Irish companies are still not 100% sure if to have the SEO outsourced to the specialist SEO Company, or to hire SEO staff directly, and have them work onsite. The constant barrage from the SPAM email offers from mostly Far East SEO companies and their low pricing and the high contract rates of the local Irish SEO companies and professionals mate things even worse! To outsource to an unknown company on the other side of the world, or to hire a local provider – who will in most cases charge you twice more?

The reason it is so hard to hire a SEO staff or engage a SEO company is that there is relatively little understanding on what SEO really is. It is not uncommon to hear the completely opposite opinions and definitions on what the SEO is. Some people bring in the pay per click (PPC) in it, some talk about on site and off site SEO, some talk about link building (now, how do you build a link?). The social media, made things even more complex lately.

So how do you hire someone not knowing nothing neither on what the task on hand is, nor the results that are to be achieved? You are quite likely to fail. If you stick to it, you are quite likely to fail a few times as well.

The same is true if you hire internally or a external SEO vendor.

Do it yourself SEO jobs are the natural result of this situation. You either try to do it yourself if you are a small company, or you ask the existing staff you have to learn and do the SEO tasks for you. That is even more often a recipe for the disaster. You are asking of your staff to do a SEO job that they have not been trained for and have no experience in it. Jet somehow you expect them to succeed?

Hiring for SEO jobs is tough.

The best peace of the advice is to get a the best SEO professional you can get – to help you and do the job interviews for you. Regardless if you are hiring an external SEO company, or a onsite SEO vendor, or the person to do SEO inhouse on your payroll. You are far likely to get the right one to do your SEO jobs than trying to asses the candidates yourself (presuming you are not a SEO specialist yourself!).

So here is the list of the 100 Best Blog Posts:

SEO Software

Performance Related SEO

Are the Right People on Your Marketing Team?

Search Marketing

Online Marketing Budget

Internet Marketing Strategy: Content

Why Social Networking?

SEO Expert

SEO Books

SEO Optimization

SEO Services

SEO Marketing

Google SEO

SEO Company?

Senior Manager of Emerging Media Marketing

Cheap SEO

Online Marketing Plan & Cost

Web Site Hosting Blues

Twitter for Business?

Free SEO

Online Marketing – Who cares?

Social Media Marketing – How to start?

Facebook has 200 million active users

4 Seasons of Web Traffic

Twitter and European Elections in Dublin South

Search Engine Optimization spend is on the rise

Irish Internet Association Congress 2009

Social Networks will waste your time – if not used properly!

You Oughta Know Inbound Marketing

L’blog pour l’blog

Recession is bad for Internet Traffic

Unique Web Content equals High Ranking in Google

Recession in the Irish PPC Market

Link Building is like Sailing!

Understanding your web site visitors

Search Engine Optimization is like Fishing

Search Engine Optimization is like….

Wii

Online Advertising Agency

SEO caught up with PPC!

Beginner Tips for SEO

Keyword Analysis

Google Analytics Motion Chart

Google Analytics Custom Reporting

Top Web Sites in Ireland

Search Phrase in the Domain Name

Internet Advertising Revenue 2008

Yahoo Web Analytics

Search Engine Marketing in Ireland

Online Marketing in Ireland

Search Engine Optimization Cost

Doodle 4 Google by Google Ireland

SEO Proposal

Ireland Search Engine Marketing Report 2008

How Does SEO Fall Into Your Company

BLOG = Better Listings On Google

To Outsource SEO or not to Outsource SEO?

Outsourcing your web site SEO Service?

Driving traffic with inbound links

Alan Shortall & SEO Consultant

SEO Consultant first in Google Chrome

Google Chrome Browser is here!

SEO Keywords in Ireland

Google doesn’t like Ciul as a Search Engine!

Blogging is a way of building the inbound links

Invert Pyramid – Writing for the Web

KeywordSpy – The Ultimate Competitor Intelligence Tool

Google PageRank (PR) Update – SEO Consultant down to PR 4

BlogEngine.NET?

SEO Consultant is 4 months old today!

SEO: To Outsource or Not to Outsource?

Google Webmaster Tools – Visual Ranking Reporting

Irish Google speaks American English

Free SEO Tools: Stompernet Site Seer

SEO Budget? How much does it all cost?

