By John Black

Search engine optimization or SEO as it has become known by, is an essential ingredient for any website to succeed. However it can be very confusing for website owners particularly for those new to the whole concept of marketing online. There are usually three reactions the whole idea of SEO;

1. some feel that it is a waste of time and that merely the act of putting a website on the internet is enough.

2. Some feel that they can just do it all themselves and that there isn’t much to it.

3. Many feel that it is definitely something that should be delegated to a professional and that their precious time is better spent doing things for their businesses that they excel at.

All three views have merit, for a few businesses just having a website is enough. The type of business that this would work for is one that is unlikely to have people searching for their services online. For example a private Chiropractic practice in a fairly small town.

In slightly larger towns, depending on the amount of competing businesses have websites online, it may well be possible to get great results by doing a small amount of promotion yourself.

For the majority, however, getting it to work well really does require the services of a professional Search Engine Optimization specialist.
Search engine optimisation is a field that is constantly changing and the systems and techniques that need to be used to get good search engine visibility are also an ever changing phenomenon.
The great thing about using SEO to get your website to rank highly in the search engines is that it is advertising that not only is working for you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It is a way of bringing in customers that are actively searching for what you are offering.

Consider the traditional types of advertising - newspapers, magazines, tv, local papers or radio. They are all a kind of shotgun approach, sending your advertising far and wide in the hope that your potential customers happen to be reading, watching or listening to them at exactly the right time.

hereas with search engine marketing it is easily possible, with good SEO services and a well set up website, to put your offering directly in front of the people that have purposely looked for your product or service by typing it into a search engine.

Another great thing about using search engine optimisation to boost your business, is that it is measurable. Unlike more traditional forms of advertising, it is entirely possible to track how many people come to your website. Not only that you can tell where in the world they come from, which keyword phrase they used to find you, which search engine they came via and how many came via each of the keywords.

With more traditional advertising not only is it a shotgun approach, in most cases it is not measurable and usually the costs involved are extremely high.

For cutting edge SEO services at a fraction of the cost of other Search Engine Optimization services contact the experts at LinxHurricane today.

By Johnathon Black

As the internet has become increasingly sophisticated, the various professional fields in the internet marketplace have become more and more specialized. In each area there have been massive leaps in complexity, usability, design and technology.

Even just a few years back, there were relatively few separate specialties for people who work within the arena of the internet. These days there is a vast multitude of ways in which people can specialize online. These professionals include:

Web designers,Information architects,Google Adwords campaign managers, various types of program and software developers and last but not least, SEO services.

In my experience, most web designers these days don’t even know how to include search engine optimization in the sites that they design and build. There is ample proof of this; it is visible easily every day by just taking a look at what is out there. Sites that have empty, or in some cases, no Meta tags no headline tags and even in some cases, no title tags at all either! What is frustrating about this is that all of these are extremely easy to include.

So where does that leave the buyer? It leaves them with a website that will no doubt look fantastic; however the chances are that few will ever see it. Let alone become customers of whatever service or product the site is offering. This seems to be particularly true in the case of websites that contain a lot of flash, it looks great, but it is heavy in the browser and as it is purely images, the search engines cannot read it, even if there are words as the words themselves are rendered as images not text.

Therefore, when shopping for a website designer, be aware that though most will have the words ‘SEO’ or ‘Search Engine Optimisation‘ somewhere within their marketing or sales material. Take the precaution of checking that they actually know what that means, many don’t. The way to check it out is to look at sites they have already completed - particularly their own. Check to see if it has Meta tags such as the keyword and description meta tag, check to see if their title tags actually have something useful in them not just ‘welcome to company XYZ website’.

These things are simple for anybody to check out. The title tag contents are readily visible when you open any web page in your browser, you will see it on the very top of your screen. To check the other parts you will need to look at the source code, you can do this in Firefox by clicking on ‘View’ then on ‘Page Source’. This will show you all the code of the site, the meta tags should be near the top just after the the title tags.

Lastly, check to see if the site has headline tags. Between these tags you should see the main headline of the page, this should include the keywords that you want people to find your website with.