How to Show SEO Value

This next post is for fellow SEO consultants, freelancers and SEO service providers. Search engine optimization value comes in many different shapes and sizes it depends on the client and how they will respond to that value. I think hiccups occur and relationships are torn when people depend on the entire success of their company from a search engine optimization campaign that is about to start. SEO is a seed that when planted needs constant watering in order to grow over the long term. Try exploring the value of SEO in a different fashion.

Analytics
By definition the process of search engine optimization is not to increase sales although that is the ultimate goal. SEO is supposed to bring more traffic to your site. Whether the horse wants to drink the water is whole other story. Look at your analytics information and take a look to see if you are receiving any more visitors. Look at all aspects not just the unique visitors. Look at entrance keywords and how people are finding you. Examine the new keywords that are dropping visitors to certain internal web pages.

Google Webmaster Tools
Install Google Webmaster tools so you can see the physical links being created pointing directly at your website. Link building is a very important part of creating a solid search marketing campaign and in order to have visitors finding your web site you are going to have to create some links. Google Webmaster Tools will give you a nice solid breakdown of all the links that are pointing to your site which is a very important area to look at when trying to determine the value of your search marketing spend.

Search Results
Look at the search results from time to time in order to see what is making its way there for your company name can give you some insight as well. If you are taking an aggressive search marketing approach you will most likely start to see the search results for your company name start to fill up nicely. Looking at this takes time depending on how much information you are putting out there but it will take time to see this area fill up.

Search engine optimization is not all about sales. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink so if your service or product stinks people are not going to want to buy anything.

10 Tips To Write A Project Proposal

Having 100% of project proposals accepted usually means that a freelance developer has had very few clients. Low percentage rates usually mean that proposals are being sent to people who didn’t ask or the proposal writer simply needs a few good “getting warmer’s” in the right direction. The following tried and tested tips are to encourage the 100%ers to write more proposals and the low raters to take heart and give it another try. Let’s get started…

