In the Philippines, Search Engine Marketing is one of the most wanted profession with very few individuals who are qualified to do the job. Unlike Nursing, Commerce, Education, HRM and other courses where positions have been filled, Search engine marketing is a sure shot that offers high-paying salary and has a lot of vacancies around the globe. No need for you to go abroad and leave your family here. You can earn as much, while doing search engine marketing at your own room.

Start your Online Marketing Career and be professionals like us by clicking this link ->>> Basic Search Marketing Course

Below are other reasons why you should consider search engine marketing by Kalena Jordan:

1) The Search Industry is HOT

The first dot-com bubble may have burst 6 years ago, but the current bubble is getting bigger and stronger every day. One of the main reasons for
the current dot-com boom is the skyrocketing growth of the search engine industry. No longer the territory of geekdom, search has
exploded into the mainstream over the past few years and businesses are falling over themselves to get seen by online searchers. And they’ll pay big bucks to search engines for the privilege.

Have you noticed that Google shares recently hit USD 500 EACH? It’s not a coincidence. Search giants like Google, Yahoo and AOL can’t fail to
make money because everybody wants a bit of the search action. There’s no denying, search is HOT, HOT, HOT.

2) It’s Considered one of Four Jobs on the Cutting Edge

According to a recent article on MSN Careers, the position of  Search Engine Optimizer is considered one of four jobs on the cutting edge right now. Who gave it this title? A representative from the world’s largest specialized recruitment firm - Robert Half International Inc.

Search Engine Optimization is considered a sub-set of Search Engine Marketing.
If you’re unsure what a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) does, below is a definition provided by MSN Careers:

“Search engine optimizers (SEOs) increase a firm’s Web site traffic by
improving its search-engine page rankings. This is an especially
important task in today’s Internet-driven world, where many customers
first learn of an organization and its products or services through the
Web. Because of a shortage of experts in this relatively new area, many
top SEOs receive multiple job offers. SEOs typically supplement their
knowledge of how various search engines operate and determine page
rankings with strong marketing skills, as well as the ability to
communicate effectively and program using HTML.”

Wikipedia also defines Search Engine Optimizers here.

3) The Pay is Fantastic

A job in the search industry can be unbelievably lucrative. As noted recently by Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide, “There are quite literally more jobs than there are skilled marketers and salaries can skyrocket to almost embarrassing levels.”

Have you seen the type of salaries that search engine marketing and search engine optimization consultants are currently commanding in the US? Clearly, the search industry is making some people rich. Here are some typical salaries in USD:

Entry level SEO/SEM position = $30-45K

Three to five years experience / online account managers = $50-75K

Five + years / organic SEO specialists = $75-90K

Senior management level = $70-120K

SEM Director = $95-150K

VP Level = $100-315K

Additional Salary links:

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3591061

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=10543

4) You Don’t Need a College Degree

Because the search industry is relatively young, there are only a handful of online courses and certifications offered in the field of Search Engine
Marketing with Search Engine College  http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=464_1_aaid_1 being one such training provider.

Most search engine marketing practitioners are self-taught, learning the trade by experimenting with their own sites, researching trends, attending conferences and participating in discussion forums and so employers don’t generally require SEO / SEM certification or a tertiary qualification as a pre-requisite for a position in the industry.

However, andidates who hold a marketing degree or specific industry certification in Search Engine Marketing may well have an edge over their fellow applicants when it comes to interview selection.

<a href=”http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=464_1_bid_46″><img src=”http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/image.php?bid=46&amp;mid=464″ alt=”" width=”468″ height=”60″ border=”0″ /></a>

5) You Can Learn it all Online

Everything you need to know to become a Search Engine Marketer, you can learn online. All the information is out there, you just have to find it. To become an expert in SEO / SEM, you need to do research, research and more research. Read everything you can get your hands on relating to search on a daily basis, including articles, forums, ebooks, blogs and newsfeeds. Then you need to put this knowledge into practice by experimenting with your own sites, or finding guinea pig sites to practice on such as those of friends, family or charity sites until you find the methods that give you the best results. Programming knowledge is not a pre-requisite for SEO / SEM jobs, but it does help to learn basic HTML. There are plenty of free HTML tutorials online.

If you don’t fancy years of research or are in a hurry to jump-start your career in search, consider taking an online Certification course in one
of the many Search Engine Marketing disciplines such as the Certification Pathways provided by Search Engine College http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=464_1_aaid_1. These type of courses are usually tutor-led and designed to fast-track your training and ensure you gain the right type of skills to make you immediately employable within the search industry.

