Toronto SEO Firm
Search Engine Optimization Marketing Services

Here is a great simple pie chart showing how valuable SEO is in relation to PPC.  This is not to say that PPC has no value but finding the right mix for your company can really help boost the quantity and quality of visitors you receive from the search engines.

Rand has certainly outdone himself yet again, proving why this guys time might actually be worth $1,000 an hour.  I was playing around with OSE today and it is really a great, simple to use tool that gives you a nice quick snapshot of the relative authority and SEO value of a website.  If Yahoo! is really pulling the plug on Yahoo! Site Explorer than this tool will be even more in-demand!  See our screenshot below, looks like I need to work on root domain authority, since this site is relatively new (I made the mistake of using GooglePages for three years prior to starting this site) I think I should hit the mid 70′s by next year.

I received a private message at a forum I have been a member of for many years and it was from a relatively senior member that was promoting some discounted listings reviews in his network of web directories.  The directories themselves look pretty nice, good templates and category structure but I took a quick look through the backlink profile of one of them and I was quite shocked!

I found backlinks from porn, coming soon sites and even from a page that was simply 10k+ links jammed full of porn, gambling and rx – I was going to post a screenshot of the page but it crashed my browser twice so I figured I better not push my luck.

Most good SEO’s always check backlink profiles before building links but there are many ‘cut-rate’ services out there that won’t spend the extra time doing this type of due diligence.  So be very careful or your website might just become part of a ‘bad neighborhood’.

The quote below is taken from a great posting over at www.SeoBook.com and is an interview with Dennis Goedegebuure, aka DonnisG – head of eBay’s in-house SEO team.  Now some of  you might just think the bolded word below is a typo but I think it is more inline with a Freudian slip.  The best way to get decision makers to buy-in to SEO is to embarrass them with how well a competitor is performing, due to using SEO!

What are some of the things you have done which you have found to be most beneficial in helping to evangelize SEO and get buy in from other managers?

Sometimes it pays off to get somebody from the outside who can “embarrass” all the things that go wrong from an SEO perspective.

If I was not a fan of this guy already for the simple fact that he gets $1,000 an hour for SEO consulting, I am even more impressed with his recent post on his experience this year securing additional Venture Capital for SEOmoz.  He gives a ton of great information and even though he holds back some of it (understandably for privacy reasons), the amount of transparency exhibited is commendable.

I think he could have easily released this info as a white paper and charged $200 a download, it is that good!

Just check out some of these images he gives:

Thanks again Rand, great read and super interesting for an SEO like me that one day will be raising capital for a project of my own.   Head over and read this post if you ever wondered what the inside of the VC process looked like, SEOmozs Venture Capital Process.

John Dvorak over at pcmag.com wrote an article yesterday where he complained quite mightily about how SEO is ruining Google search results by:

“tricking Google or Bing or Yahoo into ranking your particular Web site higher than the competition by reverse-engineering the tricks used by Google, et al to rank sites in the first place.”

and

“It’s killing the Internet if it hasn’t already.”

and his proof of this is:

“Try and find the best cell phone deal on the Internet. Do it by using a search engine. Every hit is some commercial site trying to sell you something.”

So basically he typed in ‘best cell phone deal’ and he was upset that they results that came up were various websites that wanted to ‘actually’ sell him a cell phone. Ummm, ya….if you type in cell phone deals or some hybrid of that query you are likely in the market to ‘actually’ buy a cell phone, ergo the results that come up will be sites trying to do just that.

The real truth is that Google and other search engines encourage SEO as a way of putting your websites best foot forward and they don’t have any problem with this as long as you represent your website and its content in an honest way.  In fact here is a link to Googles SEO starter guide – which by-the-way is available in 40 languages due to its popularity.

After making the above wildly unresearched statements John continues to hoot-and-haw about how everyone is out to trick him but then he gives SEO a little free promo by stating:

“My advice to Web site managers, when you see this sort of result, is to contact THAT site and hire the consultant doing SEO for it. This sort of thing is no accident.”

Maybe he was just spouting off to attract readers but some of these comments, obviously made by search engine marketing folk got pretty nasty:

“I wonder if you have any understanding of business and marketing if you think commercial sites coming up when you are actually looking for a deal is a bad thing. That really made me laugh.”

“You’re right John, if I type in “best cell phone deal” I definitely don’t want to see sites offering me the ability to get good deals on cell phones. What I’m REALLY looking for would be a wikipedia article talking about the future of cell phones followed by a bunch of sites featuring cell phone news and tips on using cell phones to order pizza.”

“Congratulations!! You have created the worst article that I have ever found on the internet.”

“John…seriously???? you just lost all credibility.”

“What a pity to read your post! What a pity for pcmag to let you write about SEO! I do recommend reading some basics SEO before you put up another post.”

“Which is worse? SEO, which you woefully misdescribe, or linking keywords in your article to adverts so that they pop up without warning in a really intrusive way?”