1. Ask Questions: Before starting your proposal, take some time to make sure you know exactly what you’re proposing. If you’re unclear about any part of the project, ask your potential client a few meaningful questions. If anything seems vague in their description of “what they want”, ask for clarification and then give them a list of possible options as to what you think they might have meant. For your sake, when preparing to give a price, it’s important that you and the client both have the same amount of work in mind. – Note: If you decide to include a list of questions along with your proposal, include an educated guess as to what their answers would be. Make it clear that your price is based on you having made the correct guesses to the proposed questions and that if anything needs clarifying or if anything is missed, you can adjust your quote accordingly.
2. Summarize the Project: Take all the information on the project that you’re received from the client thus far and summarize it briefly, using your own words, in an opening paragraph. This not only helps you get a clearer concept of the project in your own mind, but also gives the client confidence that you’ve given it thought and understand what they want. It also provides a solid opportunity for them to clarify encase you didn’t understand. – Example: “Below is a summary of my understanding of the project based on our conversations thus far.”
3. Break Down the Project Into a Nice “To Do” List: After your summary, follow-up with a solid “To Do” list, which is very useful for both you and the client? List everything that they’ve requested so far as well as your standard work on the project. For designers, this would include listing the initial drafts, etc. For programmers, this would include planning the database, building it, etc. Be thorough in your list. It will help give the client a strong sense that you know what you’re doing and that you’ll do the job well. It will also help you make sure nothing slips through the cracks. Use the list in your project updates and cross things off as you move along.
4. Split the Project Into Phases: After your “to do” list, split the project up into a number of clearly defined phases. I recommend starting out with a minimum of three. Your first phase might be the “Initial First Draft”. During this phase, you begin work on the project and end the phase by sending the client a first draft for testing and revision. Your next phase, in a simple 3 phase project, could be “Bug Squashing and Customizing” – During this phase (I recommend project appropriate naming conventions the project is tested and revisions are made until the client is happy with the work and it’s ready for action. Your last phase is “Finalization”. Once the work is finished, you send them an invoice, ask for referrals, collect payment, and end with a virtual handshake, all parties satisfied with a job well done. – Bonus: A useful strategy to keep in mind when it comes to pricing is splitting up a long to-do list into meaningful project phases and then pricing each of the “phases” individually. This can be especially useful for isolating features that require additional time and energy and being sure the client recognizes the work involved when it comes time to give them the price.
5. Give Your Clients a Timeline: Once you’ve gone over the project phases, let your clients know approximately how long you expect the project to take. Be generous (overestimate if need be, but gently) and then strive to finish up ahead of time. While a project may only take you a few hours to finish up, keep in mind that there will be waiting time between the initial drafts and the finished project as the client reviews the work and provides feedback. If the client is in a rush, let them know exactly when it can be finished and be sure to go over in detail exactly what, if anything, needs to be done on their part to make that deadline possible.
6. Estimate Your Time Involved: While not useful for all project types, giving an estimate of time involved is useful for most and not only gives the client a sense of what to expect and that you know what you’re doing, but also helps you know exactly what to plan ahead for. A large design/programming project, for example, with a high dollar amount, can be an excellent opportunity to detail the hours involved in each step of the to-do list. Be generous, but honest. The last thing you want is word getting around that it takes you several hours to do what takes the average freelancer 15 minutes .
7. Use the Multiple Choice Price Strategy: Now that all the details have been clearly laid out and your client is confident in your understanding of the project and your ability to see it through, it’s time to give them the price. Calculate your predicted time involved and be sure that nothing is overlooked. Then, give them the total number of hours along with your standard hourly rate followed by a discounted “flat rate”. As an example, take a typical CSS design/coding project. Let’s say you estimate about 5-8 hours involved in the project and your hourly rate is $40 an hour. Your proposal would then read something like this: “At around 5-8 hours of work, you’re welcome to my basic hourly rate of $40 an hour or a discounted flat rate of $250.” 9 times out of 10 the client will choose the flat rate over the hourly and will be happy with having had the freedom to choose. – Note: As an honest freelance artist who’s abilities are constantly improving, you’ll often reach a point where what once took you 5 hours now takes you an hour. Once that happens, the multiple price strategy is no longer needed. Give them your flat rate and do an excellent job . – Be sure that, along with your price, you give them your options for accepting payment.
8. Offer a Satisfaction Guarantee: Once you’ve given them the price, be sure to include your satisfaction guarantee. Let them know that you’re committed to working on the project until they’re fully satisfied and then, once they’ve accepted your proposal, stick to it. There’s always the possibility that it can backfire with a client who just doesn’t ever seem to be satisfied (we can talk about dealing with them another day), but the vast majority of the time a solid guarantee will give your clients an extra vote of confidence and help to close the deal. There’s always the possibility of a project costing you more time than it’s worth, but no matter. Give the project your absolute best and learn everything that you can. Satisfied customers often end up being repeat customers and they are more than worth the time spent on those who may not appreciate your work.
9. End with a Call to Action: Finally, after all the details have been made clear, and the price and guarantee given, end with “what happens next.” Let them know exactly what they need to do to get started. If you require payment upfront, let them know where to send the money. If everything prior has gone well, you now have a client who’s excited and eager to see their project come to life and you want to make sure that they know what needs to happen next.
10. Write and Format Professionally: Nothing says “unprofessional” like a bunch of “misspellings”, grammatical errors, and “IM Style” typing. Take the extra time to proof read your proposal and fixes any little errors that may have slipped in. Use spacing between your paragraphs and divide your various sections (Project Summary, Timeline, Price Quote, etc.) with subheadings. For extra points, put your proposal up on a password protected page (make sure the password works!) within your website. – Note: If you’re struggling with style or would just like some extra ideas/opinions, put together an example proposal and share it with family and friends along with a request for feedback.
    And there you have it! Once the proposal has been accepted and the project complete, be sure to always ask the client if they have any suggestions for how you can improve and do even better work in the future. Ask them if your proposal was clear and ask, if you’re able, what the deciding factor was in choosing you to do the work. Take note of all you learn and apply it to the next proposal you write.

