I see so many small companies focused on Twitter/Facebook and LinkedIn and when I look at their website I see

1.    No effort with on-page SEO
2.    No focus whatsoever on getting links into their website for backlinks.
3.    No focus with on-page conversion
4.    I cant find your phone number – oh look it’s in the footer in tiny text
5.    You list a mobile phone number on your website. Come on get a VOIP phone it will cost you €10 a month and looks professional.

OK point 3, 4 and 5 have nothing to do with SEO just a little rant sorry.

When I compare this to our UK and US friends man they are so far ahead of the game it’s unbelievable.

There are very few jobs advertised in Ireland looking for link builders most I come across say “we want you to know HTML, PHP, Java, ASP, MySql oh and be an expert in SEO”.

I see jobs for content writers that can write for search engines (so 2004 lads)

Have an understanding of Google algorithm updates ( Google have 300+ guys  with PHD’s who don’t understand it half the time themselves and end up fixing it with updates so what chance have I got with this – give me a break).

So most employers don’t understand SEO, recruitment companies don’t understand SEO (some do but very very few).

Most small businesses that are setting up have no clue what SEO is or decided to take a course and never follow up simply because it hard work/takes time and think they would be better of just using one channel (twitter or facebook) to drive clients/sales to there website.

Building links to a website takes time and its hard bloody work. Yeah I do it everyday for clients, some really get it and some don’t because they don’t see results in 2 months. It can take months to start seeing results (depending on your market and effort)

But, you know something! Once you get to the fist page for keyword/keyphrases you’ll start to see traffic, you’ll start to see sales and you might even make money.

I really really hope businesses in this country start to get what SEO/Link building is all about and that they should have some focus on it.

I know when they do-  guys like me will be fighting for this business.

I would prefer to see a healthy marketplace where people understand this business then one stuck back in 2004.

What Can Businesses Do To Rank Better

1.    Get some links to your website
2.    Do a course or hire and SEO expert to help you
3.    Once you understand SEO and how to do it go back to step 1

A while after we finish the project they made some changes to the website and also to the title tags on the main home page. They seemed to rank for a while for the same keywords (with the title tags changed) but on checking today Google has finally dropped them down a few pages, I bet that most brides and grooms to be will never look down that far.

One thing that also worked for them is that they where listed in Google places and lucky to have their website come up in these results also for a while but they have also been dropped for key search terms for this also.

So what’s the Answer?

It’s simply really, change the title tags back to what we researched and agreed. Build some links into the page (every month). Some guess blogging will really help.

Contact more people in your business and exchange links, contact hotels, photographers, wedding cake experts and anybody that’s involved in the niche. Ask for a link to your website, email/tweet or phone them try and create a relationship on a business level.

Submit your website to some local business directories that will help with the site rank again in Google places. They are so many new ones in the Irish market over the past 2 years you have to keep on top of them. Your competitors are doing this so you also need to do this.

If most of your business comes from online then you can’t sit back for 2 years and not add to you’re link marketing.

Many owners of ecommerce websites understand their business and some take the time to listen to me when I talk to them about adding value and try to get them to understand what they are up against.

• Many, simply want a quick fix and by this I mean they want traffic.

• Many, resist the lets add great content approach or they always want to short cut this.

• Many, of course are very passionate for their subject. But, they are store owners and not writers.

You’ll come across many ecommerce websites that really understand this process and these site will stand the test of time simply because they are customer focused and in adding great content that are also informing there customers.

One great way is to show a client a similar website within their niche and show them the type of links they attract that are high value. I also like to then show them search results so they can see for themselves how valuable these high value links can be.

It’s all down to these word “High Value Inbound Links”

These link are hard to get if your not adding value that people want to link to. The good links like this can also drive traffic directly to a website.

You can find the addon here : Multi Links

Now don’t get me wrong it’s been hard work getting this type of traffic but it’s all free traffic from the search engines and if I can do it so can you.

I’m not going to reveal the website, Just to let you know I’m using wordpress as the main CMS which is a great bit of software. So what’s the secret to getting this traffic so quickly on a new website.

