It’s hard to imagine working with SEO in the late 1990s, but that’s when Blum began his search engine optimization consulting work. Since then, SEO has developed into one of the most profitable ventures in business marketing and online promotion. In an industry where cunning and questionable tactics abound, it’s refreshing to see such a key player so humble and willing to help others learn from his near decade of experience.

Blum claims his success is the result of providing natural search engine ranking comes from the use of various tools and explaining the difference between “subjective keywords” that the client sees as best and keywords that will actually get the best results. He also specializes in reputation management, helping companies bolster their public image and improve negative opinion.

YouTube SEO Tutorial

On his popular YouTube channel, Blum offers numerous tutorials on SEO that are free to the public and a great resource for those just starting out in the business. It is here that Blum focuses on the long-term success that comes with his system.

A Swiss resident, Ardan Michael Blum, 38, has a BA in literature from Bennington College in Vermont and joined MENSA in 1992. In his SEO practice, Blum strives to maintain the values set by the Freemasons, a worldwide organization of five million that promotes ethical practices in both work and life. He is also the president of a senior citizen charity in Switzerland that he founded in 10 years ago.

The definition of PPC is “pay per click”, which references money made every time a visitor clicks on an advertisement on a web page. CPC is the same thing except from the advertiser’s perspective, meaning “cost per click.” SEO means “search engine optimization” which serves to promote a website using search engines that present the website at the tops of lists, or close to the top. Keywords link sites to search terms and ads pertaining to the subject.

Search Engine Optimization Consulting companies are numerous, as are companies in every aspect of computing. Many major IT and computing and web companies began in Texas or placed major facilities there and the state has always had a strong presence in anything related to the web. Many businesses prefer local companies for support services, so Texas customers may greatly prefer Search Engine Optimization Consulting companies for their web marketing needs. Out of state companies may be attracted by the level of experience and history of Texas PPC companies as well.

Many businesses prefer to deal with companies in their same city or state. This practice is based on the belief that local business owners will better understand the local market as well as regional business needs. The explanation is even simpler in the case of businesses which just like to support other local businesses. You can find a lot of search engine optimization consulting companies with high national rankings and excellent reputations from which to choose.

The choice of PPC company or an SEO consultant is very important, especially since there are some that lack ethics, and still worse others that are a waste of money. Since all of the major companies like Google Adwords and Yahoo Search have very strict rules for click fraud it is extremely important to pick a PPC company that is ethical, otherwise you run the risk of being banned form these sites. If this does end up happening to you, your options become much more limited as you will be forced to go with much smaller, less profitable companies.

The most reputable PPC companies are careful to avoid violating the terms of service with big search marketing programs and will have good ratings with the BBB and other vetting agencies. One should always pick a company with a good reputation and one with acceptable evaluations from other users. Providers that are local like Texas PPC companies will facilitate use of the major marketers and protect you from some of the common mistakes that may damage your business image and options in a more personal way.

Because online businesses believe that search marketing will increase their sales, they have devoted more and more money to the industry. A quick definition of the term SEO is ’search engine optimization’, in reference to the money generated when an ad is clicked by a visitor to a web page. CPC refers to the same action, but comes from the side of the advertiser meaning ‘cost per click’. There are a number of Search Engine Optimization Consulting companies, however, one great advantage of SEO Newbs is that a large number of our consulting clients are local.

Below you are going to discover eight outstanding guidelines concerning SEO web design that will help you design a web site and propel your site to the top of the search engine rankings.

SEO for Dummies Rule #1: Write One-of-a-Kind Content

There are so many article directories out there on the web that it might be tempting to simply jump online and copy one of the articles and throw it on your site. Of course, as long as you publish a link to the author’s web site and give them the credit they deserve, this is usually acceptable and even encouraged.

However, there are three problems with doing this. First, the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com generally frown upon this type of thing. They won’t ban your site or anything but they will probably drop that article from their listings. So, does it really help you?

Now you can overcome the uniqueness problem by rewriting the article but this falls into a gray area. Most authors don’t really care if you change the content to make it unique as long as you still give the author credit and link to their web site. However, some do mind because they have no control if you make the article less readable.

Third, while it gives your web site content, it doesn’t give your web site authority and can actually lead to defections. Think about it. If you come across a outstanding article, you end up trusting the author and click through to their web site.

The best solution to this problem is to just write unique content for your web site and then allow others to disperse it for you by posting it on the article directories… be the writer and not the copier.

SEO for Dummies Rule #2: Add Brand-New content all the time

Search engines love up-to-date content. So it’s pretty simple, the more up-to-date content that you post to your web site or blog, the more often the search engines will visit your site.

While it’s certainly not the only factor that they search engines look at, it is a major factor. But, even more importantly, your visitors and subscribers love up-to-date content. Give them what they want and they will return more often.

Finally, when it comes to creating up-to-date content, each time you create a up-to-date page for your web site, you have more of an opportunity to be answering a question that a search engine user is seeking to have answered.

I always tell my clients that they should create 30 content pages for their web site as fast as possible. Once they reach 30 pages, they should keep building their web site until they reach at least 100 pages by adding at least one up-to-date content page to their site each week.

SEO for Dummies Rule #3: Create A Fine Keyword Phrase

This is one mistake that almost all web site creators make. They take the time to see what people are looking for but they don’t research how much competition there is for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.

Let’s take this article for example. Writing about the same topic, many authors might focus on “search engine optimization” or “SEO”. Sure, a lot of people are looking for information about both of these terms.

SEO for Dummies Rule #4: Choose A Phrase That Is Popular, But Not Too Popular

However, creating a outstanding keyword phrase isn’t enough. The problem is that there are just too many well-established web sites that present info about both of the previous terms. No, matter how outstanding this article is, there is little chance that it will ever break the top 20 results for these terms.

