All this related business about “spiders crawling” a page and “indexing” it can seem somewhat confusing, and if you hate bugs, even unsettling. However, once you get past all the vocabulary the concept of SEO itself is relatively simple. Search engines use an algorithm to rate content based on how closely it relates to a search being run by a user. If someone were to type in “Search Engine Marketing “ for example, the search engine would provide them with a list of sites that most closely relate to both that term, and other words or links associated with it. Websites that rank the highest would most likely have more related words and consequentially more traffic. Call us at 512.322.9566 for your free SEO consultation.

This is where search engine optimization firms come in. These companies, specializing in online marketing strategies, run keyword searches and find phrases that most closely relate to the content a business wants to provide. Fill out contact form to discover how search engine optimization can help your online business.

Combining knowledge of both the systematic process used by search engines to rank websites with the desire of the user for relevant, interesting content, they can weave in words that have a higher probability of being searched while preserving the integrity of the information. Please feel free to call us at 512.322.9566.

Through a careful, considerate balance, SEO companies such as Curved Marketing are able to increase search engine rankings and page views and businesses can enjoy growing success without that expensive magic fairy dust.

Call us at 512.322.9566 or fill out our contact form to get started on crafting your own custom SEO package today.

Do You Really Need New Clients?

By Randy Shattuck

“Can you not realize your growth goals without adding new clients?”

Your Best New Client is an Old Client

I’m concerned that many PS executives are obfuscating, and potentially substituting, “client acquisition” with “revenue generation.” To me, the two are not one and the same. New clients often come with high risk and may not remain good clients over time. New clients are far more likely, in my experience, to negatively impact profitability and create management headaches. More often than not, existing clients are the best source of quick new revenue.

There is wisdom in the proverb that reads: “It’s easier to sell something new to an existing client than it is to sell an existing service to a new client.” Numerous research studies have shown that the cost of acquiring new clients is exorbitantly high and full of risk.

The goal of this exercise is to rationalize the requirements for a new service that you can offer a substantial number of your clients, all while making a solid profit.

Read the full article here. It gives great advice about growing your existing business by servicing current clients and avoiding the cost of acquiring new clients.

Maybe it’s just writers block or something, but every single day it seems another post like that gets made. And all of them are bogus questions.

You don’t choose ppc or organic search engine optimization, you do both. You don’t choose to focus on content or links, you do both. The answer is all of the above.

You need on-page optimization of the code. You need well-written content that not only focuses on seo and making sure it’s interesting, but also content that is written by someone who knows how to sell.

You need to build good, related inbound links, using proper anchor text, to more than just your home page. You need links to interior pages as well.

You need to advertise. You need to do video marketing. You need to do article marketing. You need to build Google Knol Pages. You need to be involved in as many social networks as time allows. And those are just a few things you need to do in order to be successful.

It’s isn’t one thing or the other.

Word Mark SEO
Goods and Services IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Marketing services in the field of computers in the nature of providing marketing services for the benefit of others by compiling advertising campaigns, promotional services, and consulting for customers. FIRST USE: 20070214. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20070214
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 77171330
Filing Date May 2, 2007
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis NO FILING BASIS
Published for Opposition March 25, 2008
Owner (APPLICANT) Jason Gambert INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 10001 Woodcreak Oaks Blvd. Suite 1627 Roseville CALIFORNIA 95747
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Does this guy really think that filing a trademark on the term SEO in 2007 will supercede the rights of people who have been using that term since 1997? A story from MediaPost covers the origins of the term SEO and also explains a little of what Jason Gambert, the above trademark applicant, is trying to do here.

In a 2004 thread at Search Engine Watch forums, Danny Sullivan took a deeper dive and found the earliest archived reference to the phrase in a July 27, 1997 Internet marketing sales pitch posted on Usenet, and archived in Google Groups.

The post was made by someone from ascella.net, which was run by a company named “American Academy of Practice Marketing,” at least according to the Usenet message. I looked up various registrants of the name “ascella.net,” and found that it was registered to Per Dahlin of Sweden as early as 2001, under the name of “Online Marketers Association.” The archived 2001 record showed that the name was originally registered on February 11, 1997, so it is possible that Dahlin was the registrant of the domain at the time of the Usenet post.

