I’ve started powering through David Szetela and Joe Kerschbaum’s new PPC book called Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing: An Hour a Day and I really like this PDF
they made available online to their readers.  Although it’s about
classified ads, you can pull direct correlations to apply to your PPC
text ads when advertising on search engines.  Really, search engine
results pages (SERPs) are just like classified ads except the page is
digital instead of paper.

Here are some of the highlights that I personally took away –

1.  The Goal – The goal of your ad is not to sell a product.  It is to get a qualified prospect to click through your ad so that your site can sell them. 
Notice I said “qualified” prospect.  All too often advertisers are
paying for clicks that have no chance of buying.  The search intent and
what is being offered do not match.  Therefore, the goal of your ad is
not only to communicate your offering in a compelling way that will
motivate the click, but to motivate the right “clickers” so that you
don’t end up “selling air conditioners to Eskimos.”

2.  The Content
– If the ad is not read, it won’t stimulate any sales; if it is not
seen, it cannot be read, and if it does not command or grab the
attention of the reader, it will not be seen.  Your knowledge and
practice of the “master formula” of ad writing called “AIDA” will
determine the extent of your success as an advertising copywriter.

Attract the attention of your prospect
– Imagine your prospect scanning a SERP.  For him it is much like which
ride at the amusement park to take next.  Something must grab their
attention to direct their focus toward your product.  With text ads,
it’s all in the words and it starts with the headline.  It must be more
difficult for the prospect to ignore your headline than to stop and read
your ad.

To do this, you typically want to do the opposite of or be different
than most other advertisers.  You might ask a question, give a warning,
make a promise, etc.  Whatever you do, you want to make sure to test
powerful words that relate to the primary emotional benefit you’ve
identified your audience to be looking for.  Tip: It’s the reason that motivated their search in the first place.

Interest your prospect to desire the product
– Tell the prospect exactly how they’re going to benefit from the
purchase of your product using the appropriate emotional benefits.  This
is where you reiterate the benefits you’ve implied in your headline.

Cause your prospect to desire the product
– You have to build belief and credibility in the mind of the prospect
to assure him of his good judgment in the final decision to buy.  So,
give him evidence of the benefits you’ve promised.  Let him imagine
owning the product and visualizing the benefits you’ve promised.

Demand action from the prospect
– Psychologists say that when given a directive, a human’s first
instinct is to reply.  You can tell them what they’re going to miss if
they don’t take the action, tell them why procrastinating is a mistake,
or offer them a reward for acting now, etc.  Tell them what to do and
make it easy for them to do it.

3.  The Words
– Some words are more powerful than others.  Saying your ad must “spark
your reader’s interest” is more powerful than saying your ad must “get
the reader’s attention.”  Words spark feelings and getting prospects to
have feelings about your words is what you want to accomplish.  It is
the feelings that have the power.  If you are having trouble finding
power words to use in your ad, it is probably because you are
concentrating too hard on what words you want to use instead of what
sorts of feelings you want the reader to feel.  Decide on the feelings
first and then experiment with the words that best convey them.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Your competition should play an important role in your research before you move forward with any SEO, PPC, or online marketing campaign. In fact, it’s generally a good idea to do a fair amount of competitive research before you build a website or even decide what industry or niche to focus your efforts on.

Competitor knowledge isn’t the most important aspect of building a successful online business. You still have to be a good manager, know your product or service, and be able to sell, sell, sell! But, gaining competitive knowledge early on can help you guide your online marketing efforts into the most effective direction.

Do You Know What I Know?

Knowing about your competition isn’t as valuable as knowing what they know that you don’t. But, not everything your competitors know is truth or fact, so you have to be able to discern whether what they know is right or not, and then discard the information accordingly.

When it comes to on-page optimization, you can learn a lot from your competitors by looking at their websites. How they organize their navigation (their categories and sub-categories) can tell you a great deal about your audience. Or… it can lead you down the wrong path. This is where it is important not to look at one competitor only, but to look at as many as possible.

