jon, Author at Outsource Force

Basic Essential Questions to Ask Before Hiring Your SEO – What, Who, How

Posted on June 09, 2012 by jon

Search Engine Optimization is a complex process. If you aren’t familiar with its basic principles, it’s hard to tell whether someone really delivers good work, or if he actually has something to show for it.

Various companies want to increase their visibility on search engines; even those who have a decent knowledge of SEO seek help from professional agencies. Oftentimes, they concern themselves with two main things:

1. What is this agency able to do for us?
2. How much will their services cost?

In any workplace, hiring applicants requires taking a look at their background. No one hires people merely for their asking price, or simply for their claims about themselves. To determine whether someone is qualified, you look at his portfolio – including his resume, past successes and references. This value should also be applied the same when selecting an SEO company (or in-house optimizer). If your main qualification is an affordable price tag, it could result in disaster.

The “What” of SEO
The primary consideration in an SEO job is the work involved. This is why a Request for SEO Proposal is necessary.

If for example, you intend to start on a project – such as building a house or a website creation for business – one of the first things you need to determine is the scope of work. In the same way, the work involved in an SEO job should be defined. Certain concerns should be considered, such as:

What do you intend to accomplish?
What will this agency do for you?
What is the competitive landscape like?
Do you have a website, or are you able to create one?
Is it possible to make structural changes to your site?
Can you place content in existing sites?
Can you create new content, and who can write it?
Is link-building provided?
Do you plan to incorporate social media marketing?

The “Who” of SEO
Two similar proposals can lead to different results. This is because the outcome of your SEO project is determined by the individual workers involved.

Various agencies have differing rates – some may ask for $300 per month, while others may require as much as $10,000. Experts with several years of experience are obviously paid more than novices. This principle is followed in hiring applicants for a job, and this should also be the standard when considering SEO companies.

Remember that SEO agencies sell their services. The tools they use definitely require money, but you are paying for their time and effort. Some individuals will cost more than others; veterans have invested a lot of time refining their skills, and will thus charge more than rookies.

The “How” of SEO
Even if two different SEO agencies have similar proposals, they will have differing methods and procedures. Consider the following:

What processes do they employ?
Are their link-building strategies ethical?
Can you clearly comprehend how they increase Web visibility, or are they ambiguous about their methods?

Transparency is vital. If the agency you hired uses unscrupulous techniques that violate search engine guidelines, you will be penalized. So be extra careful.

The “How” and “Who” are Just as Significant as the “What”
You wouldn’t want to hire an unethical company – such as one with unscrupulous link-building methods, or one that outsources to workers they don’t know. Neither would you want to employ people who have limited experience. In this case, knowing the “who” – not just the “what” – is definitely a matter of great concern.

All these are important considerations in selecting an SEO agency. Be sure to take a look at qualifications and references; check them out and evaluate them for yourselves. Do a bit of research on the workers involved in your project, and be acquainted with the agency’s methods. Apply the same principles as in hiring an applicant for a position in your company. It will greatly benefit you to choose people with integrity, positive energy and good business ethics. It’s also important that they have good knowledge in their field of specialization, as well as a pursuit for excellence and success.

3 Simple but Useful Tips in Managing Your Social Media Accounts Effectively

Posted on June 07, 2012 by jon

These days, almost everyone is going online. From paying their bills to connecting with old friends and relatives, to research, or just read and see something fun. The Internet has indeed, revolutionized once again our ways to connect with people globally.

Not only did the social media improve our ways of communication, it also helped companies earn more profit through marketing their products online. Hence, the emergence of online marketing through social media.
Connecting with People
As much as possible, you should be able to connect with all of your demographic to really maximize this opportunity to succeed. This includes connecting not only with your local market but also your international customers. In order for you to do that, you must manage and maintain these social medias to your advantage. Here are some tips.

1. Choose your social media backbone
Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ are the popular kinds of social media nowadays, but that doesn’t mean you can already reach all of your potential market. There are different kinds of social networking sites that can be the most popular in one country and it’s not one of the aforementioned sites. That is why it’s important to establish the foundation of your social media and at the same time, adapt and compromise your tactics especially in countries that are not with the trend.

