The real truth behind SEO Experts

I believe thousands of people get scammed every year by so called SEO Experts. Why? Well, because they can’t distinguish lies from the steel cold truth. Because they are too credulous and there are lots of guys waiting to take advantage from it. And of course, because they want great results with as little expense as possible.

So, how can you distinguish the good SEO companies from the fake ones? Well, first of all, learn not to believe in any of the following stories, that the guys from Hobo-Web put together a couple of days ago. I’ll show you only some of the "best" replicas:

• We cannot show you results for clients as it is 100% confidential - so i guess i should take your word for it, ay mate?
• We KNOW how Google works - well, that surely make you unique. Cause i don’t and i don’t think anyone does, not even Matt Cuts… But hey, that’s just my opinion. You’re the big SEO Expert, you know better…
• Toolbar Page Rank Is Everything - Of course it is. And pigs fly. Oh no, wait, they don’t… That means there’s something wrong with your logic? Ironicaly, the PR myth is so deep-rooted. 90% of my clients ask me about it and demand a PR5+ for their site…
• Submit To 75,000 Search Engines - Since Google, Yahoo and MSN have like 95% of the worldwide market, and you don’t even have to submit your site on them, what are all the other 74997 search engine submission worth?
• We don’t rank for any “seo” terms because we don’t want to - or perhaps because you don’t know how to? Hmmm…

Anyway, clients like to see high figures, so you can’t really blame companies for giving them what they want, can you? But in the end, how can you be sure you won’t be duped when looking for the services of a SEO company? Well’ you can’t, but the risks should be minimal if you take these advices into consideration:

• never sign a company that guarantees you results over night. Because we’re talking about a logical and longtime process that can’t happen over night, and which can’t always have the desired results
• don’t fall for the big numbers: 50.000 search engines, 10.000 first positions in SERPs, thousands of visitors everyday, etc etc
• try to work with companies/people recommended by your friends (or by many others on forums, groups, etc)
• ask for previous work references
• make sure you know what you are asking for and what are you expecting to obtain from a SEO company

Search engine optimization tips - the beginning

More and more people are planning to go big on the Internet, that’s why Search engine optimization tips is a very hot subject these days. But they must know at least the basics in SEO first. That’s why I’m going to write a nice guide on search engine optimization, with many episodes, covering all (or at least most of) the important things in this domain, with planning, On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, statistics, improving and of course tips.

SEO - The beginning

One of the important causes why some sites are successful and most aren’t is because their webmasters did their homeworks before starting building the project. They studied and researched. What? Well, there are many aspects.

1. Think about your site, about the idea behind it, about its topic, about its niche. Niched sites are the most likely to become big in time, as long as you don’t pick an overcrowded niche and you have something to say regarding that subject. So, going as deep in a niche as possible and being an expert there is important.

2. Study your competition. See how are their sites built (that’s why a SEO wannabe must have basic programming knowledge, like HTML, PHP, CSS), see on what keywords do they rank well, see where you can beat them.

3. Think about the keywords you’ll be focusing your main page. This article on keyword researching tools will help you.

4. Then, choose your site’s name. I suggest you go for branding instead of choosing a name that would help you from the SEO point of view. Why? Because a branded site name can pe optimized for search engines but a SEO name normally can’t (all the good domains are taken, at least on .com). Remember, the name should be simple, easy to remember but also should be related to your site’s topic.

5. Find a good and reliant hosting. I’m using Dreamhost and I’m satisfied with it. For 10$ a month i get 500 GB storage space, 5TB traffic, i can park as many domains as i want and so much more. If you’re interested you can get even better offers from here. You can use this code: MIKE84 , and get 2 extra FREE lifetime domain registrations that are well worth some bucks.

6. After you’ve done all of these, you’ll have to take a while and think about your site’s structure and layout. It is important to use also usability criteria here, to make your content easier to spot by your future readers. Use SEO friendly programing languages (more about this on a following article). For now, here are the basics:

• No frames
• As little Javascript, AJAX and Flash as you can
• Use plain XHTML+CSS code. Use external CSS
• Try to use a table less layout: reduces the page’s size so your site will load faster
• Validate your code. It might be hard to eliminate all the errors, so focus on the important ones: don’t open a tag without closing it, don’t use improper attributes, etc

If you can’t build your site by yourself the way it should be, hire a specialist. It will well worth the money.