The domain later changed registrants, most likely through a registry drop, and was picked up by RareNames/BuyDomains. The domain “ascella.net” again changed registrants during the week of April 20 – 27, 2007, from RareNames/Buydomains.com, to “Modern Consulting Solutions,” a company that is currently applying for a US trademark on the term “SEO.”

So basically, this guy went back in history to long before he was even doing SEO and found a domain name that was associated with a post about SEO and now he wants a trademark on the term SEO.

Well, I’ve checked the origins of the word sex. Meaning “sexual intercourse” first attested 1929 (in writings of D.H. Lawrence). Now I think I’ll go register sex as a trademark, then I will retroactively sue everyone in the world because you have all used the word sex at some point.

That isn’t much more ridiculous than what this guy is trying to do with the trademark on SEO. The very fact that the patent office hasn’t just rejected this application shows that our government agencies really should not be allowed to run anything associated with the Internet.

They don’t hire anyone that understands it. They hire a few lawyers and of course they know EVERYTHING. Just ask them. But it has been shown in domain name disputes, IP attrorneys have very little understanding of the Internet.

The SitePro News article asks; How can you tell if an offer like this is coming from a SEO scam artist?

Do your due diligence. Have a look at the page rank for the website of supposed SEO experts who’ve contacted you. If their site isn’t highly ranked, then run in the opposite direction. After all, what kind of results can you expect from a SEO company which can’t secure a high page rank for its own site?

Not necessarily true. While it may be one indicator to consider, remember the old saying about a plumber never having time to fix his own leaky faucet. I know some really good SEO guys that don’t rank well for the term SEO let’s say, but they do know what they are doing and they are not scammers.

First of all, when you are trying to rank for terms that have SEO, SEM, Search Engine Optimization, etc., the level of competition for those phrases is extremely tough since all the people trying to get ranked for those terms are likely professional SEO companies.

The article says “After all, what kind of results can you expect from a SEO company which can’t secure a high page rank for its own site?”. Most terms clients want to rank for are much much easier to get than a top ranking for the term SEO. The article makes it sound like it should be easier to rank for an SEO key phrase and if you don’t rank for that term, you must not know how to rank for anything else.

Secondly, most SEO pros know NOT to just rank for the term SEO. A searcher who types in the keyword SEO could be looking for information on how to do SEO, wanting to know what SEO is, or just wanting general information. This is not a buying term, therefore not really a worthwhile target for anyone who sells SEO work.

SEO Consultant, SEO Service, SEO Company, SEO Services, SEO Prices, SEO Rates and other two word phrases are much more targeted than just SEO and anyone typing those phrases is looking to HIRE an SEO company.

The problem is that the article says to see if the SEO company is ranking for it’s own search terms, but fails to tell the reader what search terms they should be ranking for.

I do agree, however, that unless the user found the SEO company through a search engine somehow, somewhere, they likely should not hire them. If the offer came through unsolicited email or by phone rather than by a search you performed, then you should be very careful.

I believe that was the point the author was trying to make.

They guarantee that your site will show up in the first page of results or even as the number one result! Time for a reality check: the algorithms that the search engines use are closely guarded trade secrets meaning that no one outside of a few people at the search engine companies know exactly how it all works. Guaranteeing a certain page ranking is a sign of inexperience at best – and much more likely, indicates a scam.

Absolutely agree with that. No one can guarantee you a top 10 listing in any search engine. If they do, there is something wrong with this picture.

They phone you from what is obviously a very busy call centre. If their sales department is a room crowded with telemarketers trolling for business around the clock, you can hardly expect much personal attention being paid to your site.

As the author indicates, sometimes smaller is better when hiring an SEO company. I only take on a few clients at a time for example, otherwise, I would be too busy to pay the right amount of attention to each client I do take.

It took me time to learn that. I used to do a project and quickly move on to a new client, meaning I had no time to really monitor the results of the work I did for the last client. I learned how to say no and it was the most important SEO lesson I ever learned. So now I do have the time to do the proper followup and analysis for the SEO work I do for clients.