Be careful that you don’t jump on just any bandwagon. Just because a competitor or two may be doing things one way, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best way. For all you know they are copying off of each other, and creating and endless spiral of poor audience targeting. Talk about an opportunity for you to do things right!

Each competitor can teach you something new. Things like: what keywords are being targeted, the best way to provide content to your customers, and what kind of user experience is expected or has the best conversion rates.

There may not be one single answer, but enough research will give you some good ideas on how to move forward on your own site. Take the best from each one, and ditch the rest.

Early Research is Smart Research

Changing the course of your online marketing efforts mid-stream isn’t always as easy as it may seem. And, the consequences of such a change (though often a necessary change for long-term growth) can cause temporary loss of much needed momentum.

What has been propelling your marketing efforts forward can come to a sudden standstill, which will become obvious in loss of traffic, rankings, and likely in sales as well. This scenario is often devastating on a short term basis, since you are forced to start from the ground up all over again.

On the plus side, the effect may be very short lived. Depending on how well your site was built, optimized, and linked, and how drastic of a change is occurring, you may find some of the past efforts carry over to the new efforts. If a change is needed, it has to be done, even if there’s short term pain that must be endured. This is why it’s best to do your research up front, so you don’t have to change course later and suffer the consequences.

Your diligence in competitive research will give you a good idea of who they are, where they are, what they are doing, what’s right or wrong about their campaign, and what is or isn’t effective. This information will be invaluable to you as you develop your website, business, and online marketing campaigns.

With good research it is not so much about what your competition knows that you don’t… it’s about what you know that they don’t, and how you can use that information to gain a strategic advantage.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Every once in a great while, someone comes up with a stellar marketing idea. And, it’s not long until that idea is copied, tweaked, washed, rinsed, and repeated. Even now, over a decade later, we still see ripoffs of the “Got Milk?” campaign. Slogans such as “Got Sand?”, “Got Jesus?”, “Got Fruit?”, and “Got Laughs?”, are still found on vehicle bumpers as they speed by us on the highway.

I recently finished a book call Pull: Marketing Secrets The Fortune 100 Use that talks about how new ideas quickly go from remarkable to unremarkable. “Got Milk?” was remarkable… until it got copied. Then it became unremarkable. Ordinary. Everyday. Old news.

That’s the danger many businesses find themselves in. They are unremarkable. They started out remarkable then, due to time and familiarity, became unremarkable. That doesn’t mean they aren’t clever or good at what they do, but unless they are providing something new, it’s just more of the same.

What’s the Big Idea?

Many businesses start an online business because they can. They fail to look at what they can do that is different or remarkable from the ten other guys doing it. This makes for bad business. Who cares if you can do it well! If you can’t do it better or more creatively, you might as well get out of the game right now.

But, in reality, we know there really is nothing new under the sun. If an idea is good, it’s likely been done a thousand times before. But, that doesn’t stop us…nor should it. It’s not what you’re doing… it’s how you present what you’re doing.

All good ideas get copied. Eventually they get run into the ground, only to be resurrected again years later. Remarkable turns unremarkable, then turns remarkable all over again. As a marketer or business owner, it’s your job to figure out what works and how it can be applied to what you are doing. It’s not about stealing someone else’s idea, but about incorporating it into your own unique version of that idea.

How Do You Become Remarkable?

We can easily apply this to SEO. Take ten sites in the same industry. What is unremarkable about them is that they are all targeting visitors that search using the same words. Nothing new there. What is remarkable is the site that targets those keywords into a unique presentation on the site. Now that’s different.

Too often business owners create a site that’s simply made to sell products or a service. It’s a vehicle to get people from point A to point B, but the site itself lacks character. Just as a gas guzzling car serves the same purpose as a more fuel-friendly one; it gets people from point A to point B.

