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Good SEO vs. Bad SEO "how do you test to know"?

Written by: Erik Brinkman

Article Overview: When considering investing for the long run in Search Engine Optimization on your sites, you will encounter many people who claim to have the "secrete formula" for SEO. We all encountered good versus bad professionals in every industry. Every professional group including Real Estate, Attorneys, Car Sales, Insurance Sales, Contractors, and even Doctors, all have the good ones and bad ones. We all require certain demands from professionals, unfortunately through trial and error, or simply wasting time and money, you search until you find the good ones that can provide you with a quality product or service.

Good SEO vs. Bad SEO "how do you test to know"?

In the world of SEO how do know the Good ones from the Bad ones? A good place to start to find out who is real and who is not is during your interview process. To follow is some very direct questions you have the right to ask. Don't worry if you do not understand the language at this point, you are more interested in not so much as what there answer is but rather how they answer the questions. Listen, really listen, do they stutter, do they need to put you on hold to get an answer, do they give you a factual answer or a run around response? Have fun with this and never be afraid ever to ask any one from any profession the hard questions.

Real SEO professionals understand that results come from the math, or referred to as the Algorithm. Know the math, get the results!

Have fun!

SEO Quiz:

How do you determine what keywords I should use?
• Can you provide me with a keyword count that is searched monthly?
What are your rules for the title browser?
• What is your strategy, if any, for how many characters should be in the title browser?
• What is your strategy for the percentage of Density needed to achieve the target keyword?
What is your strategy for the Description tag?
• Do you have a strategy for how many characters should or should not be used?
• Do you have a strategy for the density of relevance for each target, a percentage?
What is your believe on Meta Tag Keywords?
• Are they valuable, if not why, if so, who still recognizes them?
Do you have any rules for on page keywords?
• Density? Placement of these words?
• Is there any value in the syntax variations?
How does Google treat the differences between a word that is plural versus singular?
Does Google treat differently in their algorithms a noun versus a pro-noun?
What is Page Rank and is it really important?
How valuable are backward links?
How does Google measure a sites age?
1. URL Registration date?
2. Launch Date?
3. Last Page Updated?
Since there is nothing coming from Yahoo, Google, or MSN informing the world what their algorithms are, how do you go about coming up with your strategy?
Finally - can you show me the results you are getting for clients?
(get the hard keyword phrases, do not let them show you results they are getting for the companies own Branded name, too easy. For example if they rent cars in Denver, make them show you at least a report that has 40 ways one might search for a "Rental cars in Denver" and how they are rankings on page one for Google, Yahoo, and MSN at least.

Remember this there is no Magic, no quick fix, or real secretes to SEO, it all comes back to math and the good ones reverse engineer the results of search engines to determine what the math is. All in all when we are done we check off 87 different things we watch for.

For propriety reasons I will not provide the answers to any of these questions here within this form, it would defeat the purpose. Real potential clients are free to contact me via email using your companies email address, or call me directly from your office.

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Article Tags: algorithm, algorithms, backward links, density, factual answer, google, keyword count, launch, meta tag keywords, page rank, pro noun, profession, relevance, seo, singular, stutter, syntax, target, url registration, variations



Related Forum Posts
test, test, test - Hi Sandy, The great thing about online marketing is that everything can be tested and you can quickly gauge if something is working or not. Run two tests, see if people respond better to the one option or the multiple options. Your customers will tell you which method they prefer and will vote with their wallets. Test your headlines, test your messaging, test your pricing, test your # of options - test everything! Good luck!
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - [quote="Mal Tindle":3nfptc37]Hi Alan, Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to have a look. You have noticed that my old site is not as appealing as the new one and I will be endeavouring to balance them up a bit in the near future as cross promotion is very important to me as well. As you say, test, test and test again and discard what's not working. One thing I will not be doing is giving up as I am here for the long haul as I know you are too, thanks for the words of encouragement, best wishes, Mal.[/quote:3nfptc37] Hi Mal. No problem. I would agree... linking the two together would be very beneficial for sure. In fact, there's no need to wait to update the old site. I would keep promoting it as well as the new one. Good to hear. I had wanted to give up in the past. Looking back on it, the idea was rather juvenile... and I'm so glad I've kept with it.
Re: Is facebook adverts effective? - Hi Yinka, If you run a test, could you let us know the result? Good luck. David H
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - Hi Alan, Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to have a look. You have noticed that my old site is not as appealing as the new one and I will be endeavouring to balance them up a bit in the near future as cross promotion is very important to me as well. As you say, test, test and test again and discard what's not working. One thing I will not be doing is giving up as I am here for the long haul as I know you are too, thanks for the words of encouragement, best wishes, Mal.
Re: Lightbox Overlays -- a poll! - I don't think anybody in a poll would say a Lightbox Overlay that pops up after X seconds but if you test it out you'll likely get solid results from it. A simple A/B test as Jeff suggests is a great idea.


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