SEO Tools: Website Grader

Google Webmaster Tools the Judge of Google.ie Speed Test

Blog About Your Work!

Google.ie Speed Test Update

Blogging and Business

Google Experimental Labs > Experimental Search

Dynamic MetaTags, Dynamic Title, URL Rewriting, H1, H2,… are all a MUST HAVE for any CMS today.

The Content is The King! (Is onsite web site optimisation more important than the offsite optimisation?)

Search Keywords Length

Google Webmaster Tools Gadgets Bug

There is no such thing as Bad Web Traffic!

Good Google Web Traffic and Bad Google Web Traffic

Google is showing different search results during weekends!

Canonical URL

Google ie

WordPress as a SEO Springboard

SEO Strategy

Search Engine Optimisation vs. Search Engine Marketing

Google: Search Engine Optimization

22 hours later – SEO Consultant in Google index!

First Page Results on Google

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Reports

SEO Speed Test: SEOConsultant.ie in Google.ie?

SEO Consultant

That is a question I get asked from almost every client. Jet I never really know how to answer that question. Why is that?

There are number of the SEO tools I have used and still use a number of them, depending on the site I am optimising. I wrote about a number of the SEO Tools on this site, and Hubspot is the one I use for a long time. They keep coming out with a new tools, relevant to the new things that happen on the web. Hubspot Twitter Grader is just another fine example!

I Wrote about the Stompernet Site Seer, a whole list of Google SEO tools like Google Webmaster Tools, KeywordSpy and many others.

But to answer the question – What is the best SEO Software, I simply cannot. I just realized I never even wrote a blog post about a single SEO Sofware package. Is WebCEO, SEOElite, Internet Business Promoter (IBP), SEO Suite, SEO Studio, and a long list of other SEO Software packages really not worth an article?

Well in all fairness they surely are! But each of them will cover a few task SEO specialist does, and try to automate the process in completing those tasks. Most of the SEO Software does a great job.

The unfortunate fact is that there is no SEO Software that does it all even for one type of the web site. I actually use Excel and Notepad more than any purpose built SEO Software.

Let us compare it with the other forms of advertising.
Pay Per Click (PPC) is the first one that comes to mind straight away. In the PPC model, you place your advertisements for free, and pay only when someone clicks on your advertisement.
Pay Per Action is the next step, where the placement of the advertisement is free as well, and the payment is due when an action is created on your web site, like a product is sold, user have subscribed or in general – a conversion is made. Affiliate schemes work in the same way.

Both PPC and PPA are great advertising models to start with, since there is no setup cost. You only pay when the service is delivered successfully. You also pay only as much as many visitors or conversions you have made you your web site.

Applying the same way of thinking to the SEO – where it is 100% performance related SEO service has a few problems the need to be overcame for the service to work.

For SEO your site will need to be changed. Meaning SEO people will have to do it themselves or instruct you web development people on how to do it. If you have an interactive site, or an online shop, it will almost certain need to be your web developers who will need to make changes for the SEO on your site. This puts the SEO company completely at the mercy of the Web Development company. Yet the Web Developers get paid by the hour and SEO company is paid only by the performance of your web site in Google?

Would you go into the relay race (where you depend on all other guys in your team), where they are all paid for each race, and you are paid only if your team wins?

That is what a performance related search engine optimisation service really is (in most cases). And that is why performance related SEO projects fail so often.

Thanks again there is ‘The Dark Side’ of the SEO, where performance related SEO projects thrive. In most cases those are variants of the black hat SEO techniques involving hacking other web sites and placing large amounts of inbound links to your web site. The result is the instant top ranking of your web site, but in most cases fairly quick addition to the blacklist, and removal from the Google search results.

So without trying to use any scare tactics, you have to know your SEO Company very well, before accepting any kind of performance related SEO service deal.

As any other work, the Search Engine optimization has its Cost, that has to be part of you Online Marketing Plan, and your SEO Budget.

