In Today's Issue
Search Engine Marketing
---> Questions About Starting an SEO Company
---> Removing Links From a Site
---> Will My Website Rank #1 With Articles?
---> No Metas?
High Rankings Happenings
---> Need Your Google AdWords Tuned Up?
---> Need Help Diagnosing YOUR Website Problems?
Twitter Question of the Week
---> Do you use "article marketing"?
Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week
---> Using Divs and JavaScript for SEO Purposes
Advisor Wrap-up
---> Kid update Introduction
Hey all! It's time once again for an SEO Q&A High Rankings Advisor. Enjoy! Jill
Search Engine Marketing Issues
++Questions About Starting an SEO Company++
Hi Jill,
I am a stay-at-home mom of two children who has been working for an SEO company for the past year. SEO is something I really enjoy and picked up on quickly. In fact, I was managing a team of 20 people but the company I was working for is now going out of business. I'm considering starting my own SEO company and working with local businesses and I was wondering if you could offer any advice.
- How do you go about getting most of your clients?
- What do you charge clients?
- Do you recommend a certain program to expedite the process?
I would really, really appreciate any help you can offer. I'm sure I won't be any competition for you. This is just a simple part-time job I enjoy doing and am trying to gather information about.
Thanks in advance!
Alicia
++Jill's Response++
Hi Alicia,
I got my start in SEO as a stay-at-home mom over 15 years ago and can attest that it's a good career choice if it's something you really "get." It sounds like you do, so you're off to a good start. Back when I was first in the biz we had to figure everything out for ourselves, so you have a leg up in having previously worked for an SEO agency.
When reading my answers, please keep in mind that the way I get clients and charge them may not work for you. I've had 15 years to build my reputation, expertise, business, knowledge and relationships.
1. How do you go about getting most of your clients?
A good portion of them come from this newsletter either directly or indirectly. Over the years I've found that building a relationship with people through this newsletter is typically my best form of marketing. While most newsletter readers will never engage with me for any SEO services (there are 25K subscribers) many long-term readers do think of me and High Rankings if the opportunity ever arises where they need some SEO help. So the idea is to get as many targeted people to subscribe to the newsletter as possible.
The subscribers come from a variety of sources, including Google, Twitter, the High Rankings Forum, my SEO columns published on other sites, events I speak at, word of mouth, newsletter forwards from existing subscribers and the like.
It takes an assortment of marketing initiatives to eventually get clients. My goal has always been to be everywhere online when people are seeking out SEO information. That way they can't help but find me one way or another – and ideally sign up for the newsletter!
2. What do you charge clients?
I'm pretty open with my SEO pricing, with most prices shown on my SEO Services pages. I do this to avoid wasting time with "tire kickers" who in the end will never pay the amount I charge.
3. Do you recommend a certain program to expedite the process?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. If you mean do I use any SEO software, then the answer is no, I'm not a fan. That said, there are many tools that I use every day to keep my company running smoothly.
Here are the main ones:
Hope this gives you a good start!
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++Removing Links From a Site++
Dear Jill,
Our website has minimal content and is not a business generator, but we still would like it to be high on search engine rankings.
The designer added fairly unnoticeable links at the bottom of our website that go to pages of information that are now old and have little to do with our business. We would like to take these pages off.
What would be the best way for me to transition these pages off our website, while keeping up our SEO? They have a lot of links to other pages, some not related to our business.
Thank you so much!
Christina
++Jill's Response++
Hi Christina,
It depends on whether those pages are currently bringing traffic to your site now and what their purpose is or was. If they're not helping now, it's fine to just remove them. If they were designed as doorway pages for SEO purposes only, it's probably safe to remove them as well because they will be more likely to hurt than to help your efforts.
But it's impossible to say without carefully analyzing your web analytics so that you know exactly what your situation is. If you have a good program such as Google Analytics installed, you should be able to easily tell what, if anything, those links and pages are doing for your website as a whole.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++Will My Website Rank #1 With Articles?++
Jill,
Might I bother you with a question?
Like many others in small businesses, I am trying to figure out whose advice and expertise to trust, what we can do on our own, and what we ought to outsource, etc.
I spoke to someone who is offering to write 20 articles ($100 apiece, which he promises me is a deal) and who also wants an additional fee to post them on the site and integrate them with the content.
He and I have had several conversations with me being very skeptical and telling him this outright, that no one can promise that your site will rank on the first page. (I learned that from you, and am hoping I am still right?!) I also have learned from you that what I get on a search engine results page will vary from what you and others get, depending on our recent search history.
So my question here is: Are articles a smart and strategic way to invest our money? Is this person being completely honest in saying we "will rank on page 1" with their articles?