Sure, many people are willing to pay more for gas to have the vehicle that serves other purposes they have. But, what if you could have both? What if there were two versions of your dream car? Identical in all aspects… except one. One version gets twice the gas mileage over the other. Which would you choose?

Your website is like that. You can choose to have the higher gas mileage website or the low mileage site. You might have to spend a little more to get it, but the long-term payoff is significantly advantageous.

Find Your Message and Own It

Anything can be made remarkable. You don’t necessarily have to change your sales message to do it. Nor do you have to steal something else outright. You’re just adapting it to work with what you have and offer.

There is nothing wrong with taking good ideas and making them yours, as long as you don’t just flat out steal them. The higher profile the idea is that you adapt, the more likely it’ll work, but at the same time, you have to work harder to make it your own. The trick is to take an idea and turn it into something new, something different enough to be yours, but similar enough to still be effective. Don’t get caught being obvious…that’s so unremarkable.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Besides writing a properly formatted press release for
journalists, bloggers and the search engines, you have to distribute it around
to various outlets for it to have much impact. Simply posting it on your site
will not do much outside giving your site more content to offer the search
engines.

In order for your company news to make a splash, it needs
further distribution. There are essentially two types of press release
distribution outlets – paid and free. In our third and final article on press
releases, we’ll explore each type, what you need to look for and some suggestions
on a couple we use to spread our company news around.

For example, many of our press releases appear page 1 of
Google results within 24 hours when using the right distribution outlet.

Once you have your optimized press release posted on your
site in an optimized
press room like this one, you can explore the following options.

Paid Press Release
Distribution

Press release distribution outlets, whether they’re paid or
free, are either actual newswires that carry anything and everything or are
industry specific. Some even combine the two (the best) and allow you to not
only choose a specific geographic area to distribute your news on the wire but
applicable industries as well.

A good press release distribution outlet will provide
several options for optimizing your press release. Anchor-text links, keywords,
meta tags and distribution to large outlets like Google News and Yahoo! News
are just a few of the things you want to look for.

There are several outlets to choose from out there. Some are
more like traditional newswires while others allow you to target specific
industries. Marketwire is an example
of a true wire service that also allows industry targeting. As far as cost,
distribution within a specific state is around $150 with regional and national
distribution costing a little more.

You can add an SEO optimization (which brings permanent
benefits) for an additional $75.

Other outlets mainly let you target specific industries. PRWeb.com is one example where pricing is
based on how many industries you want to target. Other outlets are specifically
designed for a specific industry, like technology for example.

Free Press Release
Distribution

If money is a concern and you need to do the best you can
with the least, free press release distribution outlets are an option you need
to consider. In fact, you should distribute to a few free outlets even if you
use a paid service like Marketwire.

While they won’t necessarily offer the same services as paid
outlets, you should look for the same elements mentioned above: keywords,
anchor-text links and more. One of the big differences though is free outlets
only create one page on a particular site and do not syndicate it like many
paid outlets. Therefore, it pays to post your press release on more than one
site.

Below are some examples of good free press release
distribution outlets. Some are even industry specific so if your company’s news
fits into any of those, you can use them for more targeted exposure.

1. PRLog -
   Allows you to choose up to 3 industry categories along with distribution to
   Google News and numerous search engines. Allows you to choose multiple
   categories and keywords and allows HTML links in the body.
2. PR.com – Allows
   free distribution to one industry channel, Google News and on the PR.com site.
   You can choose multiple industries and further SEO enhancement for a nominal
   fee.
3. Tech
   Expo World – Specific to technology related companies. Allows you to choose
   three keywords in each release that will link to your homepage.

Of course, these are just a few of the press release
distribution option out there so carefully choose 3 or so outlets to distribute
your company’s news. Be sure they allow anchor-text links, keyword optimization
and check to whom and how they distribute press releases.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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The optimal time to start consulting with the SEO on a new website is at the very beginning. And, I mean the VERY beginning… when the website is just a sparkle in it’s dreamer’s eye.

