Casey does Bully Bodyslam

The case of Casey Heynes

While I have not been able to verify that it is the name of this individual, many are referring to him as such and you can find fan pages with this name as well as websites nominating this kid for a valor medal, here in the UK I would dare say that a Knighthood would be the least he should get.

Where is Google and YouTube failing?

By the time it took me to write those first few lines, a fan page dedicated to this young man standing up to bullies, has gained more than 1000 new likes on Facebook, yet on YouTube you can only find videos no older than 5-10 minutes with less than 500 views. YouTube keeps pulling the video off (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ9AscQA6ug).

Why is YouTube doing this? No answer can be found, but apparently they are trying to stay out of it. I know that I am expressing my own personal opinion here (and mind you, at this moment it is more nuclear hot than the Fukushima Reactor in Japan currently in danger of Meltdown) – It is YouTube and Google’s social responsibility to make sure that this is spread and the debate gets some even more serious wind in the sails. More so it is also each and everyone’s own responsibility to keep spreading this wave.

As the sourced video above mentions, there is no easy “simple” or even diplomatic way of dealing with bullies, kids will tease, punch and be cruel to each other, it is part of the pack instinct or pecking order if you like, usually everything standing out gets hit, that is why (and I dare anyone still with fresh memory of “high school”, “college” or whatever the name of the earlier teenage years are referred to where you go to school, to say that I am wrong in this) it was so important to fit in, all those hours spent convincing parents you needed better/cooler/more hip clothes or gear, that fear that did grip even bullies of going to school on a “bad hair day” – as the chance of getting picked on and ridiculed increased because you were outside that invisible frame of “in or out”.

Hollywood’s interpretation of Bullying

I don’t really know why I come to think of the movie Mean Girls with Lindsay Lohan, but that is the sugar sweet Hollywood kind of way of bullying that we get fed through media. Maybe this is the reason YouTube keeps pulling the Casey Heynes Bully Bodyslam video offline, what Casey does and even what his antagonist does is NOT sugar sweet, it is not a few tears shed over a mean word, it is TWO face punches dealt to the victim, that then reacts and with some very smart move he lifts his attacker in the air, slams him down in the concrete (the attacker suffered a bruised knee, in my opinion got away quite cheap considering what could have happened).

Looking at it from the other side

There is one side that I believe will be severely overlooked during this viral spin and that is the fate of the bully. I am certainly not taking his side, he did get what he deserved, but he is not getting what he deserves now – an entire world of future, current and past bully victims that will forever have a face to hate, ridicule and yes, even bully. For many it may feel like justice is served and that he deserves what is coming to him, but this is where we have to step in and stop ourselves from continuing the bullying.

While it is an extremely sad fact that bullying never will go away, we can at least do our best at not adding more to it. Sure the kid deserves a “naughty step” (reference to Supernanny for those of you unfamiliar with a very good parenting program) equivalent to the amount of weeks, months or years he has been actively bullying this kid that now turned the tables on him.

Added footnote

Just before posting this article live I found the reason why YouTube and Google takes the videos off – Apparently there is a breach of their “hate speech” policy, but that still does not explain why they take the video offline, surely turning of the comments section is just as easy as hitting the delete button on a folder where the actual video is located. Still bad on YouTube and Google. I expected and am expecting a lot better!

I received this from WIKIO this morning, apparently my website (or blog if you like), has entered the top 500 important European Blogs. Jumping in straight to position 39 is not bad at all and I must admit that it is with pride I am accepting this award. I did on some forums previously discuss this tactic where offering awards and recognition was an excellent way to build back links. My view remains unchanged on that topic, however – my attitude has changed significantly as I have since then both seen and implemented techniques that drives traffic (qualified traffic at that) by employing these.

Benefits with awards are that you and your niche finds new ideas and websites through this. Say for example that your favourite blogger would suddenly start promoting some other website. While he or she may be promoting for their own financial gain, they would not entirely go out and promote just anything – at least not if they really care about you as their readers. Bloggers and Article Writers are highly attuned to their readers needs and wants and will not be pushing you to buy something, rather they will promote an item or service and give you an angle that is comfortable enough for you to perform your own research and form your own opinion. From the other (business) end is that Bloggers are an extraordinary and exceptionally powerful force in driving highly educated and qualified traffic.

In other news for SEO Shepherd

We have finally found a stable and reliable hosting service that can handle the high amount of traffic that SEO Shepherd receives. First of all we would like to apologise that our website has been acting less than optimally during the past 4 months, but we now got good and exciting changes. The developers are finally done and we should have the final design in place along with all the services we promised to deliver during 2011. Stay tuned and please bear with us as we perform the final changes to SEO Shepherd. If you have any queries please send them through to antispam@seo-shepherd.com

This is quite newsworthy mainly because it has been quite some time since the last confirmed Google Pagerank update happened, if memory serves me it was April 2nd 2010 when we had the last update.

Why is Pagerank so important then?

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page, used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is referred to as the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E).

The name “PageRank” is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.

In other news today!

Continuing a veritable changing of the guard across Silicon Valley this week, Google announced Thursday that co-founder Larry Page will become chief executive of the online search giant, replacing Eric Schmidt in a surprise management shakeup.

The news closely follows Apple’s revelation on Monday that CEO Steve Jobs would go on an indefinite medical leave, with Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook assuming day-to-day control. Also on Thursday, Hewlett-Packard appointed five new directors, including former eBay CEO and gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, as four stepped down.

Page, 37, will move into his new role at the Mountain View technology colossus on April 4, assuming control of the business that he began developing with Sergey Brin when they were Stanford University computer science doctoral students in 1996.

He’s taking the helm at a critical juncture for the company. It continues to deliver blockbuster financial results, as underlined by its fourth-quarter numbers also released Thursday. Meanwhile, it is beefing up staff, gobbling up innovative startups and staying on top of the defining trends in technology, including the fast transition to mobile devices.

