4 Steps To Law Firm Website Search Engine Placement Improvement

Well, by now you most likely have heard that good design, proper key word density, intuitive navigation, correct Meta tags, quality incoming links and informative content are all important to achieving top search engine placement. This is especially true when it comes to law firm sites. Legal search engine standings are one of the top competitive classifications for search engine standing optimization efforts.

For this article, I’ll assume that your legal website already excels in the areas just mentioned and your site has decent standing for your desired legal keyword phrases. But, as you are keenly aware, the Internet can generate quality clients at a far more cost effective basis compared to any other medium. So, moving your legal website to the next level should be a very wise decision.

Below I have noted some highly effective ideas to improve your search engine standings:

1. Get another legal website!

Yes, for about $53 per month for the first year, and appx. $11 per month starting in the second year, you can have a second website. Your cost the first year would be approximately $500 for the legal website creation, $10 for a new domain name registration for one year and $10 per month for good quality website hosting. The cost drops in the second year because the site creation fee drops off.

This second site should not duplicate any of your existing site’s appearance or content. Failure to abide by this could cause your site to be dropped from major search engines. Your sites should be about your firm but each emphasizing a different practice area. Plus, both your sites should be hyperlinked together.

2. Select a URL

Your new website needs a web address. Select a URL for your new legal website that incorporates some of your keywords. Which site do you think would generate more search engine hits: www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com or www.smith-smithandklein.com?

Even if you have great name recognition in your local neighborhood, a potential client seeking a San Diego attorney will most definitely find the first site before the second. Result: Incorporating key words into your URL will increase your chances of being found in a key word search.

3. Purchase website creation software.

As web site owner, you or your assistant should know how to up-date your site by adding current content, or minor changes. Updating should be done often to keep your site relevant. With many free and low cost web site programs available, knowledge of HTML is not necessary. Personally, I would recommend Microsoft’s FrontPage as the best choice for website creation software.

4. Read a book on Search engine optimization.

Knowledge is power. Website designers are good at their website creation efforts, but usually lousy at any optimization efforts. In many cases, if they try optimization at all, they are using techniques that are way dated and in many cases could and have caused sites to actually rank well below their true potential or be desisted because of what is perceived as search engine mutilation.

Become the master of your domain not a slave to it! Read a Search engine optimization book today!

Copyright 2005 Promotions Unlimited - All rights reserved

4 Steps To Law Firm Website Search Engine Placement Improvement

Well, by now you most likely have heard that good design, proper key word density, intuitive navigation, correct Meta tags, quality incoming links and informative content are all important to achieving top search engine placement. This is especially true when it comes to law firm sites. Legal search engine standings are one of the top competitive classifications for search engine standing optimization efforts.

For this article, I’ll assume that your legal website already excels in the areas just mentioned and your site has decent standing for your desired legal keyword phrases. But, as you are keenly aware, the Internet can generate quality clients at a far more cost effective basis compared to any other medium. So, moving your legal website to the next level should be a very wise decision.

Below I have noted some highly effective ideas to improve your search engine standings:

1. Get another legal website!

Yes, for about $53 per month for the first year, and appx. $11 per month starting in the second year, you can have a second website. Your cost the first year would be approximately $500 for the legal website creation, $10 for a new domain name registration for one year and $10 per month for good quality website hosting. The cost drops in the second year because the site creation fee drops off.

This second site should not duplicate any of your existing site’s appearance or content. Failure to abide by this could cause your site to be dropped from major search engines. Your sites should be about your firm but each emphasizing a different practice area. Plus, both your sites should be hyperlinked together.

2. Select a URL

Your new website needs a web address. Select a URL for your new legal website that incorporates some of your keywords. Which site do you think would generate more search engine hits: www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com or www.smith-smithandklein.com?

Even if you have great name recognition in your local neighborhood, a potential client seeking a San Diego attorney will most definitely find the first site before the second. Result: Incorporating key words into your URL will increase your chances of being found in a key word search.

3. Purchase website creation software.

As web site owner, you or your assistant should know how to up-date your site by adding current content, or minor changes. Updating should be done often to keep your site relevant. With many free and low cost web site programs available, knowledge of HTML is not necessary. Personally, I would recommend Microsoft’s FrontPage as the best choice for website creation software.

4. Read a book on Search engine optimization.

Knowledge is power. Website designers are good at their website creation efforts, but usually lousy at any optimization efforts. In many cases, if they try optimization at all, they are using techniques that are way dated and in many cases could and have caused sites to actually rank well below their true potential or be desisted because of what is perceived as search engine mutilation.

Become the master of your domain not a slave to it! Read a Search engine optimization book today!

Copyright 2005 Promotions Unlimited - All rights reserved

Using Keyword Analysis to Choose to right keywords

You must do a keyword analysis in order to make sure you are choosing the right keywords for your website. A lot of companies make the mistake of creating their website using keywords they assume people would use to find their website. There is sometimes a difference in the keywords you would use in searching for your website and what your potential customers would use in searching for your website. Beginning keyword analysis
You must first write down the obvious keywords. For this article, let's pretend we are writing for a photographer who does only pets, a pet photographer. The obvious keywords would be pet photography, pet photographer, photographer, Vancouver photographer, Vancouver pet photography. Now let's look at some of the non obvious ones. Dog photographer, cat photographer etc… There are a few other such as: pet photos, pet pictures, animal photography, animal photos, animal pictures, animal pics, pet pics, pet pix, pet people, petpeople, dog grooming, dog pictures, cat pictures, bird pictures, dog photos, dog images, animal images, pet suites, dog photography, puppy photos, location photography and animal art. Now that you have created this great list of possible keywords, I am sure you are asking, now what? We are going to see which keywords are searched for most often and which keywords have less competition. In Google "pet photography" came back with 24,900,000 results. This is a lot of results. The more results, the more competition, the harder you have to work to get a good placement. Back to the basics.
Since we are a pet photographer and we are located in Vancouver, BC, Canada, we might need a results a little closer to home. I can only assume that people in Vancouver looking for a pet photographer would look for one in Vancouver. Thus, using the term Vancouver Pet Photography. The term Vancouver pet photography in Google, returned 1,870,000 results, which makes Vancouver Pet photography a better keyword with less competition. Now let's look at: Vancouver pet photographer this keyword yielded 3,360,000 which is 3 x times more that the last keyword we analyzed. I am sure this gives you an idea of how we make sure we have al list of all the keywords that a potential client might use to find your website. Now that you have gone through every keyword and got to see how much competition there is for that keyword it gives you a better idea on which keywords to use. Now a quick tip. Optimize each page with only one or two keywords. Do this to your entire website and make sure you have a really good navigation system on your website so, that if your potential client searches for dog photos and ended up entering your website at 5 pages in, he is still able to find what he is looking for because you have a great navigation system or sitemap that will lead him to the right page. Also, for more competitive keywords you would have to create more pages for that one keyword.

