There is not a day that goes by that I don’t have to stop what I am doing to answer the phone while some stupid SEO tries to sell me his services. And too make it worst there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get at least two spam emails from some SEO company trying to sell me their services.

Since these guys have decided to drive me crazy I figured I might as well put their information to good use.

So here’s the thing, I am taking my SEO Watch Dog website and I will start doing website reviews for companies that either call or spam me.

If your website isn’t set up correctly then I would think twice before spamming me and since the statics for online SEO vs. Offline marketing look something like this.

1.  80% of consumers research online before buying offline?

2.   70% of people searching Google never click past the first 3 links?

3.   60% of all traffic on the internet is now video?

4.   YouTube is the #1 search engine?

Since you are calling me and sending me spam email instead of using the search engines to drive traffic to your business I can only guess that the reason for this is that you yourself don’t know how to market your own business online.

So you have resorted to offline marketing to sell and online service that you cannot even do.

Search Engine Optimization is complicated, fast moving, and full of misunderstandings. This makes it difficult to learn.

I’ve read a lot of SEO books that are available online. And I’ve found them full of theory and lacking actionable steps. I am hoping to bridge the theory and actionable steps here and now. I believe that you will find the information I am about to share with you unique even among the information that is being sold online.

I believe the process, followed by explanation, followed by example is unique among SEO books that are currently being sold on the market. And I believe the information that I am about to share with you will make the difference when it comes to outranking the competition.

Now first up is I want you to understand a little bit about how PageRank works. We have to first understand that there were two guys trying to figure out a better way for finding information online. Now these were two Collage guys so they decided to use the same method that was used to organize academic papers. A quick way to judge the quality of an academic paper is to see how many times other academic papers have cited it.

This idea was then created online.

It’s easy enough for a webmaster to manipulate words, placement of words, internal links, and so on his or her own website, however when it comes to getting inbound links from other websites it’s another story. Now there are hundreds of factors used by the search engines to rank a web page but they can be broken down into two groups; relevance and authority.

Now once inside authority we have two more groups; domain authority and page authority.

This authority comes from a measurement taken from other web pages that link to this web page. Now just because a page has a PageRank of 5 does not mean it will outrank a page with a PageRank of 4.

This is why hyperlinks are so important.

Search engines look at a lot of different things when it comes to link profiles. Now I am sure you are thinking that a strong authority website could rank for everything, and they can. Think of Wikipedia!

But the reason they don’t dominate is because search engines put a lot of emphasis on determining relevancy.

I read somewhere that Google’s biggest expense was their power bill. Now if this is true then it would only make sense that this would play into how the search engines work. Other words, if it takes less power to determine relevancy between a text query and a text document than it would between a text query and an image or video file, then it would make sense that we would see more text search results then we would videos or images.

As of this writing, this is exactly what I am seeing.

To me this means I should be spending more time optimizing my text and less time on videos and images. Now I am not saying to ignore videos or images because I believe this will change as computers and technology change. However things like top-level domains, domain owners and code validation are poor signals for determining relevancy. This means your page needs some content before it is going to rank.

The search engines use their analysis of content as their primary indication of relevancy for determining rankings for a given search query. However, instead of counting the number of times a keyword is used on a page the search engines are now able to use a natural language algorithm to determine relevancy.

For example, a search engine can determine from a piece of content about Jessica Simpson that it is related to phrases like “Nick Lachey” (her exhusband), “Ashlee Simpson” (her sister), and “Chicken of the Sea” (she is infamous for thinking the tuna brand “Chicken of the Sea” was made from chicken).

Okay, now when it comes to relevance Google will use image information, link profiles and site structures as well as content to determine how relevant a given page is to the search query. And the anchor text of course let’s Google know what the page is about. And since most people use either the site URL or the page title as their anchor text it’s a good idea to use these to their full advantage.

Google can also look at what I linked to, to help with their understanding of what is relevant to my website, and they can look at the page URL linking to me to help determine how relevant that link is to my page. Knowing and understanding things like this is essential for a SEO to do their job.

Understanding anchor text, and the number of characters preceding and following the link itself is also very important.

In this article I talked about both popularity and relevancy. These are the main ideas that make up the Search Engine Optimization theory. We have very little control over how the search engines operate, so understanding the law of popularity and relevance is important for making the big money in SEO.

If you would like to read more about website design, website conversion, social media marketing or search engine optimization check out my blog at http://www.geeksonsteroids.com/.

Okay for those movers, shakers & rule breakers…I am setting up my new SEO website here.

Did you know;

  80% of consumers research online before buying offline?

  70% of people searching Google never click past the first 3 links?

  60% of all traffic on the internet is now video?

  YouTube is the #1 search engine?

7 Downsides To Traditional Advertising

  Expensive

  When was the last time you used the Yellow Pages?

  Hard to track metrics

  Longer turnaround times

  Print errors

  Disconnect from your clients

You can’t build a relationship

For a Successful Online Business I need;

  Brand Recognition

  Lead Generation

  Fans

Why Brand Recognition?

  People buy from companies they know!

  When you become the most recognized brand in your industry you become the default “go-to” company.