For Google this day may probably be one of their most active since they started making headlines over a decade ago. The article above continues by trying to make out that Twitter and Facebook are direct competitors to Google, when they in fact are completely separate services all together. If anything, Twitter and Facebook are competing more about the same internet services than Google ever has with both of them combined.

It looks to be an interesting day with a lot of news to monitor and new SEO strategies to develop.

What is SEO? (Search Engine Optimisation)

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of preparing a website in order to achieve search engine rankings that drive traffic to your site. SEO is an ongoing process beginning with the initial optimisation of the site, monthly maintenance and Content Production for the site, regular evaluation of search results and other adjustments to the site or individual pages.

Why is it important to utilise SEO Services?

90% of Internet buyers are turning to search engines to find the products they want. Google alone conducts several hundred million searches a day. In fact, recent studies show that purchasers are about 12 times more likely to buy your products or services after finding your site through a search engine than all other traditional advertising methods combined (including trade shows, print ads, direct mail, radio, and even television) at just a fraction of the cost! Why? Simply put, when a consumer finds you through a search engine they are ready to buy. With traditional forms of media, you are broadcasting a message hoping to reach the right consumer at the right time. As searchers generally only explore the first two pages in the search results, achieving high rankings on the search engines will make an enormous difference in the amount of visitor traffic your site receives. The big score is when you manage to win the battle for that desired number #1 position as over 65% of all searches for any keyword clicks on that result!

Is there more to SEO?

Yes, proper SEO is not only about Search Engine Result Pages and Rankings and Keywords and Competitor Analysis and Back Links. With proper SEO as SEO Shepherd delivers it you get full assistance with your Online Marketing, from Social Media engagement to Client Interaction and even up selling services if it is applicable and something that you require for your Marketing Strategy.

How much does the SEO Services you provide cost?

Each SEO Service is unique and requires different amount of resources to complete, should you order a complete Competitor Analysis of Ebay for eample (it has millions of individual pages) then it will take quite some time and computer resources to complete, while if you request the same for a small website it will require considerably less resources. SEO Shepherd offers a unique SEO Services Price Calculator that gives you an idea of what these services may cost you. While there are many facctors to consider, we will always confirm with you before commencing any kind of SEO Services.

SEO Services

Are these ‘one off’ Services really working?

SEO and in particular the Higher Rankings are something that requires time and usually a sensible dose of maintenance and upkeep, ‘one off’ Services can give you a short boost and quick visibility for things you may need today and right now. You can combine several ‘one off’ services and spread them out as you go along, depending on your needs and budget restrictions. These ‘one off’ services are often used by large companies that need quick commercial boost from a multitude of sources, but also by upstarters that have very little SEO Budget to use for their Online Marketing. The aim of SEO Shepherd is to allow for the clients to be in control of their SEO Budgets.

I just need something sorted fast, can SEO Shepherd help me?

Sure, we have many induvidual SEO Services we provide listed here, if you require more details about the impact and expected effect they can have, please use our Contact Page and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible.

I have a large/small scale website that will require high/low amount of SEO Services, can you deliver this?

Large or Small website have very little differences between them, what determines the type of services you require often depends on other factors like seasonal events (If you sell travel and it is in the middle or end of your main season then SEO should focus on the next big event) and where in the life cycle your website is (pre-planning,just launched, re-designed, established). Most people believe that the bigger the website, the more SEO staff they must have, this is not entirely accurate as it is the different types of services and what focus you need or want to give them that determines the required amount of staff. The main areas in SEO (Online Marketing) are: SEO, PPC, Social Media, Email Marketing, PR (Offline SEO) and Web Design. They are without any particular order as in major campaigns they can have equal or situational greater importance. SEO usually encompasses all these services, but they are each specific services in which you can have dedicated professionals that have excellent skills unique for that particular area of service, providing you with an even greater impact of your Online Marketing Efforts.

What is the difference between Standalone and Subscribed Services?

Standalone or the ‘one off’ SEO Services are performed as agreed, be this assistance with product launch or other events that require quick boosts mainly for the visibility of an event. Subscribed SEO Services are packages that are focusing on bringing your website more visits and improving the Rankings of the Keywords of your website. All SEO Services provided by SEO Shepherd, aside from Rank Tracking, are available as Standalone Services.

What is so unique about SEO Shepherd?

SEO Shepherd believes in putting you in focus and listening to your specific needs, be it that you already know what you want or helping you find out what you may need for your Online Marketing, for your website and services. SEO Shepherd is also the only SEO Company (at the writing of this document) that offers unique ‘one off’ SEO Services that you can order when you have the means and opportunity to deal with them! There are other unique services similar to this that is available for our subscription customers all of which they can access in their SEO Business Accounts area. Did we also mention that you get a personal and professional SEO Service that takes that extra three steps to ensure that you are happy with the results?

Why SEO Shepherd

I have tried SEO before, but I was not happy with the results, can you do better?

The short answer is: Yes! We can, by setting what you wish to achieve and advise you of anything that is not productive (Like attempting to rank higher for a Keyword no one searches for). Having your web site rank high in the search engines is both science and creativity, plus the rules for search engine optimisation (SEO) are changing every day. To be able to bring you better clarity and understanding, we at SEO Shepherd ensures that you have your desired key metrics set out before we start performing any kind of SEO Services, even if it is only one of our ‘one off’ services.

Can you build your own SEO Package from SEO Shepherd?

Yes you can, the main packages available on our SEO Services List are general and put together with a broad perspective in mind. We are always working from the fact that each website is unique and so are its services offered, as such we know that what works for one website may not at all work for another.

Do you offer any free samples or reports?

