David A. Utter | Staff Writer

If you spend much time online, there’s a good chance you have a greater affinity for technology than the average person.

Something new comes along, and you’re looking for a reason to give it a try. It’s fun, and it could be rewarding too.

Lisa Barone looked at the current state of search marketing and SEO, courtesy of Andrew Goodman’s assessment of SEO and recent trends. There’s a lot of curiosity and love for the latest and greatest ways to attract attention, she noted:

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Chicago Search Engine Optimization

Submitted by josh on Sat, 04/05/2008 – 9:47am.

When I think of the word ‘optimized‘ I think of other words like streamline, clean and efficient. But interestingly enough when you put the word ‘optimization’ after the words ‘search’ and ‘engine’ something in the meaning gets lost in translation.

Why is it that when I am looking for professional services I usually have to start looking at the least relevant search results first for the good stuff?

I think the answer to this is plain and simple, “Search Engine Optimization“. Thats right, these sites are so clean, streamlined and efficient that Google says they are the best fit for the search. Lets take a look at a few.

So we do Web Design in Chicago, how bout we search “Chicago Web Design” in a Google search and see where we pop up against everyone else.

Here is what I’m looking for

Aesthetics

How does the site look? Does it look clean, friendly and perhaps someone you would like to hire? I mean, you are hiring a designer so shouldn’t their site look nice too?

Navigation

Is the navigation clear and easy to use?

Content

Does the copy on the website speak more to humans or to search engines bots? Is the content on the site dictating the keywords or are the keywords dictating the content. Are they clearly overemphasizing the use of a couple words? Does it scare you when you see that?

Quality

Usually dictated by the above traits but can clearly be seen in their portfolio/samples.

The first result:

John Schuster’s Web design portfolio

http://johnschuster.net

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In my last column, I started exploring some of the tools my fellow search marketers use daily, not only as a matter of discovery, but as a practice of developing deeper online marketing strategies for client sites. But what I’m left wondering about and pondering daily — among all the excellent examples of the most basic tools we use for travel SEO/SEM — are we getting left in the stone age, or are we moving forward with making real business decisions around the data?

Are we just so mesmerized by the glitz and glam of the coolest, latest and greatest iteration of FaceSpace, MyBook or SuckedIn — or whatever the flavor of the day is — that we’ve become oblivious to basic principles of marketing? How about creating a product that fulfills a specific need, is well positioned against its competition, is priced appropriately, and is promoted within the right context? How can you even know if you’re going in the right direction if you don’t have a virtual roadmap?

Going back to my responses from travel search marketers, some comments from Dennis Deacon stood out to me: “As my clients tend to be niche agents, the challenge I face is tweaking the keywords used to target only a specific sub-type of travel, such as adventure or small-ship cruises instead of general mainstream cruises.”

The objective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to achieve high natural search engine placement for relevant keywords or keyword phrases.

Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that aligns a website’s code and content with strategic keyword phrase targeting, ultimately assisting a search engine algorithm in understanding a website’s keyword focus. SEO can be simple for some websites, while others may require intense website code, content, navigation and internal linking changes. Submitawebsite’s SEO services have proven to significantly increase natural search engine rankings.

Search Engine Optimization – Natural Search Placement & SEO Services Company

Chicago Search Engine Optimization SEO Services

Achieving high, natural search engine rankings for keywords specific to your product and/or service is vital in today’s online marketplace. Statistics show Internet users are most likely to click on websites located on the first page of results. So how do you get there?

The answer is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO aligns your website’s code and content with relevant keyword terms and phrases. This helps search engines learn more about your website’s primary focus. Search engine friendly websites with quality content rank better. This not only results in an increase of overall traffic, but an increase of pre-qualified visitors interested in learning more about your product and/or service.

Link Popularity is a related SEO factor that also significantly affects rankings. Search engines count links from relevant, trusted websites to your website as votes. The more votes your website has the more popular it becomes in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Ensuring steady link growth from trusted, high quality websites is essential to attaining and maintaining high rankings.

I have developed four SEO packages designed to incorporate fundamental optimization strategies to boost your natural search engine rankings. Whether you are just starting out, or are ready for an aggressive campaign, I have the solution for your website.

Search engine placement is competitive. Become a contender with one of the following SEO packages today.
Chicago Search Engine Optimization

Chicago Search Engine Optimization Techniques (SEO) will get your web site organically listed on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN.

These techniques optimize your website’s structure, content and links using SEO keywords and techniques most appropriate for your business.

Our packages include

• Competitor Review
• Keyword Research
• Complete list of keywords targeted
• Initial Ranking Report
• Optimization of Meta Content
• Creation of robots.txt
• Creation of a spider friendly site map
• Optimization of the internal link structure
• Reciprocal Linking to Increase Link Popularity
• Re-optimization and tweaking to enhance positions
• monthly ranking reports

Call for prices and availability

Let the Games Begin
In 1999 it was feasible to be a small search marketing shop or in-house team and literally cover all the bases: SEO, paid search, social media, link/traffic building, analytics, and content development. Now SEM has exploded on to the scene, becoming the most relevant skill-set in the entire marketing universe; the multi- headed hydra of interconnected disciplines which can’t easily be handled by a single small (or sometimes medium) SEM department or agency.

The Tao of Crafting Strategic SEM Partnerships [SearchEngineWatch]

What year is it now? 2008?

Matt Cutts: No you’re not. Um, OK. So here, here is Matts 3 step process to building up a really good site and getting a ton of traffic.

Step #1: Make a Compelling Service
If you’re trying to sell junk you’re going to have a much harder time. So spend the time, and the thing is you can start up a website really for a lot less money than you could even five or six years ago.

Matt Cutts: And you only had 12 grand. First step is you make a compelling site, so imagine you’ve got that.

Step #2: Start a Blog
Seriously, blogs are one of the easiest ways to get links, engage in conversation, if people badmouth you on the web you can… defend yourself or badmouth them right back, depending on what your personality is like.

Step #3: Smart Marketing
Step number three is smart marketing and that can involve good SEO. If you do everything on WordPress you’re pretty much automatically covered as far as SEO, but you want to make sure things are crawlable. But the other aspect of marketing is having something interesting to say. So for example, valleywag, which is a Silicon Valley rumor sort of site, started out with a really juicy piece of gossip claiming that one person at a big company was dating another person at a big company. I’m not going to name them but they work at Google.

Guy Kawasaki: Matt, you said something very interesting and I don’t want to let it just slide by, you said that if you use WordPress, you basically have taken care of everything for SEO, can you support that?

Matt Cutts: All right so Stephan Spencer has talked about it but in general WordPress is pretty well SEO’d. Right? If you just start blogging you’ll pretty much be in good shape to get crawled by the search engines. In fact, WordPress 2.3 took some steps so that instead of having your content in three or four different places, they’re all unified on a single URL. So you can make your own HTML or you can pay some web designer to try to make a bunch of flash, but in some cases it makes sense to go for something that’s really cheap and really proven. And then if it works out you can always go with something custom down the road.

  Matt Cutts 3 step process to building up a really good site and getting a ton of traffic by Chiropractic Blogs