Although not directly related to “proposal writing”, here are two other tips that are worth mentioning:

1. Pre-Screen Your Clients: To save both you and your clients time and energy, it’s important to be sure that they are as informed and as prepared as possible before they contact you. This is where your website can step in and do its job. After they’ve browsed through your portfolio and decided to go for a price on your services, it’s important that you provide a clear path to follow. Create a page specifically for those interested in working with you. Outline the types of projects that you do and the processes that you use. Don’t hide your prices. As well as offering an hourly rate and flat rate estimates for various project types, I recommend mentioning that you’re always open to creative negotiations. You can often end up with “free projects” that more than pay what you would have charged them.
2. Respond Quickly: While not always possible, when you’re able to, respond to your prospective and active clients immediately. If you have an expected delay, let them know that you plan to be unavailable. Be punctual with all your appointments and make sure that you meet your deadlines. If you miss a deadline and you’re at fault, take a hit on your earnings. This will let the client know that you mean what you say and it will also help you to make sure it doesn’t happen again .

Top SEO Interview Questions

Interview Questions listed below are most frequently asked questions when you attend for SEO job Interview, it is important to concentrate on how an answer is given rather than the actual answer. They often scare interviewees, practice well by reading seo articles, to get a good opportunity in SEO field and shine in this industry. Read Interview Tips Given by SEO Experts.

Here is some of the top SEO interview questions:

1. What is SEO
2. How do you approach SEO?
3. What is organic and inorganic SEO?
4. What is ethical and unethical SEO?
5. How do you integrate SEO with other on and offline marketing?
6. How do you calculate ROI of SEO?
7. What do you do when you are done with SEO?
8. I found many questions but i like this one What is an acceptable way to show HTML text to search engines while creating a graphical image to display to users?
9. Let's assume that you're running SEO for an auction website with many listings, sorted by categories and subcategories. To achieve the maximum search engine traffic benefit, what should you do with individual product/auction pages after the auction has expired and the product is no longer available?
10. Why is it important to get a high ranking on major internet search engines?
    Ans: The majority of people use major search engines to find what they are looking for. Websites appearing in the top positions (1-10) on major internet search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) get the most traffic.
11. What is Canonical URL? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway?
    Ans: Canonicalization is the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices and it usually refers to home page.
    Example:
    www.example.com
    example.com
    www.example.com/index.html
    example.com/home.asp
    but technically all are different. A web server could return completely different content for all above URLs. Among them Goolge try to pick best URL from them.
    So use 301 (permanent redirect) for to solve canonical issues.
12. What is C Class IP and its importance in SEO?
13. Did you work on PPC?
14. What is Filter in Google Analytics and what is it's role?
15. Is sitemap usefull for SEO?
16. Do you know HTML Coading?
17. Explain your SEO Experience?
18. Can you write HTML code by hand?
19. What SEO tools do you regularly use?
20. Explain importance of meta tags in SEO?
21. Why are you leaving your current SEO job?
22. Have you attended any SEO conferences?
23. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
24. Give me a description of your general SEO experience.
25. What role do social media play in an SEO strategy?
26. Explain what META tags matter in today's SEO world?
27. What kind of SEO strategies do you normally implement for back links?
28. What do you think about working for an SEO agency vs. doing SEO in-house?
29. What is guest posting?
    Ans: Writing articles and posting them on other blogs is called guest posting. Guest posting helping us to getting back links and traffic from our post.

