Cshel Chicago SEO, PR and Web Development

SEO 101: Link Building

Posted on 01. Jul, 2008 by Carolyn Shelby.

Dave Conklin from ProspectMX joins Ne0 and me to discuss link building basics. Why did this guy get to be the guest? Because his company made this super cute Link Building 101 poster (pdf). We managed to cover most of the techniques on this kitschy primer, but had enough left over that we might do a Part 2 to cover the rest.

The Handout
Seriously, this is frame-worthy. I’m going to get a big laminated version to put on the wall in my office.

Things we cover in this episode include:

• Press releases (for links) — pay attention as there are some good tips for not breaking your budget and how to know when you should use free services versus when it’s a good idea to use the paid services.
• Wikis and Social Sites
• Traditional Link Building — Cherry picking links, how to ask for links the right way, how to NOT ask for links, etc.
• Paid Links, Link Exchanges and Directories

Popularity: 67% [?]

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SEO 101: Valuing SEO-Conscious Web Design

Posted on 22. Jan, 2008 by Carolyn Shelby.

SEO 101 listener Paul Mycroft asked (via the SEO 101 forum on WebProWorld) what SEO services we think a web designer like him could offer/should be offering and how those services would differ/compare to a full-time SEO specialist.

From the question, it sounds like his clients are small to medium sized businesses that either aren’t ready for a full blown SEO specialist or don’t have the budget for a dedicated SEO person right now.

Paul says he spends much of his time each month designing, building and maintaining web sites and, in the process of doing so, he also performs some monthly SEO maintenance for those clients. The monthly SEO maintenance includes Google Analytics/traffic software analysis, keyword and internal linking adjustments, and some external link development. Paul estimates that he spends about four hours per month per client on these activities, and that the clients are getting what he considers to be “decent results”.

Our analysis
Additional services Paul could offer, like more intensive link development or linkbait/content writing would add a tremendous amount of time per client and would cause his workload to bloat to the point he needs to start outsourcing to other SEOs or developers, hire help, or try to handle everything by himself (and probably burn out in the process).

If hiring help or outsourcing aren’t in the plans, Paul should continue to provide the services he’s already performing for his clients, but make sure he’s educating them on the actual value of what he’s doing for them. He might also want to update his promotional literature to reflect a greater emphasis on SEO-conscious web design and list all of the benefits of building SEO into your website from the get-go, rather than trying to optimize a site as an afterthought to the design process.

So what are the benefits that should be emphasized?

• A bot friendly site. The most awesome website in the universe is a waste of time and money if no one ever visits it.
• Proper use of stylesheets. Way, way, WAY too many web designers and developers think it’s good, right and proper to use stylesheets for *everything* and do so to the point they omit important things like H1 tags and <strong> tags, and other HTML structures that the bots use to understand what is important on the page.
• Good content. It’s not that most businesses can’t come up with quality content for their websites — most people in general just don’t know what defines good content. Having a developer or SEO consultant who can guide the client and educate them on how to locate good content, and then tweak it to be perfect content, is practically priceless.
• Good URL structure. Do you have any idea what a colossal pain in the keister it is to try to fix bad url structure after the fact, or patch a content management system that makes crappy URLs by default — especially AFTER the site has gone live? Trust me… this is another one of those things that you just don’t fully appreciate until you’ve had to do it the hard way.
• Graceful degradation. Graceful degradation is when your site is viewed by users who don’t have a browser capable of rendering it as it was intended to be viewed, but it is STILL USABLE despite not being as pretty as originally planned. Good SEO generally leads to good usability… and to steal a line from St. Martha, “that’s a good thing.”

What Paul is already doing for these businesses is probably worth a lot more than they realize, and worth a lot more than they’re paying. He should probably raise his rates. ;)

Popularity: 100% [?]

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SEO 101: What You Should Expect From Your SEO

Posted on 11. Dec, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

I’m absent from this episode of SEO 101 because I think I was stuck in Omaha working, so it’s just David (NeO) Brown and Brian (#1 Tool) Mark answering a listener question about what he should expect from his SEO consultant in terms of service, reports and support. This is a great episode, and I even ended up taking notes :)

In a nutshell, a lot depends on your payment level. If your budget is less than a couple thousand dollars a month, Brian believes you’re better off keeping your money and using it towards PPC. On the other hand, if your budget is $2,500 a month and up, you should definitely feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. Download the podcast to listen to Brian and David go in-depth into what you should be looking for from your consultant or firm and what kinds of results you can/should expect.

Programming Note!! Tune in to WebmasterRadio.fm on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 1pm/Noon/10am (Eastern/Central/Pacific) to hear the special 100th episode of SEO 101. It’s basically a clip show, but it’s full of out-takes and stupid stuff we said when we didn’t realize Brian was recording, so I’m sure it will be hilarious (and hopefully not too embarrassing!).

Popularity: 53% [?]

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