How search engines work

A search engine operates, in the following order: 1) Crawling; 2) Deep Crawling Depth-first search (DFS); 3) Fresh Crawling Breadth-first search (BFS); 4) Indexing; 5) Searching. Web search engines work by storing information about a large number of web pages, which they retrieve from the WWW itself. These pages are retrieved by a web crawler (also known as a spider) — an automated web browser which follows every link it sees, exclusions can be made by the use of robots.txt. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed. Data about web pages is stored in an index database for use in later queries. Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages, whereas some store every word of every page it finds, such as AltaVista. This cached page always holds the actual search text since it is the one that was actually indexed, so it can be very useful when the content of the current page has been updated and the search terms are no longer in it. This problem might be considered to be a mild form of linkrot, and Google's handling of it increases usability by satisfying user expectations that the search terms will be on the returned web page. This satisfies the principle of least astonishment since the user normally expects the search terms to be on the returned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very useful, even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available elsewhere. When a user comes to the search engine and makes a query, typically by giving keywords, the engine looks up the index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. Most search engines support the use of the boolean terms AND, OR and NOT to further specify the search query. An advanced feature is proximity search, which allows you to define the distance between keywords. The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the results it gives back. While there may be millions of Web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Most search engines employ methods to rank the results to provide the "best" results first. How a search engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the results should be shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve. Most web search engines are commercial ventures supported by advertising revenue and, as a result, some employ the controversial practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results. The vast majority of search engines are run by private companies using proprietary algorithms and closed databases, the most popular currently being Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search. However, Open source search engine technology does exist, such as ht://Dig, Nutch, Senas, Egothor, OpenFTS, DataparkSearch and many others. -----------------------------------------------------------

Top 5 most common mistakes with do-it-yourself SEO

I look at a lot of sites on a daily basis. There are a lot of common problems I see on sites. Some people may have tags set-up improperly or use tags that have no real purpose. I have compiled a list of the 5 top do-it-yourself SEO errors. It's safe to say that many do-it-yourselfers may have at least one of these errors on their sites. These should help you omit these often costly mistakes and pull you up in the ranks. 1) Keyword tag – A keyword tag is for keywords, but not for any keywords. You can’t just stuff this tag with keywords that your entire site is related to. The tags should reflect keywords only on that particular page; not the entire site and not every keyword you think your site might be searched on. Also, you should have no more then 20 words in the tag. You should not repeat any word more than 3 times. If you sell tickets, for example, don't write: Broadway tickets, circus tickets, hockey tickets, boxing tickets and so on. Do use Broadway, circus, hockey, boxing, tickets and so on. 2) Abstract tag – It is sometimes used as a replacement for or combined with a description tag. However, more and more people are using these to stuff keywords. Search engines like Google are interested in what is on the page. More specifically, what visitors can view. In my opinion, the abstract tag has no place on a site. 3) Description Tag – The whole point behind this tag is to describe what the “page” is about. Keywords related to the page should be implemented as well. The limit on words should be 20 – 25. I see many website owners stuffing this tag with keywords, or having a description that is entirely too lengthy. Stay within these guidelines and you will be fine. 4) Title tag – This, to me, is the most important tag. This is the first tag the search engine reads. It tells the search engine what the” page” is about. Don't put your web address here. Do not add your company name in the beginning of this tag either. It should not exceed 60 characters. 5) Content- If you notice, I have been commenting on relevancy to the “page”, not your overall site. Each page has it’s own keywords. Tag the title tag, description and keyword tags. All of these keywords should be the same. Add them to your content as well. Now your page should be fairly well optimized. Why do sites fall short? Simple, content is not optimized. Search engines are, for the most part, pretty basic. You type in a search term and it retrieves sites containing those terms while also taking a few other factors into account. So, if your site doesn’t have these terms, how will you be found? You won’t. Over do it with keywords and you will experience the same result, but for different reasons. Sometimes reading everything about SEO can be bad. Trying too many tricks, tips or methods is like too many cooks spoiling the soup. In the end they can do more bad than good. These are very basic rules that should be followed by all. In, doubt? Always consult or hire an SEO professional.

Participating In SEO Contests? Then You Have To Think Of A Well Structured Strategy To Win!

In normal niches the competition is not as killing as in SEO contests, well... except for the search engine optimization niche off coarse. But to be the best in an SEO contest you don't always have to have a big wallet, or a huge network of authority websites. You can also win with a good strategy, and good SEO tactics. The number one for the search engine contest keyword phrase is always the one everybody is focused upon. And everything that page does is being duplicated by hundreds of people. And that's not what you want, do you? You want to win by surprise. The best way is off course hitting the first spot a day before the end of the contest. But how can you do that? Well I'll explain it to you. First of all you need to get yourself indexed, get some low pagerank backlinks from some link directories or something. This is to know your position in the contest, once you rank at a spot for the specific key phrase you kind of know how hard it is going to be, if you rank on the first 3 pages of Google the competition isn't that hard. But if you rank at the tenth page it's going to be a little more difficult. The next thing is to use your network of websites. You can do that by placing a link from each website to your contest page. But if you have many websites and many pages on those websites, it can trigger a Google penalty, and you don't want that in the contest. What you also can do is creating a page on every website you own and link to that page from all the pages within the website. You will get high valuable links with a lot of weight because the links are on topic. Another tip from me is try to rank high with a handicap. If you screw up your on page optimization and you can rank high, you can give a final boost to your ranking by doing some on page optimization right before the contest ends. And off coarse do what I'm doing now: write articles. This is almost the most important thing in SEO, writing articles about the subject. This article is about SEO contests, and it would never been written if i never participated in the pvmultimedia seo contest. Also like you see above, you can put anything in your article, so put your targeted keywords in it for the contest. You can see I'm doing that as well, I wrote down the words pvmultimedia seo contest because those are the contest keywords. And if you write a lot of articles you have to submit them to ezinarticles.com and other big article directories, they will be all over the web in no-time. All organic backlinks from highly optimized content related web pages from all around the globe, all different ip addresses, all with the one link you prefer, all one way links. This is the way to be the best, not money, no networks just be smart and stay out of sight.

Should Meta Tags Be Used With Search Engine Optimization?

