internetmarketingview.com/seo/seo-software/ for details.

Rumor has it that press releases are the next big thing in the SEO business, and many companies are spending top dollars trying to write the next big press release announcing the next big balloon breaking technology. But is this really the next big thing?

By definition, a Press Release is a kind of news item released by the company on whom the news is being reported. As such, you will have to compete with all the other press releases and hope that your will get picked up.

Why Will Your Press Release Be Trashed?

1) Unless you are writing a press release about Microsoft, Adobe, Sony or one of the other mega-companies, or at least about a company that is relatively well known, forget about it. Journalists and news editors receive thousands of press releases a day and there is no way that they will waste more than a quick glance. So why should you pay a company seven to eight hundred dollars for them sending your press release to thousands of editors and journalists when they are going to junk it anyway?

2) Unless you are announcing a truly revolutionary product or technology (which I assume you are not since you are only interested in using the professionally paid and written press release to boost your search engine rankings), whatever you make up or announce such as some new free deal or new portal offering something unique, your chances of being picked up are very slim. Yes, the PR companies will tell you that they have vast experience in writing Press Releases that will make yours stand out and get picked up but this is not accurate. The only way your PR is going to get picked up is if it truly is something out of the ordinary or something that no one has ever thought off.

3) Unless you plan to spend millions of dollars and then just by sheer volume your site will go ahead in the search engines, this is not a good option. Why? If you send a large number of press releases then these will be placed on the different PR companies websites main page. Since most of these home pages have a very high page rank, your site will get a boost. The question is whether this boost is worth the large amount of money you will put into the PR companies pocket. No it is not. Use that money to buy (though I do not recommend this) links from high-ranked websites and you will pay less and receive more benefit.

4) Any press release, even if it has been accepted, will remain on the different pages for just a short time, making the time and effort and even more so the amount of money you paid fruitless.

Conclusion:

A press release is useful if you wish to contact the press and maybe get some free publicity, but it is of no use if you wish to use it as a tool in order to advance your website in the search engines.

Jack Reider writes press releases for online casinos and casinos en ligne where you can ask him for easier ways to rank well in the search engines.