This whole issue brings up another issue. Apparently being “penalized in Google” cost Ryan Abood’s company $4 million. From what I can tell, he may have not “done his homework” well enough and found a search engine optimization company that would answer all of the important search engine optimization questions. I have compiled a list of 44 questions that you should consider asking your potential search engine optimization company. These questions are not necessarily in order of importance, and they may not apply to every search engine optimization project. But in any case, here is my list of questions that you should consider asking your potential search engine optimization company.

What type of search engine optimization techniques do you use to achieve search engine rankings?

What type of risk is involved with your method of search engine optimization?

What will happen if our relationship is dissolved?

Can you show me examples of past work?

What was the client’s ROI of their search engine optimization efforts?

Can you give me references? Can I talk to one or more of your current search engine optimization clients?

What type of volume increase in traffic is reasonable to expect from search engine optimization?

How long until I start to see results?

What would you expect from OUR end to aid your work?

What were some of your top search ranking achievements?

What types of internet marketing services do you offer to supplement your SEO (search engine optimization) offerings?

Will my web site point to your web site?

How many number one search engine rankings you have achieved for your clients?

How long have you been providing search engine optimization services?

Are you an individual consultant or are you part of a search engine optimization team?

How long have you and your search engine optimization team been online?

What types of web sites will you not promote?

Do you participate and/or, are you a moderator for any of the SEO – Search Engine Optimization / SEM – Search Engine Marketing Forums? If so, what is your username and can you provide links to your most recent or notable discussions?

Can you describe and/or produce recent successful search engine optimization campaign results?

If so, can I use those clients for references?

Do you have web site design experience?

What is your technical background?

What types of programming environments are you experienced with?

What are your opinions in regards to Best Practices for the SEO – Search Engine Optimization / SEM – Search Engine Marketing industry? How does a company effectively compete online using traditional optimization strategies?

Can you assure us that the search engine optimization strategies and methods that you are utilizing fall under the criteria of Best Practices for the SEO/SEM Industry? Can we assume that this means no penalties for our website?

How many search engine optimization campaigns have you been involved with?

What was your role for those projects?

How many of those search engine optimization projects are still active?

How many of those search engine optimization projects inactive?

If inactive, why?

Do you have experience managing PPC – Pay Per Click, CPC – Cost Per Click, and other bid management campaigns?

What types of programs do you use for PPC bid management?

Are there any guarantees for top search engine positions if we decide not to use a PPC program?

The web sites we are currently linked to have no rank, which means to me that these links are useless.

What linking strategies would you use to increase link popularity for our website?

Is this service part of the proposed price? What types of websites will you target for link exchange?

Our main competitor’s Google PageRank falls between 1 and 3. How would you address improving our PageRank with Google, and other search engines that calculate the number of quality inbound links to our website? Is it possible to rank higher than our competitors?

What changes can we expect you to make to our website to improve our positioning in the search engines?

Will these search engine optimization changes be visible?

Will there be changes in the coding of our website?

What type of reporting (website log analysis) will you provide to us? How often will you provide those reports? Will you provide consultation on how to interpret the reports so that we have a basic understanding of the statistics?

Do you offer ROI analysis? Is this in addition to your contract pricing? Please explain the process of how the ROI will be determined.

Matt Cutts, from Googke, recently had this to say about what you should ask your SEO:
Do you buy links that pass PageRank?
What’s the most aggressive tactic you use?
Anything violate G’s guidelines?

Okay, well, there you go. 44 questions to ask your potential search engine optimization company. If you are employing someone to do your organic search engine optimization, then you might go through this list and see if you can answer all of these questions. If you cannot, then I would ask them. And if they do not answer your questions or cannot answer them, you might reconsider your relationship with them.

The explosion of the internet and social media may be the fastest change in human history. No longer are individuals passively listening and viewing advertisements; now they’re “twittering” and posting their opinions on Facebook along with other social media sites. For little companies, social media’s ever-emerging presence is really a dramatic game-changer that can have a large impact on their bottom line.

Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson is a new book that shows you how you can be successful in social media.

“The stats document a revolution. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months, one in six higher education students enrolled in an on the internet course, YouTube became the second largest search engine within the world and about 80 percent of businesses use LinkedIn to discover employees,” states Mitch Meyerson, author of Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars. “Businesses can’t afford to ignore the rise of social media marketing.”