“John, a long long time ago, I respected your intelligence. Today, that’s completely gone.”

Ouch, I hope John does not take all this criticism too hard but I do agree – this article did seem quite ‘light’ on research.

In a previous post you might have seen that we won a Google Knol; Top Pick Knol Award – just today I noticed that my Knol profile lists me as receiving a  Top Viewed Author Award!

It seems that some companies are starting to ‘get it’!  It is amazing the number of SEO/SEM job ads I see that go on for weeks and weeks as the salary creeps up from the absurd towards reality ($30k-$35k, then $35k-$45k, next week $45k-$52k).  Recently I saw a couple of nice postings where the companies are willing to pay what a good SEO’s value really is:

Best of luck to Blue Cat and Easy Home

If your website was getting a lot of visitors searching for the weather or sports scores then, YES!

As Google attempts to become stickier how many websites will it hurt?  Or does the fact that they are actually helping the searchers make it a wash because that is their core business?  But they make money off the advertisers to the tune of 95% – so are they really biting the hand that feeds them.  Will they sell the branding for these type of results?

Let’s play the game, “How Much is this Position Worth”?

Read the description below and then guess how much they are offering to pay.  Here are some clues, the offer is less than a window washer makes and about 30% less than a bus driver earns.

Role:

The Internet / SEO Marketing Coordinator will be responsible for ensuring that the website and online marketing programs perform to their best ability in meeting company expectations. This person will provide leadership to identify, evaluate, and implement methods to maximize the effectiveness of the web site and online marketing opportunities. This candidate must have experience with and knowledge in online marketing campaigns including email marketing, search engine optimization and website management. This position is both creative and analytical in nature. The candidate will work closely with the President and Sales Department to execute online marketing initiatives that are effective and in line with the company’s overall marketing goals.

Web Site Management

• Write and publish content to effectively communicate company services
• Ensure that all webs site components are in line with overall website goals, brand and strategy
• Identify opportunities for fresh content to ensure a dynamic and up-to-date web site
• Review and evaluate integrity of the website by conducting website audits and ongoing content clean-up
• Review, evaluate and report visitor and site metrics to propose updates to site, including content, creative, messaging, features and functionality

Email Marketing

• Manage email marketing programs
• Develop and maintain calendar and project deadlines

Online Marketing

• Design, implement and manage online marketing programs focusing on building awareness and customer acquisition
• Drive strategy for search engine marketing and search engine optimization initiatives
• Manage search engine marketing, and online lead generation programs
• Track and analyze campaign date to proactively identify opportunities for performance optimization
• Enhance the user experience by improving the quality and relevance of search engine results
SEO Experience
• Experience in developing and implement SEO campaigns/strategies
• Monitor, track and report on paid search metrics, including trend analysis
• Create website content with SEO enhancements, title tags, Meta descriptions to optimize for SEO purposes
• Provide support for search engine optimization recommendations
• Assist in Keyword discovery and expansion
• Research and analyze competitor advertising links
• Monitoring overall search engine performance for SEM Campaigns

Social Media Experience

• Create a comprehensive social media strategy to define programs that use social media marketing techniques to increase visibility, membership and traffic across all Aareas brands and Implement and manage social media programs
• Experiment with new and alternative ways to leverage social media activities
• Monitor trends in social media tools, trends and application and appropriately apply that knowledge to increasing the use of social media at Aareas
• Strategize with and educate the management team and others across the company on incorporating relevant social media techniques into the corporate culture and into all of the company’s products and services.
• Measure the impact of social media on the overall marketing efforts

We are looking for an ambitious and enthusiastic individual who wants to capitalize on the rapid advancement of information technology. We expect that the niche market we operate in will see significant growth in the future and need a highly motivated Internet/SEO Marketing Coordinator.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

The successful candidate will have a majority of the following experience and skills:

 Sales/Marketing Experience in the new home / condo industry is a must,
 University/college marketing degree or 2 years industry experience,
 2-3 years online marketing experience, specifically email campaigns, web site management and search engine optimization
 Experience in managing search engine campaigns by analyzing keyword performance, expanding and adjusting keyword lists
 Experience in content development for electronic media
 Strong organizational skills and ability to handle numerous projects simultaneously with superior attention to detail
 Excellent communications skills (written and verbal)
 Attitude and Personality: Enthusiastic, organized, self-motivated, take-charge team player with a willingness to learn in a constantly evolving environment,
 Deadline driven,
 Computer savvy on applications such as Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint, Photoshop, and Illustrator,
 Ability to work well both independently and as part of a team.
 Social media tools and techniques

Did you guess yet?

How much would you take this job for?

Can a single person even do this job?

Last chance!

Compensation: 35k-45K per year

I know the SEO/SEM job market is quite young up here in Canada but come on there is no way any sensible person can expect to get the above qualifications and experience for $15.00 an hour when folks at the local McDonalds are making $11.00 an hour.