2. Be consistent and plan your strategies wisely
Consistency is the key. After you’ve established the tone of your profiles in every social media website, it is important to keep that tone all throughout. Large brands like Pepsi, Nike and Pixar have set their style in the web and made a mark or an identity. Pepsi, for instance, have created a mark in YouTube. Nike, on the other hand, have concentrated their work on developing applications that integrate their brands while Pixar have gained success in their Facebook page through incorporating the Toy Story trilogy.

You can also achieve this kind of success by adjusting your strategies with every kind of social media without compromising your profile structure. It is wise to have teams that would handle different campaigns to be consistent.

In addition, You should also take into consideration on your method to reach all of your market, both the established and potential. This usually varies on what type of business you have. Each social media has their own style in connecting with people. That is why you’ll have to chose wisely on which media to use for a certain kind of group. If you’ll maximize this, you will be efficient as ever.

3. Review and Implement
What gets monitored, gets done. This sentence amplifies the importance to always review and assess each campaign. Take note on the feedback, both positive and negative. Aside from the figures you’ll get in creating traffic and all, this is the best way to know whether your campaigns work or if it needs improvement. After scrutinizing each campaigns of each country, you can now implement new branding policies or marketing strategies to improve.

These are just few tips on how to manage all of your social media effectively for success. Just remember that it is all about context. Don’t be afraid to let the personality of your company show in each campaign. This will create a stronger connection to your customers resulting to a guaranteed success.

Tips in Choosing The Right Web Design Company

Posted on June 06, 2012 by jon

Fifteen years ago, finding a web developer was easy because there were only several professional web developers at that time. In the same time, Google was still in its initial stage as a privately held company. Today, there are millions of web design companies that can easily be found on the internet. When you type the term “web design companies” in Google, it will provide you with more than 500 million results. And when you finally choose one from the crowd, most likely you will choose one which is listed in the first page, especially the one listed in the top three results.

There is nothing wrong with choosing a web design company ranked in the first page. However, you need to know that being listed in the first page does not guarantee that the web design companies are the best ones. When choosing a web design company, there are many factors that you have to consider so you can finally find a reliable company. Here are several simple steps to help you determine whether or not the company that you find in Google is the right company to handle your website project.

Look at Their Own Website
Your first impression is very important. If their website does not make any good impact on you, then how can they create a website that can impress your visitors?

Look for the Portfolio
Do not underestimate the capability of a web design company just because they have never developed a website for any business in your industry. Take a look at their portfolio. If you find impressive websites in their portfolio, that’s a good sign.

Know if You Can Trust Them
It is normal if they will try to convince you that their services can fulfill your needs. However, regardless of their portfolio, technologies, expertise or other factors, you need to ask yourself whether you can trust them or not. It will be a waste of money and time to use services from a company that you cannot trust.

Ask the Sales Team some Technical Questions
Good sales people do not need to have excellent technical knowledge. However, good sales people must know the services offered by their company, so when you explain your problems, they can explain correctly how their services can address your problems. If you do not have a good knowledge in web design, let your IT department to meet the sales people.

Know Who’s Going to Work on Your Website and Where is it Done
The sales people in the company may be great but programmers and designers are the ones who will actually build your website. Ask them where they live and whether they are part-time or full-time. Are they working in the office or home-based? It is highly recommended that you choose companies whose employees are in-house and working full time. The main reason is that if there is something wrong with your website, it can be fixed immediately.

Ask Who Will Own the Code
If the company does not hand over the codes and all the files to you in the end of the process, you have to blacklist the company. You pay them to build your website so you must possess all files and codes related to your website. This one needs to be clarified in the beginning.

In web design industry, the old saying “you get what you pay for” is indeed true. Although there is no standard checklist to help you make the right decision, the above steps can help you to go on the right direction and finally find a reliable web design company.

6 High Impact Changes For Great SEO After Google’s Recent Penguin Update

Posted on June 05, 2012 by jon

Google’s Penguin update gives us a clear message that knowing the SEO basics is vital to survive in the future. Google seems does not care whether you are in the black, grey or white zone, the main thing that they demand is relevance. If you do not want your sites to become one of the victims of the Penguin, make sure you implement the followings changes.