Meyerson shows company owners these ideas for maximizing their social media achievement:

1. Begin Strategically With Your End Result In Mind

The use of social media is certainly on the rise and it’s no surprise that much more and much more companies are jumping on board to become “social” companies. To use social media and make a profit, though, you have to know precisely why you’re utilizing it. What are you hoping to accomplish with social media?

Do you want to connect with prospects, develop conversations, build your brand, construct your mailing list, or generate revenue? Perhaps you need to do all of these things. Which may be the most important for your organization and how will you manage your efforts?

2. Construct a Human Connection

At the other end of each and every social media conversation is really a individual just like you. They have particular concerns, hopes and dreams that affect their daily lives.

Listen to what they are saying, be empathetic and build bonds. Examples of this consist of acknowledging personal details for example birthdays or providing warm introductions to likeminded friends and colleagues.

3. Track and Measure Your Social Media Advertising Efforts

To reach your goals it’s essential that you monitor the progress of your social media advertising efforts. You are able to most quickly enhance what you measure. If your goal is to measure visitors, sales or Search engine optimization ranking, here are some other free of charge tools that may help:

– Google Analytics and Feedburner.com are essential, free of charge tools to assist analyze your company’s internet website or blog visitors, subscriber count,keyword optimization too as additional trends.
— Bit.ly enables you to shorten your links and track the click-throughs.
— Statsaholic.com compares rankings along with other info on up to three web sites at a time.
– Xinureturns.com is excellent for adding a URL and receiving a load of helpful statistics ranging from search engine optimization (Search engine optimization) to social bookmarking and much more.

There are lots of much more to be discovered with a Google search.

Success Secrets of the Social Media Advertising Superstars by Mitch Meyerson presents the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of much more than 20 of today’s social media elite. Handpicked by Meyerson, the book presents the following authors and topics:

Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson presents the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of more than 20 of today’s social media elite. Handpicked by Meyerson, the book presents the following authors and topics:

Mari Smith: Facebook
Deborah Cole Micek: Twitter
Barbara Rozgonyi: LinkedIn
Julie Perry: YouTube
Brian Clark: Psychology of Social Media
Gary Vaynerchuk: Building Mega-Followings
Joel Comm: Success Qualities
Chris Brogan: Building Communities
Keith Ferrazi & Tahl Raz: Relationship Strategy
Starr Hall: Building Profits
Dan Janal: PR Strategies
Michael Stelzner: Go Viral
Ann Handley: Creating Content
Andy Willbes: Personality
Craig Valentine: Communicate with Impact
Denise Wakeman: Business Blogs
Paul Colligan: Podcasting
Chris Garrett: Social Bookmarking
Kim Dushinski: Mobile Marketing
Shama Kabani: Online Video
Dave Evans: One Hour a Day
Mitch Meyerson: Online Marketing

Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars

Entrepreneur Press * $21.95

ISBN 13: 9781599183770 * ISBN 10: 1599183773

Want to read more about the book? Take a look at what my friend Brian Clark has to say about it.

This query would show you the links to a domain name (including all of the subdomains like www.domain.com, blog.domain.com, etc. etc.). And including -site:domain.com you could exclude certain sites (like the domain linking to itself). You could include even more than one domain in the -site:domain.com, so that you could narrow down the links even further. That’s was especially nice if you wanted to exclude certain links from an entire domain if the domain had a lot of links from one particular domain name.

But just recently, Yahoo! search has just started redirecting the linkdomain search query results to Yahoo Site Explorer. And, the linkdomain:domain.com -site:domain.com search no longer exists. I guess we can chalk this up to one more casualty of the Bing.com/Yahoo.com search alliance that I personally don’t like.

Although the query is being redirected to the Yahoo Site Explorer, the ability to disallow more than one domain name in the query (by adding a -site:domain1.com -site:domain2.com, etc. to the query) is something that we are no longer going to be able to do.

So, most likely, as webmasters and as search engine optimization professionals, we are left to find other ways to monitor our competitors and look for links.

To learn more about what Yahoo is up to, take a look at their recent blog post about important API changes and changes to Yahoo! Site Explorer.

At Bing.com, you might want to use the linkfromdomain query but it doesn’t work the same as the linkdomain search at Yahoo.com did.

According to a brand new survey by CareerBuilder, one-quarter of businesses leverage social media to recruit and research possible staff. Twenty-nine percent of companies with 500 or fewer employees are utilizing social networking in some way. And more than half of leisure and hospitality organizations use social networking to help promote their businesses.