Thanks so much,
Andrea
++Jill's Response++
Hi Andrea,
It all depends on which keywords the guy is saying he can promise to rank for. I can't imagine he'd get you to rank for something like "gift baskets" by writing articles. But he might be able to get you to rank for "buying a gift basket full of fresh fruit" with an article.
Articles on your site can be helpful if they're somehow so remarkable that they can draw links when others like them. (Assuming someone gets the word out to those others so they know your articles exist.) And they can also bring in some decent "long tail traffic," which means people using long phrases such as the one I mentioned above.
The hard part, of course, is actually writing articles that are that remarkable. Most articles that you'll get will just be the same old regurgitated stuff that has already been said a million times. What you want to pay for, if you want to get into article marketing, is the creative ideas more than the actual writing. That's what you'll find to be the most valuable.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++No Metas?++
Hi Jill,
I noticed you do not use meta descriptions or meta keywords on many of your pages. Why not?
Larry
++Jill's Response++
Hi Larry,
Most of the pages on my site have well-written, keyword-rich content that gets pulled as the snippet description at the search engines, so I don't find it necessary to have meta descriptions on every page.
If I notice a page that is getting found for a specific search query, and I see that the description Google uses in the search results for that phrase isn't very good, I might go in and create a meta description that uses that keyword phrase. Otherwise, I often don't bother. (I'm a big proponent of "if it ain't broke..."!)
As to the meta keyword tag – because the search engines don't use it as a ranking factor, I haven't bothered with that one in years. Although, I recently realized (duh!) that my onsite search engine does in fact use meta keywords to find relevant results within the site, so I'm trying to remember to use it when I create new content such as these newsletter articles.
Hope this explains my reasoning!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
P.S. If anyone would like to republish any of the above articles, please add the following short bio and link:
Jill Whalen is an SEO consultant and CEO of High Rankings, a Boston SEO company.
Twitter Question of the Week ++Do you use "article marketing" as a form of SEO?++
This week I asked my Twitter followers:
++Do you use "article marketing" as a form of SEO?++
Here's what they said:
chrbutler: Yes.
netmeg: No.
SBTTraining: We do but it's very time consuming.
Patricktigue: Yes.
deanfortythree: Usually. Depends on the client, but can be very effective.
Mike_Seddon: Not as SEO specifically but certainly as traffic generator, credibility builder and lead generator.
forestsoftware: Not now. I have found it to be of little value nowadays as often they are so buried as to be of no use.
I80equipment09: Yes, great link building w/relevant content.
Jill's comment: I'm not really a fan of article marketing for article marketing's sake, but if you are a thought leader and have interesting things to say that haven't been said by everyone in your space already, then articles (or blog posts) can be a great way to showcase that expertise. These articles can, in turn, bring some nice long-tail traffic to the website. I don't do any of that article submission stuff that many do, however. (I know...no fair that I get to use more than 140 characters for my answer!)
Want to participate in the Twitter Question of the Week?
Follow @jillwhalen on Twitter
Share your comments and thoughts here.
Advanced Forum Thread of the Week
Forum member "BTB" wants to know if a hidden div that is displayed with JavaScript is classed as hidden content, or is it a valid SEO technique that can be used?
See what other forum members have to say here:
Using Divs and JavaScript for SEO Purposes
Advisor Wrap-up
That's all for today!
Are you taking a vacation this summer? We don't have any plans for one. I'm happy to just hang at home and work, actually! I am scheduled to speak at the Bend WebCAM Conference at the end of September so that should be like a vacation. I hear it's gorgeous out in Bend, Oregon.
It's getting very quiet around here. My oldest, Corie, is heading out to Houston any day now for her new job, and my youngest, Tim, is at WPI for a 10-day robotics course. He won't be home for long before he heads out to visit his grandparents and aunt in Hawaii. They all moved out there when he was very little, so he never got a chance to get to know them very well. So it's just Jamie hanging out with us these days.
I'm thinking of scheduling an SEO seminar sometime in Houston so I can combine it with a visit to Corie once she's settled there. Let me know if you have any interest in this and I'll be sure to let you know if and when it comes to fruition.
Catch you in 2 weeks! – Jill
 Today's issue is also available online in the newsletter archives. If you prefer RSS/XML please feel free to use our newsfeed here. Feel free to forward this email in its entirety to anyone you feel might be interested in it. Paid sponsor ads are clearly marked as advertisements and neither High Rankings nor Jill Whalen take any responsibility for the claims made within these ads, nor the websites they point to. Paid ads do not constitute an endorsement for the products, services or companies advertising in the newsletter. Please visit our sponsors and use your own due diligence for any purchases you make on the Internet.
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website and use whatever free or low-cost website creation tools they can get their hands on. And those who do hire a website designer assume that they will "do that Google stuff" when they develop the site.