6) You Can Be Your Own Boss

Because most of the work you’ll be doing is online, Search Engine Optimizers and Search Engine Marketers often have the freedom of choice to work for an employer, work from home and/or freelance. Many SEO / SEM freelancers end up hiring workers and starting their own company due to the massive demand. This gives search engine marketing experts the work from home lifestyle that others can only dream of.

7) Search Marketing Has the WOW Factor

Once they know what they’re doing, it’s very easy for a Search Engine Marketer to wow their clients. The difference that a successful SEO or PPC campaign can make to a client’s bottom line is substantial. I’ve seen online conversion rates for a client zoom from 1% to a massive 5% after just two small tweaks to their web site. And although rankings are not as important as actual conversions, clients still get very excited to see their site listed in the top 10 search results for certain keywords. It’s the WOW factor in action.

8 ) The Demand is Strong and Growing

As mentioned in relation to search engine salaries, there are literally many more jobs than there are skilled marketers to fill them. This extreme demand means Search Engine Marketers can pick and choose their jobs and/or clients. The more skilled marketers are head-hunted regularly. For Search Engine Optimization firms, there are more than enough clients to go around and rarely a need to advertise for new business. That’s why you often find SEOs turning away clients or recommending their competitors during extremely busy periods.

Experts in select specialties such as Pay Per Click Advertising (a sub-set of
Search Engine Marketing) are currently enjoying even higher demand than
usual, as advertisers out-bid each other to have their site shown for
popular keyword searches on Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Another indicator
of high demand is the sheer number of search-related job postings seen
on employment sites such as those listed here.

9) The Industry is Hip and Groovy

There’s something very trendy about people in search that I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s a constant buzz around them. If you’ve ever been to a search engine conference or to Google’s headquarters you’ll know what I mean. Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve come from so many different professions. Or that the age range of search marketers varies from teens to Baby Boomers. Or their whacky dress sense. Maybe it’s the mell of money and happiness that they give off. Maybe it’s the fact that they are constantly in the media. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s no longer uncool to be a geek. In fact it’s downright hip to be square.

10) The Skills Are Portable and Global

Skills in search engine marketing are portable and global. You don’t need to be at a desk, in an office or on the phone all day. You don’t even need to meet your clients. Of all my clients, I’ve probably only met 20 percent of them and spoken to half of them on the phone or via chat. You can be on vacation for six months out of the year in various locations and still conduct business. You literally only need a
computer and an Internet connection. The Internet is the universal equalizer. You can service clients in any country in the world, in many different languages. You can compete with one man operations and Fortune 500 companies on the same level playing field.  The flexibility of the search industry is a huge advantage over other career options. Have laptop, will travel!

11) Job Satisfaction is High

Search is a fascinating industry. With all the hype, daily gossip, corporate take-overs, start-ups and geek toys, I can guarantee that you won’t get bored. This combined with the flexible work hours, low start-up costs, ability to be your own boss and the excellent income keeps job satisfaction high for Search Engine Marketers. So what are you waiting for? Go get a job in search.

About the Author:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College – http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=464_1_aaid_1
- an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses
and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and
other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Though 75%  of search experts believe that Search engine optimization is all about the links, we strongly think that on-site optimization should be ignored. Ideally, links can bring a lot of traffic to your website and improve rankings but it is your website content that make the difference. Bringing users to your website is conventional, convincing them to buy or trust your company is a totally different thing which some .

Here is some basic steps on how to optimize your website. The 5 basic steps that can make a big difference to your business:

1. Title – SEO experts agree that the title is the most important factor of search engine optimization that you can do on-site as it describes to the users and web crawlers what your page is all about. Just make sure that you have  a unique title for all of your web pages, it contains your target keyword and is related to your webpage content. Make sure that you limit it to 64-characters including spaces.
2. Meta Description- Meta description supports the title tag and plays an important role of getting clicks because this small snippet of content helps the title to describe what your page is all about. Ideally, once a user reads your title tag they will then read your meta description and it will entice them enough to click to your page. Make sure that your meta description supports your title, contains keywords, has a short call-to action and to limit it up to 150 characters only including spaces. Otherwise, your description will be cut.
3.  Headers- Headers or heading tags were originally developed for better site hierarchy, but they can also be used for on-site optimization. Heading tags go from <h1> to <h6> and when keywords are applied to these tags they can increase your website rankings by helping users to read and break down your content per section.
4. Sitemap – is a map of your site. There are two kinds – a static sitemap and an XML sitemap. The static sitemap is usually used by human surfers and is chart of your website, showing where pages are in relation to one another, as well as how the pages link to each other. On the other hand, an XML sitemap is used by Google’s web crawlers and is invisible to human users. Using an XML sitemap will ensure that web crawlers can access all of the web pages effectively and that none get missed.
5.  On-site links-  These are the links through which surfers will navigate between different pages of your web site and may be embedded within the content, or by use of a navigation bar offering a menu of sections and pages of the web site. Internal links are used by web crawlers as the internal doorway to the rest of the web site – if you do not have a good internal linking structure, then the risk is some of your web site will not be indexed by the search engines and therefore you lose out on gaining ranking points. Due to post-panda update, Google tends to reduce the importance of links within the headers, sidebars and footers of your website. The best practice to implement to your website is to make sure that you have links pointing to your main pages within your content.