I got a preview of the new book by: Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, both co-founders of HubSpot: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media). A great read really. Since the in my ‘past life’ I was into the recruitment and jobs, it was really interesting to read the part about the Recruitment of the Marketing Team. Here is a short snippet:

What does this change mean for your marketing staff? Simply put, your hiring
criteria need to change and your way of measuring performance needs to change
along with it. The following is a suggested framework called DARC for hiring and
developing inbound marketing savvy employees.

• D = Hire Digital Citizens
• A = Hire for Analytical chops
• R = Hire for Web Reach
• C = Hire Content Creators

They also wrote a long list of the handy questions for the recruiters hiring Inbound marketing staff. The list is really, really good:

• What RSS reader do you use? Can you show it to me?
• What blogs do you read?
• Do you rank first for your name in Google?
• Do you use Delicious? Can you show it to me?
• Do you have a blog? Can you show it to me?
• Do you use Facebook or LinkedIn? When was the last time you updated
  your profile?
• Do you use Twitter? Can you show me?
• Do you have a channel on YouTube? Can you show it to me?

Interview questions about the Reach:

• How many subscribers to your blog? Do you talk about our industry on
  your blog or about personal stuff?
• How many Facebook followers do you have? Do you talk about our
  industry at all on your Facebook account?
• How many LinkedIn followers do you have?
• How many Twitter followers?

The writing style is extremely light. A complete novice to the digital marketing should have no problems following the book. There are tons of good tips, pointing a reader on how to organise the Inbound Marketing team in the eBook itself. Well worth reading!!!!

Half of marketing people would define Search Marketing as buying paid search listings. The other half would with the paid listings within the search marketing realm include the natural search results listing within the term of search marketing.

Half of them must be wrong – but which half?

The split is actually really down to the middle. While even the top online marketing institution: Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) includes search engine optimization (SEO), most of the Marketing Agencies who are providing the service to the customers would do a very basic onsite SEO, and pour the clients budgets in the paid search advertising. Google AdWords Pay per Click (PPC) program, would in most cases take at least of 80% of the search marketing budget.

So although in theory the Search Marketing should include the SEO, the reality is that if the client doesn’t specify exactly what they are looking for – most of their money goes to PPC. This is excellent for any short term, once off publicity campaign. It is great for a rock concert ticket sales or political activists in a month before the election (and silent for the next 4 years). But for a site where you need a constant stream of new web site traffic, and you plan to run the site for more than a month or two – Google AdWords or any other PPC is probably your worst enemy. It is quick and seductive because it delivers within hours. But it will also drain your budgets if not planned properly, and leave no funds left for the SEO.

The Search Engine Optimization on the other hand is extremely slow (in Interment marketing time). Some search agencies will tell you that you have to wait for months for the results! It is not measurable up front, and a lot of SEO experience is required to properly plan the SEO budgets.

So next time you think of ordering the search marketing services, think about what your goal is (long term or short gain), and ask your search marketing company where in the SEM will they spend your money in – Is it PPC or SEO?

Copywriting

• Web site copy
• Blog
• Press Releases
• Whitepaper
• Newsletter

Link Building

• Related Industry Directory
• Geographical Directory (your Local, or your  target market’s Local)
• Link exchange with related sites
• Blog commenting
• Forum participation

Branding

• Social Networking activity
• Company blog comments maintenance

Paid Advertising

• PPC
• Banners
• Link Purchases
• Blog or blog post sponsoring

As a general rule the best results are achieved if the budget is evenly spread between the marketing activity groups above. The tasks should be performed more or less in the sequence as listed above.

Each online marketing plan is specific to the companies activity on the web. It will contain clear goals and targets to be achieved. Make sure your online marketing budget is adequate to achieve your online marketing goals.

Here is a short guide for developing an effective content marketing strategy.

1. Research
In a nutshell, do your homework:

•Research competitors web sites content. Whether you’re launching a full web site or just a blog, see what the competitors are doing. What do you like from waht you see and what not? Can you replicate the good aspects and perhaps even build upon?

•Concept your style based on audience and type of content. Conversational for B2C, More professional with B2B communication. Your style should be reflect who you write to.

•Define the clear goals and message of your content. You will most likely confuse your audience if you do not have a strong definition, and if you do not follow it.

