Are SEO Services Worth It
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By Nick Burrus on 12 Jan 2011
Nick Burrus 21 year old wiki savvy blogger, and internet geek.
Are SEO services worth it? Well, I'm not an expert on this Search Engine Optimization stuff, but, I do know some things about it and I would like to try and explain what I know to you all. I will do my best to make sure this article is simple, so you can understand.
Benefit
Firstly, think about the benefit of the increased website traffic. Would extra website traffic benefit your company or website? Is your website local only? Or are you trying to make a global reach?
SEO is worth looking into if you plan on expanding your company using the internet. It is one thing if your website is not for new orders, but it is another thing that your website is for new orders outside of your local business.
What does SEO do?
SEO basically helps your page rank higher in search engines. Nothing more then that.
What do SEO services actually do?
SEO services usually do the following:
- Submit your website to search engines.
- Redo your website's meta tags.
- Optimizes your pages (makes them more effective).
- Checks your robots.txt file to make sure it is done right, and not blocking web crawlers.
What does this mean?
Basically, SEO makes your website more visible for search engines, and search engines only. So this means, if one goes to Google or Bing and types in some keywords, your website can rank higher with better SEO.
Any differences between doing it myself and hiring a company?
Yes, there is one main difference: the fact that you do it yourself. These companies or SEO experts they know what to do, and how to do it fast, so they can push through several people at one time. Often times, these companies will want access to your website files or want you to make several code edits.
What are the risks of giving them access?
Why are you willing to trust your website's core files to someone you never met? To a company you found off of a search engine? It is not worth the risk in my opinion.
What if they don't want access to my site files or give me code edits?
If this scenario, all they are doing is submitting your website to search engines like Google or Bing or even Yahoo. Often times, these search engines would already have your website indexed into their services. So, the SEO company in reality can be forging the numbers of increased traffic if you don't install code, or if you do get increased traffic, they may be link farming.
Even though, that you do not know me, but if you are ever to trust me, please trust me on this: Do not trust anything that link farms. In fact, link farms can hurt your website traffic as this practice is frowned upon.
How do I choose keywords?
Sit down and think. How would you search for a company like yours' website? What keywords would you search for?
If my company is about selling the best pillows in the world, I'd probably search for it by typing in these keywords: soft, pillows. I can even go into more details about the brand of pillows I sell, or even if they're homemade. Think about how you would search for your company via a search engine.
Are you a local company? If I'm selling pillows, and I'm based in Topeka, Kansas I may want to have my website keyword to be topeka or even north eastern kansas. Since Topeka is a large city, and my shop is located in a new shopping center called 'Arrow Creek' a keyword I can use would be arrow creek.
But, doesn't linking help me with page ranks?
Yes, links do help a website rank higher in search engines. It is not for the reason of link farms. Search engines ranks your pages by keywords and relevancy. If other websites link to your website for more information or as a reference point on a certain keyword, then this is what in fact increases your search engine page.
Some people try to "sell" these links, and this practice is frowned upon. Often times these websites will say rel="nofollow" is enabled until you pay to have them enabled to rel="follow"; ignore them. It is not worth paying for one website to do that. This practice is frowned upon as well.
How do I add my website to a search engine, if they don't have it?
Here is a list of some leading search engines. Click their name to go directly to submission page:
- Bing
- Yahoo (requires Yahoo Account)
- Duck Duck Go
What services can I get to help me?
Honestly, SEO services are simple enough to do yourself. Keep an eye on articles relating to tips for SEO and do it yourself! There is no reason you need to pay hundreds to an SEO expert to do what you can do yourself and for free. I highly recommend keeping an eye on these:
- Check out the SEO Page here on AboutUs.
- Keep an eye on the AboutUs Weblog
- Be sure to look at the AboutUs Learn page for tips on marketing.
- Check out the
: Wikipedia
Often times these services would offer to blog, or write an article about your website on a high ranking website. These websites are not always high ranking, or the most trustful. You can write a page yourself on a high ranking site, such as AboutUs, and we'll even help you by giving you tips on our chat.
So, in an acorn...?
Pay attention to the Learn series on AboutUs and the AboutUs Weblog. By following the tips here on AboutUs and by searching around the internet you can do the SEO yourself. You can spend fifteen minutes reading and doing SEO and you can do more yourself then most companies can do after charging you $100.
AboutUs is a website about the internet, a directory to the internet. We offer tips, and help. Don't be afraid to use us, there is no catch. :).
Good luck!
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