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Web Site Submission - Top Secrets on How it Benefit Your Business

Web site submission is the process of notifying search engines that you have a business address or URL on the internet. The search engine robots then ‘visit’ your site and describe it for the search engine.

With literally millions of web pages and URLs out there on the internet, it would be an monumental task to keep track of where they are, what they represent, and how to link to those web sites that your are interested in viewing further. Fortunately, the existence of search engines and their robots, crawlers, or spiders, as they are sometimes called provide a method for tracking and codifying those millions of web pages. Web site submission to the many search engines, or at least to the major ones speeds up the process of getting your URL noticed by potential buyers.

Get noticed by the spiders

The web site submission begins with a notification by you or your agent of the URL for your business or commercial page. The search engine relies on a visit by a ‘robot’ also called a crawler or a spider to visit your URL and review the source coding that provides the appearance and descriptions found on your web page. The visit provides the search engine with all the information needed to rank the web site that you have developed. Development of the web site should be done with a view toward what the ’spiders’ see, but should also be written so that a human can understand and gain enjoyment or satisfaction from viewing your web site.

Get noticed by potential customers

Obviously, the main reason for placing your URL or web page on the internet is so that you can find and attract potential customers to your site. It is no longer enough to set up a plain Jane web site and hope all your products will sell. You must formulate a comprehensive advertising campaign, and web site submission to the search engines is only one part of the process. Customers looking for a particular product or specific information can enter the search term at any of the major search engines and get back pages of references to URLs where that phrase or keyword can be found.

Get noticed by your peers

One of the effective ways to increase your page ranking and thus your exposure on the internet is to create links from others in your same industry or field to your site. That makes it appear that you are a recognized as an expert in your field. Web site submission helps to make those links a reality. Once your web site is indexed, you can actively work to place informational and interesting date on your web site. This will cause your number of visitors of all genre to increase.

Get noticed by your competitors

Before you actually do your web site submission, you should do a review of your competitors’ sites. Look to see how they are using the industry buzz words or keywords and how effective their web sites are. You can often tell a great deal about how effective a web site is in selling the product by looking at the number of visitors that are attracted to a site. Modify and use the things that appear to be working and discard those that are not successful.

Web Site Submission or Directory Submission techniques and practices can be located at several places on the internet. Why not find your information at the best site: http://www.goodinternetmoney.com/Directory-Submission.php.

Google Adsense – How Everyone Can Benefit by Staying Clean

Google Adsense, used as intended can provide solid, substantial income to web master who are willing to publish according to guidelines laid down by Google.

In order to make a program such as Google Adsense work effectively, it has to present something innovative or it has to perform existing methods in a more effective way. Google actually accomplished both goals when it set out to promote AdSense. The concept was fairly new, although built on the general work of the WordNet, Simpli and Applied Semantics programs as well as by extensive development work by Brown University personnel. Google’s program also took the idea of advertising in media and made it work for the internet. Those who use the program continually find new ways to make it even more profitable.

The bad guys

Early in the history of Google Adsense, it received some negative publicity from two quarters. First was the group who said it would never work and who pooh-poohed the idea of people paying to read an ad. Strictly speaking though, people pay to read or watch or listen to ads all the time in almost any media you can name. The second groups of people are the ones that actually caused the most problem. They saw in the program only ways to twist it to make more money for themselves, instead of using it as it was intended. However, Google aggressively went after and shut down the web sites that were created only for the purpose of gaining revenue on the clicks, rather than on the content.

Content is king

Google Adsense administrators took the view, and rightfully so, that a web site with no useful content will only give all advertising a bad image. Unfortunately, in the course of getting rid of the publishers who did not comply with the publishing guidelines set forth by Google, a few of the good guys got lost in the shuffle too. Google allowed such publishers to present their point of view and most were reinstated.