SEO Shepherd provides new customers with one Free SEO Report on a website of their choice, this can be their own website or a competitors website, additional reports can be bought individually or as a part of a package. This Free SEO Report contains details on what the website or webpage have issues with in terms of Onpage SEO and it also provides you with an accurate list of what keywords that are visible on this website or webpage (you will often be surprised at what is discovered).

Is there any catch with this ‘Free SEO Report’?

No, there is none, you just send your request to us and we perform the analysis and return you a report in PDF format and then we leave it at that. Should you however require other services from us we will move your email address to our registry where we may (occasionally) send you an email regarding changes and upgrades to our services and occasional season greetings.

Why Should I choose SEO Shepherd?

We understand the dynamics of marketing, business, and technology – and employ the highest levels of integrity. You also want to get an up to date SEO Service that strives to deliver understandable results, personal yet professional business management and someone that cares about your website just as much as you do. If that is not enough, SEO Shepherd provides you with tools that lets you be in control of your own Online Marketing, without having to do the heavy lifting and if there are things you are unsure about, SEO Support will always be included to all our clients, ready to explain specific services in depth, but do be careful – SEO Shepherd is passionate about Search Engine Optimisation and if you get us talking we might never stop!

Technical SEO

Will you require access to our web servers?

It depends, we leave this fully up to our clients, and if you should choose to not let us have access, we will then provide you with changes required through Email or FTP that you can upload in your own time. This is sometimes time consuming and SEO Shepherd strongly advise against this as it often has sevee impact on the success of achieving higher Rankings. No changes will however, with or without access to the web servers, be undertaken before express permission is given.

What are the reasons for my website not ranking high?

There are several reasons a website fails to rank high, most common is that you have heavy competition with excellent SEO, the second is that you have weak content and your website is more visible for unproductive terms like your telephone number, your own URL and words like ‘Click here’ or ‘Buy Now’ instead of your USP’s (Unique Selling Points) and your own products. There are hundreds of other factors that comes in to play in various stages of ranking and purchasing cycles and being aware of them is what makes SEO Shepherd an excellent SEO Company.

Can you guarantee a Number #1 spot for me?

We know that this is breaking the cardinal rule of sales pitching – No! There is nobody that can do this! SEO Companies that quarantee you Number #1 positions in Google are scams, either they are scamming you when they tell you this or they rank you Number #1 for something that nobody ever searches for (or ever will search for). The reason that no one can guarantee this is that there is no SEO in the world that controls the algorithms of the Search Engines. There are however SEO Experts and Strategists that can bring you very high and let you get in on the fight for that Number #1 position, but they cannot guarantee you this spot.

What about first page result?

First page result is something that can be attempted with better certainty, there are however the factor of time required to achieve this as well as other factors to include like how tough is the competition and if they employ SEO Strategies of their own. It is a lot easier to get in on the First Page if the resutls there are without SEO Services, than if they are with.

How long does it take for SEO results to kick in?

The amount of time required varies greatly from Search Engine to Search Engine. This is dependent on how often search engines update their index and subsequently re-rank sites. One of the first key actions SEO Shepherd performs is to get the Search Engines to come around and visit your website as often as possible.

Why should we NOT do the SEO ourselves?

While SEO at a glance is easy enough to perform, it is in the long run time consuming and keeping tabs on what is going on requires both expertise and experience. There is also the fact that your competitor is more than likely to have hired some SEO Services Company to outrank you, which, if that is the case, should you be spending the time you have trying to fight an Expert SEO Strategist or is it better invested in some other area? There is also the fact that if you don’t know what you are doing, you can end up costing yourself a big pile of money for correcting issues like your About Page (with embarrasing staff photos) ranks higher than your main page – Something your SEO Company will have to deal with before they can adress issues like bringing you more clients.

It has taken forever to become visible in ‘Google’, but we are still only in the hundreds?

Great, that is an excellent start, we are ranking in the Top 100 results, which is easier to monitor, gives us an idea of who our competitors are and all we really have to do is gear up for the long climb to the top. Time to improve will depend completely on how fierce the competition is.

My keyword is not even visible, and it has now been months of SEO Efforts?

Then there either one of two things wrong, the first being that your website is not eligeble in some way for this, most common mistake made to date is trying to rank for ‘Winter Car Tyres’ when your company is selling ‘Beauty Cosmetic Products’. The second is that your SEO Company isn’t up for the task, so review your SEO Strategy and if you cannot find a solution, go look for a different SEO Service Provider.

How will SEO Shepherd build my SEO Strategy?

The main area is Keywords and with input from your own desired Keywords in combination with your websites own visibility and Keywords you are already being found for, we devise a strategy, basing these keywords on a scale called Keyword Efficiency Index and from this start putting our efforts in a balanced effort, while constantly monitoring reults to be able to decide if something requires more effort, less effort or must be left alone for the time being as the competition is putting to heavy focus on it for the time being.

Time scales, I like time scales and I would like to know exact number of When and How?

A good SEO Campaign that is aimed to bring more lasting effects works best in 3 months installments, should you desire our Subscribed SEO Services we recommend that you take them in 3, 6, 9 or 12 months subscription. You will be briefed prior to selecting the length of any subscription as to what is expected to be achieved with that particular package. Any SEO Package with duration longer than 3 months can be altered during its course. Please note, there is no one that can guarantee you a Number #1 spot, the same goes for time required to achieve better rankings in SEO – This is due to any number of factors that can impact your Rankings, one of them can be that Google decides to perform ‘Google Dance’ on your specific Keyword on the day of Final Delivery and move you down 75 positions, or even completely from the results.

There is however other thing we can look at, such as the actions themselves. This article is meant to enlighten you a little about SEO and perhaps help you in the future when you will have to enlist these services. Here are things to consider when you are looking for SEO Services.

