In Today's Issue
Search Engine Marketing
---> SEO Recommendations Don't Implement Themselves!
High Rankings Happenings
---> Small-Business SEO Package Starting at $749/month
---> April and May SEO Classes Available
---> Recession Buster SEO Website Review
Twitter Question of the Week
---> If you had an extra 20 hours a week...
Stuff You Might Like
---> New SEO Service!
Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week
---> Image Links vs. Text Links
Advisor Wrap-up
---> University Visits, AZ Bound and SMX West Introduction
Hey everyone!
Today's newsletter theme is time. Or the lack thereof ;) Enjoy! – Jill
Search Engine Marketing Issues
++SEO Recommendations Don't Implement Themselves!++
I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of businesses through the years – from tiny one-person small businesses to huge international companies. While there are many similarities in working with different sized companies, there are also important differences.
For instance, what's great about working with small businesses who opt for full-service SEO packages is that you can roll up your sleeves, dig right in, and get the on-page SEO set up quickly and efficiently while starting to see results soon after. While the SEO process itself is similar for large businesses, there's often a difference in how (or whether) the SEO ever gets implemented.
With small-business SEO services, you usually deal directly with the owner of the company, or at least with someone authorized to quickly approve your recommendations, so implementation can go a lot faster. In fact, after a certain level of trust has been established, they will often give you carte blanche to immediately implement whatever needs to be done to increase the website's targeted search engine traffic.
Too many cooks spoil the SEO soup!
With some larger companies, any change to the website – no matter how small – has to be reviewed by Marketing and then implemented by IT. Sometimes the approvals from marketing come quickly but IT puts a crimp in things by saying, "We can't make those changes" or "We don't need to make those changes." Or it can go the other way where IT is ready, willing and able to do whatever is necessary, but Marketing (or sometimes Legal) sticks a monkey wrench into the works. It's not that they're purposely trying to thwart the SEO process, they just have their own stake in the website and how they want it to be.
Don't get me wrong – this isn't true of all large companies. We've worked with many who had prior approval to implement changes, and did so in a timely manner. But this is typically not the norm. Because of this, most large-business SEO is about making recommendations rather than doing stuff. While this makes things easy for the SEO company, recommendations are not always implemented in a timely fashion – and sometimes never at all.
Small businesses aren't immune either.
In an effort to save money, many small businesses opt to learn how to do their own SEO either through SEO classes or website audit reports rather than paying for a complete implementation package. Unfortunately, many of these same companies never implement the recommended SEO advice due to a lack of time.
As a small-business owner myself, I can certainly relate to this lack of time. I don't have time to input my bank statements each month into QuickBooks. I scarcely have time to open the mountain of mail that keeps piling up on my desk. I'm busy helping our clients and barely have time to eat lunch, let alone do additional projects that are out of my area of expertise.
So I absolutely understand the small-business owners who can't find the time to implement their SEO recommendations – even when spelled out clearly and succinctly. But that doesn't make them any less important! Implementing SEO is the most important thing you can do for your website – especially if you're a small business. And unfortunately, SEO doesn't implement itself.
Hire others to do what you don't have time for.
I've recently taken care of my bookkeeping conundrum by hiring someone part time to do it and the other nagging things I don't have the time or inclination to do. If you can't find time to correctly implement your SEO, whether you're a small business or a large one, you need to hire someone else to do it for you. Think of it as an investment in the future of your company.
Like many professional endeavors, sometimes it just makes sense to outsource it to the experts. This is especially true of those business owners who've tried to do it on their own and found they just don't have the time or the understanding to do it correctly.
Be careful out there!
If you decide to outsource your SEO, just remember that all SEOs aren't created equal. In other words, don't hire someone who dabbles in SEO on the side. Be sure to find a company who understands all the ins and outs of SEO, and more than that, be sure they understand why they need to implement certain recommendations. Everything recommended by a professional SEO is done so for a reason. And each and every recommendation should make your website better for your site visitors, not worse. You'll want to work only with an SEO company who agrees with that premise and follows it to a tee! Anything less, and they will be doing you, your business and your website a disservice. But worse than that, they could potentially harm your search engine rankings and traffic rather than help.
While you can be educated about SEO and even have all the recommendations in hand that you need to start increasing your website traffic, if you don't implement it, you'll never take your website and your business to the next level.
Share your comments and thoughts here.
P.S. If anyone would like to republish the above article, please email me your request and where it will reside, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.
Twitter Question of the Week ++If you had an extra 20 hours a week... ++
To go along with today's article about small-business owners not always having enough time to properly implement SEO on their websites, I asked my Twitter followers what they would do with an extra 20 hours of time a week.
Here's what they said:
alkalar: Get reacquainted with my wife. (What's "extra time?")
catmears: 20 extra hrs a week? I'd spend some much-needed time organizing the people I follow on Twitter into more relevant groups for starters.
naominiles: Relax more, spend more time with @koldobarroso, and learn a new skill.