Associated Services

Along with Google Adsense, savvy web masters have found ways to use its associated services in ways that increase revenue potential even higher. For example, learning the value of various keywords is possible with some current software programs. When you create websites to take advantage of much used keywords, you have a better chance of increasing your revenue. You can build up sites for other web marketers and sell or lease the domain names or your abilities as an organizer. Creating synonyms for keywords is a faculty used in some software available on the internet.

Potential

The potential for income is sky high for those who are willing to take the concepts of internet marketing and apply them to Google Adsense. In fact, though the receipt of income depends on being canny about understanding and using the principles of publishing ads under the Google program. Depend upon good, strong content rather than tricks and short cuts. Your visitors and customers expect true value received, not hints, hot air and weasel words. Take advantage of the wealth of advice available from those who had made the program work for them.

Visit http://www.goodinternetmoney.com/Learn-How-To-Make-Money-With-Joel-Comm-Adsense-Secrets-4-0.php helps you to locate resources available to grow the income for your Google Adsense ads.

Feel Valued Online

It simply is harrowing to do business and shop online because you never know what to expect and who to trust. Each time you click on to purchase something there is that nagging feeling that you might have handed very sensitive information or you will find out later that your credit card number was used without permission. With all the negative experiences out there, you simply avoid using the Web to interact or do business altogether. Why go through all the trouble just to be online? The fact is, you can not run away from the future and the Internet is one of man’s innovations that albeit regarded with suspicion can be a truly powerful tool for you as an entrepreneur and as a consumer as well.

Being online may be habitual to some like eating cereal for breakfast but there are many pitfalls out there online. Fortunately with people such as Florida SEO companies you certainly have your work cut out for you. There are professionals whose job is to help those companies have state-of-the-art websites and to be among the top list of consumer choices. As a consequence, you ultimately benefit from the Web’s latest recommendations, constant updates on prices and ratings, brand comparisons, discussion forums and site reviews. However there are still complaints made such as not getting the ordered items, stolen credit card information and misrepresentation of products and services. To avoid being in a situation that might leave you broke and empty handed, here are some tips to aid you online.

No matter what you are looking for, it always pays to check and recheck more than one site because no single site will always have the best deals. Take advantage of price comparisons and sweep online to look for the lowest price and the best deal that is being offered. Once you have found to what seems to be the best deal for you, do not dawdle because the price tag could change at any moment due to dynamic pricing. You could find yourself being charged a different amount than someone else for the same item. Prices offered for items online depend on the availability of the product, the time and even the number of times you have looked on that item before. It is very probable that you are leaving footprints as you go online.

If you have a business and you want to reach your target consumer, get the right people to improve search engine rank of your company on the Web. As a consumer, you definitely want to experience the convenience and the savings of a product and service. With just a click away that certainly is possible and so to get a business going, you need to have customer satisfaction in order to have great reviews. In no time at all it will not be a surprise to see your business flourishing and branching off to other areas.

Whether or not you love shopping as much as the next person, one thing is certain and that is everybody definitely wants the most out of their money. It can be quite confusing out there with so many choices and so much advertising hype not to mention all those overbearing and pushy sales persons. A smart consumer wants to make certain that the service or product is of great quality at a very affordable rate. That is why many people are now searching the Internet to locate the best possible deal that they can get for the reason that they want to make smarter buying decisions by asking for the best prices. So if you really mean business and want it on the Web, hire the right people to have better search engine rankings.

For information on internet marketing feel free to look at Florida Internet marketing Blog. Professional wholesale directory submission services online from SEO Experts.

How Can Managed Hosting Benefit Me?

If you’ve considered investing in managed hosting for your company’s web site or other important applications, then you could very well be moving in the right direction. Although some companies want to keep everything in-house, that can sometimes end up being a costly and sometimes risky proposition that may not be in the business’s best interest.

