What To Look For In An SEO Training Course - Seven Important Qualities

A track record of SEO success - Obviously one quality you should look for is a track record of success over a period of time in search engine optimisation and search engine marketing.

One quick way to check is to do a Google search on SEO training city, where city is your local area. (eg. SEO training Brisbane or Brisbane SEO training)

If the firm you are considering learning from doesn't rank well then you may be better off looking elsewhere. It also pays to check their SEO client portfolio. Do they have a portfolio? If so, are their clients happy with their SEO work? A few phone calls and you

can make sure.

An understanding of current SEO methods - SEO is a dynamic industry. As search engines update and improve their ranking algorithms, so also must SEO companies update their methods of getting and holding good search engine rankings.

If the SEO training course you considering is focused on keyword density, link exchanges and creating complex metatags, then choose

again. These factors used to be very important 3-5 years ago. Not so now. The best SEO these days is about keyword research, anchor text, article marketing, directory marketing, getting one-way links and using social media.

Avoid astonishing promises - If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. If the SEO training course you are considering promises to show you how to rank in the top 5 in Google for any search term then find someone else. As a famous movie once said" They're dreaming.

SEO is hard work and it does take time to rank well for competitive keyword phrases.

Determining the best keyword phrase to optimise for and then executing the optimisation over a period of time will eventually yield results.

Sound training methodology - Does the SEO training firm use qualified trainers? What are their qualifications and experience is both training and SEO. There's nothing more disheartening that have a boring instructor who reads his or her notes and doesn't

believe in classroom interaction. Make sure your SEO trainer is both a good classroom trainer and experienced in SEO.

Hands-on experience - SEO theory should be backed up by hands-on practical experience where you get to immediately apply your new learning. Avoid any SEO training course where you are lectured to for a day or so without any hands-on experience. The best SEO courses are a combination of theory, example and practice.

Where possible you should have the opportunity to work on a real life SEO project and get the instructors help with that project.

Follow up support - The half life of any training course is about 4 days. Unless the theory is applied or revised, it leaves short-term memory and must be relearned. Make sure the training that you purchase includes some level of e-mail or telephone support. if they do, make sure you use it even if it's just to make sure you are on the right track with your SEO projects. Good quality handouts, notes and access to online resources is also something to look for.

John Hacking is Product Manager for Search Tempo. Search Tempo is a Brisbane SEO training company and Brisbane SEO services firm.

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Important 12 SEO Techniques for Any Local Business Website

Local business websites can adopt numerous interface, looks, themes, and concepts to introduce an item or service to their clients. You can use four different media to advertise local business' special features on the Net: text, photo, audio, and video. No matter the shape, style, and budget of a local business site, everything will be zero if searchers can't discover it on the Web. Local business websites can't accomplish its ultimate aim without learning local SEO tips that work.

Among the top SEO tips you can do on your local business website is to make it a unique representative of your company on the net. This is the most important; the other SEO tips, are secondary. Properly representing your business on your website attains your main aim: to entice new website users. You can't reach this purpose, however, if you write and design your site mainly for search engines and not for people. In the same way that you can't achieve this aim if only people can read your website and search engine crawlers can't.

If you're to reach your goal of maintaining a business website, you want to employ SEO techniques that could optimize your website's luck of being found on the Internet both by real people and search engine crawlers. Here are twelve vital SEO tips that you need to learn to properly use your online marketing budget.

SEO Tips for Local Business Website

1. Put address on every webpage

Not only do human website visitors appreciate seeing your business location address on each of your website pages, search engines love to index websites with obvious address on their website pages too. Likewise, putting your business address on all your website pages will increase your opportunity to invite new walk-in clients to your business. For more than one business locations, adding your address on each page also assures all your business locations get an exposure on the Web.

2. Put keywords on all website pages

People can judge the relevance of your website pages by just setting a glance on them. But search engines are nowhere near humans in deciding the relevancy of a webpage. Instead, search engines look for keywords on a webpage to tell its topic and relevancy. Putting keywords is crucial because it helps search engines' crawlers view your website in a way that people cannot. Don't let a bold, or crazy, SEO expert advise you that keywords are no longer included in the top SEO tips-he or she is wrong.