I was recently consulting with a client who brought us on at the very beginning of a new project. It worked beautifully, as we got to work with their wire-frame layouts and help guide them through the important design and architecture aspects before they paid a single cent to a programmer.

Had they brought us in later, much of our advice would have either been discarded because they were beyond the point of no return, or they would have shelled out more money to have the developers re-program the entire site to accommodate good usability and search friendly architecture. Getting us involved when they did not only saved them thousands of dollars, but allowed them to build a strong, search-engine-friendly site from the ground up.

The Problems with Architectural Hierarchy

In our consulting, we spent a good deal of time talking about how to set up the navigation of the site. As an e-commerce site, they were going to have a database of thousands of products and dozens, if not hundreds, of categories and sub-categories. We had to figure out how to create a strong, intuitive navigation that also allowed the link juice to flow through the site properly.

Initially, the idea was to have a pretty flat architecture. They planned to use drop-down menus in the navigation that gave the visitor access to virtually every category and sub-category on the site.

There are a few of flaws with this strategy. First, it creates too many options. People like simplicity. Give them too much to choose from and they often walk away. In some cases it works, but not always.

The second problem is over-use of drop-down and fly-out menus. These becomes cumbersome. With just one little misplaced movement of the mouse, the menus disappear, and you have to start all over again. That’s frustrating.

The third problem is it creates a flat architecture. Every page on the site is linked to every category and sub-category page. Since the search engines can’t see the navigation layout visually, they have to rely on how pages are linked. If every page is linked to every category page, it becomes difficult for the search engines to decipher which sub-categories and products belong where. How can they be segmented when they are all grouped together?

Your visual navigation may appear like this, where the arrows represent links from and to pages:

But, the search engines pretty much see this:

This isn’t a messy navigation by any means, but there is simply no hierarchy. In this form, the search engine views every single category level page as equally important. But, this isn’t how the visual navigation depicts it, where the main categories and sub-categories are not (nor should be) equal.

But, at the same time, we don’t want to create a link structure that is so vertical (like the first image above) that the pages at the bottom don’t get any link juice, or don’t get visited because they are too many clicks away. A compromise is in order.

Building a Link Flow Hierarchy

When dealing with sites with lots of category and sub-category pages, it can help to create a slightly overlapping vertical navigation structure. When developers create a vertical navigation structure, top level links to top level and you have to click into the category page to get the pages that belong to that category group. The problem here is that it creates far too many clicks to get down to the lower level pages. Those pages will lack any real link strength for search rankings.

Instead, to help give lower pages additional link juice without affecting the linked categorization structure, you can overlap the categories in the navigation. This means that top level links to top level AND all pages in the level directly below it. The visitor always has the option to skip a category level because the navigation links to two category levels below the current page.

If you have a situation where one category (or sub-category) is more important than the other categories on the same level, then you can simply choose not to overlap the links in the inferior categories, leaving only most important one with the overlapping structure. This will give your preferred category more link juice, siphoning it off from the other categories, without draining it completely.

In all, you will have a navigation structure that is solidly linked, funnels link juice where you want it, and keeps pages from being so far down that they don’t get enough juice at all. Your visitors will be given options to drill down, but not too many at a time. They can skip a layer here and there, making getting to the “conversion page” simpler, while not overwhelming them with options galore.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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The keyword phrases to use for your PPC account aren’t always obvious.  A key to great ROI and customer loyalty is to have customers think that you’re the only viable solution to their problem at a given time. 
Therefore, the challenge in keyword research is not coming up with
keywords.  That’s the easy part.  You just scan the website and use the
product names and there you go…a keyword list.

The challenge is in exploiting markets that become successful that
competitors may not have thought of.  That’s why it’s important to always be practicing keyword discovery and exploring phrases that might work well by always testing.

