This Week In StomperNet – December 27, 2011
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Christmas is over, and New Years is just days away. Maybe you are already putting up your holiday decorations or waiting a bit longer. But while you are putting things away, don’t let the after-holiday slow down be part of your business.
Many business owners accept that the next few months will simply be slow months. Their budgets and businesses suffer while they grow complacent waiting for spring or summer for the next big promotion. Your business does not need to wait or suffer.
You can do things right now to make your business sparkle in the eyes of your customers and clients. You can provide more hands-on service, more coaching calls for clients, and more attention for customers. Stand out in helping them and in your customer service.
Cut back on your expenses early. Look at your services and products that you use. Many services that used to cost you a bundle can now be used for free and work just as well.
But most importantly,
Read MoreHow to Interview an Outsourced SEO Person
Deciding to move your business to the next level by outsourcing is a big decision to make. Once you take a deep breath and have taken the leap…there’s more to figure out! The nuts and bolts of outsourcing comes next.
You’ve got to figure out from where you are going to hire. Are you going to outsource from the variety of websites available such as oDesk, Elance or Freelancer? Are you going to hire from local resources such as a college or Craigslist? Or are you going to try outsourcing overseas to the Philippines, India or Croatia?
After you consider this initial WHERE…the next part of the process comes in to play. How do you make sure you are REALLY getting the right person? Can they really do what they say they can do?
It would be GREAT if there were a golden answer to that question! The fact is you have to do your best to ask the pointed questions to find out as much as you can about the person you are considering hiring. While a portfolio from a potential outsourcer is good, you still need to ask some direct questions and see how they answer them.
While there are a variety of positions that you can outsource, SEO projects are a top one. Read our Stomper Intelligence Report to find out How to Interview an Outsourced SEO. It will also give you some good ideas for handling other outsourcing positions!
Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC
“If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you’re putting yourself out of business.”
~ Lee Kuan Yew
How to Interview an Outsourced SEO
by Jerry West
There has been a lot of discussion about “Interview Questions” in the SEO space, but let’s face it, you don’t have a lot of time to ask a lot of questions, let alone review the answers. So, here is what I do, having adopted the Howie Schwartz method of “hire fast and fire faster.”
Your number one goal when interviewing an SEO expert is to test their knowledge and ability to learn and grow. You also want to uncover their ability to BS.
How do you do this? Easy. Give them a test project, one that should be completed in less than 30 minutes, to gauge their ability to analyze, process, and recommend a solution. And if they cry because you are too mean, well, that’s a bonus. 
Here are a list of questions I ask when I outsource an SEO project. It will give you an understanding of how well they can communicate and write in English.
SEO Interview Questions
1. What SEO tools do you use on a weekly basis?
You want to know how well-versed they are in the particular market. An SEO’s toolset says a lot about them, the same way a carpenter’s toolbox does. So check their browser. They should be using the SEO extensions for Firefox. For keyword research they should mention at least one of the following: Google Keyword Tool, WordTracker, and Keyword Discovery. For other general uses: SEO Elite, IBP, OptiLink/OptiSpider, etc.
2. What kind of strategies have you implemented for your clients? And what is the domain name?
Then run a backlink check on the site they name, using something like SEO Elite. Are there any shady links? Paid links? Link Farms? If it looks solid, ask them to put your name as the author (temporarily) in the meta author tag, or place your name somewhere on the home page to verify they have control over the site. If they start to make up excuses why they can’t or say, “Oh, we just finished the project last week so we don’t have the FTP info anymore” they are lying and you can move onto the next candidate.
3. How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working?
Hopefully the answer here is “conversions” and not “traffic” or worse, “ranking.” The SEO must realize their job is to drive BUYERS to the site, not just TRAFFIC. Anyone can drive traffic, but it is the exceptional SEO who understands clearly the difference. That is the SEO you want to hire or you will wind up with a lot of traffic and no customers and that just sucks.
4. Of the well-known SEOs, to whom do you pay attention to and whom are you not likely to pay attention to?
I love this one and you should look up their answers to see if you like what those particular SEOs stand for. If you can’t find any information on the SEOs the person mentions, that means who they look up to doesn’t know how to do SEO either.
5. What industry sites, blogs, and forums do you regularly read?
This is a great question and they better rattle off less than a dozen or it is a warning that they spend too much time reading and not enough time working. Again, you want to check out where they hang out and see if those are places which fit your criteria.
6. Tell me your biggest failure in an SEO project?
Good question – watch them squirm in their seat. If they say they have never failed, they are lying or this is their first ever project. Either way, you don’t want to hire them. I fail. I failed last week. It happens. You learn and you improve. Those who cannot admit failure are an unrealized outsourcing nightmare. Avoid it before it begins.
7. In what areas of SEO are you strongest?
Once they answer, test these areas heavily to make sure they are really strong in those areas. You test with a small project at first with a domain you don’t care about and see if they can really achieve what they claim.
8. In what areas of SEO are you weakest?
Make sure they actually admit to a weakness. Those who state “I’m too organized” or “I pay too much attention to detail” are red flags. Everyone has weaknesses.