Before you make a rapid decision about managed hosting, you should consider the numerous benefits provided by this third party service.

o No down time - If you try to handle your own web site on your own dedicated server, you will quickly find that your site is going to be down a lot. Servers are difficult to keep running. They need updates regularly. Plus, if you do not have an IT staff available to handle these problems, you may end up waiting a while for a service. With managed hosting, the IT staff are in-house and experienced at working with the equipment housed in the data centre. Additionally, many of the services have a duplicate of your site or application ready to run if one version ends up going down for repairs or maintenance.

o Better equipment - The costs of setting up a dedicated server in your own office can be mind-boggling. Not only will you need to hire professionals to assist with the installation but you’ll also need to purchase all of the hardware. Unfortunately, you’re going to be on a budget - that’s the reality of running a business - so you’re not going to be able to afford great equipment. With managed hosting services, the equipment is their business so they go out of their way to invest in the best hardware available because they want it to last. Their business depends on its longevity.

o Better security - We’ve all heard about the horror stories of hackers getting into important company information or of viruses wiping away hard drives or corrupting necessary files. Because the people in charge of managed hosting services specialize in IT matters, these issues of security are second nature to them. They know exactly what steps to take to safeguard their clients’ files and applications. You can have peace of mind knowing your materials are safe on their servers.

o Improved back-up - One of the most hated parts of computers is doing the tape back-ups. They can be extremely time-consuming but are, of course, necessary to make sure nothing important is ever lost if something happens to your hard drives or servers. The good news is that managed hosting services often provide these back-ups for whatever you want to save on their equipment. They handle the back-ups for you so that’s one less thing you have to worry about doing.

o Great technical support - Unless you have an IT department, you know that getting technical support can be a challenge. If something goes wrong, you don’t have the time to wait around. You need immediate answers. Most managed hosting services offer technical support 24 hours a day.

The bottom line is managed hosting provides plenty of benefits that you should consider for your business.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who writes for a number of UK businesses. For Business Internet Services and Managed Hosting, he recommends Iconnyx.

The Advantages of Managed Hosting

Managed hosting is a smart option for small to medium size businesses that want to establish an effective web presence but don’t have the budget for a full-time IT staff or the costly hardware required to host their web site.

With managed hosting, you entrust a company to host your web site. Your site is placed on a dedicated server in their facility. Besides the web hosting itself, these services can usually come with a number of other features that can be very beneficial for companies using the Internet to boost their revenue and to attract new customers, which at the end of the day everyone is looking for.

Below are some of the reasons why managed hosting could be the right choice for you.

Your Web Site is Handled by Professionals

In business, you know that sometimes the smartest choice is to bring in an expert to handle certain responsibilities on your behalf. For example, most business owners don’t manage their own books. They hire accountants or other people who are experienced at dealing with those tasks.

Otherwise, you would spend a large amount of time trying to do something in your business you just didn’t know how to do. That’s how mistakes get made.

By turning over the hosting of your web site to a professional service, you are making the same type of decision. Their staff are experienced in maintaining the hardware and programming necessary to keep your site up and running so potential customers can find it. Their knowledge can help you be more successful and can free up your time for other important business tasks.

Managed Hosting Saves Money

Another important part of running a business is learning how to make cost-effective decisions. You may have to decide, for example, whether to hire a full-time marketing person or to outsource your marketing campaigns on a project by project basis. Clearly, there would be pros and cons to both choices but one might end up saving you more money without jeopardizing the results you want.

Managed hosting is the same thing. If you want to host your web site in-house, you’d first need to invest in a dedicated server that would house your site and all its related components. Those servers aren’t cheap.

Next, you’d need to bring in a professional to help you set up the server and your web site. Given that IT professionals can charge £50 to £80 an hour or more for their services, you can imagine how much that would cost. Plus, you’ll still need to call them back frequently for maintenance.

When you trust a third party to handle your web hosting, you don’t have to worry about those problems. You pay a flat rate for your hosting and that includes all of the maintenance. The only thing you need to do is keep your site updated for your visitors. Additionally, some of these services will even provide back-ups of your site and applications which means if something would happen to your company’s computer infrastructure, these important files would still be safe.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who writes for a number of UK businesses. For Business Internet Services and Managed Hosting he recommends Iconnyx.

What is Content Conversion?