So, some SEO companies may not be scams per say, they may just not have learned the lesson I learned about how to build a good SEO business, about how to take what you can really handle and do a good job with and saying no to the rest.

Just don’t assume that the bigger the SEO company, the better results you will get. That would be like saying GoDaddy Hosting must be better than other hosting companies because they are a big company. If you don’t already know that isn’t true, you should.

They promise to secure your site top rankings for long tail keywords which strike you as unlikely to be used by anyone. For starters, they’re trying to sell you a guaranteed page ranking (but we know better, don’t we?). If the keyword they’re offering you a top ranking for sounds a little fishy to you, look up its popularity with the (free) tool Google AdWords.

Just wanted to add the link to where the (Google Keywords Tool. is, since the author did not. Check the phrase the SEO company is promising to get you ranked for to see if it’s even worth the effort.

Their services are offered at unrealistically low prices. There are some SEO scammers who lure victims by offering to optimize your site and run promotional campaigns for prices that sound entirely too good to be true. An effective SEO campaign takes a significant amount of time and effort for keyword research, reworking page content, building high quality back links and designing and implementing traffic driving strategies. It’s not something that can be done on the cheap, at least not well.

That statement is not entirely correct. When I started marketing on the web, I had no cash at all to promote my websites with, yet I’ve done very well. Some SEO companies, like my own, will work within the budget you have rather than just saying that it costs x amount of dollars, take it or leave it.

As a company, you have to stay within a budget. Many SEO companies, like my own, will help you decide how best to use the budget you have rather than offering you a gold, silver, or bronze pre-set package you may not be able to afford.

And with companies who use these set prices and packages, you are not getting the best service. Every client is unique. You have a set budget you need to stay within, you have different obstacles to overcome, different levels of competition, different goals, etc. than the next client.

You need an SEO strategy that fits into your budget your plans, and your unique situation. So, I would add that you should be leery of any SEO company that offers only preset packages that are a one-size-fits-all approach.

I would also add that you should be careful to avoid signing any long term contracts with any new SEO company you hire. Too many SEO companies have a strategy that includes getting every new client to sign a 3-month, 6-month, 1-year, or even a 2-year contract.

You do not know how well they will perform for you, yet they want you to sign up for a long-term deal? Yes, they will argue that it takes time to do a proper SEO campaign and they are correct. They use that as a reason they need you to sign a long-term contract.

However, there are metrics and analysis tools that will tell you about some of the progress that is being made during a campaign. You do not have to wait until the campaign is complete to see if it is going anywhere.

You do need to understand that the analysis you do during the campaign is not complete and that if you set up goals to achieve in 3, 6, or 12 months, that you still need to wait until the deadlines to see a true analysis.

But, seeing some progress during a campaign is a good indicator that your SEO company is working toward your goals. And if they are making progress, you should continue to stay with them and see the campaign to the end. If you see absolutely no progress or they cannot tell you what progress they are making during the campaign through real analysis and proven metrics, then you may want to go another direction.

Either way, with a contract, you are stuck. Without one, you are in control and your SEO company must perform and get results in order to keep you as a client. So you decide what is best for you.

They promise results in 48 hours (or less). If this could be done it would save everyone a lot of money and time. The results of optimizing a site aren’t visible at all for at least a few weeks – and for the results to really begin trending in the right direction, you often need to wait a few months.

I agree with that 100%. You need to be patient and not believe anyone who tells you they can get you ranked in 30 days or less. Sometimes we get lucky and we do get a site ranking fast. But you shouldn’t be counting on luck. It takes time.

The article goes on to say; Now, if you’re looking for a legitimate SEO firm:

Again, do your due diligence. Look at their credentials, find out who’s used their services in the past and what they have to say about the company.

I don’t totally agree with this statement. I won’t send you a list of my clients so you can check their sites out. With some, I have non-disclosure agreements. I even do the SEO for some of my competitors, names you might even recognize, and they sure wouldn’t want you to know that.