MichelleRobbins: Sleep. I'm behind at least that much during any given week ;)
troyredington: I would definitely write more. fatwallet blog, personal blog, guest blog, novels, poetry...anything really.
macgenie: Take more walks, play more music, do more cooking. (I hope the answer wasn't supposed to be more SEO research!)
leebrinckley: As much as I love my work, I would spend those extra hours with my family and painting.
SebastianX: I'd get funded to launch a Mahalo clone ;-)
Casieg: Write more guest posts and articles for outside sites.
forestsoftware: 20 hours of work time – more content for websites & blogs, but 20 hours leisure time – relearning my photography skills.
karl_ribas: Probably measure and analyze. I can never get enough face-time with my analytics.
diannahuff: Take time off. Cook more. Learn how to play piano. Take in a ballet performance.
LiquidWholeFood: An extra 20 hours per week? Probably work on expanding non-commercial content to help site visitors have extra help.
derekedmond: 3-way split: build out affiliate income stream, spend more time with family, get 1 more hour a day of sleep :-)
surfwebdev: More education: new technology, finances, business classes.
GavinSmithLeeds: Split 3 ways, 7 more hours of sleep, 8 hours to do my own work and 5 hours undisturbed with the better half.
ACTeeple: 20 hours a week would give me at least 1 weekend day to enjoy San Diego. I seem to be working at least a little every day.
And from the Facebook contingent:
Bonnie Parrish-Kell: Catch up on my SEO reading!
Adam John Humphreys: Go out, and actually attend some of these business meetups and tech events I'm constantly invited to.
Jill's comment: Hmm...I wonder if those who mentioned lofty pursuits outside of work would really do them. I have a feeling those 20 hours would have a magical way of disappearing just like the actual hours we DO have each week!
As for what I would do, I'm not really sure. I like to think I'd try to read more, but in reality, I'd probably just play more Scramble on Facebook ;)
Want to participate in the Twitter Question of the Week?
Follow @jillwhalen on Twitter
Share your comments and thoughts here.
Stuff You Might Like ++New Affordable SEO Small-Business Package++
We've listened to our clients, the economic climate, and what we like doing as a company and have decided to offer a Small-Business SEO package that starts at $749/month. We believe this is a reasonable price that is affordable to any small business that is serious about optimizing their website.
While we would love to be able to offer this Small-Business SEO package to any business with a website, it's only available on a case-by-case basis. The main factor is whether we feel we can truly help your website receive more targeted search engine visitors.
Think you might be a good fit? Here are a few other factors we'll be using to decide which companies can participate in this program:
- You must be a legitimate small business that sells your own products or services.
- You must have either a content management system (CMS) that enables us to directly make most of the SEO changes that we may need to make, or static HTML pages that we can edit or upload.
- There can't be major technical issues with your site that impede its crawlability with the search engines. Or, if we determine there are such issues, you will have them fixed by your developers.
- You must set aside some time at the beginning stages of your SEO project to meet with us in person or by phone so we can fully understand your business and its goals. In addition, you will need to be available to provide feedback on keywords and content in a timely manner.
- You must trust our knowledge of SEO and the changes we need to make. In return, we promise not to do anything to your website that would make it worse for your potential clients and customers who find it.
Want to discuss this SEO package (or any of our other services) to see if it's right for you?
Please fill out our contact form here.
Advanced Forum Thread of the Week ++Image Links vs. Text Links++
Forum member Shamon asks the High Rankings community whether image links are given the same weighting by search engines as text links. The thread also includes a discussion of image title attributes, alt attributes for non-clickable vs. clickable links, a lesson on keyword density, and reminds you that there's no specific keyword-to-content ratio for SEO.
Read the thread and leave your own comments here:
Image Links vs. Text Links
Advisor Wrap-up
That's all for today!
I've been busy with a good mix of business and family things lately. Last week we had a client meeting in Cambridge, MA which nicely fit in with taking my son Tim and his friend to check out a couple of universities (Tufts and MIT). I went on the MIT tour with them and was very impressed. It's a cool school that would be a great fit if he gets accepted.
This week I'm heading out to Arizona to do some in-house SEO training for a company there and will be visiting some more universities, but this time with my daughter Corie, who's looking into a couple of law schools there.
Then it's off to SMX West in California for a week of SEO talk, teaching and fun! If you're attending (or just hanging out at the conference hotel bar), be sure to say hi.
Catch you in 2 weeks! – Jill
 Today's issue is also available online in the newsletter archives. If you prefer RSS/XML please feel free to use our newsfeed here. Feel free to forward this email in its entirety to anyone you feel might be interested in it. Paid sponsor ads are clearly marked as advertisements and neither High Rankings nor Jill Whalen take any responsibility for the claims made within these ads, nor the websites they point to. Paid ads do not constitute an endorsement for the products, services or companies advertising in the newsletter. Please visit our sponsors and use your own due diligence for any purchases you make on the Internet.
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