But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t write an article. It means that I have to tighten the focus so I chose to focus on “SEO Web Design” instead. There are still over 10,000 searches for this keyword phrase but there is a lot less competition. Plus, checking the top 10 results for this term, I found that not many were focused on the exact term “seo web design”.

So, there is outstandinger profitability in focusing on keyword terms that are searched for less but have less competition. In addition, by using this method, you will discover that in the future, your web site will end up ranking higher for the more general search terms like “search engine optimization”, “seo” and “web design”.

SEO for Dummies Rule #5: Write An Accessible Site

This takes a lot more practice than anything. You see, if your reader gets bored, they’ll click the back button. Conversely, the more they read, the outstandinger the chance there is that they will end up doing whatever you want them to do. Whether you want them to visit your site or place an order.

Of course, most boring people don’t even know that they’re boring. Do you know if you’re boring or not? Are you sure?

OK, so if you’re not sure, here’s a simple way to correct this problem. Have a family member, friend or colleague that you find interesting and smart read your article and ask them to spice it up a little.

To save time and make sure that you have a quality article, I highly recommend that you do not have them “give you notes”. Just ask them to make the changes. Read what they wrote and do not make any changes to it unless you are 100% absolutely, positively sure that they screwed up.

Think of it this way. You go to a cardiologist because they know about your heart and you would never walk out saying something like, “Heart attack?! That’s nuts! Three cheeseburgers a day can’t give you a heart attack.”

So, why wouldn’t you trust the interesting person that you asked to spice up your article?

To a lesser extent, you also need to make sure that your web site’s content is physically readable. The font should be large enough for most people to read without having to change their browser or anything.

Also, some fonts are much easier on the eyes to read online. I highly recommend that you only use Arial, Tahoma or Verdana fonts for your body text. Even common fonts like Times up-to-date Roman can be very difficult to read online.

And be sure to use a good amount of whitespace. As a general formula, I always try to keep my paragraphs to 3-4 sentences. Why? Think about what your brain says when as soon as it sees a big paragraph.

“Oh, my God! That article looks boring”

Keep sentences short and sweet. Get to the point online since people want answers fast. In fact, feel free to use bullet points liberally. Subconsciously, people feel more at ease.

SEO for Dummies Rule #6: Use The Keyword Phrase In Your Title Tag

This one is pretty simple. By using your keyword title in your title tag, both the search engines and your readers know what the page is about.

Furthermore, most search engines take the user’s search term and bold all of the search term words that show in the title and description. Bolding draws the eye’s attention. Get the user’s attention and they will most likely click on the link.

In addition, search engines can’t read an article and understand what the article is really about. They have to “run the numbers”. So, if they see your keyword phrase 2% in the body and then also see it in the title, they can determine what your article is focused on.

SEO for Dummies Rule #7: Get A Domain With Your Keyword Phrase

Similar to using your keyword phrase in the title tag, placing your keyword phrase in your domain name tells the search engines what your web site is about as well. After all, if you put “doggie treats” in your domain name, you probably aren’t selling “cat treats” as well.

And the search engines do place emphasis on having your keyword in your domain name. Do a search for any 2-3 word phrase and you see that they overwhelming majority of the top 20 results have the keyword in their domain name.

SEO for Dummies Rule #8: Use The Keyword Phrase In Your URL

OK, so if you have a web site about “doggie treats”, you’re probably selling a wide variety of doggie treats, right? So, you’ll probably create a web page about “organic doggie treats” or “vegetarian doggie treats”.

Now, since your web site is about “doggie treats” you want to use that keyword phrase plus a descriptor so that your ultimate URL would look like this:

http://www.phils-doggie-treats.com/organic-doggie-treats.html

Creating a URL like this makes it very clear what your page is about to the search engines. Clarity = higher rankings. Higher rankings = more visitors to your site. More visitors to your site = more money.

Those are just a few of the secrets to outstanding SEO web design. Check out our other articles for even outstandinger SEO web design tips and tricks.

Hire a SEO for Dummies expert to build you a powerful web site or check out his blog for tons of free information. You’ll be glad you did!

1. Under-using keywords

Keywords are the cornerstone of SEO, so if you’re not maximizing their usage in your content, your optimization efforts may not yield the ranking you were hoping for. It is essential to use keywords wherever they can be placed in your content, even bolding or highlighting them to attain the greatest results. Make sure to not just repeat your keywords, but also choose related keywords in your article.

2. Choosing the wrong keywords

You may be writing a great article on “automotive trends,” but users could be looking for say, “car reviews” instead. Following keyword trends and their related corollaries are essential to achieving successful SEO results. Numerous tools are available for both research keyword trends and find related words often associated with said keywords.

3. Poorly organized site structure

Site structure, the backbone of a website, is used to index your content and relevance to a search. So, naturally, a site structure in disarray does not bode well for ranking. Having a well-organized site structure allows search engines to understand the purpose of your site, thus ranking you higher based on how much related content has been indexed.

4. Using images in place of text

Search engines cannot read the text of an image in for example, a company logo or bulleted list of products and services. So, if your site relies on images to relay information to the consumer, your efforts are invisible to search engines. Instead, your site should include as much actual text as possible and only utilize images for ascetics.

5. Not including keywords in URLs

This is a simple and often overlooked way to bolster your search engine visibility. By including the article’s focal keyword in the URL, you’ve enhanced the rankability of your site. For example, instead of using a default URL for a blog post,  edit the URL to include your title (which of course will feature your keyword), separated with dashes (for example, www.yoursite.com/article-about-keyword).