Aside from the issue on Occupying the Wall Street because of people crying for inequality and state abandonment, another buzz in the US news sphere is the bill on internet censorship or the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This bill creates loud criticisms and negative reactions from those who are opposing it. Campaigns in the world wide web continue to escalate as the US Senate and Congress continue to hear the passing of the bill. See Matt Cutts and Google’s Opinion on SOPA.

US has been one the leading advocates of freedom, equality and democracy as a whole. As the world’s model, they try as much as they could to be great in every aspect of their society- from politics up to the observation of the basic human rights. However, things continue to unveil as they continue to change their views on different things. Things are getting worse resulting to great clamor from those who are getting affected by these changes or so-called ‘irregularities’.

Internet became one of the freest media platforms. You can do almost everything inside this virtual world- be creative, be better informed and be critical in your views at the same time. Internet changes the landscape of media and the world as a whole. It made everything easily available to everyone. It has an advantage that can make life more convenient and innovative as well. Restricting its functions could hamper this freedom and might trigger to a large mass of protesters.

In my opinion, this bill that US Senate and Congress are trying to push through will not, at all, benefit the people. Freedom of the speech and of expression which are stipulated on their constitution will be violated. It’s not as if it will save their society from all forms of crimes and misdeeds, because at back of it are the dangers that it will bring to those sites that can be considered by the government as illegitimate and have no used.

They can easily shut down websites or control media outlet. Activities on Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube cannot be tolerated anymore because they will consider these as not legal or unlawful. In short, virtual web will be in crisis if this bill will be passed. And since they are the model when it comes to tailoring a law, I’m sure not more than a month after passing that bill other countries around the world will follow and make their own version of the bill. If that happens it will be consider the lowest point of internet generation.

Look at the other Asian countries that came up with these restrictions, are they experiencing what we, Filipinos are currently experiencing? No.

Take a look at India, authorities were taken aback last month when an anti-corruption campaign multiplied on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites and drew tens of thousands of people to protest sites.

In South Korea, the government heavily filters online content involving North Korea, with which it is still technically at war. But its citizens continue to lobby the government for more access.
While in China, government has deployed its computers to track the internet traffic and it crosschecks the same against a list of blocked keywords and websites. Consequently, it bans anything that matches the list. For instance, it has blocked the word ‘freedom’ from being search on Google.

Obviously, these countries are not adhering to the essentials of freedom. They are doing the restriction for news black-outs and pro-government purposes.

Maybe US government has been seeing this very much effective in controlling the people making other Asian countries as their guinea pigs. Through this bill, they can control the news that coming out especially those against the government. They can easily crush down sites that do not follow the standards. Lastly, they can easily take away those business competitors in the internet that has been on their butts for long years already. Making them more prominent in the internet that will cause high revenue for them and for their own companies. Business matters but it doesn’t mean that you will do unfair things to outsmart the others.

Another probable ill effect of this bill is that it will hamper the internet innovations. No more creation of another breakthrough in online society- Facebook and Twitter will remain the stagnant, can you imagine that? Blogging and other form of self expression will not be as free as before. Innovations will stop and will be paralyzed.

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet’s domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users’ attempts to reach certain websites’ URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.

Under SOPA’s provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).

DigitalMoz SEO Philippines believe, once you get through the media processes, you are killing the democracy and freedom these institutions are entitled to.

So please help us with our advocate in making the internet a free-for-all media. By sharing this post, you are preserving the very essence of the world wide web which is FREEDOM.

Ric Abasola
DigitalMoz SEO Philippines

Recently, we heard scams from the internet making it on the Philippines’ prime-time news. These scams took place on group buying sites, online shopping portals and even Facebook’s social ecommerce applications wherein people have been complaining about bad purchases over the internet . We felt sorry for the victims of such rip-off deals but instead of dwelling on these rants, DigitalMoz will just bring-up the lighter side of the story.