As companies emerge from 1 of the steepest economic downturns in history, they understand the significant reach and importance of using social networking to market and rebuild their organizations. A brand new CareerBuilder survey reports that 35 % of employers use social media to market their company. One-quarter (25 %) of these employers said that they’re utilizing social media to connect with clients and discover new business, while others are utilizing it to recruit and research potential staff (21 %), or strengthen their employment brands (13 percent). The survey was conducted among much more than 2,500 employers between March 18 and June 3, 2010.

Businesses of all sizes and industries report utilizing social networking to market their companies. Twenty-nine percent of organizations with 500 or fewer employees said they do so, followed by 38 percent of companies with 501 to 1,000 employees and 44 percent of businesses with much more than 1,000 workers. Comparing industries, leisure and hospitality topped those surveyed with 57 percent saying the use social networking to market their company, followed by IT, (48 %), retail (43 %) and sales (41 percent).

When it comes to managing social media strategy, 43 % of employers report that their marketing department handles social networking outreach, followed by public relations (26 percent) and human resources (19 percent). One-quarter (25 percent) of employers have 1-3 people communicating on behalf of their organization, whilst 7 % report that 4-5 individuals handle the work. Eleven % mentioned that much more than six individuals communicate for their organization via social networking. Fifty-seven percent said they didn’t know.

Workers report that they’re turning to social networking websites for more than connecting with friends. They’re also using social media to study companies and jobs. Workers who come across organization pages on social networking websites shared what they would most like to see, including:

— Job listings – 35 %
— Q&A or fast facts about the organization – 26 percent
— Information about career paths within the organization – 23 percent
— Evidence that working at the organization is fun – 16 percent
— Employee testimonials – 16 percent
— Pictures of organization events – 12 percent
— Video of new products/services – 10 percent
— Company awards – 9 %
— Research or studies that the company has conducted – 9 percent
— Videos of a day on the job – 8 %

On the flip side, workers also shared the biggest turnoffs when encountering a company via social networking, including the company’s communication reading like an ad (38 percent), failure to reply to questions (30 percent), failure to regularly post information (22 %) and removing or filtering public comments (22 %).

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 2,534 U.S. hiring managers and 4,498 U.S. workers (employed full-time; not self-employed; non government); ages 18 and over between Might 18 and June three, 2010 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset of U.S. employers and/or employees, based on their responses to certain questions). With a pure probability sample of 2,534 and 4,498 1 could say with a 95 % probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.95 and +/-1.46 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

Photo courtesy cnmark on Flickr.com.

Why does the timing of a blog post depend on various or different factors? The best results of your blog post will depend on your definition of success. What is your goal for the blog post? Why are you writing this article, this content, and posting it on your web site’s blog? If you haven’t already, you first need to determine why you’re posting this blog post. I realize that there really is a chance that you are blogging just because you want to blog, but nowadays I would say that about only 3 percent of blogs actually contain blog posts just because someone “wanted to blog”. That leaves about 97 percent of us who have another goal: to gain more traffic and visitors to our web sites (or our blogs), and ultimately convert those visitors somehow. You want to convert your blog’s visitors into:

– buyers of your product or service
– regular readers of your blog

After all, that’s logical. You want to reach out to as many people as you can ultimately interact with them somehow. You want to reach out to people who have not heard of you or your company before. But when is the best time to post a blog post so that you get the maximum benefit of posting that blog post? Again, it really depends on your ultimate goal and the actual content of the blog post.

Breaking News – You do not have to be a “news agency” to post “breaking news” on your blog. If there is a news item in your industry that is important and people will talk about it, then immediately post it on your blog. Make a blog post about it and then, if necessary, go back and edit it again (and even more than once) if necessary. I cannot tell you how many times I have benefited (right here with this blog) from posting something that was newsworthy that people in my industry care about. By posting quickly and getting the word out (by using social media sites), others will notice and they will link to your blog post. Your blog post will rank well in the search engines (hopefully), and people will Tweet about it, Share it on Facebook, and even write blog posts about the topic and link to your blog post. The best time to post about breaking news is immediately. Do not wait until you have written a “perfect article” about the subject, it will be too late. For breaking news in your industry, there is no “best time” except for “5 minutes ago”.

One additional benefit for posting breaking news quickly is that your blog post could show up in areas like Google Trends, which will bring traffic to your web site both directly from Google Trends but also from the search engine itself: you could rank well for a highly searched-for keyword phrase.

