Why People Use SEO Companies

SEO or search engine optimization companies can help your website or business get off the ground and listed in the major search engines resulting in more traffic and sales. One of the things you should always remember when deciding to use a website search engine optimization and website ranking service is that with a bit of hard work and lots of research you could in fact do it all by yourself.

Virtually everything you need to know about the subject can be found online with a bit of surfing. Ideally the best way to optimization your site is by doing it all yourself, this way you are in full control of your content, but unfortunately this can be very time consuming so in most cases doing it yourself might is not always the most practical solution. The main reason people decide to use a seo service is for time saving purposes and convenience. When you decide to hire a search engine optimizer, you are really paying for the convenience. Generally when you search around for an affordable seo service the more convenient it is, the higher the price will be.

If you only want to buy keyword optimized content for your website and then use it to increase your web traffic you can find a range of these services quite cheaply. In some cases it can cost you less than a hundred dollars per month to get all of the keyword optimized website content that you will ever need.

On the other end of the scale, if you are looking for a service to handle every aspect of your website including page content analysis, link building and traffic, you will have to pay a whole lot more. Depending on your time limits this may be the most convenient option for your business or website.

Basically people choose to use seo companies for convince as not everyone has the time to spend hours online researching the subject and optimizing their site. In some cases you may also feel that a seo company will be able to do a better job than your doing and save you time. Saving time on one aspect of your business also allows you to concentrate your time and energy on another part of your business.

Anchor Text Optimisation Guide

What if I were to tell you that one of the most important principles of search engine optimisation is so simple you that you will kick yourself for not realising it before? I'm talking about something called anchor text optimisation. The basic idea behind anchor text optimisation is that when one website links to another using a text link, the text that the web designer uses to form the link is called the 'anchor text' i.e. someone linking to this article would probably use something like 'anchor text optimisation article' or 'anchor text optimisation guide'.

Why Is This Important?

You may well ask. Well here it is. Behind the scenes search engines look at the anchor text of the links that point to your site and use it as one of the major factors in deciding what your site is about and what search terms your site is relevant to. Let's take a look at an example. If I were to set up a website discussing the advantages and disadvantages of anchor text optimisation, I would want to collect as many incoming links from other SEO related sites as possible that contained the key phrase 'anchor text optimisation' in the text of the incoming link. If I have 100 incoming links from related websites that all have 'anchor text optimisation' in the link text then the search engines can conclude that my site is indeed related to the topic of 'anchor text optimisation'. When you combine this with the fact that my site is also optimised for my target key phrase then the search engines can clearly see that my site is all about that particular topic.

But Why Do Search Engines Place So Much Weight On Anchor Text

When you stop and think about it, a web designer can put whichever key phrases he likes into the content on his website so these on page search engine optimisation factors are very easy to manipulate and very easy to change. Links on other people's websites however, are very difficult to manipulate. The owner of each site has a choice of the text that they can use to form the link. So by looking at all the links that point at your site, the search engines can make a more accurate and unbiased decision about what the internet community are saying your site is all about.

An Extreme Example of Anchor Text Optimisation

If you visit Google and enter the key phrase 'click here', you will find that the result that is returned is the Adobe Acrobat Reader download page. Furthermore if you look through the page you won't see the key phrase 'click here' on there anywhere! So what's happening here you will probably ask. Well when someone puts a PDF file on their website, they invariably but a link next to it that says something like:

This file requires adobe acrobat. To download a free copy of adobe acrobat please 'click here'.

The anchor text on the links to the adobe acrobat download page is invariably 'click here'. Consider the fact that there are thousands, if not millions of links pointing at this page and I'm sure you can understand that the search engines are getting a pretty strong indicator that the adobe acrobat download page is in fact about the key phrase 'click here'!

Conclusion:

Anchor text optimisation - although a very simple principal is very, very, important to your search engine optimisation success and in my professional opinion is just as important as having the right target keywords written into the content on your website. The best advice I can give is to decide which key phrases you intend to target and set about obtaining as many links as possible with that key phrase in the anchor text of the incoming link.

How to Use Directories To Improve Traffic To Your Website

I think that a lot of people get into the mindset that building traffic and links to your site is always best done by the latest and greatest new method or software.

They neglect a lot of the "old school" methods of building links in favor of the "flavor of the week" method of building links.

One of the most neglected methods I see is using directory submissions.

Why?

Well, this is very much and old school method and it does take some time and work to do well. Also, there isn't a lot of money in the directory business, so it tends to not be in the limelight when people talk about how to build one way links to a website.

That's really unfortunate because using directories can be a great way to improve your search engine rankings.

First of all, with just about all directories you get a one way link to your website. Some directories will want you to pay, and for really popular directories, the fee is worth it, but there are literally thousands of directories that you can submit your site to for free. So if you want a way to build links to your site for free, try this one out.

I try not to get too hung up on Google Pagerank, but for a lot of people, having a higher Pagerank not only means better search engine rankings, but it's simply a matter of pride. Getting links from directories can be an easy way to boost your Pagerank up a notch or two.

Getting in the higher quality directories can also help you get a better Trustrank score with Google. This is one of the algorithms that Google uses to rank your site, and it's especially important if you want to rank well for competitive terms. While most directories won't help you get a better Trustrank score, the best ones certainly seem to (Google never says which sites are in their list of "trusted" sites). I'd recommend getting yourself a Yahoo Directory listing and trying for a DMOZ listing until you get one.

And while you're not going to get rich off of traffic from the directories directly, you can get a nice little stream of traffic flowing into you site from directories if you are consistent and keep getting your site in more and more directories over time.

So if you want better search engine rankings and more traffic to your website, then be sure to add directory submissions to your war chest of link building methods.