This comes by developing correlations
between what you’re offering and phrases that searchers may be typing. 
This brainstorming may be one of the best investments of your time. 
Although search is about delivering the right solution at the precise
time that a searcher is looking, there are keywords markets out there
where you may be able to distract a searcher from the information they
thought they wanted.  After all, people don’t always know what they’re looking for.

If you continue to add new groups of experimental words, you will
discover less expensive markets that will work for you.  Once you’ve
identified your target markets, the game becomes a strategic
brainstorming exercise of imagining their online search behavior. 
Whatever your field, make it your goal to double your click volume,
targeting extremely targeted searchers, on keywords that should be
priced at rock-bottom levels (due to other advertisers being too lazy to
do this).  In most cases, your ROI will improve substantially.

For example, let’s say you have a site that sells iphone apps.  Many of your keyword choices will be obvious – “best iphone apps, cool iphone apps, must have iphone apps,
etc.”  But, what about markets that aren’t quite what people are
looking for, but you may be able to turn into a profitable market for
your business?  How about how to unlock iphone?  Take a look at your competition here -

Look at this cheap real estate!  You could write an ad like “Unlock Your iphone – Then load it here with the best apps on the market.“ 
Now, I’m not saying that the majority of your business will come this
way, or even that this specific keyword phrase would actually reach this
advertiser’s marketing goals, but the prices of your clicks here will
be way lower than on any “iphone app” keywords and if you can pull a
good enough CTR and conversion rate, you’re in business.

The one thing I do know about your results here is that if you don’t try it, it won’t work.

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Image by Jill Clardy via Flickr

I frequently advise clients that the secret to successful search engine optimization is to have content that people really want to find. And, beyond SEO, the secret to a successful site is that the same content makes prospective buyers want to read it, and it persuades them to buy what you are selling. It sounds simple, and for some companies, it is simple, but we often make things more complicated than they are. I find that small and large companies each struggle with this question of what story to tell, but they struggle in different ways.

Large companies always ask me, “How do I decide which story to tell? We have so many stories that I can’t choose.” Small companies ask me, “But what can I say? We’re just a little company and no one will care.”

Both of these questions miss the point, because they presuppose that each question actually has a correct answer. Neither one does.

These questions are a lot like asking, “What should I talk about with my spouse at dinner?” You could drive yourself nuts by reminding yourself that so many things happened to you today that it’s hard to choose what the most important thing is. Or you could torment yourself in the opposite direction by noting that your spouse knows you so well that nothing you could say would ever be novel enough to be interesting. Somehow, however, most of us figure out how to muddle through dinner without complete silence.

Your customers aren’t so demanding that you need to tell the perfect story. Or even have a perfect story. When we throw up these roadblocks, we are really retreating into the comfortable world of product specs and special offers where we can spew data without really connecting with another person. It feels safer and it takes a lot less thought.

The problem is that everyone’s data sounds pretty much the same.

Take what you might think of as a breakthrough product, the original iPod. If you look at the specs, it doesn’t sound much different than any other MP3 player, but it was revolutionary because of the story that could be told around it. Finally, a simple piece of technology than anyone could use to take music on the go. And because the product delivered on the story, the product sold really well and people retold the story over and over.

What is the story that your customer cares about? What problem do you solve? How do you entertain them? How do you make their lives a little better? Tell that story.

It doesn’t have to be your best story. It doesn’t have to be the most interesting story told in the most riveting fashion. What it does need to be is true. It helps if the story reveals a little about what your company and your employees are like. Your story needs to be relevant to your customer. And it needs to be something they will care enough about to act on and to tell to others.

You might not happen upon that good a story in your first try. Keep trying. Keep checking to see which stories get more attention and garner more sales. What do they have in common? Do more of that.

Eventually, you’ll become more comfortable with this new style of marketing. It might never feel as safe as “Call now and get, free. and ice crusher!” but that’s OK. When we stop talking at our customers and start talking to them, or even with them, our marketing will suddenly start being a little more like talking to our spouse over dinner. It’s those kind of customer relationships that we need to develop and keep. (Hey, at least I never used the word, “nurture.”)