First is content, I’ve been adding anywhere from 3 posts to 10 posts per day. It’s a matter of getting into a routine when doing this. Adding an article first thing in the morning, adding one or two at lunchtime and then adding maybe a couple in the evening.

I use Google Reader and have feeds from various on topic websites, that way the news and updates are pushed to me so save lots of time searching for information. Now don’t get me wrong I have been researching and one of these paid off with links from a couple of very highly placed websites in the niche linking back to my post as a reference of the news (nice backlink and a little bit of traffic).

I’ve also been working on backlinks, not as hard as I should to be honest but this will be the key focus on this site over the coming months.

If you read some of the other articles on this site I do a lot of article marketing and distribute quality articles to quality websites and try get a backlink to my sites.

The next target is 100,000 per month, I think it might take a little longer but it’s very achievable if you add quality content and quality backlinks and give Google what the searchers are looking for.

You may think that you are doing things wrong and that is understandable. Many online business owners don’t have a firm enough grip on SEO practices to feel confident about their efforts. Therefore when a mistake is made they blame themselves. What is very important to realize is that the trends are going to continually shift. Therefore you must keep on top of them. That way you are always able to deliver what will help you reach your target market.

SEO Practices you want to Use

Here is some great advice about some of the SEO practices that you do want to try. First, ask yourself what is taking place out there online. People are going to social sites to gain access to information. One of the best places that you want to be a part of is Wikipedia. They get hits from millions of people each day on every topic you can imagine. You also want to submit materials to Digg and Propeller. Just about everyone has a MySpace page and views videos on YouTube. Therefore you need to get your information out there with both of these entities.

Links have always been a very successful part of SEO practices. You want to continue your efforts to get them out there. You need to use multi streams too so that no matter which direction your target market is coming in they will run into your information. Such exposure can be the difference between a profitable online business and one that never gets off the ground. You need to have your links with a variety of materials attached to them as well. Don’t use the same copy in all of these directions or it will hinder your efforts.

Ineffective SEO Practices

Likewise, there are several ineffective SEO practices that people still waste their time on. You don’t want to get into a position where you are just laying out keywords thinking that is the best way to get a good ranking. Your materials will be difficult for humans to read when they are directed towards robotic indexing. You also need to realize that each search engine has different criteria and that it is constantly changing.

You are only going to get indexed when you are able to offer something new for the search engines. Your materials may be rejected by directories too if they are too similar to what they have already indexed. You also need to be careful when it comes to how you set up your links. As we discussed you do want them in place but you only want them to be helpful. You can hinder your results if you have too many links on your pages that can take a person to the site of someone else.

It is crazy to spend time and money on SEO efforts though if you aren’t monitoring what you can get in return from them. There are plenty of terrific tools out there that can help you to get the most from your efforts. By having a plan of action you can evaluate where you are, where you are headed, and device a realistic plan to get your there. Here are some areas that will help you to evaluate how well your SEO efforts are going.

Identify the Brand to Non-Brand Ratio

Have you identified your brand to non-brand ratio? If not you need to make it a priority. You may think that as long as you monitor your traffic things are well but there is more to it. You need to be able to identify how much of it is coming from branding within the search engines. If you have a high ration here then do your best to get other methods into action. Once you do so you can significantly increase your traffic relating to non-branding.

Don’t Copy Others

While you can get great ideas from the materials of others out there, don’t copy them. It takes confidence and effort to be original but that is what will allow you to stand out with SEO. The search engines send their bots out all day long looking to index new materials. If what you offer is just to similar to what it has already found then it will skip over it. You want as much of what you offer to be indexed and being the one to go out on the limb with new perspectives and ideas is the way to accomplish it.

What is your Page Yield

What is your current page yield? If you aren’t familiar with that term it refers to your number of pages that are unique enough to get indexed each month. The ratio is determined by dividing that number by the overall number of pages you added. You do want to add plenty of new pages, but your primary focus should be on the quality and not the quantity of them. You need this ratio to be high if your long tail is going to continue growing.