7. Plan your link structure carefully, as this is a crucial aspect.

On page SEO checklist

This is a short (actually not so short) checklist of ON page SEO factors i look at when someone asks me to analyze a site. There are others too, more complicated ones. I’ve just decided to share with you the basics… And a little bit more. So, enjoy.

The ON page SEO Checklist

1. The arborescent structure
   • depth of the tree (should be at most 3 levels deep)
   • the logic dependence between levels (the child level has to be a particular case of its parent)
   • Existence of broken parts of the tree
2. Link analysis
   • breadcrumbs (the navigation bar)
   • link structure (related to the structural tree)
   • use only absolute links, no relative ones
   • how is the link built (should contain only lower case words separated with "-"; special character and connection words should be eliminated)
   • length of the link (65 characters top is the best)
   • no duplicate links (different links with same content)
   • links should always end in "/ " (www.mikesquarter.com/article/) due to server loading problems
   • don’t use links ending with extensions (.htm, .html, .php, etc)
   • number of links on a single page
   • title attribute on each link
3. Menus
   • Important keywords in menus
   • absolute text links
   • using Hs where needed
   • Use CSS menus rather than JS or Flash ones
   • use nofollow on secondary menus where needed
4. Indexing and nofollow
   • use robots and index only the important pages (usually search and secondary pages should be excluded)
   • use nofollow internally
5. Semantics
   • Title, keywords and description - unique for every single page
   • using H1 for title, H2 for subtitle, etc
   • using the Alt attribute for pictures and Title for links
   • using Em, Strong, etc to emphasize parts of the text
   • using internal linking
6. Sitemap
   • use a sitemap
   • the standard of the sitemap
   • put in the sitemap only the links you want to be indexed
7. Coding
   • validate your HTML and CSS code (might be impossible to do this, but take care of the important errors. for example, don’t leave opened tags unclosed, don’t use inappropriate attributes for a tag, etc)
   • external CSS
   • try not to use JS, Flash unless really needed. If you have to use it, make sure you have external JS.
   • Don’t use Frames or iFrames
8. Gallery
   • make sure you have a little bit of content on each picture’s page in the gallery. (A short description of the image would do just fine)
   • use the Alt attribute and try to rename the picture accordingly to what you can see in it (actually, according to what you think users will search on Google to find that picture). Be short and descriptive.
   • use proper navigation in you gallery
   • I would not recommend on using Flash or JS galleries, even though they look quite good. That’s if you want your pictures to be found by Search engines.
9. Other problems
   • personalized 404 page returning proper HTTP status code
   • domain canonicalization
   • table less design would be appreciated (not needed though)
   • keep your page dimension as low as you can (many Internet users in the world still use Dial up you know)

Well, this should help you make a decent analysis on your site.

Color in webdesign

I always thought a good designer should be more than creative. He should know stuff, have studies, have read lots of things about design, usability, etc.

Let’s take colors for example. Most of us choose the colors on our blogs/sites depending on one aspect alone: whether if we like it or not. That’s why most of the themes here on MQ had lots of blue and orange. But… a real designer would choose the colors depending on the target and on the style of the site. Because colors make us feel a certain way, so they can and should be used to support the purpose of a website.

Let’s take a look at the main colours now:

• RED : signifies strength and excitement and it can stimulate people make quick decisions
• BLUE: signifies peace, calm, good fortune
• GREEN: best for nature associated websites , as it signifies movement, nature, environment. Should be very careful when choosing green as the main color, as if used badly, has been known to drive people away from a website
• YELLOW is the color of ideas and stimulates mental activity and attention
• ORANGE is the color of energy. Can be used to stimulate people on impulse reactions, such as buying stuff from your online magazine or clicking links
• PURPLE, the color of nobility, combines the energy of red and the stability of blue. Symbolizes wisdom and ambition and is appreciated by the vast majority of children.
• BROWN, the color of reliability, signifies comfort and durability, and gives the websites an air of professionalism. Careful not to confound Brown with Beige, the color of dullness
• BLACK speaks to power, mystery and sophistication. It is used to make the more colorful parts of the sites stand out, like photo galleries. Too much black on a theme can be bad, as it would darken the mood of the visitors.

In the end, remember this: "Color is immediate, emotional and memorable. If you have a website, try this simple test. Look at it for a few moments and write down the feelings and words that come to mind. If your colors aren’t telling you the same story as your content it may be time to look at changing your color scheme."