3. Position keywords in title and meta descriptions

Have you noticed that little description under a search engine query results listing: that is a meta description. Although meta descriptions don't change your page rank on top search engines, meta descriptions functions a good role in inviting attention toward your website. When individuals browse through the search results list, they don't click the results at random. Instead, individuals glance over the meta description to learn whether the website may have the info they're searching for. Keywords on the page title, however, can influence your page rank. Therefore, it's important to use your keywords on the title and your meta description. (Notice how Google highlights search keywords on a meta description?)

4. Apply H1 and H2 tags and image alternate text

A tested local SEO tips include keywords on H1 and H2 tags and applying alternative text for images. Keywords on H1 and H2 tags have more bearing on your business website's rank than keywords on the body of a web article itself. And since search engines can't read image files, they read the alternate text put to the image file instead.

5. Add a sitemap

A sitemap serves as the website's building directory; putting descriptions about each floor or section by writing a metadata about each URL will complete your sitemap. It's the page that tells search engines what pages on your website are open for indexing. Placing a sitemap is a key SEO technique that lets search engines crawl all your website pages through the metadata description in a single page.

6. Put address and contact-us page for each location

When you place your address and contact-us page for each of your business address on the website, not only will your clients locate you easily, search engines push your website up on their search results also. Both people and search engine crawlers can tell and believe in business websites that display address and contact-us page more than those that don't.

7. Incorporate Google map into your contact-us page

It's a fact, 70% of buyers search for local businesses on the Internet. That's why Google includes Google map to check the importance of a site. If you're not including Google map to the contact-us page, you could be dropping important local SEO tips that's going to determine your visibility on the Internet. Google map can contain metadata description like your business address, phone number, and other pertinent information that search engines are able to index.

8. Cross link website pages with the right anchor text

Inter linking your website's important internal pages inside your site itself are another powerful local SEO tips. Internally linking some vital website pages on your homepage with the right anchor text tells search engines that the pages are important and crawling them often is necessary. Internal links have equal result as external links on PR, so ensure you have few internal links with correct anchor text. Anchor text should have niche keyword in it too.

9. Place promotional gifts obviously on top of each page

Clients appreciate receiving a special offer or discount coupons. Search engines recognize this fact so they crawl the words that may suggest promotional gifts on each website pages. That's why placing a special offer prominently on all of your pages and also on your meta descriptions is a vital SEO technique not only for your clients but for Google and other search engines also.

10. Place phone No. and address in plain sight on top of each page

Clients looking for local businesses on the Web are anticipating to get a contact No. to call or an address to visit. If they can't get your business' phone number or address easily on each website pages, you can't keep them on your site for a longer period.

11. Place buyer testimonies and reviews on your site

With the numerous questionable SEO tips that are emerging, search engines are constantly inventing for ways to size whether a website deserves to be rank or not. The surest means is to look for positive reviews of a site on the Internet. That's why displaying customer testimonies and reviews on a local business website are one of the top SEO tips a site owner must follow. Though Google denies using testimonies and reviews as one of their basis for ranking a website, SEO researchers and experts see a huge correlation between high PR and glowing customer testimonies and reviews on a site.

12. Integrate Google Analytics to monitor your Search Engine Optimization campaigns

The good thing about SEO is that its effects are measurable quantitatively. To assess your SEO campaign and to closely check which of your SEO efforts have good outcome, install Google Analytics on your site. One important reason you need Google Analytics on your site is that it will let you inspect which keywords people are seeking for from your site. Use this information to better plan your SEO efforts: i.e. rely and develop keywords that give you more online visits and drop those keywords that don't work.

Using top SEO tips is the foundation of all sites. No site can continue to function as a 21st marketing instrument to draw a large number of new buyers if the SEO techniques deployed are outdated. But for a newbie, deploying local SEO tips can be confusing, expensive, and clearly time consuming. You can save yourself a lot of trouble and loss income, however, if you deploy tested and proven SEO tools like Local SEO Check-up Tool and DirectoryRunner.