Company Announcements – When you make official company announcements, you first need to coordinate them with your PR (public relations) agency. Usually the best time to make an official blog post is right before your press release goes out. I would say that you would want to post it a few minutes or even a few hours (or up to an hour) before your press release is distributed. Why? Most likely you will want to make sure that your blog posts coincides with the press release, and then when people see the press release and then look for the announcement in a search engine you’ll want your blog post indexed. Make sure that you post the blog post before you make the press announcement so that other web sites, when looking for information to link out to, they will find your blog post. Bloggers and media outlets don’t tend to like to link out to press releases unless that’s the only reference out there: and most likely, if they’re writing about the company announcement, someone else will: so make sure that your own blog has information about the topic. That way there is a good chance that others will link to your blog post.

As for a “best day of the week” and “best time” for company announcements, I would tend to follow your PR firm’s lead: usually they are done first thing Monday morning or even Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Friday is generally [b]not[/b] a good day for press. However, if you are looking for another advantage, and you’re rather small, holidays or weekends or even Fridays might be better because they are typically “slow news days”. So, you may want to take that into consideration.

How To Type and Informational Blog posts – If you have a general “informational” or “how to” type of blog post, then most likely you will want to post it around 10:00am or “first thing” in the morning, generally on a Tuesday or Wednesday. In the case of a “how to” type of blog post, it is better to post it in the middle of the week (people are still going through emails first thing Monday morning and not “sharing” stuff on the social networking sites yet). So, for a “how to” type or general “informational” type of blog post, posting it when people are most likely to read it or come across it is the best time. When you make a blog post, I recommend immediately sharing it with others on as many social bookmarking and social networking web sites as you can. If you are able to do that (or have someone do it for you), then you are at an advantage: the search engines generally will pick up your blog post fairly quickly and rank it well: and when it ranks well there is a good chance that others looking for similar content will link to it or share it with others when they see it.

Also, if your blog posts mentions a company (or your company) by name in the title or prominently in the blost post, the blog post may end up ranking well for that company name: and it will show up in the “recent blog posts” area on Google Finance. You may receive additional traffic to your blog post (and maybe some more links) if you show up in Google Finance.

So, the best time to post “how to” and informational blog posts is going to be mid-week, during the day.

When not to post a blog post?
There are several times, if you will, when you should not post a blog post. I generally recommend promoting your blog post (in some way), like tweeting on Twitter about it. Tell your Twitter followers that you just posted a blog post. Hopefully by now you’ve linked your social media accounts together, like linking your Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, blog feed, and other accounts together. If you are not in a position to immediately help promote your blog post once it’s posted (start promoting it with 4 hours), then I wouldn’t make a blog post and then go home for the weekend.

If you have an important company announcement, then I would not post it over the weekend or on a Friday or even at the close of the business day. Unless, of course, you have some sort of need to wait until the stock market closes or some other company financial reason.

There are good times to make a blog post and then there are bad times to make a blog post. I have literally posted thousands of blog posts over the past several years and, by trial and error, I’ve learned that you should not write a great blog post and then post it on a Friday afternoon. No one will be around to read it and start helping you spread the word about it. And, nowadays, writing the blog post is only half the battle. To be successful, you have to promote it.

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) has just released a report on Twitter’s explosive growth worldwide. The comScore study found that in June 2010, about 93 million Internet users visited Twitter.com. This is an overall increase of 109 percent over last year. Indonesia reported the highest number of users, with 20.8 percent of Internet users in Indonesia visiting Twitter.com in June of 2010, followed by Brazil and Venezuela. Venezuela’s growth fueled in large part by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s decision to join Twitter in late April 2010. This just goes to show that if you do not have a Twitter social media account for you or your business, then you need to set one up right away.

In June 2010, about 93 million unique global users age 15 and older visited Twitter from a home or work location. This is an increase of 109 percent from last year of June 2010. Keep in mind that this data excludes usage of Twitter-based applications such as TweetDeck and Hoot Suite.

An analysis by comScore of the five major global regions revealed that Latin America experienced the strongest audience growth, surging 305 percent to 15.4 million users. Asia Pacific ranked as the second-fastest growing region, climbing 243 percent to 25.1 million visitors. The Middle-East Africa jumped 142 percent to 5 million visitors, while Europe soared 106 percent to 22.5 million visitors. North America, where Twitter has reached a higher maturity level than other regions, saw a growth of 22 percent to nearly 25 million visitors in June.