Do not limit yourself!

Do not go with companies that put a limited number on the keywords they will optimise for you. While it is taking time and effort to rank for one keyword, you are far better off with SEO Services that allows you to change these keywords when you need to, or even better – a company that manages this for you and keeps you updated to changes and opportunities.

You should always be able to adapt and in many cases starting an SEO campaign promoting one or two keywords will lead to accidental discovery that other keywords or keyphrases are improving – It can result in losing a lot of revenue to not start working on these keywords as you have already signed a contract stipulating that another keyword that is not even visible yet is to be promoted instead.

Ask for Details and Explanation!

Require real proof of what their services will mean and what effect they will have. If your SEO Proposal sounds a bit vague, then there is a very high chance that they do not know what they are doing or that they are unsure about how to deliver this to you. The best approach is to get this on paper, with clear outlines as to what they expect that they can do for you.

While you may not understand that much about SEO you can still adapt a lot of common sense to it, you can ask the same question twice, but with just a little twist to it so that it does not sound the same – but if the answer is completely different, then you know that they are just dumping a lot of fancy words at you in hope that you will succumb. SEO is about research and investigation and you will be surprised at how much money they would have tried to charge you if you hadn’t asked a few serious questions.

Don’t Pay Too Much!

Make sure that you set aside a budget that is affordable to you, many SEO companies have fixed prices and they may seem fair enough, but if the company have fixed prices then they are also very likely to have an “out of the box” solution that may or may not be very suitable for your needs. You are better off trying to find a company that can work with your budget rather than the other way around. In the end it is you that are supposed to make a profit. And do be prepared to invest some money, you will not get that much for £100, but it may get you started.

Using simple mathematics here is that you have a service for which you charge X amount of money. Now within this price is part of the promotion for this product, this is Y amount of money. You also have the manufacturing cost and the administrative costs, that for simplicity is covering everything you have to pay in order to make this product, this is Z amount of money. You profit margin is A, so the formulae goes Profit is A = X – Y – Z. Now you already know how much you are selling and how big your profit margin is, it is from this that you should decide your SEO Budget to spend on the Y, and remember if Y is bigger than X, then you are losing money!

Understand How SEO works!

Be aware that SEO is an evolving service, it actually takes time to work and your goal should always be to focus on your end destination. While SEO initially is quite costly, once it is up and running it will be fairly cheap to maintain and you will see your cost per acquisition go down quite a lot.

SEO is an investment, but it comes with a metric that is fairly new in the world of trade and commerce (outside of the stock market that is) and that is the fact that SEO requires time and lots of it. You cannot just toss a big heap of money on SEO and expect results a few minutes later. There are hundreds of reasons why, but to keep it simple the fact that while you want to be found for one keyword, so do others and they don’t care if it is your website they knock down from that spot or anyone else. Search Engines today are quite fast and updating very regularly, what takes time is to establish long term sustainability so that you remain at the top, even with others trying to take it away from you.

Investigate your SEO provider!

Take a look at your potential SEO company’s website, but look beyond fancy graphics, and read what it says in the content and have your teenage nephew have a look at it and listen to what they say. Remember it is in the interest of the SEO Company to make money and many of them are not afraid to sell you the moon if it means that they will land you as their client.

Today it is very easy to look good, for the price of 2 pizzas you can have a name of a website, place to have your pages and someone else has provided you with graphics so that your website looks very professional and great. What is different for SEO companies is that you should be able to find them in search engines – If they can’t promote themselves, how are you to expect them to be able to promote you?

There is however one forgiving factor to consider when you ask for what keyword your SEO provider can be found for and how many people that search for it, that is that in the world of SEO the competition is so stiff that between number 1 and number 30, the difference is extremely low. An additional question you can ask your SEO provider if they are within that bracket is what they are doing to better their own rankings.

Remember that in the end it all comes down to free will and that no SEO in the world can guarantee that a specific clicker will buy your product, however – the really good ones can make sure that there is every reason for the clicker to buy your services. It is however something that is part of really complex SEO and if you are just starting out, then you need to focus more of your energy on getting visitors to your website.

One website should only link out to its community and links gained in return considered as a part of this tactic and proof for this element. Other than this the website is not to be displaying any proof of social interaction.

The second website is set to be going for the social bookmarking and user experience to vote for the website. These include a wide range from Stumble and Digg which are really more of submissions than bookmarks to almost any bookmarking site there is a plugin for.

The third website should have it all, but running in the background and not on the website. All types of bookmarking, social community interactions such as Facebook, Forums and YouTube to community link building for the niches traffic.

The workload of Social Media

It is easy for the experienced to see that the first website is going to take minimum amount of work as it has the least variation of social interaction to do, while the last website is going to take much more time. With this in mind this experiment has also taken the metric of time spent to value gained in to account.

The Social Media Strategy

To just blunder in on the social scene is bad practice, but I have seen it so many times now that I am wondering if it works, or it just is that people never learn. With this in mind all the websites have been given their time to accumulate content and have more than a simple “Hello World” to offer the visitors.

Once content was in place I started from the top of the list and did some fancy Google commands to find the niche and narrow down the results in to categories where traffic and purpose indicate a community of interest. This list was then put through some tools to determine where the most traffic was and from this compile the Christmas wish list, with the more difficult and desirable keywords at the top.

What helped to gain the links here was the quality SEO content that I provided which made it easier for these communities to link to me. The best tactic to employ in these cases is to step back and look at first the design and then the content, if you find that you would link to this then perform a random sampling and ask someone that does not fear you, but also is not your friend to such an extent that they would blow smoke up your backside. If they agree you are set to go.