Myles Anderson is the co-founder of Brightlocal.com. After working with big company names like Freeserve, eHarmony, and Orange, he turned his attention to helping all sorts of local businesses attract new customers through business directory listings and other local search engine marketing tools.

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Choosing an SEO Firm - Why SEO Case Studies Are Important

Would you buy a house without checking out the neighborhood and schools first? Or a car without researching its reliability and safety ratings? Of course you wouldn't, unless you enjoy throwing caution to the wind (and in that case, you can stop reading).

Search Engine Optimization is - or at least should be - all about seeing improved results on your website. That's why it's crucial to ask to see an SEO company's case study information before selecting them for your SEO efforts. While you're at it, ask to meet the SEO staff who will be optimizing your site.

Sound a little over the top? Maybe, but here's the thing: it's really fashionable for businesses to jump on the SEO bandwagon right now, regardless of whether or not they actually know how to do SEO. Many of these companies don't even have dedicated SEO staff; they simply outsource the work. Ad agencies, for instance, desperate to make themselves more relevant, are some of the worst offenders - they often claim to do SEO despite not actually having a single SEO person on staff.

What can you really learn from a SEO case study?

An SEO case study can provide a treasure trove of information, including answers to the following questions:

How does a firm approach SEO? Case studies provide a perfect opportunity for an SEO firm to show off their strengths, strategies and results, giving you a good idea of what they can do for your business. You can see what they're most focused on: search engine rankings, link popularity, conversions, or all of the above. It may be possible for you to determine if they use ethical "white hat" strategies, or more risky tactics that could end up hurting your efforts in the long run.

Do they track and compare key statistics? You can see how thoroughly they track and compare data. And you may even be able to get a glimpse through graphs and screenshots of the kinds of tools and analytics programs the firm uses. Accurate tracking is obviously critical to your SEO efforts; if a firm can't tell you where you are and where you've been, how can you trust them with where you're going?

What industries do they serve? Or are they a generalist? You can find out if a firm specializes in certain industries, which is excellent information to know when determining if they are a good fit for your business. Maybe you have a manufacturing site and are looking for an SEO firm with experience successfully optimizing similar websites. Or perhaps you're a local business and are looking for a firm who knows your local market inside and out.

What if a company won't supply SEO case study data?

If an SEO company won't supply case study data, then generally speaking that should send up a red flag. Here are some likely scenarios as to why an SEO firm might avoid providing case study data, none of which are good:

not actually having any clients to document
not actually doing the SEO work themselves thereby not having access to data
not being able to produce good enough data to document
not properly tracking data (making before-and-after comparisons a challenge)
not wanting to divulge their clients
not using SEO methods on the "up and up" (i.e., unethical or Black Hat strategies)

What should a good SEO case study include?

Let's break it down a little further: a good SEO case study should give you a well-rounded picture of the challenges facing both the client and the SEO firm, as well as the strategies and results used during the optimization process:

Background/Challenges: This part of the case study may include client history, as well as details regarding the challenges facing both the client and SEO company. These challenges might include being in an ultra-competitive industry, having a totally un-optimized site, having previously been banned by the search engines, etc.

Strategy: Next, a good SEO case study should lay out how the company approached the challenges and what they did to improve the site's rankings, traffic and conversions.

Results: A good case study will lay out documented results in key areas like search engine saturation, link popularity, search engine rankings, etc. And, of course, since SEO is ultimately results-focused, a case study should include sales and conversion information if available.

Conclusion

SEO case studies should be one of a company's best marketing tools. That's because if they are able to produce good, documentable results using proven SEO strategies, they'll want to show off those results to secure new clients. The proof's in the pudding, right?

Collyn Floyd http://www.tkg.com/collyn-floyd is a marketing and public relations specialist with The Karcher Group, a web development and search engine marketing firm based in North Canton, OH. She is passionate about helping The Karcher Group's clients achieve greater online traffic, leads and sales through search engine optimization and marketing.

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