SEO Jobs: Demand is Going Up For SEO Skills

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It looks like holiday shopping this year has moved even more heavily online.  As companies are realizing that more people are actively searching online for their commercial searches, they’re starting to see the value of search engine optimization.

Because of this, the IT industry is starting to anticipate a high demand for SEO skills in 2010.  (Yay for us professional SEOs!)  In Great Britain alone, demand for SEO and online marketing skills went up by 40% last year.

The skills of SEO, pay per click management, social media marketing and web design are all being looked for, ideally in a combined package.  SourceWire has all the details in an article based on this story in the UK.  (And I have to add a little something something here – Tulsa Marketing Online does in fact do SEO, PPC, social media and web design.  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

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Social Media and SEO: How They Tie Together

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Social media’s been the big thing lately.  Mainly because it’s something almost everyone uses.  Not that many people know what search engine optimization is and the difference between on page optimization and off page optimization, or what PageRank sculpting is.  But you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a Facebook account.

Well, social media is very effective for business promotion – but the key to using it well is knowing how to make it tie into SEO.  Doing good social media is building relationships, and this fits in with SEO by making sure that these quality relationships help build your site and site pages’ reputation (in a good way, hopefully).

Adam Stafford from TechRadar has a great article on how these two things tie together and how to make them work, plus some great examples on how some companies have made them work well.

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Demographics and SEO – Targeting Your Pages

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Most SEOs look at the keywords for their research – but what about focus on the demographics?  By looking at the actual PEOPLE that visit your pages, it can make a big difference beyond the search positions.

Sure, doing solid SEO will get you into position.  But will that always be the best way to bring your best traffic?  Doing full research on your market and the people searching for your material can often bring to light details that, if focused on properly, can help convert visitors to business.

So many SEOs I see don’t ever think of their visitors past the search engine results page.  By looking at who is doing the searches and making the whole experience a better one for them, you’ll get better results (and Google will likely like you more for it).

Carrie Hill at Search Engine Land has a great article detailing how to do this, and more suggestions on how to make it work.

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Be Found Online! By Best Buy?

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For those of you who don’t know who Danny Sullivan is – one, if you’re an SEO, shame on you.  Two, if you want to learn about SEO, learn who he is.

At any rate, Danny Sullivan is one of the most respected SEOs on the planet.  He knows his stuff.  He works diligently to learn about search engines (in particular, Google) and how they operate.

SEO is something that is becoming more and more well-known, as people and businesses realize this is how sites are to be found online.  Because of this, there are a lot of gimmicky SEO plugs (“Pay only $200/month and 1st page listings in 90 days!” types of stuff) going around.  They really annoy me.

Apparently Best Buy is getting in on this.  And they’re including social media in their “be found online” mix.  It’s through a company called “CloudProfile”.  And it’s FREE.

The best part?  They pitched to (of all people) Danny Sullivan.  And he’s taking them up on their offer.  See his word on it here.

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Google Hits Back Against Scammers

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Google’s changes lately have been quite thorough.  They’ve made changes for AdWords, they’re changing the way the search engine itself operates, and now they’re coming out to take a stand against online scams.

In particular, the schemes for how to “work-at-home” to use Google and make a ton of money are starting to get shut down by Google.  Google is starting to file lawsuits against these companies to bring them down.

For most people, these are familiar schemes – you see them in banner ads, with text like “Use Google to make 1000s of Dollars!”.  They generally operate by having a kit you send out for and then have you set up for automatic billing once a month (and many people don’t realize there’s automatic billing).

CNN has a bit more detail in this story.  I did find it rather amusing that under this story in their sponsored links, one of the ads said “I’m glad I lost my job! Jobless Dad makes $6493/month working online from home. Read how he…”

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UK Tabloid Daily Mirror is Thinking of Humans

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I love this story, mainly because it touches on the element that so many SEOs (and marketers) miss – connecting with people.  It’s actually a tabloid that has attracted attention for making sure their focus is more on people than on search engines.