I deal with many questions from curious website owners everyday. One question I have a new answer for is, "Should I use META tags on my site when do search engine optimization?" Old Answer: It couldn't hurt, but don't worry about them, the search engines ignore them for the most part. New answer? Read on...

Should I really use a META tag? Really?

The new answer is yes, you should use META tags on your site. The keyword META tag is still not used by search engines but when submitting to directories, a valuable use of time by the way, the META keywords are used in many cases to automatically fill in the keywords for your site in that directory.

Even more amazingly, the META description tag has soared in importance. How so you ask? Google has started showing the META description in its search results when certain criteria are met.

The criteria being used appears to be very simple, unlike many of the other things Google does. When the keyword or search terms appear in the META description, the META description is used instead of the snippet of text containing the keyword on your page.

For example, if you do a search in Google for 'Big Oak SEO' you will see our site in the first listing and the description used is our META description tag. All three words being searched for are also in our META description.

If you do a search for 'big oak client' you will see the first listing is pulling a snippet of text from the page itself. Since 'client' is not in our META description, it uses a snippet of text from the page where all three words can be found.

Where should you use a META description tag?

Every website should use a META description tag on the home page at the very least. This way you can say exactly what you want and not worry the snippet of text being used is not best choice for your message. What this really means is Google is giving us some measure of control.

And now that we have this knowledge and control, how best to use it? This allows us to take off our search engine optimizer hats and don our search engine marketer hats. Think of what you can say in the brief sentence that will entice a user to click your link rather than the one above or below. You can put your phone number in the META description for starters or how about being really creative and offer a discount or advertise a sale. Tell them your unique selling proposition. It should be a one sentence phrase already in your head. The only caveat to remember is that your META description will only show if the search term is in the META description. While this can be tricky, it can be done with some forethought. You can do this for all of your targeted pages and have dozens of marketing messages.

Use the META description wisely: target your market and entice your customers. Do not abuse this control and put outlandish, untrue or slanderous statements as I am sure Google will be watching; and if this technique is abused the META description may have seen its last search result this time.

Important things you need to know about internet marketing

When it comes to setting your website apart amongst the competition, you need to know a few things. You can’t just expect to slap a website up on the net and have traffic run to you. If you really want the traffic, you will have to learn search engine optimization tactics to go along with your basic internet marketing knowledge. In today’s game, it’s not enough just to hope that traffic will turn up. The best websites are the ones who are going out and bringing in their own traffic. What is search engine optimization, or SEO as it’s called for short? It’s the process by which websites make their content more efficient. Search engines pick up on certain things, and if you are able to turn your website into a place full of those items, you will be on top of the search engine lists. For example, when someone types in a search phrase into Google or one of the other popular search engines, the results will come out as their rankings would suggest. Google ranks these pages based upon their relevance, popularity, and a host of other factors. SEO tactics can help you climb to the top of those rankings lists, so when people enter a search into the search engine, your site will come up on top. If you are a website owner and you don’t really know what you’re doing, then take heart. There are many companies out there who are willing to help you. They will take a look at your website and tell you with a great deal of accuracy what it would take in order to make your site more efficient. Maybe your content does not have as many keywords as it should? Maybe you are using duplicate content that is pushing you down in the ratings? Whatever the case, the internet marketing professionals can help you in this regard. The important thing to remember about search engine optimization is that the tactics are always changing. The search engines update their ranking systems all the time, so you need to be aware of the changes. You have to be adaptable and know exactly how to keep your site on top of the game if you want to have any hope of being successful. A good start to improving your website’s SEO efficiency is to have content that is filled with juicy keywords. This is something you can probably do on your own without too much trouble. That isn’t the only aspect of SEO that you have to keep in mind, though. By knowing all of the popular and useful search engine optimization techniques, you are giving your website a fighting chance. Otherwise, your website will have absolutely no chance. All of your competitors are out there making sure that they are getting as much traffic as they can pull in. If you don’t do this, then you are short changing the potential of your website.

Why Give a Lot of Thought on Search Engine Optimization

When you own a web business you have to be aware that a strong web presence and high brand respect means higher sales and increased profits. But if your website ranks beyond the top twenty positions in the search engine listings you have a small hope of getting people to check out your site. No matter how good your products are and how exciting and stunning your pages are, you won’t still be able to get the required traffic.

There are essentially three ways for a customer to get to your site. First is for the customer to type your website address. The only problem with this is that people have to actually know your web address in order to use it. The second way is for people to link to your site from other website. Again, the problem with this is that the other sites must grant you permission to post a link on their site. The third method is for a customer to find your site through a search engine. And this is how you plunge into the world of search engine optimization.

Consider this situation: if you get a visitor to your site from a search engine, chances are the person is interested in your products. Although there are instances that some high school kid happen to stumble on your site because he was writing an essay on candle making. Just the same there is a possibility that he also wants to buy candles from you. You just simply have to convert this visit into a sale.

When it comes to online marketing, search engine optimization is the key to obtaining visitors at very little cost. To increase your website’s traffic, it should rank within the top positions in the results of the major search engines. You also have to make sure that your site keeps its ranking over along period of time.

However, search engines consider dozens of aspects to rank sites. For instance, Google says they have more than a hundred standards in their ranking system. Basically, the search engine has to be convinced that your site contains the information that the browser is looking for. For this purpose you need a lot of keyword rich content. If you have lots of articles with information on candles but you have not used the keyword candles often enough, you may lose the battle. Apart from keywords, you can boost your search engine rankings by using links on your site. This convinces the search engine that yours is an important site therefore more likely to have useful information.

Search engine optimization is, thus, one of the important marketing tools available today. So what are you waiting for? Work on those rankings to get the customer that you need. Remember that for every second that you waste you could be losing out on those all-important visitors that could translate into customers for your business.

Discover The On-Page Factors That Influence Search Engine Optimization

On Page Factors

These factors all relate to your own site and include your domain name, page names, meta tags, keyword density, titles, headings and last but not least the content.

If you know how to optimize these, you will improve your chances of a better ranking. But, remember, there is no guarantee as the exact formula (algorithm) used by the search engines is not known and is frequently changed.

* Domain Name – Should contain the keyword phrase that describes your niche and not be hyphenated. e.g www.ladiesgolfclubs.com

* Page Names – Each page should be dedicated to a specific topic that is related to your main theme. The keyword(s) that best describe this should make up the page name (hyphens are ok for this). e.g www.ladiesgolfclubs.com/8-irons.html

* Meta Tags – These are HTML tags contained in the head section of your page. You should include your keyword(s) near the beginning of each of these tags. The text for the TITLE tag and DESCRIPTION tag should be compelling, as this is what the visitor sees on the search results page and will influence their decision to click.