Ways to Make Your Blog More Popular

If you want to stand a chance of getting traffic and therefore MONEY from your blog follow these ways to make a blog popular

1. Start a controversy. Just remember not to cross the line.
2. Start a contest. Make sure to end it too.
3. Give away free goodies. People love them.
4. Write about other bloggers to interest their visitors to read your blog. Keep it positive.
5. Dress up your blog often (By dress-up I mean tweaking the design)
6. Interview other bloggers and post the interview.
7. Write about your personal life sometimes.
8. Ask questions to your visitors.
9. Share some secrets.
10. Celebrate your birthday with your visitors. Think of innovative ways for doing this.
11. Celebrate your blog’s birthday too.
12. Write something funny or disgusting. (Don’t make it a habit)
13. Make a bumper sticker with your blog’s name and stick it on your car. (Just make sure you drive often)
14. Write an e-book and distribute it to your visitors for free.
15. Introduce a commission based affiliate program.
16. Tell your visitors about your latest fad or obsession.
17. Post interesting pictures of your pets.
18. Congratulate the top commentators occasionally.
19. Encourage sharing of opinions.
20. Donate for a cause or become a volunteer for a non-profit organization. Ask your visitors to join you.
21. Put your blog’s ad in the local newspaper or the yellow pages.
22. Hold blog competitions.
23. Create polls.
24. Hold an auction and let people bid for something useful (For example, advertising space on your blog).
25. Write about your blog achievements.
26. Share your hopes and aspirations about your blog.
27. Start an award distribution system.
28. Make contact with your local visitors and hold a get-together or a bloggers’ meet.
29. Start a blog comic strip.
30. Dig up some old article that you wrote on your blog which became famous and start a discussion.
31. Try and get a photograph clicked with a real celebrity and post it on your blog. (Hold on Tiger..don’t rush to that Photoshop button!)
32. Post videos that will help your visitors learn something new. Also submit them to video sharing websites like YouTube.com.
33. Write about your hobbies and interests. (For example, if you like cooking, post a new recipe)
34. Post about one of the weirdest thing that you ever did.
35. Get featured in a print magazine.
36. Buy a paid review from any famous blogger(s).
37. Brand your blog with a catch phrase along with a logo.
38. Distribute T-shirts or merchandise with your blog name on it.
39. Join Yahoo! Answers and put a link on your website to your answers.
40. Keep a track of websites that pick up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
41. Do surveys and publish the results to your visitors.
42. Build tools that your visitors might find use for.
43. Start a newsletter.
44. Podcasting is another good way to make your blog popular.
45. Publicize your blog to your friends and relatives and let them do some work for you.
46. Be active in Social Bookmarking websites.
47. Share Link Love and you will get it back.
48. People like to read about Web 2.0. Write about it.
49. Write about something that’s already famous.
50. Last but not the least, be yourself.

40 SEO Interview Questions

Here some of the best interview questions for SEO that are generally asked by interviewers.

1. If a website's search engine saturation with respect to a particular search engine is 20%, what does it mean?
a. 20% of the webpages of the website have been indexed by the search engine
b. Only 20% of the pages of the website will be indexed by the search engine
c. 20% of the websites pages will never be indexed
d. The website ranks in the first 20% of all websites indexed by the search engine for its most important search terms

2. 10 people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the 10 people choose one particular link. That link then has a __________ clickthrough rate.
a. less than 30%
b. 30 percent
c. more than 30%

3. Which of the following factors have an impact on the Google PageRank?
a. The total number of inbound links to a page of a web site
b. The subject matter of the site providing the inbound link to a page of a web site
c. The text used to describe the inbound link to a page of a web site
d. The number of outbound links on the page that contains the inbound link to a page of a web site

4. What does the 301 server response code signify?
a. Not Modified
b. Moved Permanently
c. syntax error in the request
d. Payment is required
e. The request must be authorized before it can take place

5. If you enter 'Help site:www.go4expert.com' in the Google search box, what will Google search for?
a. It will open up the Google help pages applicable to www.go4expert.com
b. It will find pages about help within www.go4expert.com
c. It will only find page titles about help within www.go4expert.com
d. It will direct you to the request page for re-indexing of www.go4expert.com