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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People often ask me how to break into international markets. Big companies struggle with this all the time, but the great thing about the Internet is that small companies have a better chance of going global than ever before. But when you’re planning that new country Web site, have you thought about search engine optimization? Sure, you want the free traffic, but have you thought through the steps you need to take? It might be more complicated than you think.

To prove my point, I will walk you through what I typically see. The marketers for an Internet gourmet foods company decide that they are going to begin selling in Mexico. They’re excited because they have already have labels on the packages in both Spanish and English, so they don’t need to retool any packaging. Also, it’s not that expensive to ship the products to Mexico and the existing e-Commerce system can handle pages written in Spanish and show prices in Mexican pesos. They hire an expert in the business set-up and the contractual language, they find someone who speaks fluent Spanish to translate all the pages in the catalog, and throw open the doors.

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps you can hear the crickets from where you are.

No searchers are coming. But why? We carefully optimized our U.S. site with the right keywords and get tons of search traffic. We know the pages were translated properly because our translator is not only a fluent speaker but has copy writing experience also.

Here’s what might have gone wrong:

• The pages weren’t indexed. You might not know this, but search engines don’t automatically know which country your pages belong to. If your servers are in Mexico, or your domain is Mexican (ending in “.mx”), that usually gets it done, but your e-Commerce system might need it hosted on the same server as your US pages and shown in the same US .com domain (such as “www.gourmet.com/mx/home”). You should use each search engine’s Webmaster tools to see how much you have indexed.
• The keywords were translated correctly but not optimized. Just because your pages used words that were correct translations of the English words does not mean that you used the most popular words and phrases that Mexican searchers are looking for. There are many different words that mean the same thing. You need to pick the words that people use the most, the same way you did in English.
• You might not have any links. This can hurt you more if you are in a popular category, but it hurts every search somewhat. You are unlikely, in your first few weeks, to have attracted links from the important foodie sites in Mexico. You remember how long it took you to get the right links to your U.S. site, right? You can’t short-cut this step for your Mexican site. Focus on writing helpful or entertaining Spanish-language content that explains your products in ways that foodies care about—then they will start to link to you, just as they did in the U.S.

If you focus on the same basic steps (get pages indexed, select the right keywords, use those keywords on your pages, and get links to pages) that helped your U.S SEO, you’ll find that your SEO does indeed translate.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Pricing out SEO services can be a challenge for any business looking to invest in their online marketing efforts. It’s difficult because there is no one-size-fits-all pricing metric. It seems that, no matter where you turn, you’re comparing apples to oranges when it comes to pricing and services offered between SEO companies.

Ultimately everything comes down to hours. How many hours are involved in doing the tasks at hand?

To figure that, you have to know what’s required in order make your site successful. And, that’s the rub. When comparing quotes between SEO companies, the price is only a reflection of two things: 1) What services are going to be provided, and 2) How much does the SEO get per hour. Each service will have an estimated number of hours attached to it. Some will be one-time hours, others will be ongoing hours, some tasks will require a lot of hours, and some only a few.

Successful SEO requires quite a bit of time. The question becomes, what is “success”? Is it improved rankings? First page rankings? #1 rankings? More traffic? More conversions? More profit?

Most people looking for SEO seem to be looking for “top search engine rankings”. Which is odd, when you think about it, because you would think they would want “more profits”. Sure, they’ll tell you that’s what they want… but their actions, or rather reactions, tell a different story.

I’ve seen this a dozen times. Client’s profits are up. They are getting better rankings, more traffic, more conversions. But, the client still looks at a couple keywords and says “why aren’t we doing better here?” It’s like the kid who comes home with all A’s and one B and, the parent says “what’s the problem here, son?”