There is debate about the benefit of placing your keywords into the KEYWORD tag, but it can’t do any harm if you put them in once.

* Keyword Density – There are no fixed rules for this, but your keyword(s) should appear in your content between 1% and 3% of the time. e.g if your content is 500 words long, your keyword(s) should appear between 5 and 15 times. Too high a density could be seen as spamming.

* Titles & Headings – Putting your keywords or derivatives of it into your titles and sub-headings confirms the importance of your keyword within your page. Using H1 and H2 tags for this purpose can also help.

* Content – The golden rule is to write good quality unique content for your visitors. If you get that right, you have a good chance of keeping some of the search engines happy for some of the time. Rather keep your visitors happy for 100% of the time! If you have done your research and kept your content on topic, you should automatically produce a good mix of theme related keywords and keyword density.

A good idea is to get some help in the form of step by step instructions and coaching videos designed specifically for newbies.

Which Off-Page Factors Matter Most To The Search Engines

Off-Page Factors That Search Engines Look For

The exact way in which the search engines rank the pages of a web site is not known to anyone outside of the inner circle of engineers working for Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. However there are some general principles on what is considered to be positive factors that can influence your rankings.

These factors relate mainly to the quality and quantity of incoming links to your site. Although outgoing links also play a part, they are not as important as incoming links.

Quality of Incoming Links

Quality is based on the perceived importance of the website linking to you. If the link is one way (you don’t reciprocate by linking back) it carries more weight than a reciprocal link.

Another factor to consider is the relevance of the page that is linked to. It’s no good having a page from a gambling site linking to a page on a health site. The more closely they match the better.


Relevance of On Topic Theme Content

Based on your sites content, the search engines determine the theme of your site and the relevance of your individual pages to your theme. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to focus on a niche topic and not go too broad.

The search engines are looking for sites that appear to be natural and not contrived to beat their algorithms. If your site has lots of incoming links but they all went to the same page, this would not appear to be natural. Similarly if lots of your links come from the same site or even the same server, this would raise alarm signals with the search engines and they could penalise your rankings.


Tip:

Do not try and fool the search engines by purchasing links from so called "link farms" or other dubious schemes. You may succeed for a short while, but the search engines will always catch you out and penalize your site heavily.

In Summary…SEO is not an exact science… a page could rank no 1 with Yahoo and not even be in the top 100 with Google. Similarly, a page that ranks well today could rank poorly tomorrow. Don’t get too involved with trying to figure out what you are doing wrong. Stick to the basics of producing lots of good quality original content related to your niche and get as many quality incoming links as you can.

A good idea is to get some help in the form of step by step instructions and coaching videos designed specifically for newbies.

Improving Your Website For More Sales

If you create more value for your customers, you will get more sales. So to increase your success you must make adding value to your website a top priority. This is directed towards Information marketing, (one of the best ways to make money), but can generally be applied to any web site. Here are some great tips to making your site the best it can be:

1.You can add more value by adding more pages to your site
Think about creating a whats new page or a FAQ page to increase your customer service. People will appreciate the new helpful information.
2.Add new products
You need to be adding to your current products to increase your sales. No one can buy from you more than once if you only have one product! This can also attract more customers if you write more material that wasn't in the first book, or if you write about a different topic in your niche market.
3.Test different versions of your website
The only real way to figure out exactly what website set-up is best is to make different versions, and test them out. Keep the one that makes the most sales!
4.Add audio
This can be a great selling point on your website. Adding audio creates a greater connection between you and your customers. The more they feel safe buying from you, the more often they will buy your product. Audio is also good because your customers are more likely to stop and listen to your audio then they are to read a sales letter. You can also use audio in combination with a sales letter.
5.Add testimonials
Your customers will love the reassurance of previous customer's great experiences with your product.
6.Improve current content
Add value to your current information to generate more sales. Create more chapters in your e book and maybe even widen your topic range. Widening your topic range creates more of a market and that means more customers. Just be careful to stay in your general market so your customers will still be interested. When you add more content you may want to have an idea in mind for a sequel.
7.Add more paragraphs to your sales letter
Add more text to your sales letter, so your customer gets more bang for their reading time. Don't forget to mention what your product can do for them and all the great things that are included!


Use these tips to keep your website updated and ready to take on your competition.

Best Wishes!

Maranda
Mann

Is re-centralization the new SEO and effective copy must-have for CMS?

The Issue:

The Content Management System (CMS) heralded a new age. Adding information to the web was no longer the realm of a solitary webmaster and in theory, anyone inside an organisation could update content, post press releases and evolve the company’s online presence easily. It was a revolution.

Using a CMS not only makes it so much simpler to update content and create new pages, it allows for the constant site-wide tweaks needed to coast through search engine algorithm changes. And once you have a dynamic URL rewriter, nothing should stand in the way of getting your unique compelling copy into the search engines and attracting all sorts of traffic. Content is “king” after all.

There is one major issue however. By de-centralizing the editorial process and giving multiple people the ability to add and change the website’s copy, your content may actually suffer. Diluted keyword density (effecting search engines results), poor readability (incorrect grammar and sentence structure) and uncertain intent (not sales driven enough in tone) can lead to disastrous copy. Bad writing is jarring for the user and detracts from your business acumen. Even with an Editor to oversee new content, there may be inconsistencies between writers and the process of editing and optimising content can be time consuming, bringing your “instant” CMS process to a standstill.

A Solution?

Designers of bespoke content management systems for large ecommerce websites know the many benefits of CMS and are not prepared to go back to the “dark ages”. The challenge for the designers, developers and day to day users of content management systems is to ratify the search engine and syntax issues, while continuing to empower web writers.

The answer to this challenge may come from re-centralizing the final steps of the edit process while still giving individual writers the flexibility to add content themselves. Internet savvy companies are looking at ways to standardize their copy and make the output search engine effective, by evolving their content management platforms.

The result is proactive CMS with a built-in process to standardize and optimise new content, and the dawn of a new age when it comes to adding content to your website.

Search Engine Optimization: The Advertising Bargain of the Century

Yes, in this case the hype is true, search engine optimization (SEO) is the advertising bargain of the century. SEO is the process of tweaking and positioning websites so that they rank well in the search engines. And as most website owners know, if their website does not appear on the first two or three pages of search engine results pages (SERPS), then their website is not being found by prospective clients searching for their products and services. SEO is such a great bargain for a number of reasons.

