When deciding on a SEO Company to contract for your website there are some important factors to consider. A crucial first step is professional keyword research. An SEO Company must have a fundamental understanding of how to select the most suitable keywords to optimise for your business. All the time and effort that’s needed to get a first page ranking on Google for a keyword will have been in vain if that phrase does not bring significant traffic that converts into sales for your business.

Four main factors to consider when selecting your keywords:

1. Relevance

The keywords you select must be relevant to the copy/content written on the site. If the content isn’t on the site your SEO company will make sure it’s added when doing your on-page optimisation. When a potential customer conducts a search for an individual keyword they want to find content exactly matched to that keyword. Search engines also want the searcher (their customer) to find this relevant content as well.

2. Traffic volumes

The keywords used to optimise your site need to be getting a reasonable amount of traffic. This might sound completely obvious; however some SEO companies may choose keywords that are getting zero or little traffic because they are easier to rank for. Whilst long tailed keyword traffic is highly desirable for its higher conversion to sales value, the lower search volumes for these phrases usually mean it’s not worthwhile specifically choosing them for your optimised keywords. However, by optimising professionally for your core keywords over time you will naturally pick up the long tailed keyword trafiic at an ever accelerating rate. Traffic volumes need to be considered against your profit margins.

3. Competition for your keywords

Keywords that are getting good traffic volumes and are relevant should also be chosen. This will simply shorten the length of time it takes to get onto the first page and will reduce your overall cost of the campaign. Thereby seeing you will see a quicker ROI. It’s better to be on the first page in a few months for a medium searched keyword term than it is to be stuck on the third page for a heavily searched keyword phrase after eighteen months.

4. Searcher’s intent

Not only should the keywords get reasonable traffic, be relevant and be reasonably competition free, but they should also have what’s called commercial intent. What this means is that the keyword is likely to be a phrase a searcher would use when looking to make an online purchase or enquire about a service. A good example would be for the keyword “SEO” which might be searched mostly by people who are looking to simply learn more about SEO. The keyword “SEO Company UK” however literally spells out the searchers intentions far more clearly.

These are the main principles you should consider when choosing keywords for a successful SEO programme. A good SEO company will of course always bear in mind these principles when conducting sophisticated keyword research analysis on your behalf.

Search engine algorithms take in many factors when considering rankings for web pages. Each search engine varies too in its calculations; Google puts a high weighting on page rank, whereas Yahoo don’t operate for this criteria. With good on-page SEO and link building a new web page can appear at the top of Yahoo within weeks, unfortunately this isn’t the case with Google.

SEO has changed a lot in recent years and continues to constantly evolve. Techniques that may have worked in the past have now stopped being effective. Here are some of the common SEO mistakes that you absolutely must avoid:

1. Keyword stuffing

2. Link farms

3. Duplicate content

4. 302, temporary redirections

5. Using session IDs on your URLs

6. Using flash on your site

7. Using lots of Inline JavaScript

8. Cloaking / Doorway pages

9. Invisible text using CSS / JS

10. Frame based website design

Social media channels are a great avenue for marketing. There are many advantages of social media marketing and this is because of the large number of people who are participating in social media sites.

One merit of social media marketing is that you end up spending less that with traditional marketing campaigns. This is because social media marketing or SMM strategies are cheap to implement and they are very effective at the same time. The only expense is probably hiring a freelance designer or programmer.

Social media marketing is defensible, meaning it is a great way of generating extra traffic to your website. You should not be relying on search engine traffic alone since you cannot do much about search engine traffic. On the other hand, you can increase your social media traffic if you do strategic marketing. It is important to have a high traffic because from the laws of probability, the higher the traffic, the more the likelihood of making a sale.

Social media marketing is advantageous in that it complements other marketing strategies. This is because social media marketing is community-specific, meaning it does not interfere with other marketing strategies. Social media marketing is cheap, meaning it will not eat into your advertising budget, and it does not require a lot of effort.

Social media marketing is natural, meaning you get natural links. People appreciate natural marketing strategies because they do not feel like they are being pressured into buying. When your website receives natural links from trusted domains, it means Google and other search engines will trust it. This leads to the increase in your Page Rank. This is advantageous in that your website is likely to appear in the first page of the search results. Many people do not bother with pages other than those on the first page of the search results because they have the perception that websites on the first page are more reliable and credible. An increased ranking with search engines means you will get more partner websites that have a link to your website. This is advantageous in that people are likely to click on links to your website while surfing in other websites.

Social media marketing leads to a quick turnaround. If you are in the front page of a major social video, news, or bookmark site, you will get instant huge amounts of traffic. Although this traffic might not mean conversions, the momentum will be in the right direction.

There has been a decreased effectiveness of traditional online marketing methods such as banner ads and pop-up boxes. Doing social media marketing is a way of sidestepping this and putting yourself ahead of competitors who use less effective marketing methods.

Social media marketing leads to more online conversation about your product or service. Once the word is out, it will spread like wild fire. Finally, social media marketing campaigns are dynamic in that they can use different platforms and components.

Page Rank is a way of linking a web page to a partner web page – you place a link in a partner web page and other websites will have links in your web pages. This is not done on complete websites because Google does not list domains – it lists individual web pages. Google uses a formula to determine the value of links to your website. There are several benefits of Page Rank.

The greatest benefit of Page Rank is that Google considers the Page Rank as one of the main point when it is ranking a website in search results. This means if you have good Page Rank, you are more likely to appear on the first page of the search results. This is advantageous because most web users have the perception that websites on the first page of search results are more credible and reliable than those in other pages. Web users are therefore more likely to buy a product or a service from such a page.

Page Rank is important when dealing with the competition. When you are in a niche that has too many websites that are competing for the same keywords, if all other factors remain constant, it is Page Rank that will determine your ranking with Google. The internet has no geographical or nation boarder, meaning there is intense competition for most of the keywords. Enabling the Page Rank after installing Google toolbar enables you to check the Page Rank of your fiercest competitors. This way, you will know what you need to do to rank higher than they are.

Page Rank is important because if your website is of high quality, then other websites will want to partner with it. This means people who know this fact are more likely to find websites that have many links. This means you will get more visitors and you will make more sales.

When your web page has a high Page Rank, it means that you have many links in other websites. This is advantageous in that as people are surfing other pages, there is a high possibility that they may click on a link to your website. As you continue to improve your Page Rank, more websites will want to link to you and the possibility of people surfing those websites clicking on your link will be even higher.

It does not require money or a lot of effort to have a high Page Rank, all you need is high quality content and search engine optimization. You should persuade others to link to your home page because it will be easier for people who click on such links to know what your website is about.