Here are the numbers from comScore:

  Visitation to Twitter.com by Global Regions
  -------------------------------------------
  June 2010 vs. June  2009
  ------------------------
  Total Audience, Age 15+ -Home & Work
   Locations*
  ------------------------------------
  Source: comScore Media Metrix
  -----------------------------
                        Unique Visitors (000)
                        ---------------------
                     Jun-09      Jun-10    % Change
                     ------      ------    --------
  Worldwide            44,520      92,874       109
  ---------            ------      ------       ---
  Latin America         3,792      15,377       305
  -------------         -----      ------       ---
  Asia Pacific          7,324      25,121       243
  ------------          -----      ------       ---
  Middle East -
   Africa               2,058       4,987       142
  -------------         -----       -----       ---
  Europe               10,956      22,519       106
  ------               ------      ------       ---
  North America        20,390      24,870        22
  -------------        ------      ------       ---

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Across the 41 individual countries currently reported by comScore, Indonesia at 20.8 percent had the highest proportion of its home and work Internet audience visiting Twitter.com. Brazil ranked second with 20.5 percent penetration, followed by Venezuela at 19.0 percent. With Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez joining Twitter in late April, Twitter.com penetration in the country spiked 4.8 percentage points in a few short months. The Netherlands (17.7 percent) and Japan (16.8 percent) rounded out the top five, while countries in Latin America and Asia Pacific represented many of the remaining top markets, including the Philippines (14.8 percent), Mexico (13.4 percent) and Singapore (13.3 percent).

  Top 20 Markets by Twitter Penetration
  -------------------------------------
  June 2010
  ---------
  Total Audience, Age 15+ -Home & Work
   Locations*
  ------------------------------------
  Source: comScore Media Metrix
  -----------------------------
  Location                     % Reach
  --------                     -------
  Worldwide                             7.4
  ---------                             ---
  Indonesia                            20.8
  ---------                            ----
  Brazil                               20.5
  ------                               ----
  Venezuela                            19.0
  ---------                            ----
  Netherlands                          17.7
  -----------                          ----
  Japan                                16.8
  -----                                ----
  Philippines                          14.8
  -----------                          ----
  Canada                               13.5
  ------                               ----
  Mexico                               13.4
  ------                               ----
  Singapore                            13.3
  ---------                            ----
  Chile                                13.2
  -----                                ----
  United States                        11.9
  -------------                        ----
  Turkey                               11.0
  ------                               ----
  United Kingdom                       10.9
  --------------                       ----
  Argentina                            10.5
  ---------                            ----
  Colombia                              9.6
  --------                              ---
  South Korea                           9.3
  -----------                           ---
  Ireland                               8.4
  -------                               ---
  India                                 8.0
  -----                                 ---
  Malaysia                              7.7
  --------                              ---
  New Zealand                           7.5
  -----------                           ---

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

What’s interesting is that an analysis of Twitter usage via mobile for the six mobile markets currently reported by comScore (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy) revealed that Twitter is gaining adoption among smartphone users. In the U.S., 8.3 percent of smartphone users (4.2 million people) accessed Twitter.com in a month via the browser on their mobile devices, outpacing each of the European markets. In Europe, 2.8 percent of smartphone users overall accessed Twitter.com (1.7 million users), with the U.K. experiencing the strongest penetration in the region at 5.8 percent, followed by Germany with 3.1 percent and France with 2.1 percent.

  Twitter Penetration Among Mobile
   Smartphone Users*
  3 Month Avg. Ending June 2010
  Total Audience Age 13+
  Source: comScore MobiLens
  -------------------------
                  Twitter    % Reach of
                  Audience   Smartphone
                     (000)      Users
                 --------   -----------
  United States      4,246          8.3
  -------------      -----          ---
  Europe             1,681          2.8
  ------             -----          ---
  United
   Kingdom             793          5.8
  --------             ---          ---
  Germany              322          3.1
  -------              ---          ---
  France               173          2.1
  ------               ---          ---
  Spain                165          1.5
  -----                ---          ---
  Italy                227          1.4
  -----                ---          ---

*Includes only mobile browser access to Twitter and does not include other Twitter-based mobile applications.

comScore says that “For applications such as Twitter that function as an instantaneous broadcast medium, the mobile device represents the ideal platform to engage with this content anytime and anyplace,” added Mr. Mudd. “The advanced web browsing features of smartphones enable this behavior, making it likely to accelerate as these devices gain continued adoption. While desktop-based Internet usage is still king, mobile web usage is surging on a global scale placing applications like Twitter at the forefront of that paradigm shift.”