The conclusion for the result of the first website is that quality content brings quality engagement, but to depend on that alone is an effort that far exceeds any potential return on investment. As you have to spend most of your time creating unique quality content and then what little time you have left to negotiate with website owners and SEO alike that there is little room for anything else. This may prove however to be the perfect task to assign to someone if you are part of or have a team of SEO. The plus side with this was that this website was the only one to gain a Page Rank.

The second website relied heavily on Social Bookmarking, what I found here was quite interesting. The Social Bookmarking at large is a waste of time. It drives very little traffic for the amount of effort, you have a wide range of so called services that does not work or even amount to any proof that what you did really had any effect at all. Digg and Stumble however proved very useful.

While Digg only provided three visits without any votes, I also noted that for new bookmarks on Digg, you get one “veteran” visitor that had indication to favour your topic and two neutral visits that either bounced or did not like what they saw. It may be that the formula that Digg uses is to provide one favourable, one neutral and one less likely to approve of your content. If this is the case then there should be a way to push your content without having to resort to multiple accounts and other generally unethical behaviour.

For Stumble you will get visits – that is a fact, but the quality of these visitors may vary quite heavily. I have had extremely high amount of visitors and no conversions and other days very few visitors and almost a one hundred per cent conversion rate.

Article Creation

Creating high quality and relevant articles are one big key component for any website that wants to be found online, the article provides content for the users in your niche and gives them something to interact with or help them decide on purchases they are still deciding on.  This does not only provide users with something to read, it also increases words on your website or in regard to your website which is the foundation upon which we build and use keywords.

• Visibility: Very High
• Time: < 1 hour
• Effect: Increasing Keyword and shaping Message Match

Article Submission

Article Submission or Article Usage is the process where you spread your article across the internet or make it available on your own website. Depending on the contents of the article itself you choose if it is distributed to Article Directories, Press Release Websites or for use on your own website. The reason for not using the same articles in submissions as on your own website is that you will share the “effort” with all those Article Directories, many of whom are a lot stronger than your own website and as such may rank higher in the Search Engines than your own website.

• Visibility: Extremely High
• Time: About 5 minutes per Directory / Content for Own Purpose depending on Webmaster Availability
• Effect: Keyword Targeted Back Links / Content Message Shaping

Competitor Analysis

The modern form of spying and learning what your competitors are up to. During Competitor Analysis you attain information about Keywords that they actively target, back links they have previously acquired. From this you can compare the amount of keywords they have targeted and where they are in the Search Engine Ranking Results, so if they have very few keywords targeting something you both compete about and they rank very high you know you have found an area to work on.

• Visibility: Extremely Low
• Time: About 1 hour for 1 keyword on 10 competitors
• Effect: Competition Landscape and acquisition of Keywords to target

Conversion Optimisation

If there is reason to believe that you are having the right kind of traffic to your website, but your sales are no where near enough to reflect that, then you need to perform a Conversion Optimisation where you analyse and rebuild your sales pages. To do this you create a duplicate of your sales page and let them run either side by side or one at a time during a period of time and then analyse their performance. This is referred to as multivariate testing, A/B testing or split page testing.

• Visibility: Very High
• Time: About 1 hour + 1-4 weeks analytical data gathering + 1 hour Statistical Analysis Report
• Effect: Increased Conversion Rate

Email Campaign Analysis

Email marketing is highly potent and drives lots of qualified traffic to your website if you have built your own database of email addresses and you can further optimise this effort through content optimisation of the emails being sent out, ensuring that you are getting the best Return on Investment.

• Visibility: Minimal
• Time: About 1 hour per 5 products in the email
• Effect: Increased Click Through Rate

Brand Ambassador

By using Brand Ambassadors you have people talking about your products and creating a buzz where possible about you or in related ways to you and your unique services. This is a very time consuming process and requires maintenance over a long time. The optimal result a Brand Ambassador can achieve is starting a Viral Campaign. Brand Ambassadors usually employ a wide range of tools, including Twitter, free blog platforms and niche specific forums.

• Visibility: Moderate
• Time: 1 hour per day
• Effect: Random Social Link Building, Viral Marketing Launches and Buzz about your Products

Keyword Prognosis

Sort of a shot in the dark where you look at the Keywords themselves and not in relation to your website, analyse the competition for each keyword and then measure the places your website rank. From this result you will be able to estimate the effort required to achieve improvements in the Search Engines. You as a client provide the Keywords you wish to start ranking for. This can also be performed on Keywords where you are already Number 1 and just wish to assess the competition.

• Visibility: Very Low
• Time: 1 hour per 20 keywords
• Effect: Knowledge about time requirements for Keyword Optimisation / Investment Prognosis

Keyword Research

Keyword Research is performed with your website as a base, listing the keywords you are visible for and through this finding out where these rank, how much traffic they have and analysing their current trend ability. Keyword Research can also be performed prior to a website launch as part of Project Research when you ascertain whether or not a Project is worth investing time, resources and money.

• Visibility: Very Low
• Time: 1 hour per 20 keywords
• Effect: Keyword Procurement / Link Building Keyword Prioritisation

Page Analysis

Ensuring your websites are broadcasting the appropriate message, that your individual pages are helping each other in building the right keywords that are visible to the Search Engines as a whole. This is also done to ensure that the page itself is being found and not being Out Ranked by your websites other pages.

• Visibility: Minimal
• Time: Average 15 minutes – Complexity of page determines time required
• Effect: Keyword Optimisation on individual page level

PPC Keyword Research

If your website is new or you find yourself in an incredibly competitive market then you have to choose your battles carefully. PPC is a short term solution and should always be considered as such. The selection of Keywords should be chosen from keywords you have trouble ranking for Organically, but also from Keywords where you Rank well. There is a balance to achieve between these Keywords to avoid cannibalising your SEO Efforts.