SEO, the gift that keeps on giving

The benefits of SEO continue long after SEO services have been commissioned. Traditional advertising is like buying a plane ticket: once you’ve gone on your trip, the benefits have been used up. SEO, on the other hand, is like buying a car: it will keep on transporting you long after it has been paid for. That said, for most markets, once the initial SEO campaign has been implemented, good SEO requires a certain amount of upkeep. In this way, of course, SEO also resembles owning a car.

I want it now!

Unlike traditional advertising, which builds brand awareness and may eventually lead to more sales, SEO targets prospective customers who are actively searching for your products and services. They are using the search engines to find you! But is your website ready to be found?

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half.”

John Wanamaker’s adage is still true, but it’s not true about SEO. Why? Because the results of SEO can be quantified and tracked. This is why in a recent article the Economist notes that “Thanks to the power of the internet, advertising is becoming less wasteful and its value more measurable. In terms of efficiency, if not size, the advertising industry is only now starting to grow out of its century-long infancy, which might be called ‘the Wanamaker era.’” (“The Ultimate Marketing Machine,” The Economist, 6 July 2006).

Viral Buzz Blogs Launches Toothbrush Entrepreneur

Austin entrepreneur, Richard Trocino had a great product idea. And, like thousands of other innovative inventors with a new product concept, bringing that idea into a marketplace dominated by long established brands with deep links and dominance in the retail outlets is challenging. In these days of mega corporations and Walmarts, VCs and small business defined by the government in the land of opportunity, one entrepreneur with a grand idea or product may be considered by any of those groups as irrelevant and insignificant. Another challenge faced by small businesses in today’s marketplace, like in Trocino’s case, is getting an idea produced and generating sales.

In spite of impossible odds, Trocino’s invention sells almost faster today than his factories can produce and distribute all over the world. The established companies that were given the opportunity to brand and produce it, now may be wishing they had not dismissed the popular product so readily. Not when the blogosphere is broadcasting around the globe faster and with more range than a speeding bullet; comments appearing include; “OHSO gets my nod for the most stylish and futuristic toothbrush/toothpaste contraption on the market today”, “The Coolest Toothbrush Ever”, and “World’s Most Elegant Travel Toothbrush”.

Trocino received micro level funding to get the prototypes built and into limited manufacturing through friends and family after attempts to license the product to both toothpaste and toothbrush companies fell on deaf ears. Similarly, Trocino found his innovation locked out of normal channels of retailing without the benefits of an established proven brand in the marketplace.

Discouraged, but undaunted Trocino abandoned efforts to take the product to market using traditional marketing methods. Instead, like entrepreneurs who have met with unexpected success throughout business history he proceeded by seat of the pants and gut instinct. Acting on a hunch, he put it out there exclusively in the world of the internet and ignored the traditional “wisdom” of standard marketing techniques—no phones, faxes, or printed paper junk mail—nothing but net. A guerrilla marketer does not have the luxury of the corporate behemoths who can afford (since it’s investor’s and stockholders money not their own) to throw 98% of their marketing dollars away on a numbers game in a business model that justifies and covers its inherent wastefulness by overcharging those sold customers the expenses of marketing to everyone else.

Trocino decided to be a “Swamp Fox” marketer, like General Francis Marion who befuddled the British in South Carolina during the Revolutionary war, and break all the rules of modern marketing warfare. Marketing is a form of warfare and many entrepreneurs have discovered the reality of today’s business battlefields. The corporations and financiers have in today’s market reality stacked the deck against upstart competition by raising the ante into the game of commerce. One unnamed entrepreneurial internet advice columnist estimates the cost of entry to even be considered for funding by an angel or VC group at between $25,000 and $250,000. That is merely for the development of the business plan, and pre-start up consulting, general expenses and to purchase access to their secretive inner circle. Trocino decided to wander into the unknown swamp of the internet and blogsphere and see what people would do when offered his innovation directly.

Trocino, like most entrepreneurs, is a risk taker, but like most smart business persons likes to reduce risk wherever possible. He knew a good concept poorly executed had little chance of success in the market, so he took his idea to a locally based but internationally known design firm called “Design Edge” and negotiated a co-marketing partnership for assistance in ‘packaging’ his innovation. Trocino knew that people who travel a lot would naturally respond favorably to the concept of an integrated toothpaste dispensing toothbrush in a self contained case that protects clothing in suitcases as well as keeps things neat and sanitary. With the co-marketing partnership with ‘Design Edge’ the product took on a new personality within a sexy futuristic design that takes the basic utilitarian idea and wraps it in fashionability and elegance.

Then with a few well chosen words, a friend with a good photographic eye and a smattering of html code, Trocino put up a website at http://www.goOHSO.com, and invited a few friends through http://MySpace.com to look at his new line of toothbrushes. MySpace would become the testing ground and ultimate launch pad for the rollout of his product.

With its stylish modern design and elegant photography, the buzz it generated in cyberspace was somewhat unexpected. In fact, it was explosive!

Driven by the dynamics of blogosphere where coolness and fashionability become badges of personal taste and sophistication, the OHSO toothbrush rapidly found its way onto the personal blogs of graphic designers, and jet setters as the coolest thing since crystal ice. When Josh Spears, the blogger’s blogger posted his rave of the sleek product, sales and global visibility exploded. Even the legendary Steven Wozniak, the cofounder of another innovative product, Apple computer, is counted among the OHSO toothbrush users and fans.

Today the product is available in high fashion boutiques in the swanky Beverly Hills bastions of elegance and among the cappuccino makers and executive toys on the shelves of Brookstone stores around the country. Blogs have elevated the sensible, functional, practical toothbrush for harried travelers into fashion statements that provide high status and cool despite it’s less than $20 price tag.

Not a bad state of affairs for the beaming Trocino who is today expanding the line with even more designs to satisfy the market demands. OHSO is a product that owes its success to a seat of the pants approach to beat the corporate gorillas with a bit of his own guerilla marketing. He simply put it out there in the vast uncharted cyber world where the old MBA strategies have no more influence on the hip youth market than the full color fall outs in the increasing unread Sunday paper.

Today freedom of the personal press in the global Blogsville rules a small voice with a message, or product like the OHSO toothbrush, can be magnified into a global phenomena. When people like what they see, they tell their friends, who today are everywhere. Just like Richard Trocino’s classy and well designed toothbrush.

Perfect SEO Keyword Density

On-Site-Optimization is an important and major factor in SEO game. Many of web-site administrators start to focus all their effort in Off-Site-Optimization and this is totally wrong, because web-site administrators must make balance between Off-Site-Optimization and On-Site-Optimization. On-Site-Optimization refers to the factors that you can control in your site like:- keyword density, text , and links. One of most critical element in On-Site-Optimization is keyword density, and if you can master it you can get a higher rank position for your site.