For this particular search engine optimization tip, let’s review your image Alt Tags and putting keywords in your Alt Tags.

What exactly is an Alt Tag?
Let’s take a look at what Wikipedia says about Alt Tags. Wikipedia explains what an Alt Tag really is: “The alt attribute is used in HTML and XHTML documents to specify text that is to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered. In HTML 4.01, the attribute is required for the img and area element types.”

Wikipedia actually tells us that Alt Tags are really a Misnomer. They say that:

“The alt attribute is commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as an image’s “alt tag”. It is not intended to provide “pop up” text or tooltips when a user’s mouse hovers over the image, though alt text has historically been presented in this way in some web browsers; HTML’s title attribute is intended for supplementary information that can be used in this way. (To use alt correctly and suppress the tooltip that some web browsers generate, a web author can use an empty title attribute.)”.

Alt Tags are really technically called “alt attributes”. But, let’s just call them Alt Tags because that’s what I’m used to calling them.

How do you use an Alt Tag?
It’s pretty simple, really. Alt Tags are added to images, in the html code when the image is called for in the html code of the web page. The easiest thing to do is to insert the image on the page and then add or edit the alt tag. Take a look at the alt tag example from NetMechanic. The keywords that describe that image is put into the alt tag for the image.

What is important here is that each image on your web site contains a unique Alt Tag or “alt attribute”. The keywords used should describe the image perfectly. Try to be as specific as possible. For example, when I added the screen capture of the NetMechanic example of the image alt tag usage, I used the keyword phrase “Image Alt Tag example”. I believe that it perfectly describes what you will find when you look at that image.

So, for this search engine optimization tip, keep in mind that the Keywords in the Alt Tags are important. They should describe what you will see in the image perfectly. If the image is an image of a 35 year old female doctor holding a stethoscope, then I would use the keyword phrase “35 year old female doctor holding stethoscope” in the image’s Alt Tag. If you use multiple images on your web site, make sure that if the image is a different image then it will need a unique image Alt Tag.

What has changed recently
Filling out and adding image alt tags to the images on your web site is nothing new. In fact, I have been using image alt tags for at least 10 years, and maybe even longer (after all, I have been doing organic SEO since 1996). But, what has changed recently? Why all of a sudden am I writing a blog post about image alt tags? Well, consider this:

There is strong evidence that the search engines are now giving more weight to Alt Tags than they are the Title Tag or even an H1 Tag on the page. What?!? Yes, that’s right. You do need to make sure you use proper Title Tags and H1 Tags, but more SEO value for organic search engine rankings can be gained by using proper Alt Tags than using proper Title Tags or H1 Tags.

Take a look at this data from SEOmoz, which is a part of what they reported here and here:

Photo courtesy SEOmoz.

Take a look at the evidence. Having your keywords in the body text of your page (mentioning the keyword somewhere on the page) is important, but having your keywords in the Alt Attribute is very important. Even more so than the H1 Tag or the Title Tag. So, if you are not happy with how your web site is performing lately in the organic or “natural” search engine rankings, you may need to adjust your search engine optimization efforts. In fact, you may need to take a look, again, at your image alt attributes to make sure that all of the images on your web pages have the proper image alt attributes.

Quite often, one of the most overlooked and simplest-to-change image alt attribute that could make a big difference is the logo image on your website’s home page. Many of us have an image as our logo, and you might be able to change it so the image alt attribute includes your main keyword phrase. Just don’t over do it buy “keyword stuffing” your image alt tags.

What’s the best way for B2B companies who market to small businesses to drive word of mouth? Here are some tips from marketing experts Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends and John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, who spoke at the Corporate Executive Board’s Enterprise Council on Small Businesses Summit last June:

– Be human. Corporatespeak and heavy-duty marketing pitches turn small business owners off, says Campbell: “They love to see people’s faces.” Put employees’ pictures and individual voices on your website and other marketing materials, she suggested.

– Cultivate your cheerleaders. Your business has enthusiastic advocates out there, counseled Campbell – find them, encourage them, support them. These folks are valuable assets in the world of word-of-mouth marketing: They’ll defend you to critics and praise you to anyone who asks.