• Visibility: Quite Low
• Time: About 1 hour per 20 keywords
• Effect: Selected Keywords to Initiate PPC Campaign / Updated Keywords for your running PPC Campaign

PPC Performance Analysis

When running a PPC Campaign there is likely that you have Keywords that costs nothing but money and some Keywords or ads that never see the light of day. Analysis of these campaigns and their efficiency can improve the Return Of Investment you do in Pay Per Click Campaigns and identify Keywords you are paying a lot of money for but never gain any conversion.

• Visibility: Very Low
• Time: About 1 hour per 20 keywords
• Effect: Identification of costly keywords / Potential identification of unused Keywords

SEO Evaluation

Review of your website with focus on the SEO Efforts invested in this. This can be in regards to any aspect from you wanting to know if what your current SEO Investment is worth the money to analysing the set up of a freshly launched or even still in production website. This service provides you with an objective view with highly explained and easy to understand language report regarding what your current SEO State is.

• Visibility: Extremely Low (Internal Report)
• Time: Highly depending on Size of Website and invested SEO Efforts
• Effect: Understanding of Invested SEO Efforts / Evaluation of Current SEO Providers efforts

SEO Prospect

Not sure if you require SEO or simply curious if you are at a stage where you need SEO Services. This report analyses your website, keyword visibility and estimated time required to start seeing results. All aspects are analysed in this report which includes Onpage, Offpage, Social Media and Email Marketing options that your site will have available. Complete and honest list of Keywords that your website currently is visible for as well as where you are ranking in the Major Search Engines.

• Visibility: Extremely Low (Internal Report)
• Time: Average 4 hours – Highly depending on Size of Website
• Effect: Report identifying website performance and SEO Requirements

Social Bookmarking

The World Wide Web is moving towards an ever increasing Social Interaction Network and establishing presence on these is getting ever more paramount to protect your own Brand as well as spreading the message about your services, products and solutions. This is an extremely time consuming process and more often than not results in unsuccessful submissions due to the fact that the platforms are heavily monitored by individuals that decide if they like or not like your bookmark.

• Visibility: Very High
• Time: About 5 minute per successful Bookmark
• Effect: Buzz about your website / Minor improvement on Search Result Rankings

Social Media Analysis

Social Networks open up the door to the public and gives them a channel where they can aim questions towards your company, but also a channel back where you can broadcast your message to the fast moving culture of Social Networks. If you know that your main clients are between the age of 18 and 44 then it is critical that you establish presence where they also spend their online time.

• Visibility: Extremely Low (Internal Report)
• Time: About 20 minutes per Social Media Network
• Effect: Determine Value for establishing Active Presence on Social Networks

Social Media Management

Opening the doors to Social Networks can seem daunting and the fear of the occasional critical comment from displeased customers keeps many companies from using these highly potent and effective networks. What is required is a Social Media Manager that can maintain and manage the avalanche of comments, queries and remarks from users. With proper management you can also have your users and loyal customers help spreading your message even further. This is where you can take the first step in launching something that can go Viral.

• Visibility: Superior
• Time: 1 hour per day minimum
• Effect: Social Media Interaction / Increased Brand Trust / Potential Viral Campaign Management

Website Analysis

Search Engines uses a multitude of techniques and criteria to determine the worthiness of your website and where it should be in the Search Engine Result Pages. These are things that may seem very trivial such as the time it takes your server to load the page to whether or not you have performed the website coding properly. This is things that are highly technical and in a sense has not so much to do with the actual promotion, but think of it like this – Without computer screens, who would see your website?

• Visibility: Extremely Low (Internal Report)
• Time: Between 4 – 6 hours – Sampling performed during Peak Hours
• Effect: Technical Requirements / Determination if Upgrade of Web Services is Required

All our services are carefully evaluated and agreed upon with you as our client before we commit our resources. We care about you as a client and understand the privilege you have given to SEO Shepherd in order to promote your website. Use this for to send an inquiry about our SEO Services.

Creating high quality and relevant articles are one big key component for any website that wants to be found online, the article provides content for the users in your niche and gives them something to interact with or help them decide on purchases they are still deciding on.  This does not only provide users with something to read, it also increases words on your website or in regard to your website which is the foundation upon which we build and use keywords.

Competitor Analysis

The modern form of spying and learning what your competitors are up to. During Competitor Analysis you attain information about Keywords that they actively target, back links they have previously acquired. From this you can compare the amount of keywords they have targeted and where they are in the Search Engine Ranking Results, so if they have very few keywords targeting something you both compete about and they rank very high you know you have found an area to work on.

Keyword Research

Keyword Research is performed with your website as a base, listing the keywords you are visible for and through this finding out where these rank, how much traffic they have and analysing their current trend ability. Keyword Research can also be performed prior to a website launch as part of Project Research when you ascertain whether or not a Project is worth investing time, resources and money.

SEO Evaluation

Review of your website with focus on the SEO Efforts invested in this. This can be in regards to any aspect from you wanting to know if what your current SEO Investment is worth the money to analysing the set up of a freshly launched or even still in production website. This service provides you with an objective view with highly explained and easy to understand language report regarding what your current SEO State is.

SEO Prospect

Not sure if you require SEO or simply curious if you are at a stage where you need SEO Services. This report analyses your website, keyword visibility and estimated time required to start seeing results. All aspects are analysed in this report which includes Onpage, Offpage, Social Media and Email Marketing options that your site will have available. Complete and honest list of Keywords that your website currently is visible for as well as where you are ranking in the Major Search Engines.

Social Media Management

Opening the doors to Social Networks can seem daunting and the fear of the occasional critical comment from displeased customers keeps many companies from using these highly potent and effective networks. What is required is a Social Media Manager that can maintain and manage the avalanche of comments, queries and remarks from users. With proper management you can also have your users and loyal customers help spreading your message even further. This is where you can take the first step in launching something that can go Viral.