To be honest, we somehow felt excited for the Philippines in terms of Online Shopping and ecommerce . Hearing horrible stories from these victims means that Filipinos were not afraid to look at the internet to find the best deals and shop the best offer that they can get. A very clear niche for entrepreneurs and business owners on where to direct their business.

Shopping nowadays does not mean strolling and walking around jam-packed malls and shopping districts to buy the best and most affordable products available. For common Filipino office workers, it is browsing to advertising portals and group buy sites such as Sulit.com.ph, Shoppinas.com, Pisobid.com,Metrodeal.com and other online shopping sites available on world-wide-web where they can find and purchase the best deals. But that doesn’t stop there. There are other websites and companies that have better deals. Problem is, people just don’t know where or how to find them.

Online shopping in the Philippines is fast growing

I am sure you get to see posts on Facebook about Cebu Pacific piso-deals or a Metrodeal 75% off on a salon offer; that even if you don’t have any plans of traveling or going to a salon for example, you just simply buy because of the very low price and because of the sense of urgency that you feel once you see this kind of advertisements posted by one of your friends on Facebook. These are just some common tactics that online marketing experts execute over the internet. So if you own a business, or still having plans of doing a business, or you are a professional that wants more business, getting a website and internet marketing execution plan is perfect for you.

What is internet and online shopping for businesses and entrepreneurs?

Going back to the scenario of one small company that has the best of all deals, if no single person knows about this, no matter how priceless and amazing your you deal is, your offer is useless. People needs to know what you offer. And they have to know about it, NOW!
There is no media as viral and as powerful than the internet. Yet, campaigns can be done cheap. If you are looking to expand your business and wanting to acquire more customers, then I would suggest that you build your empire now over the Philippines’ internet while the competition is still low and SEO Philippines is still affordable.

Business owners, Entrepreneurs and Self-employed individuals, Act Now!

We have been consulted by a lot of foreign companies that are wanting to establish their internet presence here in the Philippines. These companies are operated by Americans, Singaporeans, Chinese, and even Europeans as they see the potential of the Philippines as an internet hub for their businesses. Just playing by ear, we already know that internet is doing better in the 1st world countries that is why these foreign investors are very much willing to pay the costs and own the Philippines’ internet space . We hope to see a local company do well on the internet compared to a foreign brand.

Internet is just like Ondoy, both of them are great equalizers. small, medium or big, internet gives businesses an equal chance of survival. Internet in the Philippines is a free for all arena. Few people have knowledge and have a concrete background on internet marketing. But more often than not, small and medium enterprises will not blossom, more than the limit of knowledge and resources, actions are what keeping Filipino business owners distant from other successful companies.

But many small businesses are being left behind. Nearly half of small-business owners surveyed recently say don’t use social media at all for marketing or any other business purpose, according to a business insurance company. What’s more, only 15 percent of small-business owners consider online marketing “very valuable” to their operation, another recent report shows.

Here are some points to understand in doing online marketing and why it is important to adopt this in every business venture that we are having.

1. Don’t hype your product or service. Instead, identify the people who have problems that your product or service can solve. Then segment those prospects into buyer personas. Understand those people’s problems so that you can create information online that helps to market your business to them by means of how it can solve those problems.

For example, if you own a hotel and only talk on your website about how nice looking it is or how great the location is, that only gets you a small part of the way. The key is to create individualized content for each of your buyer personas, starting from the problems and the buyers. That will help get your business indexed higher in online search results.

2. Share useful content on social media. Once you create great content that addresses buyer problems, share that information on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. But don’t stop there. You should also listen and respond to what people are saying on important topics and about your business.

If you own a hotel, for instance, and a couple says on Twitter that they are considering a wedding at your hotel, offer a tour of your property. You can also join conversations about your industry, even when it’s not specifically about your business.

3. If traditional advertising channels are generating sales for you, don’t pull back. If you are still spending on offline campaigns, it is recommended to tie them to online efforts. One way is to include a URL or a scannable quick response code in a print ad that links to a page on your website. If you own a restaurant, you can send people to your menu page, for example.

If you still want to get big after all these efforts, why not hiring a SEO specialist. These people will definitely make an effort to add more traffic to your site, making it more visible to your target market.

These are just some of the things that we should know and you might want to try to make that small business a strong and successful company in the future. Do not forget o try out things for your business, understand that you need to take risks in order for you to have a successful business campaign. Good luck!