1. Focus on Getting Good Links

A few moments ago, Matt Cutts has stated that Google ignores lots of low quality links. Good links are the main drivers to give more authority to your sites. Here are the criteria of good links:

– come from reputable sites, brands, organizations and people
– give value to visitors
– placed in the content of a page
– placed in pages that get lots of inbound links

The conclusion from Matt Cutts’ statement is that you cannot control how Bing or Google counts and values your inbound links. So from now on, it’s wise to focus your SEO link building campaigns to get good links because good links will not only rank your sites but they become your business assets.

2. Pay Attention to Your Link Profile
You have to make sure that your sites do not have too many low quality inbound links with matching anchor texts. There have been many evidences showing that 60% is the maximum limit for targeted anchor text. Here are several things that you should consider before running your link building campaigns:

– Domain and page authority distributions
– Targeted text distribution
– Link type distribution such as directory, comment, article, etc

3. Know all Your Pages and Low Value Pages (noindex)
Knowing every single page in your sites is very important because it does not only help you to avoid duplicate content, but it helps you to make thorough evaluation when things go wrong. Keep in mind that Google does not provide accurate numbers of indexed pages. Go beyond the first 100 results to search for duplicate or thin content.

4. Make a Good Crawl Path
Google has given enough information on how it enters a site. You have to make sure that your sites have good crawl path so Google can crawl the entire pages of your sites. Moreover, putting important pages on top of the crawl path helps you to make your sites become authority sites.

5. Avoid Changing Your URLs at All Costs
New designs, new apps, new software and new platforms are common reasons for changing URLs. Unfortunately, changing URLs can cause serious damage to your sites. If you really need to change the URLs of your pages then the 301 redirect is the best solution.

6. Implement Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is the next level after SEO. Relying merely on organic traffic from search results is not a good idea. You have to invest time and effort to leverage your websites using inbound marketing. Reach your visitors and provide them with things they need the most. Inbound marketing can give more impact than bombarding your sites with boring pages.

Pros & Cons of Hiring a Virtual Assistant Through an Agency & Hiring Directly

Posted on June 02, 2012 by jon

Enlisting the services of a virtual assistant can prove rather beneficial especially in the case of a business. A virtual assistant can help you out in a number of ways in the day to day operations of your business, for instance doing the internet marketing such as SEO, PPC, and web design. Typically, a virtual assistant is a much cheaper option to a full time or even part time physical employee.

You can either hire a virtual assistant via a hiring agency or directly. Both these methods have advantages and disadvantages.

* One advantage of hiring a virtual assistant directly is that you are best placed to understand what exactly you want and therefore you know exactly what to look for. This means that as you search and read the qualifications and services offered by various assistants, you are better placed to make a better decision in regards to those needs.

* If you hire the virtual assistant directly it is much easier to fire them if they fail to live up to your standards. With an agency, firing a virtual assistant may require a bit more involvement. On the other hand; the downside of hiring a virtual assistant directly is that you have to really look around before you can find the one with the qualifications you require. This means that a lot of time that could have otherwise been spent on improving your business will be wasted in this undertaking.

* The other disadvantage of hiring directly is that you stand a higher chance of getting someone who is not up to standard. You may be unlucky enough to find a person who is just out to make some quick money at your expense. Hiring incompetent virtual assistants may not directly cost you money (because you only pay for work that is done satisfactorily) but it could really waste a great deal of your time which could have been translated to profits.

* If you decide to use an agency to hire a virtual assistant, you will have a higher chance of getting the right person for the job. If for some reason you are not satisfied with the person the agency gives you, they can get you another person without having to go back to the drawing board. This will save you a considerable amount of time.

* An agency will basically make your work a lot easier. You do not have to extensively search the web or other sources for the assistant. All you have to do is link up with the agency and have them find you a good service provider. Again; this will save you time.

* On the down side however, you may not always find what you are looking for from an agency. On top of that, you may be unlucky enough to enlist the services of a not-so professional hiring agency. What this means is that the agency may only be looking to link as many assistants as possible to employers, without really looking into the issue of the quality they offer. Whichever way you choose to hire an assistant, always ensure that you only pay for satisfactory services rendered.