Do you have a Great Keyword Yield?

Do you have a great keyword yield? You want it to be around 2.4 keywords per page. In order to find out where you stand, take the number of keywords you offer with each page. You will want to subtract those that aren’t creating additional traffic. In order for your long tail to work here you have to have a high ratio. If it isn’t where it should be then make it a priority to figure out places to make quality changes.
Are your Keywords getting you Vistors?

Find out if your keywords are getting you visitors or not. You should be able to anticipate 1.9 hits for each keyword on a page. By measuring this you can see the thickness of your long tail. Once again if your ratio is less than it should be then you need to make some positive changes in order for SEO practices to help you the most.

Identifying your Index to Crawl Ratio

By identifying your index to crawl ratio, you can find out how you are stacking up out there with the search engine bots. You want as many of your pages as possible to get indexed. As we talked about, you need to offer high quality and original materials in order for the bots to pick up that material and decide it is worthy of adding to the index. You should be using tools that ensure your materials aren’t too close to what other people are offering.

Don’t Forget about the Engine Yield

Last but not least you don’t want to forget about the engine yield. Your ratios need to be evaluated with the various search engines. If you are only looking at one of them you are failing to get the most from your SEO practices. Since each of the search engines have different criteria for their rankings you need to see if you are doing well overall. You don’t want to form your SEO materials just to get a top ranking with one of them but being terrible with the rest. This just isn’t an effective way to reach your target market.

While it is essential to engage in SEO practices, the focus needs to be on using those that are going to be the most effective. You will realize that there are trends that shift all the time out there with consumers. Therefore you have to be ready to modify your SEO practices in order to be able to stay with them. There is plenty of potential out there for a successful online business if you are doing your best in this area.

Here are a few tips to help get you started

1. If you sign a contract with a company put into the agreement that they link to your website. I see this all the time with web development companies that will almost always leave a link on their customers website.

2. Start a Blog – Blogs are a great way to get links. But be careful don’t try to sell anything from your blog keep it non-commercial or low. You can find tones of information on blogs from an SEO point.

3. Submit your site to quality directories, not crappy little one. The like of Yahoo, Best of the Web, Business.com are what you really need to think about.

4. Ask for links – Yep it’s simple really just email relevant website and ask them to link to you.

5. Pick up the phone – You would be surprised how simple and easy this is. This can work in two way they can give you a free link (or not) or you can suggest you write a quality article for their website and they give you a little credit within the article that links back to your website.

6. Ask your visitors to link back to your website (if your reading this and want to link to me please do – I’m a nice guy …really) the important thing here is not to have message all over your website with link to me everywhere.

7. Promote your site using conventional PR, PRWeb is good and if you have a marketing department where you work ask them for leads.

A friend of mine works in a company that have one competitor and if they are over worked or cannot get to a job will refer the other company. This is how small business works in Ireland even in the SEO game where if one guy is to busy will recommend a friend/competitor.

Referral links between competitors can happen in a couple of ways

Sharing excess work

As I already said above this happens when a sudden burst of business hits them. Instead of turning work away a small business owner will refer a trusted colleague that they know. Trust is the keyword here and if you have a trusted partner whom you link to this says a lot about you professionally and algorithmically.

Referring specialties

If you offer a specialty services (which is what SEO is) like most specialty services you’ll be busy, with this comes more work and needing to refer work that may not be actually what you do or is not the right fit for your expertise is all part of the game. Look for business that do offer this service and become partners both in linking online and offline.

Now if you know a little about linking I bet your saying this sounds like a reciprocal link campaign!!

Yes you are correct

And believe it or not reciprocal links still work from a business point of view and from an algorithmic standpoint. An authority link from a high profile industry site is what we all want for our websites and having a number of referral links from partner website will do you no harm.

So 10 years ago two guys started this small company with a backing of $100k and a few computers, 10 years later the company is worth a few billion (maybe $150 billion).

I wonder how many millionaires Google has  made and how many companies have started and succeeded on the back of Google success.

If like me your trying to succeed in your online business lets hope we are part of the success that Google now has.