Vs. Local SEO results in the Philippines

SEO Philippines local results vs. US Local search

As you can see, most of the US results were affected by Google places which places the results on Local SEO.
Unlike the US ranking results, results from the Philippines are mostly websites that are still enlisted with the old organic listing results. These results are still in global (not local) and have different set of keywords targeting and focus. Most of business owners and SEO clients here in the Philippines would still want to do old organic search listings and would not invest on Local SEO for they believe that the traffic is still on global searches. And definitely, yes, I would agree that the traffic is on global searches but the conversions are on local SEO –except if your business focus is global of course.

Where SEO in the Philippines is headed?

Being a third country, US and UK are way too advance of us in terms of technology. This gives us the opportunity to prepare for what is coming. If local SEO is doing really good in the US and UK, all regions will follow. Is your business prepared and optimized on that direction?

Useful Local SEO Facts:

• Google Places is free and most of the local businesses are enlisted on this search platform. You just have to claim it.
• Local directories are here to stay and so, submitting and enlisting your website is a good idea.
• Google maps are really useful since most of the gadgets and mobile phones are now web optimized. You are reaching potential customers directly through their cell phones.
• Reviews and User created content are seen by people as a testimonials so encourage your regular customers to write a review on your Google Places listings.

• SEO Link Builders Salary:  Php20,000 – Php45,000 or around $475 -$1,100
  I think this is a good base for experienced link builders I get to know from the field. Of course, you can get as low as Php12,000 around $300 but that link builder will need a lot of training and will cost time to be trained. A good link specialist often spend  hours on the computer reading blogs, studying link graphs and have Seomoz toolbar installed on their browsers. Their day to day tasks involves submitting sites to directories, dropping links on blogs (not to spam but to build good networking), helping people find useful content through social bookmarks and even engages in social network activities.

• SEO Content Writers Salary: Php20,000 – Php45,000 or around $470 -$1,100
  Content writers are people who provide articles, PR write-ups and engaging copies that attract people  to the site. These people work closely with SEO specialists and SEO Team leaders to push or target a particular search term on their copies. They are mostly effective to work with “tail search terms”.

• Search Specialists/ SEO Specialist Salary: Php25,000 – Php60,000 or around $470 -$1,400
  SEO Specialists are the  “doers” of the team. They are the ones who optimized content, tweak meta data, generate reports and sometimes work with technicalities of the site. They are most of the time in front of Google Analytics and are reading fellow SEO Blogs. Though not all SEO specialists are not of the same level, SEO managers or SEO Supervisors are there to assist them and review their work.

• SEO Team Leader / SEO Supervisor Salary : Php 50,000 – Php80,000 or around $1,100 – $1,900
  Since SEO Managers/ Online Marketing Managers have too much on their plate, SEO team leaders or Supervisors are there to make sure that strategies are properly communicated and executed to the SEO team to achieve target results. These people work closely with in-house or outsource content writers, link builders and PPC specialists. SEO team leaders/ supervisors compile production reports, ranking and link reports and often discuss it with their SEO managers.

• SEO Manager  Salary/ Online Marketing Manager: Php75,000 – Php200,000 or $1,800 – $4,800
  People assigned to this post manage a team of online marketing specialists such as PPC managers, SEO specialists, content writers, social media specialists and link builders. SEO managers or Online marketing managers should be proficient with the latest trends on Search, E-commerce and can speak the language of in-house developers and programmers since Search Team and Web Development team often work together.

• Search Director / Online Marketing Director Salary:  Php150,000 – Php300,000 or $3,600 – $7,000
  This position is very rare in the Philippines. These type of executives lead their entire organization  in terms of profitability and achieving their company’s online marketing goals.  Online Marketing Directors set the strategies, budget, KPIs and figure out over-all targets for the entire company at a minimal course of one year. These individuals report directly to the CEOs, Presidents and VPs for both sales and marketing departments. They work for e-commerce sites or retail companies that generates around $20M – $500M in profits.

So if you are in HR Department, a Hiring manager or a Business Owner and  still going to ask me; “Hey Marv, how much is enough for an SEO Specialist in the Philippines?”  My answer is that I cannot give you an exact number.

SEO Philippines salaries would still depend on the experience of the person, the years he/she been involved in SEO,  the results he/she has accomplished and other technical skills that an SEO need to do optimization right, such as, familiarity with codes, understanding of basis databases structure, little involvement on graphic designs, recognition of platforms to manage and the list of tools that the SEO person utilizes. Not to mention a good SEO should have excellent Sales and Marketing sense since SEO is not only about traffic but conversions and profitability as well.