Internet Marketing Outsourcing to the Philippines

Posted on May 29, 2012 by jon

Outsourcing first became popular in the United States of America during the turn of the 21st Century. It basically means that instead of doing a certain process internally, companies will hire or purchase another company’s services as a replacement, usually in another country. A concrete example of this is the emergence of BPO or Business Process Outsourcing companies in countries such as India and the Philippines.

The reason behind this increase is the cost-effectiveness of the concept. American companies can hire these BPO’s at a cheaper rate than they would have done internally, and in return, BPO companies and its employees enjoy a higher pay, sometimes double, compared to local companies that give slightly higher salaries that usually base at the minimum wage. BPO’s seem to take the Philippines by storm and being a call-center agent have become the it-thing for the young professionals nowadays especially in the Philippines.

Outsourcing Internet Marketing Experts
Aside from hiring agents to sell and receive customer complaints and whatnot, many companies worldwide are now hiring internet marketers or web marketers such as Pay-Per-Click professionals, and Search Engine Optimization specialists to market their products through the World Wide Web. The jobs even extend to web developers & designers, graphic designers, video editors, and content/article writers.

These professionals are also sometimes referred to as Virtual Assistants or VAs. VAs can be directly hired by the company and they could either work in the office with a team or work independently from the comforts of their own homes as long as they have computers and internet connection. It’s easy and less hassle for both the employer and the employee and is definitely cheaper.

By being a ‘Virtual Assistant’, the employer can instruct multiple tasks from research to replying emails, from writing articles to creating Web Pages. You can also create a dedicated few to handle customer concerns, another for your website development and maybe three persons to handle your social media marketing works such as facebook, google+, linkedin and twitter. It basically rests on the concept of ‘replacement’. It means that companies would have their work be ‘replaced’ by letting the virtual assistants do it for them. The result, companies would then just supervise and give instructions, giving them more time to think of ways to improve its operations.

How to Deal With the Cons of Online Outsourcing
As good as it sounds, there is a flip-side to every coin. Yes, hiring people online could be very risky if you don’t choose your employees well. You must remember that the internet is a cesspool of bogus people that could deceive and ultimately do some damage to your business. That is why it is very important to get your employees from a very credible job site, interview them thoroughly to test their skills and train them very well. Training them would be considered the most critical part of the process since you are generally training them to be you. Soon enough, if you take care of them, your employees will definitely take care of you and your business in return.

Where To Outsource Internet Marketers
It is important to outsource to countries that have cheap labor and could speak English very well. The answer? The Philippines. You might ask, Why not India or other countries? The answer is simple: The Filipinos, aside from their cultural characteristic as being one of the most hardworking, talented and adaptive people in the world, they are also excellent in the English language. In addition, most Filipinos are proficient in Information Technology are not behind with the social networking bandwagon, making it easy to train them for online marketing. Most American companies would prefer outsourcing to the Philippines over India because Filipinos tend to be more westernized than our Indian neighbors. That means Filipinos can easily adapt to the American culture, not to mention speak in perfect American accent. If you search studies or recommendations made by American companies regarding outsourcing, they would easily pick the Philippines as their number one choice.

In conclusion, outsourcing can be very beneficial to both the employer and the employees and the perfect place to search for persons to do the work for you is the Philippines. Thousands of Filipinos are looking for a job and now is the perfect chance to make your business grow through outsourcing.

PENGUIN 1.1 – Google’s Recent Update To Fight Spam

Posted on May 28, 2012 by jon

Google launched the first update to its recent web spam-fighting Penguin algorithm late Friday last week, with online forums naming it Penguin 1.1. Matt Cutts who works for Google’s Search Quality division first announced the new update on Twitter, calling it a “data refresh” that affects only 0.1 percent of English-language search engines.

Speculation among webmasters and SEOs has been rife in recent weeks with many saying Google already launched the Penguin update(s), but Cutts refuted the claims and stated this is the first update since Penguin launched on April 24th, 2012.

Google described Penguin 1.1 as an algorithm alteration aimed at webspam and websites that violate its quality guidelines.

The new update is already causing outcries across the SEO sector, with many questioning if it has actually improved search results. Since it is an algorithmic alteration, Google said it would ignore reconsideration requests on Webmaster Central. They, however, set up a feedback form for webmasters whose sites may be affected by Penguin 1.1. Even though the update affects only less than a tenth of a percent of English searches, they still keep the form online.