Keyword density is the ratio of the number of occurrences of a particular keyword or phrase to the total number of words in a page. The total number of words does not include only the words in your title, description, or even in the body. But it also includes Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Visible Text, Alt Tags, Comment Tags, Domain Name, Image tags, Linked Text, Option Tags, and Reference Tags.

Keyword density is not constant for all Search engines. Simply every search engine algorithm differs, and for that you must choose an average keyword density that make your site rank in the top ten position in all search engines. If we make a research we will find that the best keyword density for Google is about 10%, Yahoo is about 20% and Msn is about 15%. Then you must make your site keyword density about 15% in order to get huge traffic to your site from those major search engines. It's up to you, you may choose to optimize your site for just one of search engines, or to target all the major search engines.

In conclusion, you must balance between Off-Site-Optimization and On-Site-Optimization. Also you should give some attention to keyword density in order to make successful site, and you can decide whatever you want to target all the search engine or a particular search engine.

For more information about SEO strategies, tips and tricks , please visit:-

ambatchdotcom seocontest

Get the word out: Promoting your home business

It’s an exciting adventure that you’re about to begin by being self-employed. It’s time to let everyone know about your soon-to-be successful company by promoting your home business.

While hiring a marketing or public relations firm is an easy option, since you are just starting out, it may be a tool you cannot yet afford. If this is the case, it is up to you to develop different media means to promoting your home business.

The most obvious is starting a Web site. There are many freelances out there who would gladly do this for you for a fee, but this is not really necessary if you have basic computer skills. Several sites are dedicated to instructing you on a step-by-step procedure on how to create a Web site for promoting your home business. Many provide usage for a price, but there are some out there in which you can use for no cost at all. This would be a practical option. A free site might not offer all the flourishes of a paid-for one, but as your first priority would be simply promoting your home business, other features, graphics and designs can be added once the money starts rolling in and you have extra cash to spend on creating a stand out site.

Writing a weekly or monthly newsletter is also a great marketing tool in promoting your home business. Fill the copy with your personal background, services provided and costs involved. Update your newsletter with savings advertisements, new services offered and comments from pleased customers when promoting your home business through a newsletter.

While posting a link or subscriber option to your web site for the newsletter is a given, additional initiative must be taken as part of promoting your home business. Obtain e-mail addresses of several companies or individuals who might be interested in using your services. Shoot for the addresses of actual people rather than sending a letter promoting your home business to a general business site. You are then taking the risk of becoming a deleted spam file.

If your home business is a local one, such as a day care or accounting service, advertise in your local newspapers and trade magazines. Coupons always catch a consumers eye, so including them in your ad would be a key tool in promoting your home business. Offering a 10 percent discount is always a plus.

Also, holding contests with prizes would catch they eye of a newspaper or magazine browser. Consider making the prize a week of free service or a sales item.

Lastly, get some business cards together as part of promoting your home business. You can design and print them using a home computer or pay a professional printer who may have additional design ideas that would capture consumer’s attention. Distribute your business cards to individuals and companies, and post them in every store that offers a free advertising billboard.

The Basics of Blogging and Web Site Creation - Part Two: Introduction To Keywords

Okay so now we know content is king. And of course since we are creating our own blogs, (remember blogs is short slang for Weblogs - which is what their "formal and official" name is), most of our information is going to be "unique" and "Original". Yet every now and then, since we are only human, and since we simply cannot "create" more and more information, we will copy information from other web sites. That is cool. There is no problem with that, UNLESS, you decide that "copying" and/or "linking" is simply better and forego writing anything.

Now let me make this clear. If you are offering a service to people, where your main business is to offer out links to other places where people can get information, in other words you are a repository where people come to get links, because you already did all the research - that is fine. Because what you will loose in content, you will make up in "eyeballs" and "hits". Remember the end result of good search engine listings is just that. MORE HITS - MORE EYEBALLS - MORE PEOPLE VISITING. And content is not the only parameter an Search Engine looks at. Not by a long shot.

This is a critical point to keep in mind. Everything we will talk about, every method, from content to email to lists to whatever, (hehe my most unfavorite word in the English language pops in - Whatever - see my post on that word in my blog), has but one goal in mind. To consistently and constantly increase and build your website "hits". To make sure you have an ever-growing "fan" club "motivated" because of the service you are offering, to come back. So please differentiate between the end goal and the methods. Content (discussed in our first article) is a method towards the goal of getting listed in a good position on a search engine, and the goal is to have people use and come to your web site or blog, and create a "buzz" about it. (We will talk about this much later in our series.)

Let us go back to content for a moment. Here we are talking about something that all writers know about and are familiar with. Text, words, phrases. Original, unique text.

So in order to continue on our own fairly logical path, we will now concentrate on the "text" and what has to be in it. Which brings us to the subject of "keywords". Before explaining just what these are and either their importance or total invalidity and worthlessness these days, (and this is up for debate) let us define keywords more carefully.

If you have a website selling hair beauty aids, you will want to sell your material writing content around what you are selling. Obviously if you write something about the difference between different models of dishwashers, this is not going to relate to the "subject matter" and content of your site. So you will write articles around your hair supplies. You will write articles on good hair care, on how to dye your hair, how to get rid of split-ends, how often to shampoo etc. etc.

Our magic hair website is called "Hair Is Not Forever", and it is at www.hairisnotforever.com (I have no clue if such a site exists so please don't hit that link!) But this is our site for now and we will keep it as we go along. hairisnotforever also has a blog. This blog we will call "SilkyFairHair" and we will put it, for the sake of our example in blogger.com under the name of the proprietor who is aptly named Mr. Nor Hair. So now we have as follows:

1. Web Site - Hair Forever @ www.hairisnotforever.com
2. Blog - SilkyFairHair @ http://norhair.bl.com (this URL is fictional)

These names ARE important and so are the URL's. (URL stands for Universal Resource Locater). So keep them in mind as we go along through these articles especially when I get to the article on the importance of finding the right name.

So Mr. Nor Hair and his wife, Mrs. Purple Hair work together. They create the site, get all the necessary stuff to sell something on it, write a couple of articles about hair and sit back and wait for the people to come beating their "virtual" door down. Well as we say in Hebrew, "Boker Tov" (which literally means "Good Morning"), or as you say in English, "Knock. Knock. Good Morning! Anyone Home?"

Okay the Hair couple know about keywords. So they create articles in which EVERY sentence has the word hair in it (or balding). But hair is the name of the game. They make sure their content is original, and once they have written two HTML pages of hair articles, strategically placed by their cousin the graphic artist (who is bald) around the advertisements for hair products and now they think they are done!

