Social media. It seems like just about everyone is getting as active as can be on all the different social networks on the web, but is this really a requirement if you want your website to rank well in Google? That's a question that was recently raised in the Webmaster World forums.

Traditional search engine optimization techniques may involve tweaking your site's code, attracting backlinks, and working on your keyword density, but it seems that Google is also looking at other signals to determine what content is the most relevant and the most useful to its users. And social media could represent one aspect of that. After all, if you're getting a lot of mentions on Twitter, there's a good chance that your site is important.

However, that's not necessarily to see that "going social" is an absolute requirement. User "netmeg" puts it quite well:

"I think about 'going social' the same way I think about 'going mobile' - where are my users? If that's where they are, then that's where I want to be."

Social networking may not be appropriate for all kinds of sites in all kinds of niches, but you could be missing out on opportunities if you do choose to bypass the social sphere. Let's not forget about all the indirect SEO goodness that comes with social media, like increased brand awareness and more links from influential people.

A poll was posted on SE Roundtable discussing exactly this and, as of the writing of today's post, nearly 60% of respondents say that social is required to compete in search rankings, whereas only 33% say that social isn't needed. What do you think?

South African Companies that have found homes on the web discover that it is more and more difficult identifying their target audience, and even a lot more challenging to establish the course of action to be able to best leverage the market trends vis-à-vis the spending tendencies of these markets. This phenomenon came about as soon as the Web grew to become a hodge-podge of continuously produced web sites and content pages, each one to provide a specific objective or even focus on a specific market.

With no constraints set by languages, location, and in many cases an enormous overhead start-up investment, companies are left to reach out practically blindly to a market and hope for a positive reaction. Still left clueless, some companies are more likely to neglect the incredible significance of choosing a dependable niche market. This niche market, with its consistent patronage, helps convert website visitors and media hype into concrete profits.

That's exactly where Search engine optimization comes in. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process through which SEO service providers enhance a website by improving the content material pages, cleaning up its codes, and rendering it much more consumer-centric, in order to achieve a better standing in the listings yielded by search engines like google. This is particularly significant at a time where search engines like yahoo are typically the most popular resources for users to swim through a huge selection of Internet clutter to find the specific information, services or products they are searching for.

Search engines handle the task of searching through Internet content to find something as close as they can to the keywords and phrases entered by the user in the search field of the various search engines. In crawler search engines like yahoo, for instance, the search engine emulates the crawling movement as it searches through web pages and studies the relationship and relevance to one another of links and pages available on the internet.

Based on popularity amongst Internet users, quality of service, and relevance of keywords and phrases to website subject material, a variety of website's content are ranked in accordance with how they match up with that which was queried. Of course, top-ranked internet websites typically produce more targeted traffic compared to those found in the other pages, and as such, it is every company's goal to become top-ranked as soon as possible.

Making sure that content is useful, written effectively, and relevant is an imperative first step. Often, various websites tend to claim information on a certain field or topic, only to discover that they are unable to deliver these promises to their customers. Instead, when content is useful, relevant, and written in an effective manner, users are benefited in that they find exactly what they are looking for, maybe even more. This will likely solicit increased patronage from users and customers.

Moreover, streamlining content by making sure that it is closely related to the keywords help keep the page relevant, and increases its chance of ranking higher in listings. In addition to this, steps also have to be made in order to make sure that the website is updated often, and that the links are all working properly. This measures the usability of a website, and if it does not do well in this category, it will likely not be ranked as high by the major search engines. Why should ranking in the major search engines matter at all?

It matters because if the website is not ranked into the first couple of pages of the matches found by the search engine, chances are, customers who could be benefiting from its content and from whom the business could be generating profit are not getting to the page. This could render the website absolutely useless; in fact, what on earth is the use of a website on the net which is not seen by visitors and online users?

Moreover, effective SEO that translates to better rankings actually defines the nature of traffic that gets generated by the website. With meaningful and helpful content material made readily available to the general public, the website gains patronage from people who value total satisfaction and service offered to them online.