It’s great as a reminder – marketing should always be about thinking of connecting with people, not just crunching numbers.  If you only think of figures (traffic numbers, PPC costs, number of unique visitors) then you’ll likely lose a lot.  If you keep your focus on the people who visit your site, chances are you’ll gain many more fans (and revenue).

More info available also from The Guardian.

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Social Media for Online Business

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Social media is the newest online wave of excitement.  Everyone is getting into it, and a lot of people are wondering – how can I make it work for business?  Well, there are several ways to do it, but not all of them are functional.

ZippyCart has put together a good list of specifics you can use to guide your business through Facebook, Twitter, and more.  Look through them to help improve your business social media.

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Highest Traffic Keywords Do Not Always Bring Profit

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It seems like the focus for a lot of internet marketers is finding that top trafficked keyword.  However, this can be a mistake by not focusing on the true marketing involved.  In some cases, the top traffic keyword is not one that will bring conversions.

Putting focus purely on the traffic numbers for keyword research is the reason many internet marketers are not able to pull the profit numbers many others do.  Making sure you focus on the consumer and their intent more than the pure traffic size is key.

This can be done more quickly using PPC, but at a price.  And in SEO, solid keyword research must be done to target proper keywords – a mistake here will cost a lot of time and money.

Evan LaPointe goes into a bit more detail about all of these factors at Search Engine Land.  At any rate, it’s good to remember that the focus should be on the human experience, not just the analytics numbers.

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Search Engine Optimization is a Changing Animal

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Nowadays the web is getting more and more attention.  People are realizing that businesses are made by being found online.  The methods of doing that are through creating good web pages, having an online presence through blogs, social media, online advertising.  And tied into almost all of this is search engine optimization.

If a business uses any of the other means (social media, blogging, site design), then it all comes down to wanting to be found online, to gain a presence.  And this ties into SEO.  Whether or not you realize it, if you have a Facebook account, you’re helping one site or another with search engine optimization.  Every link you post makes a difference.  On Twitter, any link posted can have an impact on visitors and the search engine listings.

Anything online will make a difference in SEO.  The key to doing good search engine optimization on purpose (as opposed to on accident, as a surprising number of sites have done) is to continue learning what changes impact the search engines.  As it is now, social media is starting to have an effect.  But that doesn’t mean you just need to put one post and you’ll shoot up three pages.  The trick is learning how it all ties together.

A good SEO stays educated on many aspects of the internet.  Just because you learn the basics doesn’t mean you’ll still be an expert SEO four years later (or even one year later).  The internet is a changing beast, and knowing these changes can make a big difference in your placement online.

And if you choose to hire someone else to do the search engine optimization for you, make sure that you’re happy with how educated they are on these changes.  Learning the basics of SEO is easy – but mastering it is more than just a few steps above that.

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How To Determine Quality of SEO Services

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Do you get phone calls for your business from people who say that’ll put you on page one for your keywords with their SEO services?  It can be difficult to determine which SEO companies can actually do the work they claim (and some of them make full-time SEOs like me just look bad).

Find out what their skills are before agreeing to anything.  If you can determine that a company really knows what they’re doing, it can be worth the price.  Good SEO is not cheap, but the revenue you get from solid listings on your primary keywords will more than make up for it.

I’ll say now from my own experience – anyone that guarantees position 1 (or even page one) listings in a set time period (or at all, really) is in all likelihood full of it.  SEO is part of an industry that is constantly changing.  To do it right, you have to keep track of how the search engines operate and adjust where necessary.  Bad SEO may work temporarily, but in all likelihood will eventually make your listings drop lower than ever (or even get you blacklisted).

Shannon Rogers with Web Advantage put together a good list of questions to ask SEOs who cold-call you.  If you can find SEOs who can answer these well, they may very well be worth the marketing investment.

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