– Do your homework. Your customers are probably using social media, advised Jantsch – so friend them, follow them, and engage with them. Know what your targets have done on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn before you pitch them anything.

– Add value. You’ll get more word-of-mouth power by using social media to educate your audience rather than selling to them, said Campbell.

– Get it on video. Jantsch suggested interviewing customers on video about their experiences with your products and services. It’s great content that’s easily shareable on your site or theirs, or through other marketing channels – and customers love it.

– Engage with unhappy customers. When you find disgruntled customers airing their grievances in public – for example, in online reviews of your company’s products or services – jump in and try to make it right, said Jantsch. And do so in public, where the rest of your target market can see you being responsive: That’s how you establish trust with your audience.

– Take turns. Give different functions within your company a chance to respond directly to online comments and inquiries, right up to the CEO, said Jantsch. When top management understands the kind of conversation that’s already happening online with your customers and target market, they’ll really see the value in devoting resources to cultivating word of mouth.

Erika Penzer Kerekes heads product strategy and social media for Business.com.

Job responsibilities include:

Developing the organic search strategy

– Review all relevant material or attend meetings to gain a full understanding of their client’s marketing/site goals and objectives

– Translate client’s marketing goals into a responsible and successful organic strategy based on your knowledge of the search engine algorithms

– Communicate your strategy directly to their client, including onsite visits

Creating detailed SEO recommendations

– Develop keyword strategies for optimal on-site performance

– Provide detailed site analysis

– Provide actionable competitive analysis

– Develop detailed recommendations for site changes

– Develop a comprehensive linking strategy

Monitoring progress and adjusting the optimization strategy accordingly

– Establish SEO audit baselines

– Establish SEO performance baselines

– QA all SEO recommendations, before and after launch

– Analyze monthly search engine performance reports to determine if new optimizations are needed

– Monitor client site and competitor site changes

Improving SEO expertise

– Stay updated with new search engine algorithm changes and tactics

– Write client-ready POVs and internal SEO standards documents

– Keep abreast of latest search engine trends and news

– Recommend and research new tools and offerings (e.g. social search, reputation mgmt., local search etc.)

– Participate and occasionally lead SEO team meetings

– Mentor junior SEO Specialists

Assisting in Sales process

– Assist on renewal activities

– Upon request, analyze prospective sites for sales opportunities

Experience/Education

– BA or BS required in Marketing, IT or a related field

– 3-5 years experience in organic Search Engine Optimization

– 1-3 years writing/editing web pages

– 1+ years of experience in web development

– Experienced client-facing presenter

– Ability to handle multiple clients simultaneously

– Excellent writing and communication skills

– Proficiency with a variety of SEO tools (indexing, on-page and linking)

– Proficiency with MS office tools

This role is Boston and New York based with compensation packages between $70k and $120k commensurate with experience. Please contact Domenic Costagliola for more information:

Domenic Costagliola
ICONSTAFF

Work: 978-521-9190 x12
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/domcosta1
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Domenic-Costagliola/1009087869
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DomCosta1

The specific duties include:

* Understand the customer’s product, markets, the competitors, and their marketing objectives and goals.
* Identify and develop the most effective and cost-efficient search engine strategy to achieve the client’s objectives and goals. Insure the strategy is integrated with the client’s holistic marketing strategy.
* Coordinate and optimize paid and organic search marketing strategies.
* Work with analytics team to evaluate the success of the search marketing strategy, and recommend enhancements.
* Serve as the primary point of contact for the client, and develop a strong client relationship.
* Responsible for the renewal of client accounts, and for identifying new sales opportunities within the client’s business.

Skills and Experience Required:

* A minimum of 5-7 years of product marketing experience
* Previous search engine marketing is preferred
* Computer skills including proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and PowerPoint.
* Must have excellent attention to detail and the ability to effectively multi-task in a deadline driven atmosphere
* Excellent writing and communication skills
* Strong strategic marketing skills
* Excellent interpersonal skills, and client skills, must be eager to work as member of a team
* Must possess the skills needed to renew clients and identify new sales opportunities

Willingness and ability to travel and work extended hours as needed

This role is Boston and New York based with compensation packages between $70k and $120k commensurate with experience. Please contact Domenic Costagliola for more information:

Domenic Costagliola
ICONSTAFF

Work: 978-521-9190 x12
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/domcosta1
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Domenic-Costagliola/1009087869
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DomCosta1