6. What is Anchor Text?
a. It is the main body of text on a particular web page
b. It is the text within the left or top panel of a web page
c. It is the visible text that is hyper linked to another page
d. It is the most prominent text on the page that the search engines use to assign a title to the page

7. Which of the following free tools/websites could help you identify which city in the world has the largest search for the keyword - "six sigma"?
a. Yahoo Search Term Suggestion Tool
b. Alexa
c. Google Traffic Estimator
d. Google Trends
e. WordTracker

8. What term is commonly used to describe the shuffling of positions in search engine results in between major updates?
a. Waves
b. Flux
c. Shuffling
d. Swaying

9. Are RSS/Atom feeds returned in Google's search results?
a. Yes
b. No

10. Which of the following statements regarding website content are correct?
a. If you have two versions of a document on your website, Google recommends that you only allow the indexing of the better version
b. Linking to a page inconsistently does not affect the way Google views the page/s. Examples of inconsistent linking could be http://www.your-website.com/page/ and http://www.your-website.com/page and http://www.your-website.com/page/index.htm.
c. Syndicating your content could lead to Google viewing the material as duplicate
d. Placeholders for pages which do not have content are never viewed as duplicate content by Google

11. What does the term Keyword Prominence refer to?
a. It refers to the fact that the importance of choosing high traffic keywords leads to the best return on investment
b. It refers to the importance attached to getting the right keyword density
c. It refers to the fact that the keywords placed in important parts of a webpage are given priority by the search engines
d. It refers to the fact that the keywords in bold font are given priority by the search engines

12. What is the term for Optimization strategies that are in an unknown area of reputability/validity?
a. Red hat techniques
b. Silver hat techniques
c. Grey hat techniques
d. Shady hat techniques

13. Which of the following statements is correct with regard to natural links?
a. They are two way links (reciprocal links)
b. They are from authority websites
c. They are voluntary in nature
d. They are from .edu or .gov extension websites

14. Which of the following can be termed as good keyword selection and placement strategies?
a. Targeting synonyms of the main keyword
b. Targeting the highest searched keywords only
c. Copying competitor keywords
d. Optimizing five or more keywords per page

15. What does the 302 server response code signify?
a. It signifies conflict, too many people wanted the same file at the same time
b. The page has been permanently removed
c. The method you are using to access the file is not allowed
d. The page has temporarily moved
e. What you requested is just too big to process

16. Which of the following statements about FFA pages are true?
a. They are greatly beneficial to SEO
b. They are also called link farms
c. They are paid listings
d. They contain numerous inbound links

17. What is the name of the search engine technology due to which a query for the word 'actor' will also show search results for related words such as actress, acting or act?
a. Spreading
b. Dilating
c. RSD (realtime synonym detection)
d. Stemming
e. Branching

18. What will the following robots.txt file do?
User-agent:Googlebot
Disallow:/*?
User-agent:Scooter
Disallow:
a. It will allow Google to crawl any of the dynamically generated pages. It will also allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
b. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated pages. It will also disallow the altavista scooter bot from accessing any page
c. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated pages. It will allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
d. None of the above

19. Which of the following statements about RSS are correct?
a. It is a form of XML
b. It stands for Realtime streamlined syndication
c. It is a good way of displaying static information
d. It is a microsoft technology

20. Which of the following statements are correct with regard to using javascript within the web pages?
a. It uses up the valuable space within the webpage, which should be used for placing meaningful text for the search engines
b. Search engines cannot read Javascript
c. It is a good idea to shift the Javascript into a separate file
d. Most of the search engines are unable to read links within Javascript code

21. Which of the following options are correct regarding the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) of a particular keyword?
a. It is directly proportional to the popularity of the keyword
b. It is inversely proportional to the competiton for the keyword
c. It is directly proportional to the chances of the keyword ranking on the first page of the Google search results

22. What is the illegal act of copying of a page by unauthorized parties in order to filter off traffic to another site called?
a. Trafficjacking
b. Visitorjacking
c. Viewjacking
d. Pagejacking