SEO in 2010

For me SEO in 2010 was a lot about changes, since 2007 SEO slowly started moving and becoming more complex, true enough that Link Building still was the name of the game and that the impact of them still outranked most tricks you could perform Onpage – even the Black Hat techniques (then referred to as ground breaking tricks). 2010 started very slowly but I did manage to note early on that fresh and unique content managed to appear in Google instantly, even on extremely fresh websites, so I conducted an experiment setting up three blogs where I posted unique content every day for 10 weeks and I managed to find out that 475 words or more in an article made the bots come around a lot faster than 474 words did. This remained true for the entire 10 weeks I ran this experiment, but I was unable to replicate it when attempting to redo the experiment, still it has led me to believe that the volume of content also matters.

The dreaded May Day update impacted people in very different ways, for me personally I saw a drop on about half of my websites, but at the same time an equal increase on the rest of the websites, so my overall traffic volume was the same, but my websites traffic levels shifted individually.

I also detected several features and abilities that made SEO work a lot more simple and saved me tons of time. Syndication of RSS feeds can now go further than just the normal reach that most SEO use them for. I have managed to gather quite the arsenal of potent SEO software, services and websites over the years I have been doing SEO. I really don’t know why but it was first in this year that I came up with the idea of using ALL of these software’s combined – even if they did perform exactly the same thing. The end result sprang my websites from a normal overall visit of 40 000 per month to 95 000 visits per month. The bounce rate increased by 10% and the time on my websites dropped by 20 seconds (24%).

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly in 2010

I was hired, enlisted, demanded, recruited and even head-hunted to provide SEO Strategy and Services for several companies in and around London. Here is a recap of my SEO experiences during 2010.

The Bad…

I managed to get around quite a lot in London during 2010, I was a part of saving a company that had accidentally made changes to their website structure, resulting in them losing over 33% of their daily visits – to my dismay however I did not manage to make their management realise that their strategy was about to get them blacklisted by Akismet in time, I did my best but the management was unable to understand the impact this would have as they said at the time “they were happy with the current level of traffic”.

I was hired by a company that was not entirely honest about their motives when they requested an “experienced multi-lingual SEO person”, my initial instinct when trying to locate this company’s website was spot on as they was not really keen on being found more than they already were and merely needed the multi-lingual skills I possessed. I did not object until I got the confirmation directly from the company’s founder himself, a man who had been avoiding my SEO questions from day one. The entire experience resulted in them having a completely useless blog system far outranking their money making website.

I also saved another company in complete disarray after having been dumped by two senior SEO staff in a very short time. When I came on board I manage to calm the clients down and reassure them that SEO really works and that they would be in safe hands (once the company had managed to allocate resources for more SEO staff – but that was something I was prohibited from explaining to the clients as I was under strict orders to make the company appears to have more staff than it really did, something I was fine with as I was promised that more staff would join shortly). The clients was satisfied, but the large portfolio made quality SEO deliverables an extreme challenge and I found myself working 12 – 16 hours per day, even during the weekends just to try and deliver as good as possible results to these clients. When the owner of that company requested that I should put more hours in I told him politely that I could not do so and that I regrettably had to resign him as a client, we shook hands and I handed back the equipment. However after handing over my final invoice this company owner decided to act out and started sending threatening emails, phone calls and refusing to pay the money he owed me. It also came to my attention that he may have continued using my name and kept my email account with his company active to communicate with the clients, forcing me to publicly renounce any participation with that company – You can see the short notice here:  SEO Service Disclaimer! – In hindsight I know clearly why the two previous SEO staff abandoned their posts.

The Ugly…

Overall my year 2010 in London seems to have attracted a lot of the bad, the incompetent and the malicious, coming from my background we do not engage as much in these “backstabbing businesses” to try and give a brief description to these events – Where I come from we mean what we say and we do what we say we will do, personal politics and rumor spreading and spite is what cowards engage in, I am not interested in your job title, your job position or stepping over someone in the ranks to get ahead – I am here to do a job, learn what I can and with that deliver the best possible, highest quality result I can to the clients.

The Good…

All was not bad during the 2010, I managed to get pleasantly surprised by a complete fresh starter in SEO, prior to meeting me he had only known about SEO for 2 months, that was in May 2010 and he is now heading up as a SEO Team Leader for a company that has websites that get as many as 150 000 daily visits during off seasons and as many as 900 000 daily visits when it is peaking.

We quickly realised that we both had some serious skills in SEO so a competition had to be held. To make a very long story short; We both set out with exactly the same foundation for a website, the same look, the same feel, the same on page enhancements and also some common grounds for regular SEO and after that it all came down to who could do the best to their website in terms of driving traffic and increasing value of the website. During the first few months I was getting my behind kicked at every turn, my strategy got forced to be more reactive than anything else as he constantly came up with ideas, content and tricks that kept driving traffic to his website. The only real thing I had going for my website was my long term goal, which was to prove that Domain Age Does NOT matter any longer. I managed to prove that by the middle of September and not until just some weeks ago did this become public knowledge through Google and Matt Cutts.

In the end I managed to win the competition, my website reached more than 145 000 monthly visits and based on data gathered it would have peaked over 900 000 monthly visits (with about 85% of them unique and 90% organic traffic) if I would have been able to find affordable hosting here in United Kingdom – Regrettably something that does not seem to exist here. I am still looking for dependable hosting, that can take these amounts of traffic without costing me an arm, two legs and three mortgages.

The Future of SEO

Maybe a bit dramatic for a sub head liner in an article, but here goes my predictions for what will happen with SEO in 2011. Just to put a little disclaimer here first – I am not to be held responsible should any of these predictions come true, nor if they never come to pass at all. These are only my predictions that are based on my experience and what I have been able to “determine by tea leaf reading and listening to the wind”.