Some SEO companies will approach me for a list of sites i’ve worked on just so they can solicit business from my clients. My clients don’t need more spam from fishers. Sometimes another SEO company wants to check me out so they act like a potential customer wanting a list of clients I work for. Not happening.

It can just be a privacy issue. Some companies, especially large corporate clients, just dont’ want anyone to know they outsource their SEO work. So there are legitimate reasons I or some other SEO professional might not show you some client websites we have worked on.

I do however own enough of my own websites that rank well for competitive terms and can show a client those. I can also show some client websites because that client has agreed to let me use them as an example.

That brings up another point. If, as the author states, you should check to see how well the SEO company ranks for it’s own terms, then it would be fair to want to see non-seo related websites that they own that sell other products or services and what success they have had selling something besides SEO work.

If they have never done affilaite marketing themselves, then how good can they be at doing affiliate marketing for you? If they have never run an online store themeselves, how can they help you run your online store? If they have never sold anything ecxcept SEO and website design, it only proves they know how to sell SEO and website design. it does not mean they know how to sell anything else.

Some will say that’s unfair. After all, they are in the SEO business, so why should they sell anything else. I put up some websites and blogs on unfamiliar topics just as an experiment to see how well we can do with those topics. I keep my hand in affiliate marketing so I don’t lose touch with how it needs to be done and whatever changes come along.

But, just because an SEO company does not do those things, it does not make them a bad SEO company, just like not ranking for a term you think they should rank for does not indicate they are bad at SEO.

You should expect regular reports on how your keywords are performing and you should be able to easily get in touch by phone and speak to one of the SEO consultants to get their advice and input as needed.

The reports you get from me can be found at Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, Bing.com, etc. You simply type in your target keywords and phrases and you will get an immediate report of how well I’m doing for you.

Written reports can be made to look good. Lots of little graphs and charts make you feel good. It may be something you can take to a meeting and put into a PowerPoint presentation. But written reports are useless compared to actual results. I simply meet with my clients and show them how they are ranking for their terms. I’m either getting results there or I’m not. The client can see for themselves.

So written monthly reports do not indicate your SEO company is legitimate or even good at their job. Even a scammer can create a graph in a word doc. There is nothing wrong with written reports, it’s just not any kind of proof of legitimacy or effectiveness.

The best SEO companies have years of expertise in the field and know the most effective SEO methodologies inside and out – and how to use them to get results for their clients. They won’t make you the outlandish promises that the SEO scammers will and they may not offer bargain basement pricing, but keep in mind that this is one service where you do get what you pay for.

Absolutely correct.

I hope you don’t take offence at my post Andrew. I just see people writing this “How to recognize a legitimate SEO company” type of article all the time. The common thing I always see in these articles is a kind of “everyone-who-does-seo-like-me is legitimate, everyone-who-does-not-is-not-legit” approach.

Different SEO companies do things differently. That alone does not indicate whether or not they are legit. As you said, a lot of proven experience is a good thing to look for, but that does not mean someone new cannnot come along, learn SEO the right way, and start themselves a business. They may be perfectly legitimate, but less experienced. They may even offer lower rates to build up their client list.

None of that means they are not legitmate. So beware of blanket assumptions as to what indicates good or bad seo companies, except the obvious things you mentioned like; Promises that sound too good to be true, offers to target keywords that no one searches for, unwillingness to give out their phone number, unwillingness to give their real location, unwillingness to offer different ways to pay them such as; by check, paypal, google checkout, direct credit cards by phone, etc.

The cool thing about asking about how they can be paid is that paypal, google checkout, credit card companies, and banks have at least verified the existance of the people you are dealing with and that they have a US bank or take US credit cards.

Agreed scammers can get these set up as well, but it’s one step toward veriffying they exist and there are options with those payment systems of recovering money if you get ripped off. If the SEO company wants you to jump through a lot of hoops to get them paid, it is an indicator they may have had problems with chargebacks, bad checks, etc.

In a buyer-beware world, you do have to be careful. But we should also be careful when making a list of things that supposedly prove or disprove the legitimacy of a company.