23. Which of the following search engines offers a popular list of the top 50 most searched keywords?
a. Google
b. Yahoo
c. AOL
d. Lycos

24. Which of the following search engines or directories provides the main search results for AOL?
a. Lycos
b. DMOZ
c. Google
d. Yahoo
e. Windows Live

25. Which of the following can be termed as appropriate Keyword Density?
a. 0.01-0.1%
b. 0.1-1%
c. 3-4%
d. 7-10%
e. More than 10%

26. The following robots meta tag directs the search engine bots:
a. Not to index the homepage and not to follow the links in the page
b. Not to index the page and not to follow the links in the page
c. To index the page and not to follow the links in the page
d. Not to index the page but to follow the links in the page

27. What is Keyword Density?
a. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word count on page - (MINUS)the total words in HTML on the page
b. The number of times the keyword is used X (MULTIPLIED BY) the total word count on page
c. The number of times the keyword is used in the page description
d. The number of times the keyword is used in the page title
e. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word count on the page

28. Which of the following are examples of agents?
a. Internet Explorer
b. Search engine spiders
c. Opera
d. SQL Server database attached to a website

29. If you search for the term "iq test" in the Word Tracker keyword suggestion tool, will it return the number of independent searches for the term "iq"?
a. Yes
b. No

30. Cloaking is a controversial SEO technique. What does it involve?
a. Increasing the keyword density on the web pages
b. Offering a different set of web pages to the search engines
c. Hiding the keywords within the webpage
d. Creating multiple pages and hiding them from the website visitors

31. Which of the following facts about Alexa are correct?
a. Alexa provides free data on relative website visitor traffic
b. Alexa and Quantcast provide information on visitor household incomes
c. Alexa is biased towards US based traffic
d. Quantcast only tracks people who have installed the Quantcast toolbar
This is the last question of your test.

32. Google gives priority to themed in-bound links.
a. True
b. False

33. Which of the following methods can help you get around the Google Sandbox?
a. Buying an old Website and getting it ranked
b. Buying a Google Adwords PPC campaign
c. Placing the website on a sub domain of a ranked website and then 301 re-directing the site after it has been indexed
d. Getting a DMOZ listing

34. A Hallway Page is used to:
a. Attract visitors from the search engines straight onto the Hallway Page
b. Organizes the Doorway Pages
c. Helps people navigate to different Doorway Pages
d. Enables search engine bots to index the Doorway Pages

35. Which of the following options describes the correct meaning of MouseTrapping?
a. The technique of monitoring the movement of the mouse on the webpage
b. The technique of monitoring the area on which an advertisement was clicked
c. The web browser trick, which attempts to redirect visitors away from major websites through a spyware program
d. The web browser trick, which attempts to keep a visitor captive at on a website

36. What is the most likely time period required for getting a Google page rank?
a. 1 week
b. 3 weeks
c. 2 months
d. More than 3 months

37. All major search engines are case sensitive.
a. True
b. False

38. Which of the following website design guidelines have been recommended by Google?
a. Having a clear hierarchy and text links
b. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link
c. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you should break the site map into separate pages
d. Keeping the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)
e. Use less than 30 images or graphics per page

39. How are site maps important for the search engine optimization process?
a. Site maps help the search engine editorial staff to quickly go through a website, hence ensuring quicker placement
b. Google gives credit to the websites having site maps. The GoogleBot looks for the keyword or title "Site Map" on the home page of a website.
c. Site maps help the search engine spider pick up more pages from the website
d. None of the above

40. Google looks down upon paid links for enhancing page rank. If a website sells links, what action/s does Google recommend to avoid being penalized?
a. The text of the paid links should state the words "paid text link" for Google to identify it as a paid link
b. Only Paid text links to non profit websites should be accepted
c. Paid links should be disclosed through the "rel=nofollow" attribute in the hyperlink
d. Paid links should be disclosed through the "index=nofollow" attribute in the hyperlink