Long before Twitter was even a public static void main (twinkle in its fathers eye), people were getting all social using forums. Forums are one of the original social media platforms and a great way of easing your way into the world of chatting with strangers, sharing ideas and building an on-line reputation.

There are forums covering all areas of business and leisure from metal detecting (tried it once, it’s on my list of things to do later) to fixing up old motorbikes (currently doing that) and most other things in between.

Some forums are very friendly and some less so but it’s a great way of cutting your teeth so dive in, search for forums related to your area of expertise or interest and give it a go.

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There are armies of people with nothing better to do than argue about which software is better. One company who have had great success with WordPress will swear by that and another whose Joomla website is ranking well will argue Joomla is better.

For me you can use Joomla, WordPress, Drupal or any number of other great systems to build a website. So long as they allow editing of Title, Meta and H elements on a page by page basis along with sensible human readable URL’s they are fit for purpose.

Of course it’s always worth checking for any added functionality you need as Joomla for example may offer readily available tools that will solve your problems as might WordPress for another scenario.

Ultimately your content and the way you promote your site will dictate the success it enjoys or the failure it endures. An all singing and dancing website with all the latest gizmos and wonder tools will fall flat on its face if your content is pants and nobody is looking for it.

Sweat your content not the trivial stuff like software.

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As you will know link building is a key aspect of SEO. Links tell the search engines how important your pages are, without this link signal your pages won’t rank in search results unless they are about something really niche that no other pages exist for.

So software that can help you with your link building has got to be worth having right? Software that is guaranteed to improve your search rankings, software that builds links that stand the test of time,  real top quality links that will propel your site up the rankings.

Software like that has got to be expensive right? After all search rankings can bring lots of valuable traffic to your site so software that does that has got to be costly yes? Well no, its totally free.

So let’s make this crystal clear. This software:

1. Is guaranteed to build top quality links to your site
2. Will propel your site up the rankings
3. Is 100% FREE with no catches

Although this software is free it does require some effort on your part. If you are going to use it you have to be prepared to do some work, the software will do a lot of the work for you and it’s incredible software, but you will have to put some effort in.

The link I’m going to give you may only work for a short while. There are commercial versions of this software, at least software that’s very similar, that costs over £400 so make sure you grab it soon to make sure you benefit.

So before I give you this link I’ll recap one more time.

The link I’m going to give you is for some 100% free software for link building. If you use this software properly I guarantee you will build powerful links to your website and propel it up the rankings. You will need to put some effort in but the software will do all the hard stuff for you. This really is amazing software and I’ve used it to build some amazing links to my web properties.

Before I give you the link there’s just one more thing. Please don’t share this information with others. There’s a chance the link I’m going to give you will stop working if too many people use it so grab it quickly, start using the software and keep it too yourself.

OK, here goes, here’s the link to the software that’s going to change your link building activities for ever. This link is going to make your website a true powerhouse.

Grab your copy NOW!

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I’d suggest grabbing a coffee/tea/coke/beer/wine and some snacks, perhaps some blankets, a tooth brush and maybe your PJ’s as it’s going to take a while to read, but it’s worth the effort

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However, this seems beyond the reach of many people, old and young, so a whole industry has built up to help people control their weight. Special food, special treatments, detox this, crash diet that. It’s mostly a load of bullshit and my less cakes plus moderate exercise formula is all you really need.

So what of SEO? Well in much the same way as fatties all over the world are being ripped off so companies are similarly being relieved of cash under false pretences. There are a dazzling array of get ranked quick schemes being offered by a dazzling array of snake oil salesmen but if you fall for one you only have your self to blame, just like people who eat too many pies paying for magic fat shedding remedies.

Wise up, stop looking for short cuts and get your metaphorical trainers on.

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In the first example my advice would be to revisit or actually do some research to establish phrases worth ranking for. To the uninitiated this is known as keyword research and its objective is to figure out what people who might buy from you actually search for.

In the second example my advice would also be to carry out some keyword research. “How come Dave?” I hear you say. As previously stated the purpose of keyword research is to establish a list of phrases potential customers use when searching. You then use these phrases in your web pages in the hope of attracting visitors. There’s a bit more to it but that’s it in essence. However, finding a phrase doesn’t automatically mean you should optimise a page on your website for it. Let me explain.

Let’s say you start a business selling car insurance. The phrase car insurance attracts over 4 million searches a month, according to Google, and being on page 1 in the search results would guarantee your business boomed. Unfortunately the chances of your new site appearing in the first 100 results let alone the first 10 is zero. Your site has no chance of ranking for the search car insurance.

You might find a snake oil SEO company who will happily take your money and guarantee results but you’d be as well using the money to place a bet on Aberdeen lifting the league cup, it’s not going to happen.