Andrew, your article was as helpful as you intended. I just thought a few points should be clarified since so many people write about this topic.

So should I register my company name as a domain name? Yes. That domain is what you will use on your business cards, letterhead, email campaigns, and advertising.

The keyword-rich generic domain name is where you will actually build your website. All of the files will be physically located on that generic domain name.

You will point your companyname.com to that website. In the DNS, you will set it up so that users who type that in or click a link to that domain name, it will appear in the address bar for them to see.

So users who use the company name domain name see only that name appear in the address bar while the search engines see your web pages located on the generic domain name.

Read the statistical data and analytics that show how generic domain names out-perform company domain names or made up words as domains;

Reasons for Generic Success from Marketing Charts.com

Memorable Domains attributes the strong performance of generic domain names to several factors:

Because a generic domain name describes a product or service using the words people automatically associate with the topic, it encourages them to click more.

The presence of search terms in the domain name leads to higher organic rankings or a
better ad quality score in pay-per-click ad ranking algorithms.

Search engines commonly automatically bold any word in the domain name that matches the search term, drawing attention to the listing.

There is a potential positive impact of the domain name on ad quality score.

Read the rest of the story on generic domain names and view the statistics here.

Need help with your domain name strategy? Call Chris McElroy at 786-317-8774.

Do you have the time to find a Web Designer or learn to design your own website? Do you have a Content Writer or will you be writing your own keyword-rich content in a way that will increase sales? Will you be hiring an SEO Professional to do this for you? How about an SEM Professional to help you with managing your PPC campaign? Then of course you may also need an Internet Marketing Consultant to help with advertising placement and improving your conversion rate. But don’t forget you will also need Programmers, Coders, Article Writers, Bloggers, and more.

Just figuring out what tasks each of these people do is difficult. Sounds daunting doesn’t it? It doesn’t have to be. SEO Service Provider is a full-service SEO Company with a team of professionals who are experienced with Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, Content Writing, Article Marketing, Business Blog Management, Web Design, and more.

SEO Service Provider deals with those headaches for you. We have the experience to deal with all of the things you need to do to be successful in your online business. We’ve already hired the team that will work to improve your online marketing campaign.

Contact SEO Service Provider today at 786-317-8774 and receive a Free SEO Consultation whether you use our seo services or not. Or visit SEO Service Provider to learn more about what we offer.

According to OneStat.com;

OneStat.com ( www.onestat.com ), the number one provider of real-time intelligence web analytics, today reported that most people use 2 word phrases in search engines. Of all the search phrases world wide, 32.58 percent of the people use 2 word phrases, 25.61 percent use 3 word phrases and 19.02 percent use 1 word phrase. More and more people use 3 word phrases instead of 1 word phrase. The global usage of 2 word phrases has increased with 3.36 percent from 29.22 percent to 32.58 percent since April 2003. The use of 1 word phrase has decreased with 5.74 percent from 24.76 percent to 19.02 percent.

The 7 most used word phrases in search engines on the web are:

1. 2 word phrases 32.58%
2. 3 word phrase 25.61%
3. 1 word phrases 19.02%
4. 4 word phrases 12.83%
5. 5 word phrases 5.64%
6. 6 word phrases 2.32%
7. 7 word phrases 0.98%

Longtail keywords are getting more and more percentage of searches which has been confirmed by a lot of SEO Bloggers recently as well. Add that to the fact that longtail searches mean more targeted traffic and more leads or sales and you know how to target your seo efforts in a more productive way. Example; The term “insurance” will have a lower conversion percentage than “insurance qoute”. The person typing the longer phrase is looking to get a quote and buy insurance.

Now as to how many people use search engines when trying to find a website to make a purchase, look at this chart.

41% of consumers use a search engine when searching for something they want to buy. So if Google has 60% of all searches performed by search engine users, that is about 25% of Internet users who buy something online.

You need to pay attention to all of the ways you can get traffic to your website, not just Google. The chart also does not account for how many people find websites and blogs through social networking websites.

If twitter, digg, delicious, stumbleupon, facebook and others have millions of users, then that means a lot of websites or blogs are “discovered” through social bookmarking. Anyone know a study that compares how many people find websites through social networking vs. search engines?