Sometimes the keyword in question is just a pet keyword. The business owner thinks its relevant, but the keyword research tells a different story. You’re not even optimizing for it because, well, it’s useless! Other times it’s a legitimate keyword, but a competitive one. But, the point here is… it’s just a keyword. Business is great, but the client wants to know why the SEO efforts are unsuccessful!

So, back to what does make SEO successful. SEO will have a different price tag based on what is considered success. The cost will be very different, depending on whether you are simply looking only for SEO or whether you need SEO and Link Building. Or, if you need SEO, link building (or social media), usability, and site architecture, then you’re looking at a whole other ball game of costs.

The lower end may bring you some success. The higher end will likely bring you much more success. Which will bring you more profits? Well, that’s what you have to figure out.

How Much is that SEO in the Window?

SEO providers come in all shapes and sizes. We often have potential clients contact us, shopping around for the “right” SEO company to work with. Nine times out of 10 they are really just price shopping. They are not comparing services, they are comparing our prices.

In a battle against prices, we lose. There is always an “SEO” company that will work for less. Either they are offering less in services or they are charging less per hour. Neither of these is necessarily better or worse… just different. You need you know the difference before you can make an informed decision.

Of course, the old adage, “you get what you pay for” is often true. Typically, the lower the price is, the lower the quality will be also. And, if you want an expert in any field, you’re going to have to pay them what they’re worth. And… it’s usually worth it.

It is rare to find “cheap” SEOs that can achieve top rankings for competitive, high ROI terms, maintain those top rankings through constant algorithm changes, and continue to beat out your competition that is optimizing for the same keyword phrases.

If you’re paying someone only a few hundred or even just a few thousand dollars each year to optimize your site, how many man-hours do you really think is being invested each month on your account? Is that enough? If your SEO charges $25 per hour, do you think they are offering the same quality as one that charges $200. Doubtful. But, you need to know for sure.

What’s it Gonna Take to Close This Deal?

SEO isn’t a one-time service. I mean, it can be. You can optimize a site in a few simple steps: 1) keyword research, 2) keyword selection, 3) page optimization. Depending on the size of your site, this can be done in a few weeks, a few months, or it may take a few years. Back to that “hours invested” thing again!

Then, you add in keyword research or social media, usability testing, analytics, SEO tweaks and improvements, site architecture improvements, and then some. Forget “set-it-and-forget-it”. That’s your competitor’s dream!

SEO work is something akin to hiring a private investigator on retainer. The SEO’s job is to continue to seek out potential problems that may now, or in the future, be keeping a client’s site from performing as strongly as possible. If the client isn’t ranking well, or traffic isn’t increasing, or business isnt’ growing, the SEO needs to investigate to figure out why.

We check out competitors, back links, on-page optimization, site architecture, and a whole host of other areas for potential snags that could be keeping the client from performing.

Sometimes all this is as simple as finding a duplicate URL somewhere that we didn’t know about, and other times, after months of research, we find that a client links out to sites that link out to other spammy sites. Rarely is it one thing, but a combination of things. But, SEO is all about baby steps. A small step here, a small step there, and pretty soon you’re several steps closer to your goal.

These types of things have to be under constant analysis, even if a site performs well. Heading off problems before they occur is a big part of the SEO game, and plays heavily into pricing.

SEO pricing can be a big deal for the average business owner, and it should be. However, pricing alone should not be the deciding factor in which SEO provider you choose. Find out what services you’ll be getting. If you get the impression that the SEO is done after a few hours of up front work, you may not be getting enough investigation for potential or existent, yet unknown, problems. This can cost you later on.

On the other hand, just because someone charges huge fees does not mean they’ll do you well either. This is an issue with many of the very large SEO companies. Do your homework, and find the company that will treat you as their only client, even though you’re not. If you get that kind of service, you will undoubtedly reap a very significant return on your investment.

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Have you seen Google Instant? It’s the latest development from Google. I can’t take the hilarity of it all.

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