SEO by the Hour? I Don’t Get It
I noticed quite a bit lately that some people don’t understand the concept of SEO services by the Hour. It’s actually a really popular question potential clients ask me. So, I figure let me take a stab at answering the question here in a blog post.
First, let me add, that I hate my domain SEObytheHour.com. I feel it limits what people think I can offer them. Plus it’s rare you can really charge SEO by the Hour. I just bought the domain some years back (because it sounded cool), built some links to it, played around with it and viola, it’s getting action.
But here’s how it goes anyway…
To my knowledge, Google’s SEO algorithm is proprietary. No one can crack it. I’m also willing to bet that some of the smartest, technical minded gurus are working behind the formula to do 1 main thing; deliver the MOST RELEVANT results for its users, so it continues to be the best search engine ever.
That being said; I don’t know SEO.
But I do know 2 things. 2 things that I feel are the core to everything I do. The understanding of these 2 things is what I feel sets me apart from he rest.
- Google is the most used search engine because when people ask/query what they are looking for, they rarely have to go past the 1st page. The sites Google is picking to be #1, 2, 3, 4.. are picked for a reason..
- The best way to figure out how to rank #1 is to dissect the competition; the top rankers. Why are they #1? Is it because they answer every who, what, why, how question there is about your target keyword? Is it because of their links? Check where their links are coming from. How did they obtain them? What do they say? What kind of content is surrounding those links? HOW MUCH WORK DID THEY HAVE TO PUT IN TO RANK #1?
Performing proper keyword and competitive research and utilizing web tools that make virtually everything your competition does transparent allows you gauge how much work you will have to do to compete. I can literally find out everything there is know about your competition and what chances you have to rank for those terms. The questions are, what keywords do you want to go after? Who’s ranking for those keywords? And how much work is needed to compete?
Asking those questions makes it easier to understand SEO by the Hour.
After years of hands-on experience working on all types of web platforms and structures and professionally recording how long everything takes, page by page I can guesstimate how long it would take to optimize your website, no matter the size or how it’s built. Normally, full-fledged SEO is implemented once really strong in the beginning and overtime you will make various changes here and there based on what Google tells you through its rankings.
OK, so onpage is covered. But what about offpage you ask.
Well, when really analyzing your competitors, you can determine why they are number one by using SEO analysis tools and link building tools that give you heaps of information. For some keywords, you can learn that the top guys got away with just doing free directory submissions utilizing their anchor text links. Sometimes the #1 site just did a bunch of articles and guest posted in several niche blogs. Sometimes you find out the top guy has been doing a monthly press release through PR Web for over a year. Or even worst, the top guy is an author of some book that was a New York Times Best Seller that has guest featured in all the top authority and news channels.
Again, I record how long it takes for me to do everything and the cost of what ever is needed. I know how long it takes for me to write a press release or how much it cost to have a professional write one. Same with articles and blog posts. I know how long it takes for me to email 100 webmasters. I know how long it takes for me to guest author in a blog. All in all, I know how to determine how much work is needed to compete with the top guy(s).
Most of the time if someone is coming to me for help, they are going after terms that require WORK. Terms that require 100′s of hours. This is why sometimes SEO has to be performed naturally over a period of time. Luckily I KNOW how long everything takes me to do.
Overtime, you’ll realize that SEO take hours and hours and is an ongoing campaign. After all, isn’t the keyword you going after valuable (to more than just you)?
Still, the most important question to ask yourself is; how can I be the most relevant site to the next 1 million people that type in the keyword I’m targeting?
Read More15 Video Bookmarking/Networking Sites Worth An SEO’s Time
Here is a list of all the video networks worth an SEO’s time. Not only because some may offer followed links, but because of their popularity, ability to be viral and their chances on the search engines. The followed backlinks are just bonuses from some of the networks.
To make it to this list, the social video site had to either;
- provide a followed backlink somewhere in the profile or video description
- tends to get pulled by scraper (or copycat) sites and get reproduced containing your link which sometimes can be followed
- is in the top 100,000 most trafficked websites according to Alexa
- provides a profile with username (keyword) in the URL and a link (followed or no-followed) on that same page.
- has the ability to be linked with other major networks like Twitter, StumbleUpon, Youtube, MySpace, Etc.
The goal is to submit your video to as few places as possible and still produce the same reach. Of course we must remember other factors like video channel reputation, total videos submitted, group involvement, total friends, etc.
Anyway, here are my 15 most favorite Social Video bookmarking sites on the net.
- Vimeo| Sign-up Page
- YouTube | Sign-up Page
- Vidilife | Sign-up Page
- Break
- Videosift
- Google | Sign-up Page
- Seven Load | Sign-up Page
- Selfcast TV | Sign-up Page
- Revver | Sign-up Page
- Blip TV | Sign-up Page
- Clip Shack | Sign-up Page
- Daily Motion | Sign-up Page
- Meta Cafe | Sign-up Page
- Veoh | Sign-up Page
- LiveVideo
Ones I purposely forgot: AOL Video, MSN Video, Flixa, Flickr Video, MySpace Video, Video Bomb.