Woah! Not by a LONG SHOT! And here is where it gets depressing for the uninitiated and non-dedicated people.

Let us deal with the "keyword" issue.
Keywords are like indices or if you wish, categories. A keyword is something that the search engine will look for and validate (in our day), to use as one of the parameters as to how to list your site.

The keywords we refer to are in two distinct and totally different places. The first in the page header of the site.
in what is known as the section for "meta" tags. We will deal with meta tags in a different article, however let us just say these are the keywords most search engine look for (with their "bots") when visiting your site.
An example meta tag for keywords on our site may look like this:

Again in our article(s) on meta tags we will discuss these keywords, and meta tags, but for now take it as a given these are some of the keywords that will be in the meta tag.

When the Search Engine technology first became popular and meta tags were implemented, the keywords tag was critical. Search Engines looked at the keywords in the meta tag and assumed that was what the site was about and listed the site under those keywords. This was caught on to immediately, and humans being the crafty devils they are, began listing keywords that had nothing to do with their sites in order to drive traffic to the site. (Remember - the end result is the oh-so-important one: Hits & Eyeballs)

So porn sites especially, adopting this as yet another "fool the engine" technique, would put keywords like "hair", "technology" etc. into their meta tags, and give the site an innocuous name and voila, more traffic.

So in the never-ending battle Search Engines caught on, and did a few things. They deprecated the importance of the keywords in the meta tags according to their algorithms, UNLESS the content on the site actually did match the keywords. Of course, this was not enough as porn sites will put "real" content around their stuff. I will give you a REAL example which I find funny, but it is very serious.

In one of my posts on my blog, you can see my bio which is picked up by search engines. The other day I received an email from an old flame of mine saying "I freaked out. I googled you, under Ted Gross Writer, and you are connected with a site about tushy's!" So I go and Google it, and sure enough in like the fifth position is this: "Ted Gross's Unofficial Bio - The Real Version by Tushy" and of course I click and get led to another site (no url here as I do not want to publicize that site for obvious reasons) and I come to a porn site which ripped off, out of all the content on the internet, MY profile to place around their porn adverts. UGH! But you see that is how crafty people are!

(Here we are not going to talk about "splogs" - meaning "spam blogs" yet. But keep it in mind.)

Okay now what happens - not in theory but in practice.

Two scenarios:
1. You have keywords in your meta tag (and you should have them!) The little Search Engine "bot" (that is a software program whose job it is to travel around the Internet, never sleeps and never eats and gets into all those porn sites too!, and picks up information on ALL sites so the information can be categorized), comes to our site of hairisnotforever and reads the keywords on the page. Then this little bot makes a snapshot of the web page. Then the algorithms take over and match the keywords in the meta tags to the text and stuff on your site. (Remember Search Engines don't "see", they are NOT visual (males are visually oriented not Search Engines!) so graphics are not taken into account unless you use the alt tag.) The algorithms get more and more sophisticated as time goes on and they look for content, keywords, phrases etc. (Remember original content!)

2. You have no keywords in your meta tag so the engine just looks at your content.

So our happy couple figures okay lets put the word hair say, in every sentence at least three times. NO! Don't do that. Overuse of a keyword is a red-flag to a Search Engine and you will be penalized for it! It should be used and used frequently, but NOT overused.

Now when you Google for hair products using the word "balding", the Search Engine has the keyword, and based upon a million parameters decides what position for that specific keyword, hairisnotforever will have, and feeds it out.

So our couple figures what the hell. We will also sell mascara, and they put in a picture advert and the word mascara in their keywords, without having any content for it. Well then www.hairisnotforever.com will probably be listed as the last of the last of the last for anyone looking for "mascara".
So for this lesson the formula is:

"Content+Keywords in the content+Keywords in Meta tag."

Part Three - Keywords, Tags, Categories - Oh Vey! I Am So Mixed Up!

Okay so now we know all there is to know about content and keywords. Hah! But you did get the basics. It may be a good point to stop and talk about Keywords, Tags, Categories and all that as well. Logically, in progression this should come much later, but because there seems such misunderstandings about Technorati, Del.icio.us and other tagging systems, it may be a good place to put this down.

These articles began because of a thread at Absolute Write called "What Is Your Technorati Rank?" On perusing that thread I realized that many writers were placing their hopes in something that just was not going to happen. More so, they were actually misreading the importance of certain "rankings" and thus ignoring the more important factors.

If you read the previous articles in this series you now hopefully understand "keyword basics". So we are going to use Technorati for our example.

So along comes techie #1 and says:

"Hey, you know what. Blogs are becoming mainstay business. They are great for people with no knowledge of HTML and you can literally put up a web-site Weblog in minutes. So now they are multiplying over the net faster than rabbits, and the Search Engines are ignoring them for the most part as most of them contain personal musings and ramblings. So why not create a sophisticated search engine for blogs?"

"Great idea," says techie #2, "a search engine from blogs. And that means anyone who has a blog will want to register with us. But how are we going to build it. Obviously, normative search engine technology is not what we want."

"You know what?" says techie #1 "we are going to take keywords, call them by a different name and create a closed system!"

And thus Technorati was born.

What essentially goes on in Technorati, is you define what you write with "tags", Technorati tags. These are keywords, (with a special HTML parameter). Keywords just like you will learn to use in your meta tags. Technorati then in a CLOSED SYSTEM connects all the blogs with the same keywords. Technorati does not look at content to a great extent (to my knowledge), they pay attention to the tags re: keywords that you input. If you do not input keywords they use your keywords in your Blog setup.

Okay this is great for all those people looking for blogs say about hairdressing. So they come to Mr. & Mrs. Hair's blog because the Hair couple input keywords as Technorati tags. Simple.

Technorati now goes one step further. Technorati rates your blog based upon a few parameters. One of those "important" parameters is how many other people in the Technorati Network (Only those IN the network, or those using Technorati tags) have linked to your blog or a post on it. So by gaining links (there is no concept on Technorati as "bleeding links" as far as I know), you move up in the ladder. But even Technorati also keeps track of how popular your blog is. You can have 200 links into your blog, but if no one visits then your standing will not go up to the top 100.

Okay, that is Technorati. Important for bloggers? Well it is a popular site, and growing. So the answer would be yes. Important for Google, MSN and Yahoo --- not on its own...yet there is one critical Caveat.