Here is a link to see SEO Salaries in other countries.

Let us start off with an example. Say you’re a landscaping company in Central Jersey where the bulk of your business comes from Landscape Construction (walls, patios, driveways, etc). What keywords do you want to rank for?

Landscaping can cover many things: Landscaping, Landscaper, Landscapers, Landscape Design, Landscape Construction, Landscape Maintenance, Lawn Care, Plantings (Bushes/Shrub/Trees/Flowers), Nurseries, Hardscapes (Patios/Pool Decks/Driveways/Walkways/Stairs/Walls), Water Features/Fountains, Recreation (Golf green/tee/Bocce/Horseshoes/etc), Drainage, and on and on and on.

Now, unless you have a huge budget and a team of people working for you, it’s unlikely that you can try to rank for all of these terms. And just because your company can do all them, doesn’t mean you need to rank for all of them if you specialize in a particular area. Since each of these words are not geo-targeted with a location (such as New Jersey Landscaper) it means you are searching nationally. Doing a search in Google for Landscapers brought back 11,000,000 search results. That’s 11 million web pages you have to compete with.

Google Search Results for Landscapers

Can it be done? Yes, but there are factors you have to consider if you expect your SEO to deliver this.

• There are 11 million web pages to compete with.
• It’s likely that the top ranking sites are optimizing their sites in some way or another.
• The sites that are already ranking probably have had a website for a long time now.
• They’ve probably started optimizing long before you did, so they have a head start.
• They are likely known brands in the industry and will get preference in national searches.
• You’re competing verse more than just landscaping companies. This may include How-To sites, manufacturers, wholesalers, suppliers, landscape architects, home goods companies, and more.
• They probably have tons of natural links. That means people are linking to them without being asked.
• A ton of natural links means they have great link diversity.
• These sites are usually very large with a ton of content. Optimized or not, it still counts.
• They may be trusted sources, or have gained links from trusted sources (such as CNN, Wikipedia, and the Library of Congress).

So, before you even choose your keyword term, you should decide on your target area. It can be a town, city, county, region, state, or another geographic name. By geo-targeting your keyword term with a location you narrow down your customer base to who is likely to buy from you and decrease the number of competitors to deal with. This ultimately means faster results and lower costs.

Keyword Research

Let’s look at some keyword research to get an idea of what we’re in for. Right now I just want to show how different keywords terms and different locations affect the difficulty of the SEO campaign. Google provides the first three columns of results. The SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool provides the difficulty percentages.

NOTE: Google Search Results gives the total search results, intitle and inanchor gives the search results with keywords in the titles and anchor text and shows your likely competition. SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Score shows the competitiveness of the keyword.

You can see by this information that Landscapers get more search results and is more competitive than Landscape Construction. Even though landscape construction gets fewer search results, it would likely provide better traffic results and conversion rates since it is more specific to what our example company does, which is landscape construction.

Once you add on “NJ” you really cut down on ‘search noise’ and have a better idea of who your audience is. It also decreases the difficulty by a good amount. If you swap “NJ” for “Somerset County” in NJ, you lower the difficulty again. Each time you narrow down your focus you can expect faster results and lower costs.

A keyword difficulty percentage of 26-50 means it’s moderately competitive. A keyword difficulty percentage over 50 means it’s highly competitive. The higher the percentage and more competitive the keyword, the more it is going to cost and will take to achieve results. Although they can provide a lot of traffic to your website when you rank high for those keywords, getting there is a challenge and will take some time. You will have to wait much longer before you see a return on investment (ROI). Many small businesses don’t really have time to wait for large SEO campaigns to develop. It’s a better strategy start with a smaller SEO campaign and upgrade as you go.

It’s a good idea to choose one competitive keyword and then try to rank well for less competitive keywords related to that category and geography.

The Benefits of Starting Small

It’s not uncommon for a client to say, “I don’t want to limit my business to a specific area.” SEO people understand this and try to accommodate where possible, but it’s not always practical. Here are issues you have to deal with if you choose too large an area:

• It will take longer to see results
• It will take longer for the client to get a return on investment (ROI)
• You’ll have less overall web visibility

You will see better results if you start by ranking locally and then expand to more competitive markets. Begin by ranking well for your town, then County, then Central Jersey. Once you rank well for Central Jersey it’s much easier to gain rankings for NJ than if you started with NJ initially. This enables you to keep your strong search results for your less competitive (and more localized) keywords providing you more reach and web visibility.

If you choose to start statewide first you won’t rank as well (or at all) for all those local searches. And if most people who search for your product or service are searching on a local level, such as they do with landscaping, you may be missing out on high quality leads.