So, there you have it; my favorite video networking sites.
A few more video networking and SEO tips..
- Manually submitting to these in combination with traffic geyser can work wonders.
- Bookmarking your videos in social networks can extend the life of your videos.
- Make a ton of related friends.
- Comment on a lot of relevant videos and upload as many videos as you can.
- Try to get internal linking to work in your favor (PR & Relevance).
- But don’t spend too much time in these networks (unless video is you best lead generator). I know it can be addicting. But there’s still thousands of other things we need to do, as far as SEO goes.
Link Building Expert Tips – Backlink Reporting
Before starting a link building campaign, record how many links you have according to Google, Yahoo! and any other backlink checker you can count on. Record how many links are pointing to your competitors as well. There are several reasons why you want to do this…
- Sets a benchmark; either to have more links than you had before by a certain time or to see if you can get more links than your competitors.
- You can gauge yourself compared to your competition. You can get an idea on how many links you really need to compete for various terms.
- If incorporating title tags (given by Yahoo! to export), you can see just how relevant the linking sites must be compared to your competition
- If incorporating other metrics like anchor text, you can see just how many links saying your targeted keyword, you’re going to need.
- If presenting to someone, you can show proof that link weight is what they need to even have a chance in the search engine popularity contest.
- If reporting to a client your link building service progression, you can show how many links (recognized) you’ve acquired over any given time.
- Main Reason – To see why you’re not #1
As I have stressed before anchor text is HUGE and topical relevance & strength of that page containing the anchor text determines how huge that anchor really is.
However, back to backlink counting…
Record all the URL’s pointing back to your site and its competitors. If you use a search engine like yahoo site explorer and search link:yourwebsite.com, you can see total backlink count and titles of the page linking to any website you check. If you’re using backlink tools like the backlinkwatch or webconf’s back link anchor text analysis tool you can see the anchor text of the links as well. If you can mix excel, yahoo & backlinkwatch together, you can find some really powerful link building data.
Why is this important?
It’s easier to track your efforts and understand why things work in an organized format in order to take the most efficient route to the top of the search engines for any given keyword.
I’m in the process of creating a free SEO backlink tool that will analyze backlinks and a few backlink attributes (title, PR, URL, etc) that will give you the ability to export to csv. But, that’s free time, experiment work that I’ve found myself to have less and less time doing.
Here’s a link building video given to some of my friends/clients to help them understand a back link benchmark report I use when I put on my link building expert service hat, and to give you as well a better idea of recording backlinks and their anchor texts.
Some SEO link building fun to consider
See how many links are pointing to your top 10 competitors. Then record the ages of your competitor’s domains. You can either see have many links they’ve acquired monthly on average by dividing total backlinks by total months online, or you can measure it exponentially. Like month 1 they obtained 20, month 2 they obtained 30 or 40, month 3 they got 40 or 80. Using the right formulas will unlock just how fast you really can “naturally” build links.
Also, check out my most recent ezinearticle expert article: Link Building Tips for Obtaining Relevant Backlinks
I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my SEO blog. I really do appreciate it. You can read another related post (found below) or subscribe here. Once again, thank you for visiting James’ SEO blog.
Read MoreSlightly Hidden Content – SEO [IM Chat #1]
I know many of you SEO’s feel the same or experience the same thing…
You know more about SEO and computers than everyone around you, so you’re “Mr. SEO know it All” that has to answer every computer related question for friends, family, and co-workers, even if it has nothing to do with SEO. But every once in a while a buddy of mine will ask me a SEO question on IM and I take on the role of Mr. Know It All James-SEO.
[11:15] seobuddy: hey james…do you have a minute to look at a site for me?
[11:16] James-SEO: sure
[11:17] seobuddy: Here’s the site
[11:20] seobuddy: the site has rankings, but do you think it may be considered spam at the bottom of the pages?
[11:20] seobuddy: the keywords almost the same color as the background.
[11:20] seobuddy: what are you thoughts?
[11:21] James-SEO: you know, it’s not too bad, but it’s not good
[11:21] James-SEO: I have 2 things to say about this
[11:22] James-SEO: 1. Google can recognize the color difference and assume that since you don’t really want visitors to see those words that well, they can assign a lesser value to those words. why even index that content?