So without anything else distracting us, here are my predictions for SEO (Online Marketing) in 2011;

1) SEO will move Offline! SEO will become even more of an umbrella for anything related to marketing, it will even branch out more in to the world that is called “Offline SEO”, which includes newspaper and print, TV and Radio. While some may refer to it as “educating the user” it is already set in motion and with the incredible increase of SEO jobs appearing everywhere we will see more and more companies using SEO in the “offline world”.

2) Social Media will dominate 2011! Social Media will be renewed in the sense that companies and search engines catch on to that this is where people “hang out online” and that search engines also “monitor what users click on” is going to increase the importance of what Social Media platforms are doing. This will mean that search engines will put a lot more importance on where users go, rather than where they are being led. SEO will still be able to impact this area, but not as effectively as before (without tapping heavily in to Social Media)

3) Microcosms of Social Communities. While this is already a truth it will be more important for SEO Strategists and Social Media [insert appropriate title here] to have a presence within these smaller communities. It has always been important for companies to move their social sphere to where their clients are, rather than trying to convince one client at a time to come to them, but with the development of these social communities companies will now run the risk of being excluded from these places. Much like the “No thank you to commercial post”-signs that people have on their front door to avoid spam. Which leads to…

4) Specific Targeting! Adverts will become even more effective through better understanding of consumers. Google is likely to file a couple of hundred thousand pages of patents all leading up to better targeting of their ads. Other companies will follow suite once this happens and we will soon see a race for who can “promise” the highest amount of CTR.

5) Link Building will work again! While Link Building suffered in 2010 since the May Day update, it will come back in importance again in 2011, but not at the previous levels we have seen before. We will see an even more demanding Google that will put a lot of efforts in determining uniqueness of links, rather than multitude. Page Rank will still carry some effect, but a completely fresh and voluntarily added link to your website will become more potent. It is a bit countering what I mean with Link Building will work again, but it will work as long as you are not the one placing the link (or can find a way of placing links without placing the links).

My plans for 2011…

I have several ideas for world domination during 2011 and the biggest and probably most time consuming will be to build an entire Social Media Empire – Not just something automated (although many aspects of it will be), but rather something real, that will provide users with quality and provide usefulness. Although I am not entirely on the clear about how to achieve the last bit I will find out along the way. You will find out what happened in 12 months, so stay tuned!

My second goal for 2011 is to bring up the amount of traffic relating to SEO for SEO Shepherd, at the moment it is extremely low and I have found that the quality traffic tend to end up here rather from some complicated search than a specific keyword. As such I will devise a better keyword list and focus heavily on driving SEO searching traffic to my website. All of this is going to be organic traffic and I will depending on how much time my major project is taking up be reporting on the progress as much as I can. All I can say for now is that I hope to be able to do a monthly report.

My administrative goal for 2011 is going to be to bring all my projects in under one umbrella, which will be SEO Shepherd, from where I can run and administrate most projects, this will likely include some kind of redesign of my website again, so that I can have room for all the features. Talking of which, any clients of SEO Shepherd will be receiving unique SEO Services and functionalities during 2011, work is still in progress, but once it is complete SEO Shepherd will be offering SEO Services that no other SEO company on the planet is offering. Very exciting times ahead.

But most of these things are not going to happen until the next year has arrived. Until then, Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to everyone – Thank you for a fun 2010!

With this new “awakening” one would assume that some kind of knowledge or idea at least regarding the concept of promotion of services, ideas, products or just about anything really. I have grown accustomed to CEO and Large Corporation to not understand or know these things (Hey, if they did I would be out of a job), but I do expect that our “engineers” at least know this concept as well as what methods are available to help promote a website. The “engineers” I refer to are Web Programmers, Web Developers and and Code Junkies.

What happened you ask? Well, long story short is that I have in 2010 come across a few serious web programmers that had no clue about RSS (Really Simple Syndication) – You can find my Feed here! – Yes, it is true. These guys had no clue, no idea and even a frown or two when I tried to explain this to them.

You must be joking?

This warranted a research moment, something as useful, potent and even viral enabling as RSS cannot simply be “unheard of”… or can it?

Apparently it can. After turning to our trusted source of information online (Google) I found that there was incredibly little information on how too make use of RSS ourside of the blogging community. Most CMS (Content Management System) came with this feature built in or as an easily accessed addon, plugin or other name for modules that you can add to your website to give it more function and features or even help with web mastering tasks like building photo galleries in just seconds, layout and article design or even as we are discussing now – Website Promotion!

My search was not in vain though, it took me quite some time, but I did after about an hour find out that there are ways for the non-CMS websites to use this very potent tool as well. I should add however that I have not tried this software out myself, but from what I have read and can figure out on my own it seems to do the job and then some. There is a draw back as I can see for now and that is that this software has to be installed on a machine with internet access and be constantly connected to your website. I know that there are some smart Web Developers out there that can probably do a Cron script that runs and performs exactly the same as this software. For those of you that do not know what a Cron is, it is a service that handles scheduled tasks, much like the automated virus scan of your computer.

Static Website and How To Add RSS to Them

As I stated, most CMS already has this feature available in some form, but if you have a webdesign company building and maybe even managing your website for you then you will have to look in to alternate solutions. I advise that you use some form of software for this, unless your webdesign company insists on writing this XML by hand.

The software I found was FeedForAll, I have not tried it, but it does exactly what I have been talking about in this article – it builds an XML file for you, uploads it to your server and then handles all the updates you do to your website.

The FeedForAll software also handles other types of RSS, such as Podcasts that is good if that is the type of service you use your website for.

I have been looking around for scripts that run or handles this server side, but they are either too complex or too reliant on you using some form of certified, non custom CMS.