Greater patronage from those who actually utilize the information provided within the web page can translate to their continued accessing of the website, and can even translate to a higher probability that these people will trust the business enough to make frequent purchases of the product or service.

In conclusion it must be said that what SEO represents within the light of any business is the chance to stay ahead of the crowd. In an era where customers are offered a huge variety of options, only those that provide a bit of of integrity by means of unbiased representation even in the beginning as soon as the information is listed in a search engine, and actually end up delivering what they promise, gain the benefit of maximizing the Internet's business potential.

Offering SEO as a service is extremely competitive and there is always a new Design agency or IT company coming out of the wood works suggesting that they can offer SEO.

The thing that all us SEO professionals know is that they are no where near as experienced as what other SEO companies are and have been doing for years but there are still a few pointers to go by to stay ahead of the game.

Be different
Offer a unique service and do well at it. Be on top of the game and up with new algorithm changes and what is happening in the industry.

Be competitive
Do a good job at the right price and deliver on time. You do not want to guarantee results at a time frame if you can not stick to it.

Be aggressive
Work hard on all your clients, if you are overloaded with work this does not mean you should spend less time on one client and more with another, spread out your efforts evenly even if it means you need to work harder or get a helping hand.

Be assertive
Always stay positive and on the ball, if your clients ask questions through email do not delay responses, keep them happy and trusting in you by answering all the questions they have asked you.

Ask questions
Get to know your clients marketing perspective, what they have done in the past both online and offline and what has or has not worked for them and use this information wisely. To be successful in any SEO or Marketing project you must ask questions before the project and during. If it’s a one way street it will not last.

Prove your experience
Show your clients examples of results you have achieved for keywords and sites you have got to 1st page of the search engines on and testimonials of clients that are genuinely happy with your work.

Reporting
Give your clients monthly reporting and if they require reporting when they ask you should also provide this. It will settle their nerves and give them the information they need to see that you are actually doing the work.

When there's hope, there's always a chance that we can plant a healthy tree and it's on our attitude. The same thing with search engine optimization, when we do our SEO services, we must think that in order to grow our tree, high quality services must be observed. But first let's start from the bottom, shall we?

First we plant a seed that symbolizes a beginner or a newbie. In order to make the stem grow over and over again, we must learn from the basics to advanced. Don't jump till you don't know what you're doing, or else the stem will just stay as ease or will fall. We consider ourselves as the SEO tree.

As we grow our knowledge, it's just like the water flows like a rain to make the roots grow until leaves came out. We must try to see that when we are growing and growing, just keep pushing until you finish the course or the chapter of search engine optimization. The tree could take months until it bears fruit and to finish its exact form.

The same thing with us, if we're able to act as a SEO tree, we will always continue to grow and at the same time, our own tree could be more meaningful than ever. For all newbies and professionals, bearing our fruits to our branches will make us very successful, just like the successful websites of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.

One common error people make when designing a website is embedding text into images. This is done through any photo editing program. A lot of web designers focus too much on images, image links, and embedded text into images to spice up their website. This is the same concept as our other article “Focusing On Navigation Menu’s” .

Search engines cannot and I repeat CANNOT read text in images. If you are using an image with text in it to link to another page within your site, simply scratch that image and put a text link in there (anchor text link).

An anchor text link is just a basic URL/Href. Instead of putting a URL in it for the text, you put a keyword of whatever you may be linking to. Visit our other article on Anchor Text for more information on what they are and how to use them properly.

Search engines determine what your website is about by reading the text on every page. Using " tags really helps with optimization. These tags weigh more than regular text. Bolding and italicizing text also weighs out.

What weight means is, when a search engine crawls/reads your page, use of these tags makes these words stick out,
being the most. Use these for category names and article headings. When using any of the others, you don’t want to over due it for it will make the users experience miserable, for example bolding way too many words. Bold keywords that you want to rank for.

So the conclusion of this is, keep image use at a minimum when linking or using category names/keyword names. Using CSS can spice everything up AND use all of the text you need.

SEO