[11:23] James-SEO: after all, those aren’t the words you want to visitors to read
[11:23] James-SEO: since it’s not invisible, it’s not “illegal”
[11:24] James-SEO: But it’s also not in proper legible grammar, so it’s safe to assume that that part is not meant to be read
[11:24] James-SEO: it must be just a bunch of keywords with commas and a matching color background[11:24] [11:25]seobuddy: do they need to be there…isn’t having them in the meta’s good enough…
[11:25] James-SEO: meta data is different than onpage content
[11:26] James-SEO: if you insist on having those keywords there, make sure those exact keywords are in the metas for relevance between meta data and content
[11:26] James-SEO: if those keywords are in the meta data, each phrase better be found somewhere in the content
[11:26] James-SEO: naturally
[11:26] James-SEO: not slightly hidden
[11:26] seobuddy: i also have the same titles on most of my pages…
[11:27] James-SEO: that’s a big no no as well
[11:27] seobuddy: yea, you told me that before, that’s why I mentioned it
[11:27] James-SEO: Google likes each page to be unique
[11:28] James-SEO: if pages have a lot of similarities, they just index the stronger page
[11:28] James-SEO: but back to the almost hidden keywords,..
[11:28] James-SEO: #2
[11:28] James-SEO: the background is CSS, it has a background image and a background color
[11:29] James-SEO: google can only read (for now) the color of the background, which by default is normally white. so the words look to google light Grey on white
[11:29] James-SEO: If the css background is set to Grey, then it could appear you have completely hidden content
[11:29] James-SEO: light Grey content/keywords written in un readable form (like meta keywords) is of course of a lessor value than words in large bolder black font or bright red keywords mixed in content on white backgrounds
[11:29] seobuddy: yea, but i thought that bolding kw wasn’t nec anymore
[11:30] James-SEO: there’s 100′s of ranking factors, ALL of value
[11:30] James-SEO: bolding just doesn’t mean as much now as it did in 2000
[11:30] James-SEO: but search bots can still recognize a bolded phrase
[11:38] seobuddy: so if you were optimizing this site, what would you do to it? i am running a ranking report now, for a crapload of keywords, so it will take a long while. I do have many 1st page rankings, so what could you change?
[11:39] James-SEO: got to find out if the site is ranking for the most relevant traffic AND conversion generating terms
[11:41] James-SEO: i’d make sure 1st that all meta data is unique from page to page and that they are all targeting the BEST (tons of factors) keywords
[11:42] James-SEO: then make sure the content is naturally relevant to those metas
[11:42] James-SEO: or do it vice versa; content then metas
[11:43] seobuddy: yea, but I don’t have the text on some of the pages to support a lot of keywords, so would I be better off putting them at the bottom of the page, only in bold?
[11:44] James-SEO: nothing compares to naturally written content. Why do you feel you should rank for terms your content isn’t relevant to?
[11:44] James-SEO: that sounds dishonest and misleading
SEO Rambling #6: Content Writing – Grammar
Anyone that has been writing papers in Word doc over the years may have noticed some changes in Microsoft Word since Windows and Office 95/98. Actually, Word has upgraded tremendously since. 1 upgrade I want to talk about today is the grammar check. You can tell that Windows is more sophisticated in recognizing errors (spelling and grammar) now.
If Word can recognize sentence structure and point out verbs, nouns and fragments, then no telling what Google could recognize. Obviously Google wants to deliver relevant sites to users, but it has been stressed that quality plays just as much of a role. And believe you me, besides design; the only way to really tell if your site is quality is through your content. With Google being the ultra-website analyzer, they have to look at things in a way a human would look at it.
What I’m trying to say…
Quality content is good for users to understand what you are saying/selling. Plus error-free pages are recommended by Google/Yahoo/MSN and the general public.
&
If Word can give you a green squiggly line for grammar mistakes, Google can recognize and assign worth to each individual person, place, thing, action, adjective and so on within a sentence, (especially keywords you’re ranking for or have links containing).
For instance; in the 1st sentence below “SEO” is a noun or action and in the second sentence “SEO” is an adjective.
I do SEO for a local internet marketing firm.
I am an SEO Specialist at an internet marketing company.
Why does this matter? Well to be quite honest, I’m not sure if it does. But as an SEO specialist, when studying a site’s top ranking competitors; I would see how they utilize or present a keyword. For example, if you look at the rankings for “seo” you’ll see that most of the sites are using “seo” as a noun (or action). But if you search “seo specialist” you’ll see all the sites are specialist sites pertaining to SEO.
There’s a difference. Nouns are harder to rank for because you usually need strong adjective pages supporting the noun page (if that make sense)
So what, James…
If you want to rank for “link building” use link building as a noun or as a verb (or even better a proper noun) instead of an adjective or adverb. The most important parts of a sentence are the nouns and the actions/verbs. Focus on making your keywords one of them. UNLESS you want to rank for link building expert; then you’d make sure expert is what the page and content is about, but have link building being the describer of the type of expert you are.
Just something to think about.
If you feel you wasted your time reading my random SEO thought, please let me know. If these random thoughts are of interest to you, I’ll continue to blurb whatever I’m thinking more often.
Oh yeah, thanks for reading my blog!
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