Finally, don’t forget to do a Google search on this candidate’s name (If you cannot find them, that’s a red flag. And if you can’t find them ask why not.)
There you go. That should give you plenty of information to really assess their worth, while not burying them and you with too many unneeded questions
STOMPER Speed Boost
Need a boost for your business? How about placing an ad in The Net Effect magazine! With subscribers around the world, your business can get exposure in completely new markets.
We offer ¼ page, ½ page and full page full color ads. We also offer business card ads and 10 word to 50 word classified ads.
Watch for more information next week. In the meantime, contact The Net Effect Managing Editor Suzanne Roese-McGee with any questions at: stompersuz@gmail.com
SEO Secret Sauce
SEO Interview Questions:
- What SEO Tools do you use on a weekly basis?
- What kind of strategies have your implemented for your clients?
- How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working?
- Of the well-known SEOs, to whom do you pay attention to?
- What industry sites, blogs and forums do you read?
- What is your biggest failure in an SEO project?
- In what areas of SEO are you strongest?
- In what areas of SEO are you weakest?
Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.
Post Your Comments Here
Read MoreAnatomy of a Search Engine Ranking
It’s a simple fact that search engine rankings can make or break your online business. The higher you are in the search engines, the more clicks you’ll get to your site, and the better chance you have to bring in revenue. And we’re all in this to bring in some revenue right?!?
But the golden question is…HOW DO I GET HIGHER IN THE SEARCH ENGINES?!?
If there was an easy answer…everyone would be doing it! But of course Google likes to keep things interesting and keep us on our toes and change things up for us from “time to time”.
There are, however, some key factors that everyone should be aware of. Most of the “veterans” know these things…but even veterans lose site of the basics occasionally and it’s good to get a reminder.
So for today’s Intelligence Report, we are keeping with our them of week- SEO Basics – and cover Anatomy of Search Engine Rankings – On Page Factors.
Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC
“SEO is a noun, verb, and adjective.”
-Todd Malicoat, Stuntdubl
Anatomy Of A Search Engine Ranking:
How The Search Engines Decide Which Pages Get Ranked At The Top!
“On page factors” refer to the parts of your site that you control. They are the elements of your site itself: the way your page is structured, the words you use, etc.
Some key things you can do to improve your site’s rankings from using on-page factors include:
Use text, not pictures as your main communications tool:
This is often a fault of artist-designed pages. Because they want to control the typefaces, placement and appearance of their pages, artists oftentimes build entire sites using pictures of words, not the words themselves. Although the design of the site is important, using too many images is bad, very bad, because the search engines can’t see words that are contained in pictures, they can only see actual text.
To test this, go to your site, place your cursor at the bottom right corner of your site, left click and drag your cursor to the left and up the page. Any words that turn blue character by character are coded as text (that’s good!)
Any words that turn blue all at once (usually this will happen with large amounts of text at the same time) are pictures of words, (that’s bad!) Generally you want to have any keywords you want to rank on in the search engines as text on your pages, not as pictures of text.
Use keyword rich title tags:
Title tags are shown only in the line at the very top of your browser (the one with the X in the corner to close out the browser) and are included in the header of your page’s code proceeded by the tag . This is an important tag, because only 64 characters are actually displayed. They should be succinct, and include the keywords you are targeting with that specific page.
Don’t make the mistake of leaving the title tag blank (it will appear as Untitled), having it be only your company name (presumably the search engines will get that your site is from your company and index it under that term, so unless you have a very well-known company, leave your company name out of your title tag and instead have it tell them exactly what this page is about), and being the same on every page of your site. Also, remember that the title tag is generally what appears as the first line of your listing on the search engines, so it should also encourage people to click by grabbing attention, creating curiosity, and clearly indicating what that page is about.
Selectively use bolds, italics and larger sized type:
Search engines tend to give higher weight to content that is coded to stand out. Be careful, though, about not overusing this technique as it is popular with spammers and you will receive penalties for overuse!
Link within your site:
Many people ignore the power of properly linking within their site. For example, you may want to link to other pages within your site as resources, to create definitive guides which you link to from other pages on your site, and link to specific blog posts. As always, don’t go overboard with this. Make sure that these links are within the body of the page, not just in the side and bottom navigation bars!
Build larger sites, rather than small individual sites
Evidence shows that larger sites (greater than 100 pages of content) tend to do better in the search engines than smaller sites. While part of this may also be that larger sites tend to be older than smaller sites, it appears that it is better to add additional content to an existing, related site, rather than creating a new site targeting specific keywords.
Now, pay special attention to this next point – we saved the most important point for the last:
Add new content to your site daily (yes, daily!)
Search engines like frequently updated sites, and new content generates more and more food for the search engine spiders to consume and index. A strategy of daily creation of at least one new high-quality content page, which targets a specific keyword, and is linked to with a text link from within your site, could be one of the best SEO tools you could possibly practice! I know it’s hard, but it is definitely worth it! These can be articles, blog posts, new products, how-to information, whatever. The key is something new and good every single day.
STOMPER Speed Boost
Need a boost for your business? How about placing an ad in The Net Effect magazine! With subscribers around the world, your business can get exposure in completely new markets.