Many webmasters and search engine optimization experts are still wondering if they have not recovered from Penguin 1.1 and if it means they will never recover and should consider starting from scratch. Who knows?

After the launch of Penguin 1.0, Google stated that those affected by it had been penalized. However, shortly after that, some sites that were not spamming Google saw traffic drops. A few may have been genuinely penalized but it is more likely that when Google wiped out millions of links, some websites that benefited from them lost credit. This means they were not penalized, rather they just did not get as much credit as previously. However, Google is yet to confirm whether this is the case.

PPC: Ultimate Tool to Reaching Targeted Market

Posted on May 28, 2012 by jon

PPC or Pay Per Click is a form of advertising where owners of websites are paid every time the advertisers’ ad is clicked. You find PPC in search result pages prominently displayed in specific part of the website in colored or highlighted boxes. It displays advertisement on websites that allows placement of the ads.

PPC Companies / Publishers

It is estimated that around 30% of online purchases are made through PPC. Some of the largest PPC companies are Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, and Bing AdCenter. There are other smaller publishers of ppc like Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Linkedin, ABC Search, 7Search, and SearchFeed among others. Google Adwords is by far the largest and most popular PPC company. The rest, though smaller, still offers vast opportunities for businesses to reach their identified markets.

PPC concept is very simple, though there are still people who are in a quandary on how PPC works. If you own a business, you can buy search engine traffic based on placement or keywords relevant to your business and targeted audience. You only pay for every click made on that keyword or placement. However, search engines like Google and Bing are consistently updating their platform to improve user experience, thus making the system more complex and sophisticated.

Budget & Cost
The best way to ensure that budget and cost-per-click are kept to a minimum in Google Adwords, is to be certain that you have a high traffic stream or high clickthrough rate. Google and Bing provide a free “how to” reports and pdf’s on their websites on how to effectively use keywords, write ads, and manage your campaigns.

PPC advertising is cheaper than a full program complement of the SEO on the onset. In the long run however, a good SEO will be a better alternative to PCC since it will be relatively cheaper and more cost effective if done properly. If you’re not a ppc expert and you don’t wanna waste your time learning how to effectively manage your account, then ppc management outsourcing may be your option.

SEO Outsourcing to the Philippines

Posted on May 27, 2012 by jon

Outsourcing SEO Projects

SEO Outsourcing is the process of buying the services from experts who can ensnare visitors and potential clients by developing materials, content, design, and link architecture for the page. Sending out e-mails for promotions or doing paid online advertising and pay-per-click ads would become less hectic for the company when outsourcing SEO services are availed.

Creation of business websites would be stripped off from its very purpose when the developers fail to integrate several techniques to amass good level of traffic. Parallel to the principle of quaint marketing and advertising methods, the attention of targeted consumers should be earned to make it work.

Developing a corner in the already-crowded World Wide Web can therefore be a bit intimidating for neophytes. Gathering enough visitors for a website would first appear like a far cry from reality, given the vast array of other pages competing for their interest. But fledglings can get by just fine through trusty SEO Outsourcing services.

The Right Place for SEO Outsourcing

This may also be more cost-effective of establishing an online recall. SEO Outsourcing to the Philippines, for example, comes with a whopping 200% markdown on the tag price. But this doesn’t necessarily make the results sub-standard. The country is brimming with people with impeccable skills in speaking and writing.

Truth is, there is a lot of high-quality SEO experts in the Philippines. Professional writers and layout artists can come up with up-to-date concepts that can well penetrate the markets and follow the retargeting methods of SEO programs.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO can simply be defined as the management of the websites’ contents by embedding certain keywords, building inbound & outbound links, optimizing layout and design to produce a page easily detected by search engines. A good command in SEO then makes the website one of the top link suggestions given by search engines to the curious users. One of the major perks of being highly visible through search engine results is the generation of traffic on the site thereby translating to increased profit from the online businesses.

Optimizing a website takes a long time before seeing results. If you’re reading this blog, we suggest that you’d start now before your competition gets in the scene.

Author: jon