Help is available. First, there is a set of articles that might be called the Search University of Google, in which Google provides the same tips it uses internally for web site optimization. It is certainly helpful in providing a good SEO basis for anyone who wishes to understand what search engine optimization experts do. One of its most important pieces of advice is that highly optimized content also needs to hold the attention and be useful to those you visit a web site. If 80 percent of visitors just "bounce" off a home page or other landing page and don't continue on a site, weak content is a prime suspect. Some search engine optimizations services put connections before content, which is not a good site tactic.
Second, to help keep the SEO industry professional, a group of Los Angeles-based companies has created SEO Watch Dogs to educate owners of web sites on how to evaluate and choose competent search engine consultants, according to Tony Tateossian, certified SEO specialist at Sticky Web Media and a founder of SEO Watch Dogs.
Here are the key starting points SEO Watch Dogs suggest in choosing search engine optimization specialists. A company should demonstrate:
1. Keyword research is its prime activity.
2. Content development - every search engine optimization specialist will modify existing content and develop new content integrating the two to keep web site content focused on what the site owner want to convey to visitors. At the same time, search engine optimization professionals make the content and website appealing to search engines with search engine optimization techniques.
3. Link popularity - quality incoming links, play a significant role in ranking websites on search engines. SEO companies create links that are competitive with rival sites in order to outrank them.
4. Technical site structure - a web site is designed and maintained with tools that make its content more visible to search engines. Or, on the other end, websites will not be search engine friendly if it has duplicate content copied from other websites.
5. Search engine optimization consultants help to implement website changes and, in case of major modifications, the site owner should work with web developers to incorporate the alterations.
6. Accurate monitoring of meaningful metrics - simple web site monitoring tells part of the story, but doesn't always track things like which keywords and what links are most productive to a site. SEO companies should offer to monitor their services and provide reports, usually monthly.
7. Ongoing development is essential for search engine optimization. There may be new words or terms to add and existing terms can become less effective because they become overused by competitors or search spiders see some words or phrases so often they decide they are overused and start to ignore them. A company should of course jump on that kind of problem immediately.
Monitoring web sites is just as important, the SEO Watch Dog group advises. Here are their tips for what SEO companies should monitor and report to site owners, along with continual research on how to improve or repair metrics. They should:
1. Report data regularly and accurately
2. Help increase traffic
3. Calculate the ROI of the various web strategies
4. Continually identify the geographical locations of site visitors
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of keywords and phrases
6. Determine traffic proportions and conversion rates, and the cost of those rates
7. Identify the marketing trends and behavioral patterns of web browsers to improve conversion of leads
8. Offer information deeper into the analytical domains such as profiles of web visitors, their requirements, and whether they would be sufficiently interested in the site to delve deeper, which could later be converted into direct sales
Use these tools to evaluate any SEO services you consider. For additional information, including how to identify SEO spamming and actions to take to stop it, visit SEO Watch Dogs at http://www.seowatchdogs.org/search-engine-optimization
SEO Watch Dogs
Several Los-Angeles based search engine optimization companies have joined together as SEO Watch Dogsto promote professional standards among SEO companies, provide information to help business owners select excellent SEO companies, and to actively discourage practices that reflect badly on the SEO profession, such as Black Hat SEO tactics. Other SEO companies may join these efforts.
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