  Buyers are more informed than ever!

  It is essential to be known as the industry leader. How do you get there? By giving away as much free, valuable information as you can.

  People buy from companies they trust!

  By being an industry expert and providing all the information you are the one they go to when they have questions, concerns or need services from.

Why Lead Generation?

  Lead generation is the backbone to any business.

  Every company needs leads.

  Cold calling doesn’t work.

  Gone are the days when cold calling worked. Buyers are aware when you’re trying to sell them something and are even more guarded than ever. We need a new way to contact clients.

  Offline lead generation can be difficult to track.

  Unless everything is recorded and input into a sales funnel you don’t have a full picture of how your sales team is doing. What if there was a way to automate this and record all your metrics?

Why Do We Need Fans?

  Fans make you famous!

  Find your perfect customer. Find out exactly what he wants. Give it to him.

  Always over-deliver

  Be different, stand out. Be the company that cares.

  Making sure your product works is the best form of marketing.

Video Marketing

Video Marketing is by far the easiest and most effective way to brand yourself as an expert. If you want to create trust, credibility and build traffic all at the same time, video marketing is the smartest and most effective strategy you can use.

Video Distribution

Distribute your videos to top video sharing sites like Youtube, Metacafe, Daily Motion, Yahoo Videos, Veoh etc. This gives is credibility and makes us look like the dominant force in your industry.

Podcasts

We can convert our videos to audio so they can be listed to on an iPod, iPhone, Blackberry, in their car or simply on a computer. We want to deliever our messages when the potential customer is ready to listen.

Podcast Distributions

By submitting our podcasts to the most influential and greatest number of podcast search engines and directories, we make it easy for people to find our message and this gives us greater visibility for our content.

Article Marketing

Content makes a website successful. Article marketing helps build credibility and a great reputation. Article marketing is a great SEO tool because articles appeal to a lot of people who still prefer to read more than any other learning style. Quality and relevant articles are still the most preferred sources of information by many people who surf the internet. If people find the quality of your articles to be good, they are more likely to follow that link to your website.

Article Distributions

The distribution of articles can literally make you an overnight success. By distributing your article to top article directories we get more views and in turn move up in the Google rankings.

Facebook Fan Page

It is important to create and establish a Facebook Page. The biggest distinction between a personal profile, group, and page is that the only one viewable to the public and indexed by search engines is a Facebook Page.

Twitter Followers

Twitter is an excellent source of free traffic.

Feeder Sites

Feeder sites are pages created with blogs or hub pages that will allow you to create very good quality back links to our main website. By building feeder sites that stand out we bring more prospects to our main website.

E-Book Creation

In addition to me having custom videos, podcasts, articles and websites created, our content can be turned into a E-Book to give away to our potential clients at no charge.

E-Mail List Creation

Everybody knows how difficult it is to build an opt-in email list these days. We need to formulate a system that will safely allow us to build responsive list that will continually buy our products.

Blog Creation

A custom blog for our business, not only acts as a direct line of communication with our clients, but also a major marketing strategy that ensures that we remain at the top of the search engine results.

Backlinking

Backlinking is the process of creating links to our website. Each link means that someone is trying to inform others about some interesting page they have found.

Therefore, the number of links pointing to our site is a measure of popularity and reputation of the page. The number and quality of backlinks is the basis of the PageRank algorithm used by Googleʼs web search. Backlinking is very popular and the main reason for this popularity is the fact that it returns relevant results for every possible search phrase, brings you more clients and more sales.

Press Release

It is not surprising that marketing experts recommend using press releases for generating targeted traffic to websites. This strategy has become increasingly popular.

However, press releases are not only great for marketing but also create an excellent opportunity for attracting incoming links, which are essential for SEO.

Dedicated SEO Expert

Hiring Dedicated SEO experts is the greatest choice for a complete SEO solution. You
can acquire the additional improvement of a more concentrated, stronger approach and
cut costs. With dedicated SEO experts you get significantly improved engine rankings.

We will hire, monitor and train an SEO expert specifically for our products or services.
You will be able to contact him or her directly and will essentially be an off-site employee without having to deal with payroll, taxes or HR: the perfect solution.

Split-testing Option

Although we can’t ever predict for certain what will work best, we can get better at predicting what will work in the future. In most cases that’s because split testing and careful tracking and recording has given us loads of examples to learn from. Split-testing is the fastest way to increase your conversion rate and lower your cost-per-action, which increases profitability.

Monthly Reporting

In order to track all the new traffic from our marketing campaign we will be generating a detailed month end report analyzing which methods are the most efficient, where your visitors are coming from, what they like the most and how we can tweak & improve for the next month!

Online Marketing Dream

I am sure that every person that has ever thought about making money online has also thought about that perfect keyword, a keyword that anyone looking for their business would know and understand. Most business owners correctly believe that ranking for this phrase will put them on the path to riches. Finding and ranking for the right keyword can turn a 4 figure business into a 7 figure business overnight.

Think about it ! !

If you have a website that is ranked in the search engines for a search phrase that brings in 300,000 people every month, and if you sold just 1% of that 300,000 each month, you would be making 3,000 sales every month.