The same goes for the keyword term itself. By optimizing for less competitive, but similar terms (landscape stone wall construction, landscape construction water drainage, etc), you make it easier to rank for the more difficult term landscape construction.

Consider this analogy: SEO is like preparing for a marathon. You need to compete in shorter races before you can compete in the marathon. It takes time to build these campaigns. It may take months; it may take years.

Switching Keyword Terms

When you start an SEO campaign, it’s important that you know what you want to rank for. Choose a keyword term that is specific to your business. If you start an SEO campaign with one keyword term in mind, and then change your term to something different, you may be wasting all the effort and money that was spent on your campaign already.

Take our landscape construction company. If, in six months, they tell you that they mostly do landscape maintenance rather than landscape construction and want to change the focus of the campaign, it will have wasted much of your previous efforts. Here’s why:

• The set of keywords will be different, so your SEO person will have to do all new keyword research.
• Your website has been optimized for “landscape construction” when it should have been optimized for “landscape maintenance”.
• Any content written for landscape construction may be useless. All new content will have to reordered and rewritten.
• Site architecture and hierarchy may have to be changed.
• All the internal and external links that were built are using the wrong anchors.
• Website analytics and traffic data may be meaningless.

Each of these is time consuming and costly. Whatever results you achieved in those six months will likely take another six months to achieve with the new set of keywords, if their difficultly is equivalent. For keywords that are more competitive it will take even longer to see similar results. Looking at the numbers below, that is exactly the case for landscaping company. Landscape maintenance is much more competitive on the state and national level than landscape construction.

NOTE: Google Search Results gives the total search results, intitle and inanchor gives the search results with keywords in the titles and anchor text and shows your likely competition. SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Score shows the competitiveness of the keyword.

Changing Geography

Any affects changing your keyword terms might have is basically the same affects you can expect if you changed your geography qualifier. The affects will be even more dramatic if the new geography is more difficult.

If you choose a less competitive (and a more localized) geography, the issues are easier to overcome, depending on how the SEO campaign was being executed. Changing NJ to Somerset County NJ will take the work you’ve already did for NJ and it count towards Somerset County NJ. From that point on it shouldn’t take long to see good results because there has already been work done that is relative to the first campaign (although not exactly the same) and it is less competitive. The biggest downfall to this is that you waited six months before you got on track, so your return on investment (ROI) has been delayed.

If you change from NJ to NY, it could be considered a whole different campaign, especially if the new geography is more difficult to rank for. Remember, changing your geography is the same as changing your keyword term.

The only time you should really change your set of keywords is if you realized that you chose the wrong keywords from the start. It makes no sense staying with something because the rankings and traffic are good, but it doesn’t provide you with any increased business or it brings the wrong type of customer to your website. Only you can tell your SEO person what your business does specifically and what your goals are. Once they have that information they can research the right keywords and work on your campaign. This is why knowing what your business does and what you want to get out of SEO is so important; it will help you choose the correct keywords and geography at the start. Don’t waste time and money trying to figure it out.

Adding another Keyword Term or Geography

Ok, so you’ve had an SEO campaign running for about a year and it’s showing results for Landscape Construction NJ and other terms like Landscape Contractor NJ,and showing up in local search results as well. Now that that’s done, you can move onto other words. Wait… What? DONE? No, it’s not done.

Without continuing an active SEO campaign you allow your competitors to catch up and overtake your search results. This, along with a drop off of relative links being indexed by search engines can work against you. Adding a different set of keyword terms to your list without upgrading and spending more for SEO means that you’re splitting the attention of your SEO person.

A new set of keywords means new research, re-optimizing your website to include the new keywords, new content and new pages, and many more links. If the new keywords are different enough, it could take longer to see the same type of results you saw earlier, especially if the difficultly is equivalent. This is because you’ve divided up your SEO person’s time between the old set of keywords and the new set of keywords.

The proper way to accomplish this is to upgrade your plan to include the new set of keywords. This way your SEO person can increase the amount of time spent working on your campaign. They can spend the proper amount of time researching, strategizing, and executing your new set of keywords while increasing your reach and web visibility for your initial set of keywords.

Conclusion

Make sure you have the right expectations of what SEO can provide for you. There is no doubt that SEO is a long-term investment that will pay for itself and more over its lifetime. Don’t waste time or money SEOing for the wrong keywords; know you business and what your goals are. Be realistic about the geographies you are trying to rank for. Popular areas will be more competitive; expect to pay higher prices for these competitive SEO campaigns. It shouldn’t take longer than a month to see improvements, but SEO takes time. The harder the campaign it, the longer it will be before you get a return on your investment.