We offer ¼ page, ½ page and full page full color ads. We also offer business card ads and 10 word to 50 word classified ads.
Watch for more information next week. In the meantime, contact The Net Effect Managing Editor Suzanne Roese-McGee with any questions at: stompersuz@gmail.com
SEO Secret Sauce
- Use text, not pictures as your main communications tool
- Use keyword rich title tags
- Selectively use bolds, italics and larger sized type
- Link within your site
- Build larger sites, rather than small individual sites
- Add new content to your site daily (yes, daily!)
The STOMPER Buzz
“I feel a lot more confident and I think I’ll really be able to help my business grow and do some amazing things in the next year.” ~Sarah Hudson
Free Live Webinars Next Week:
THURSDAY June 30th, 2011 at 8:00pm Eastern
Public Webinar: Outsourcing Blueprints For More Money, More Time And Less Work! with Howard Tiano.
On this webinar, you’ll discover how to use outsourcing to supercharge your Internet business. If hiring by the hour may be better suited to you. The easy way to train your team, and more. You already know more about Internet marketing than 99% of the brick and mortar business owners out there, let the systems do the heavy lifting! Register Now!
Let us know your thoughts on today’s issue.
Post Your Comments Here
Read MorePress Releases and 16 Ways to Use Hyperlinks
By Joan Stewart
If you want to make a Resolution that will help build your business and improve your promotional campaigns, repeat after me: “Whenever, I write a press release, I will ALWAYS include hyperlinks.”
To Stompers, this is probably a no-brainer…
But Business Wire, one of the major press release distribution services, says only about 13 percent of the press releases it distributes have hyperlinks. People either forget to include them or are unaware of the three most important reasons to use them:
- They improve your search engine optimization.
- They drive traffic to your website.
- They amplify your message.
Used correctly, links can also push consumers to take the action you want them to take, whether it’s buying a product or calling for a reservation. Here are 16 ideas for linking from your press releases. You can use anchor text hyperlinks anywhere within the release, but be sure you have one or two in the first two paragraphs:
1. A sales page
Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t promote from within releases because you’ll offend journalists. Truth is, we write online press releases primarily for consumers, not for journalists. These press releases seldom prompt journalists to cover our story. For that, we must deliver a customized pitch, not a one-size-fits all press release.
2. A video
Announcing a new product? Link to a video that demonstrates how to use it. Promoting an upcoming event? Include video clips and highlights from last year’s event.
3. Testimonials
Don’t just link to written testimonials with photos. How about an entire page of video testimonials which are much more effective?
4. A blog post
If the press release is about a controversial topic you’ve already addressed at your blog, provide the link where readers can join in the conversation.
5. Another press release.
Link to a press release either at your website or on one of the press release distribution sites so readers can learn more about a sub-topic.
6. A podcast.
People have different learning styles, and a link to a related podcast will help auditory learners. They might even be inclined to subscribe to the RSS feed.
7. Your online press room.
A press room isn’t only for journalists. It’s for consumers and anyone else who wants to learn more about you. It can include video, audio, your bio, photos, background information and other content.
8. Your social media profiles.
Let readers know where they can follow you on Facebook and Twitter. Link to your YouTube channel, or photos on Flickr. Be sure to mention why they should follow you.
9. An opt-in box.
Build your list by leading people to a landing page where they can opt in for a special report, eBook, list of tips, a video, or other helpful material.
10. A book you’re selling on Amazon.com.
Why pass up a chance to use your press release to sell?
11. FAQs.
FAQs give readers a great opportunity to learn more about a product, service, cause or issue and help you keep the press release within a reasonable length, about 500 words.
12. Photos and graphics
These can be photos at your website, or on Flickr or other photo-sharing sites. Make it easy for journalists and bloggers to access your photos. Graphics can include pie charts, bar charts, graphs and maps.
13. A page where readers can submit a question.
A great way to generate leads!
14. Customer reviews
These reviews don’t necessarily have to be at your website. You can link to reviews on sites like Yelp or Amazon.com.
15. An online catalog
If the press release is about only one product, link to your catalog so customers can see what else is available.
16. A link to your website
Include a link, not a hyperlink, to your website, preferably high in the release.
I’ve given you lots of ideas here, but don’t go overboard. A good rule of thumb is one hyperlink for every 100 to 150 words.
If you’re linking to pages at your website, be sure the page you are linking back to is optimized for your keywords. If the anchor text is “weatherproof patio furniture,” make sure it’s linked to a page containing “weatherproof patio furniture” in the title tag and within the text on the page.
Use this list the next time you write a press release, and choose the type of hyperlinks wisely!
By Joan Stewart
Publicity expert Joan Stewart, aka The Publicity Hound, shares publicity tips at Twitter.com/PublicityHound and answers publicity questions at Facebook.com/publicitytips. Her tips and commentary have appeared in more than 60 books on marketing, publicity, social media and small business. She publishes “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week” Ezine at http://www.PublicityHound.net. Subscribe and receive the handy cheat sheet, “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”
Press Releases – Another Piece Of The SEO Puzzle
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