What you need to do is more keyword research in the hope of finding a phrase you can rank for. Admittedly the phrase will attract less searches but if you work at it you at least stand a chance of securing some of that search traffic.

When it comes to SEO you should pick your fights carefully. SEO is time consuming and spending time and or budget chasing the impossible dream should be left to song lyrics and dreamers, in the real world be realistic about your website’s potential to rank for competitive search phrases.

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I know link building is hard but ask yourself why it’s hard. It’s hard because your website is rubbish. If your content is rubbish or simply copied from somewhere else other sites won’t link to it. If you’ve got nothing original to say people won’t listen and link to you to share your insights with others. If your site doesn’t offer a funky widget that actually helps people do something or in some other way intrigues people they won’t share it with others.

People will however share good content with others. Here’s a simple example. Google the phrase day rates or if you are lazy click here and it will be done for you. The result shows a well known web development company ranking at number one for this phrase. Why would a web development company rank number one for a search about day rates? Surely you would expect an HR or recruitment company to be number 1 in Google for a search relating to salary and day rates?

The answer’s simple, we picked up on the fact that day rates were contentious so we decided to give some info about our take on them. We wrote the article and that was that.

Currently the piece has 40 links and a PR of 4. The links have all come in naturally and we haven’t done any link building on the page. No forum spam, no blog spam, no purchased link farm spam no social spamming nothing, just good content people wanted or needed.

I know it’s not a popular point of view because it requires hard work and the application of some grey matter but it’s a simple fact that if you create something people need the links will come in and instead of looking natural they will actually be natural.

It’s a point of view.

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I got back to the office and Hazel gave me a message. A Mr ‘Smith’ had phoned and wanted some into about SEO. I called him and was asked to call back in half an hour.

I called back and the guy said “How much is SEO?”. I politely asked him what he specifically wanted. “How much does it cost to be on page one of Google?”. I started to explain even though I realised I was on a hiding to nothing. The guy stopped me and advised he was actually walking out the door but would call back later.

Here’s hoping he doesn’t……

I’ve got all the time in the world for people who are confused about SEO. I’ll explain in very simple language what it is, how you do it and how to make a website perform better. In fact that’s what we do, free of charge, during an SEO Coffee Break session, we give free seo advice.

Don’t be like Mr ‘Smith’, tap into our expertise and let us help you to get more from your website.

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Large companies with an extensive web presence, newspaper companies for example, have realised the value not of adverts, banners etc, but of links. The latest offering was for 40 links added to articles in their news pages over a 12 month period for £3000.

Apart from being unethical, what these companies are doing is ensuring only companies with deep pockets can buy the links and benefit from them, assuming they work.

I mentioned in a previous post that we’d nearly succumbed to the charms of a corporate link pimp but thankfully we saw the light before it was too late. Mind you, this ethical stance is expensive, there’s good profit to make re-selling this stuff and we’re missing out! So Matt Cutts, come on fella, nail these bloody people!

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On the face of it you might think, fair enough, people need a fixed price. Well, you’d be wrong and here’s why.

To give a fixed price you need, and I mean NEED, a fixed scope of work. If you don’t get a fixed scope but give a fixed price you are on a road to nowhere. Businesses giving fixed prices against variable scopes go bust very quickly. You need to know exactly what’s needed and exactly what you are going to deliver. Where websites are concerned this is often just not possible as clients rarely know exactly what they want, things change as the project progresses and people start to ‘get it’.

Fixed prices on variable scope projects result in the agency rates being degraded to the point where they are no longer making a profit. You start out at £50 an hour, for example, for 10 hours = £500. The scope creeps, the fee doesn’t and suddenly you’ve done 20 hours of work for £500 = £25/hr. With a break even to run your business profitably of £40/hr you are now losing money and tensions start to run high, both you an the client start to get tetchy and things spiral out of control.

That’s not to say some parts of a project can’t be fixed price whilst other parts are left variable. For example, if a client doesn’t know exactly how many pages a website is going to have it’s impossible to give a fixed scope of work. In this case the design and build would be fixed but the content work would be variable. It’s just common sense.

The only way to give a fixed price against a variable scope is to price the project way over the top to cover the worst case scenario, this doesn’t give clients good value for money in my opinion.

This problem gets even more acute where SEO is concerned. Here’s another quote from a client, a different client. “How much to get our site onto page 1?”. Well, how do you answer that. You start by saying you can’t guarantee to get a site onto page 1, then continue with an outline of the work required to make a site the best it can be. SEO never stops because making a site the best it can be and better than its competitors is a never ending task. The best approach is to adopt the tack taken by PR companies and charge a set monthly rate in return for time spent improving the site.

The alternative is to do the work yourself, it’s that simple. The work needs doing and someone is going to have to do it.

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