Originally posted by Austadpro

Post taken from: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-small-business-clients-needs-to-know-about-keywords-and-seo

Unlike online marketing and Search Engine Optimization in other countries, companies in the Philippines are kind of left out when it comes to their online marketing efforts. Most Philippine based companies fail to see that having a website and being active on SEO are where the opportunity is, as the world wide web reaches users faster and internet is far more accessible than other medium. –and of course, cost less.
Why Companies don’t do (or ignore) SEO

• Lack of knowledge on the Internet and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Most of small business and company owners don’t appreciate the importance of SEO or perhaps fail to see that more and more people are using the internet in buying or acquiring a service. Despite the economical crisis in the United states, internet advertising revenues totaled to $26 billion USD according to IAB.net (see 2010 annual internet advertising report). So why companies in the US would spend that amount of money in to their advertising and marketing budget? The answer is simple, because it is where the money, revenue and opportunities are without costing so much more.

• SEO Cost are high

Due to lack of knowledge on SEO Philippines, business owners think that a website and SEO efforts cost are too high. This misconception stops business owners from expanding their boundaries on the web. More and more foreign companies are outsourcing their online marketing efforts to the Philippines due to the quality of work and its competitiveness in pricing. If you can afford to rent a studio-type condo, then you can hire an SEO specialist or a boutique SEO firm to handle your SEO efforts. You can also checkout SEO for Small Business Plans that will fit your budget. Just ask for your agency about it and you will be given a good deal.

Also, If you are spending monthly on a small ad dimension on a broadsheet or a newspaper, I think getting a website is a good idea. Not only it helps you have your own space and update your content at will but also helps you post your products and business 24/7 that reaches worldwide.

• The Internet Data

Broadcasting companies and advertising agencies shows data of impressions of their media programs and circulation. We do acknowledge that TV, Radio and Print are proven but internet is really the next best thing as it only shows relevance and shows user what they need on a per keyword basis. Google provides keyword tools that allow you to know how many search queries that your company business related keywords have. There is also Google analytics that shows you number of users that visited your site, their location, the site that referred them you and the keywords that they used to reach your site. All for the price of a clap, absolutely FREE!

• The SEO process

Many companies and small business owners don’t understand the SEO process or even the website development process that is why they hesitate to email or even call. This happens on a day-to-day process like your ordinary day shopping on malls. You are free look around and ask questions, and then buy the best item for you. The online marketing process usually starts by an email or a phone call, followed by a meeting to assess goals and metrics, the discussion of project specs and then the signing of the contract. The bad Filipino habit of “afraid asking questions” should be stopped. After all, online marketers and web experts don’t bite.

• The belief that Filipinos are still disconnected

Everyone has been with the dial-up era when internet costs so much more and speed was less. Though the Philippines is not up to the speed of South Korea or even the Fiber optic connections in the US, now we have ISPs (internet services providers) that are far-reliable than the old days. We have a lot of high-speed net providers, USB internet sticks and our mobile phones that allows us to connect via wifi anywhere or via 4G. Younger generations are also adapting very fast with the use of internet as the source of information and as a part of their lifestyle.

To cap it off, Internet is the only medium where Small to medium business can compete with enterprises in terms of advertising budget. So if you are not online, or knows someone that has a business that is not online, it is time to embrace the innovation that can help you grow your brand. Internet in the Philippines is really young, so everybody has the opportunity to be the king in terms of their industry in the internet.

The bottom line is that you cannot afford to miss such opportunities — and today — we’ll discuss how you as a small business owner can use search to drive more business from people who have never even heard of you before.

It really is a beautiful thing.

As a small business owner, you probably have a tiny marketing budget if one actually exists at all. The beauty of search engine optimization though is that it’s completely free for you to take advantage of assuming that you have the courage to edit some web pages.

There are literally hundreds of tools available to use that will allow you to download, edit and even research some simple elements of search engine optimization.

Beyond that, search engine optimization will provide your business with a long history of leads without any recurring costs. For example, if you optimize your site effectively as a Florist in Menlo Park — visitors can find you years from now. If you were to actually spend money advertising the same message — your newspaper, magazine ads and radio commercials would’ve all been out of print or in the trash by that same time.

So, to recap here — we’re talking about free traffic, from qualified leads, who are interested in your service. And all that’s required from you is a little bit of passion and patience.

Reposted from: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-small-businesses-need-seo-to-be-successful/5336/