When someone links to your site in a blog or web site, the href HTML links are in the code. The Search Engines when they read the code with their bots (see how much web lingo you know already!) sees these links. Those get added to the amount of sites linking to you. They are "hot links" or "back links" into your blog or posts in your blog. So linking not only works in the closed world of Technorati tags, but also works in the Wide World of Search Engine placement. Those links are important. Now if you get linked in a very popular blog, that counts for a lot in the world of Search Engine placement. (As we discussed in the previous articles.)

So while it is nice to know your Technorati ranking is going up, what is IMPORTANT is to remember to use their tools of tagging and linking to get others to discover and link to your blog. That gets noticed by the Search Engines. Not immediately to be sure but if you are being hit a great deal and have links to you, sooner rather than later the Search Engines will pick up your blog and your keywords. They will NOT look at the Technorati tags though, they will look at your meta tag keywords and your content. (Oy Vey! so many things to remember)

Del.icio.us and others work on the same concept, though del.icio.us is more centralized and called a "social book-marking service". Just remember the rule of thumb:

The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines.

Okay now what are Categories? Categories really belong in Wiki format, and this is not the scope or place to discuss Wiki and the technology behind it. I own a new Wiki site, and you are welcome to peruse JewishPedia because on a Wiki site you can view all the code to each article.

Categories in blogs (Wordpress implements them automatically) are a way to search for something. I have Categories in my blog, but this is a code implemented Category Listing in Google's blogger system, where when you click, the blog does a Google Blog search in my blog for all articles related to that word. And thus it depends on Google's specific Blog Search Engine (not their regular search engine).

Remember, Google and others have specific Blog search engines. It is important to be on the top in those as well, BUT for mainstream, if you are using a Blog for whatever reason, your goal is to be in the normative search engines as well, and in a good placement there.

So there you have it. Tags = Keywords. Technorati uses them in the closed world of Technorati. The employ linking counts as well. These keywords and links, if done correctly, are also very useful for Search Engine rankings if your blog is popular. deli.ci.ous uses them for "social" blogging.

So don't give up on Technorati. Just don't believe it is the golden answer to be good rankings in the Search Engines. It is but one of the myriad of possibilities.

"The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines."

What Does A Blogging Consultant Look Like?

You know, normally you can find a definition of a word or phrase by typing “define: your phrase here” into google and come up with a lot of results. Currently there are millions of blogs and there are hundreds of people who call themselves “Blog or Blogging Consultants”, yet when you type “define: Blogging Consultant or Blogging Consultant” into google you get no definition.

That is probably a good thing for most blogging consultants because without a definition, there is no standard to hold them to. I’m not claiming to be the blogging guru of all time or anything of the sort. So before you “blogging consultants” out there start getting defensive about this, think before you write. If you get too nasty about the post I may ask you to define “blogging consultant” and without google many of you couldn’t do it.

Now that is out of the way, lets talk business. Every business should have a blog. There are so many reasons for your business to have a blog it would be hard to write them all in one blog post, so lets assume you know your company needs a blog.

So do you hire a blogging consultant? What qualifications do you look for in a blogging consultant? What does a blogging consultant look like? How much should I pay a blogging consultant?

Lets start with “Should you hire a blogging consultant?”

The quick answer is yes, but lets go into why first. There are a lot of things that go into making a blog popular. Technorati tags, submissions and pings to bloglists and blogsearch websites, learning how to get on the right blogrolls, etc.

If you are new to blogging it takes awhile to catch on to most of these things and most blogging consultants say that all of the above is necessary if you are going to have a successful blog.

There are more things to add to the list but this article isn’t about how to run a successful blog, it’s about blogging consultants. Hiring a blogging consultant can save you from making a lot of early mistakes and get your blog found a lot quicker than trying to do it on your own.

Now all the blogging consultants are liking me again. I can tell. But will it last?

What qualifications do you look for in a blogging consultant?

Here is where things get ugly between me and the blogging consultants. Most blogging consultants are . . . well . . . bloggers. Many of them have what they think is a successful blog although many bloggers have different ideas for what success is.

Some think it’s defined as how much they made on google adnonsense last month. Others count success by number of visitors to their website or the number of comments that appear on their blog. Still others measure their success by what the other bloggers think about them.

What do all of those bloggers who are blogging consultants have in common? They all think that having a successful blog automatically makes you a qualified blogging consultant. I told you it was going to get nasty. After this article if I measured my success by what the other bloggers think of me then I’m doomed!

Fortunately I don’t measure my success in terms of what the other bloggers and blogging consultants think. Lets get back to those qualifications for a blogging consultant.

First of all a blog is a website. It is a website that is updated often in most cases, but it is still a website. Each blogpost becomes a page of that website. So with a blog you are creating more webpages to your website as often as you post to your blog.

Now I have a question for you. Would you first look to hire a blogger to do search engine optimization for your website? Would you first look to hire a blogger to handle your AdWords campaign? Would you first look for a blogger to build your website for you?

The answer to all of the above is probably no, unless the blogger also has experience in those fields and not just for their blog. Actual websites they have built, optimized, and marketed for themselves and for clients.

A blogging consultant should not just be a blogger. They should also have all of the skills necessary to run a website. Now the blogging consultants are all mad at me again. But think about it. Many bloggers know how to write. They know how to get into the right circle of blogger friends who will link to them. They know about blogging.

So if all you need to know is how to write a blog, then hiring a blogger who knows how to write is the answer, but if you need someone who is going to manage your blog for you including posting to the blog, search engine optimization, link popularity, (and not just from blogrolls), and marketing, then you need to hire a webmaster who also blogs.

Okay, How much should I pay a blogging consultant?

How much do you have? Just kidding. A lot depends on the type of blog you want or have. A corporation blog has to pay more, not because they have more, but because there are all kinds of legal and policy matters that have to be considered with every single blog post and every single link to or from another blog or website. A small business blog doesn’t have many of the same issues as the corporate blog, but still has certain standards that need to be met.

If you have ever hired a webmaster, not a web designer, a webmaster, (Thats another article), or a Search Engine Optimization Company, or a Search Engine Marketer, or even just a Marketing Consultant, (The just was in there just so I could make consultants mad again.), then you have an idea of what a blogging consultant should cost.

Now keep in mind, if you are hiring a blogging consultant to strictly teach you how to blog, then it’s not worth as much money as when you hire a blogging consultant who is also going to perform all of the services a Webmaster and Internet Marketer would provide plus search engine optimization.

Ha ha! I still didn’t say how much it costs. It’s coming. Read on.

What does a Blogging Consultant look like?

He or she looks like someone who has more than just a blog or blogs. Someone who also owns and manages several websites for themselves and for clients. As I said before a blog is still a website.