2. Design
Step 2 is all about planning

•Determine responsibilities. Before deploying a content marketing plan, ensure that you’ve outlined who will be responsible for the content. If you are not in a position to hire a dedicated resource, it’s essential to appoint someone to incorporate content maintenance into his or her current responsibilities (be realistic here). Content maintenance could also entail tasking each employee to contribute one piece of content per week or month.

•Organize content. Think structure here. Make it easy to search for a particular topic? If your readers have a difficult time navigating through your site to find useful content, they’re not likely to stick around for very long.

3. Build
Steps 1 and 2 complete, you’re ready to start putting the wheels in motion:

•Plan a style guide. Include as much information as possible regarding everything from tone and voice to target word count. Provide best practices for optimizing content. Include writing checklists.

•Create a copy deck. A copy deck is essentially a roadmap for your content pages, including text, graphics, advertising and links. It can be developed in stages, starting with writing a few paragraphs to describe the content.

4. Publish
With the first 3 steps in place, a content marketing strategy is finally ready for deployment:

•Maintain. It’s crucial to have a plan in place to continuously update content. Outdated content will quickly turn readers away. The stagnant site will not flourish in search engine results.

•Monitor. Leverage analytics tools to gauge what worked best and what failed. Look for patterns in the most popular types of content—i.e., checklists, charts, case studies. What search phrases do visitors search for when they come to your site? What do they read? What is the best article length for your site? What titles work best? Do images help?

5. Rinse & Repeat
The final step to creating an effective content marketing strategy is ongoing:

•React and Respond. No content marketing strategy was made perfect. Based on analytics reports, continuously tweak your content efforts to maximize results.

What steps would you add to create an effective content marketing strategy?

Social networking websites have been around for quite a while now, with early models emerging in the mid-‘90s. Websites such as Theglobe.com and Tripod.com sought to bring online users together to interact with each other through chat rooms and shared personal information. However, no one could have been prepared for the rapid increase and popularity of sites such as Facebook and MySpace over the course of the last five or six years. Now, marketing and advertising professionals are jumping on the social networking bandwagon and offering clients online marketing packages which include profile pages on social networking websites.

According to Ivan Stojanovic, Founder and Director of SEOConsultant.ie, a consultancy firm specialising in online marketing and search engine optimisation, companies are in danger of being left behind if they fail to implement a social media marketing plan.“Companies staying away from social networking sites are going to get into a situation where their much smaller competitors all of the sudden become more well-known brands,” says Stojanovic. “The speed and reach of online social media is unmatched by anything yet,” he added.

Or are you a SEO Expert yourself?

Not? Well everyone else seems to be? So what’s wrong with you?

In reality, everyone calls themselves a SEO Expert nowadays. There are no credentials required really. Most of us think that there is no experience really required. Kind of – you get up one day and decide – today, I will call myself a SEO Expert.

And the world all of the sudden seems so different to you. You are important professional now. People are very interested to hear what you have to say.

It feels great actually to become a SEO Expert all of the sudden. It is a life changing experience. You are invited as a speaker to pretty much any conference that you can think of. If you add a bit of the social networking in the mix of your expertise – you will have to run a busy schedule! You get invited to speak and are asked for quotes from the editors of the magazines you didn’t even know existed!

You can pick the projects you want to work on. Greed clouds your judgement and you tend to choose the SEO projects with the largest budgets. Months are passing, and your clients see no benefits from their investment in you – the SEO Expert of their choice!

Problems. Project cancelations. Clients asking their money back. You of course, the SEO Expert keep on explain them that it is either their fault or that SEO takes time.

In the meantime you are also realising what works in the sales process of the search engine optimization. It really is very cool how the phrases like

• First page in Google Guaranteed
• Page 1 ranking in 30 days

Open up the check books instantly. The Guarantee works somehow as the insurance to the buyer. It can only be a REAL SEO Expert offering 100% Money Back Guarantee, right?

Clients are piling up. There is a waiting list now. You think of the expansion. I should hire SEO staff to manage the demand! If the demand slows down a bit, you can always pour a few thousands in Google AdWords, and the hungry clients will come for your SEO Services.

Soon enough, this country is too small for you…. Expansion to Europe is on the cards. Or perhaps the Far East? Or should we do the IPO first?

Such is the life of the self proclaimed SEO Expert. Not easy really. Tough choices.