The problem that we all face is the time and effort needed to get a website ranking for that perfect keyword.

You see, my perfect keyword is SMM. But I know it could take me a year or even two, to rank for that keyword.

Think About it Like This

Getting a website to rank in the top of the search engines can take months or even years. And the work needs to be done daily…so you either I have to pay someone to work on the site every day or do it yourself. In most cases the website owner gives up before ever reaping the benefits of ranking for that perfect keyword.

So…instead of going after a keyword phrase, I need to totally dominating the market.

Keep This in Mind

Just by ranking for a phrase someone is searching for will cause people to automatically assume I am an expert, in my industry. People subconsciously believe that Google has recommended me and they believe I must be the best in that industry because of where I rank.

The quality of my website and copy only counts for about 15% of the total equation when it comes to being successful. Selecting proper keywords accounts for another 40%, and properly ranking those keywords and driving traffic to the site is the remaining 45%

So…Here’s The Idea

I am going to build a Pyramid with my keywords, putting my most competitive keywords or less specific keywords at the top. So basically this means that at the top of my pyramid is SMM.

On the next level is a competitive keyword but less competitive than the top of the Pyramid, so on this level we would have keywords like social media marketing, social media networking, social media optimization, etc. etc.

And we continue from the top of the Pyramid all the way to the bottom, where our more specific search terms are located.

Doing it this way allows us to build an extremely themed website. We start building at the bottom of the pyramid, with the more specific search terms and work our way up the pyramid to the less specific and more competitive search terms. Because there’s less competition for these keywords we should be able to put them in the top of the search results quickly. This should allow us to get near-immediate traffic from the search engines.

When researching an industry I normally start with the broadest terms, such as SMM, put it into my keyword tool and then grab 15 from the top ten results.   So out of SMM, I would get SMM, Social Media Marketing, social media networking, attorney, immigration and law firm, now I start adding local keywords to these along with my keyword. Like Atlanta Georgia Law Firm Website Designers.

I can now use this list for Pay-Per-Click, local, and natural search results. So I guess we can go ahead and start with law website designers as soon as I finish the landscaping website designers.

The thing that makes all this work is the linking structure.

So…We would link up the chain. The keyword at the very bottom of the pyramid, if it was “best prices on SMM in Atlanta Georgia”, would link up the pyramid to “SMM prices in Atlanta Georgia”, which would then link to “SMM in Georgia”, which would link up the pyramid to “Social Media Marketing”, which would link up the Pyramid to “SMM”.

Keep in mind, that since we are adding relevant up-to-date information to our website as well as adding pages we will get both the link juice that is created by creating a web page as well as the ranking boost that we get from having relevant, fresh content on our website.

Now…as well as linking up the chain, we will also link around the chain. So we will link the website keyword pages at the bottom of the pyramid together and then link them up the pyramid to the next level as well as linking them to the very top of the pyramid, better known as the home page of the website.

Every page I add to the website helps add authority to the website and gives me more link juice, that I am able to control. So each webpage I add helps the previous webpages I added by adding more authority and more link juice to the whole website.

The neat thing about doing it this way is that as I am building the bottom of the pyramid, and getting outside links to the bottom of the pyramid, it’s making the keywords we haven’t started working on in the middle and upper part of the pyramid start to rank. Because everything we’re doing down at the bottom is affecting what goes on at the top. By the time we get ready to rank the next level of keywords, a lot of them are already ranking.

Keywords

While a competitive keyword will bring in a ton of traffic, the conversion rate will be much lower than a less competitive keyword that is more specific.

If someone is searching for cameras, chances are they’re just looking around. If someone searches for a specific camera name, chances are they’ve done some research and are doing a bit more. However, if someone searches for free shipping for a specific camera name, then they’re ready to make a purchase.

Now keep in mind that at the bottom of the pyramid I don’t care how little traffic a keyword gets. If it only gets two or three hits a day, it’s okay, because when I finish I will have 40,000 keywords I am trying to rank the site for.

Search Engine Optimization

There are hundreds of factors that help search engines decide how to rank a website. In general those hundreds of factors can be broken into two categories – relevance and popularity. Further within the category of popularity. There are two primary types, domain name popularity and page popularity.

To rank #1 for a given search you need to have the highest amount of total popularity on the Internet for that search term.

If you look for patterns in the search result pages you will see this. Have you ever noticed a popular domain name like Wikipedia tends to rank for everything?

This is because they have enormous amounts of domain name popularity. What about those competitors who out rank you for a specific term with a practically unknown domain name? This happens when they have an excess of page popularity.

And just because the page is a page rank of 5 does not mean it will outrank all pages with a page rank of 4. You have to keep in mind that major search engines do not want you to reverse engineer their algorithms. As such, publicly releasing a definite metric for ranking would be crazy from a business perspective.

In my opinion, hyperlinks are the most important factor when it comes to ranking webpages. This is a result of them being difficult to manipulate. Modern search engines look at link profiles and use those relationships to determine rank. The take away for is that the time spent earning links is time well spent. The same way that a rising tide raises all ships, popular domain names raise all pages. Likewise, popular pages raise the given domain name.