There are advantages to writing Google Knol Pages. Here are some advantages I’ve discovered.

1. Google Knol Pages can help with branding your company name. Building a lot of Google Knol Pages with your company name in the title or subtitle can rank well for your company name in searches and provide useful information to visitors.

2. Google Knol Pages can help with Reputation Management. Much like branding, you can use Google Knol Pages to saturate the search engine with more results for your name, possibly burying bad PR.

3. The links from Google Knol Pages are supposed to be nofollow, but when checking backlinks in Google, I have seen links from a knol page being counted. It’s been rare, but it could help with link popularity in Google and other search engines.

4. Google Knol Pages can help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. Publishing your articles as Google Knol Pages is much more preferable than publishing to article directories.

What are some of the ways you have benefitted from Google Knol Pages?

Each web page has the potential for ranking well for the terms your target audience search for. Your filenames, title tags, Meta tags, image names, alt tags, and content all help you get better results when done properly.

But can one person do it all? Let’s take a look at all of the elements to building and promoting a website or even just a web page.

1. Design - Typically, web designers are focused on how your website looks and not on the other elements of building a web page or website.

2. Content Writers - Most good website content writers do a fairly good job of writing content and using your keywords and phrases. However, many do not understand semantics.

Semantics is where although you are targeting a specific keyword or phrase on a web page, you also need to use other related keywords and phrases on the page.

Example: Let’s say you want to target the phrase “content service”. You can name the web page content-service.html, contentservice.html, or content_service.html. Your title tag can also say Content Service or Content Services, a variation of the same key phrase. Then an H1 tag with the same phrase at the top of the page will help.

Of course you need that phrase repeated in the first paragraph and a couple of other places on the page. How many times depends on the amount of text you plan to use.

But you also need to type that phrase into the google keywords tool. The google keywords tool will give you a list of keywords and phrases it associates with your target key phrase. You need to use some of those phrases in your web page content as well.

When you name the file name, create the title tag, and H1 tag, you are telling the search engine spider what search term you want your web page to rank for. When the spider crawls, it will not only search for that keyword or phrase, it will also search for words that it considers relative to that phrase. If it finds those related keywords and phrases, your web page will rank higher than others who did not follow your example.

If it were all about keyword density and percentages, you could just fill your web page with gibberish and add your target keyword or phrase several times on the web page and it would rank well. (It has happened. Google uses semantics to stop it from happening.)

Ok, we talked about having a web designer and a content writer. Let’s move on.

3. Onsite Search Engine Optimization - While web designers focus on how your web page looks, an SEO Expert looks at how the navigation works and how the code is written to make sure there are no barriers to getting crawled and ranking better in the search engines.

4. SEM, PPC Management, Offsite SEO, Website Promotion, and Internet Marketing – While many consider themselves experts only in specific fields, such as PPC Management and others have different names for what they do, it really all falls under the heading Internet Marketing.

SEM strictly focuses on getting you more search engine traffic and also crosses over into link building and PPC, while Internet Marketing encompasses much more. Buying advertising, viral marketing, link bait, and more would fall under the heading of Internet Marketing.

5. A Sales Consultant - You need a sales consultant to help you with where to put calls to action and other things that get the user to do what you want them to do. Converting sales is what it is all about and you need someone that is good at web sales to look your website over.

So, do you need 5 people to build a web page? Some designers know a little about SEO. Some SEO Experts also know Internet Marketing. Some website content writers know a little about sales.

So you may not need 5 people, but you do need 5 skill sets in order to give each page in your website not only the ability to rank well in the search engines, but also to make sure it converts sales, generates leads, convinces people to sign up for your newsletter, buy a membership, or whatever you are asking your visitors to do.

Why have several people with conflicting skills working on the same web page, when one person with the right skill sets can handle it all? At SEO Service Provider.com, you get an SEO Expert that has more than 30 years of sales experience, 14 of those years selling on the web, someone who knows onsite optimization and Internet Marketing. We even handle your website design so we can optimize each page of your website as we build it.