Online learning and information dissemination is currently a necessity. That is why you can easily and surely observe that the internet is very much flooded with numerous online content and websites that are containing all the information and data people need. It is in this regard that content conversion has become one of the most important concepts ever.

If you are quite familiar with the different online technologies and the modes to online information distribution and retrieval, for sure, you are familiar with content conversion. Almost all online personnel and developers are very much involved in different content conversion activities. If you intend to build an online presence and if you aim to make use of the online medium as a mode to distribute and popularize your data and information, you should by this time get to know more or at least be familiarized with content conversion.

Content conversion made simple

To put it simply, content conversion is the process and activity of converting conventional content and material into content and materials that can be fit to post in the internet. In other words, content conversion is the act of transforming information and data into content that could be retrieved by more people through the internet in formats that are fit and are appropriate for online posting.

You could easily infer that not all formats and forms of original content and materials can be posted online. The internet is only acknowledging and utilizing content and formats that it are programmed and developed to recognize. This recognition of format process is one of the most usual challenges and setbacks faced by online businesses and entrepreneurs when putting up online presence.

In content conversion, it is important that information and content are transformed or put into SCORM-compliant formats, which are suitable for the internet. Other likely and more commonly used online format for information and content is the XML and SGML formats. Whichever of these formats you choose to use, it is important if you would always bear in your mind that indeed, there is a need for content conversion as your content and information’s original format may not be suitable and processed by the internet.

The advantage of content conversion

The usefulness and advantage of content conversion is very much practical and logical. When processing and encoding data and information or when making files, you are likely using usual and regular computer applications, like the Word or Open Office applications. Problems will arise if you decide to use such information and files online.

Content conversion is important because first of all, it facilitates the use and function of the internet for what it really should be. The online media is a venue where information sources and audience of intended recipients of such messages meet and interact. Without the interne, it is hard to imagine and conceptualize how people can survive the modern challenges of living.

Almost all important and basic businesses have online presences. Likewise, almost all consumers are utilizing the internet as a venue for trade and transactions. Without the content conversion services, it is hard to imagine how businesses can make use of the internet. Overall convenience of the technology would never be recognized.

Where to get content conversion

There are many online businesses in active operations these days that are developed and designed to help consumers and customers get content conversion services. If you are maintaining and owning a business with online presence, it is important that you regularly invest in content conversion services, especially if there are content and information that should be posted online.

Aside from the internet, there are conventional computer application businesses that are operating currently with such services. With the rising demand for content conversion, it is not surprising that there are many content conversion services providers operating in the market today.

Mohammad Sarfaraz Khan with digitalxstream.com provides e-commerce business solutions, application Integration Services, content conversion services and more. For details, visit our website now!

Public Speaking – Owning “The Skills”

People who get paid well to speak all share one of two traits: either they’re famous, or they own “The Skills”. To be able to move people who don’t know you as a celebrity of some sort, you must know how to keep your audience focused on you and your message, and how to keep them on the same page, on the same wavelength, every step of the way.

Keeping an audience with you is simply not possible with the way 99% of all public speakers behave when at the front of a group. When you speak the way most of us have been taught to do from an early age, you engage in behaviors that send the wrong signals to your audience - in many cases exactly the opposite of what you would like to signal. Worse, these standard behaviors actually reduce your cognitive capacity at the time you most desperately need it.

If these statements seem sweeping, please understand that we at PublicSpeakingSkills.com have been training people from business, politics, the military and the clergy for over 12 years in The Skills.

During that time, we have had the privilege to work with over 10,000 people from all walks of life, and here is what we have learned: 99% of speakers engage in exactly the same behaviors, and consequently produce similar results when it comes to the quality of their speaking.

In fact, in every one of our on-site programs, we begin with an exercise that “benchmarks” how each student speaks prior to training, and we are able to predict to the second what each and every participant will do during their initial delivery. To the second!

Good News!

But that’s the good news. It’s good news because we also know that most people speak the way they do simply because they’ve never been shown the proper way. And though many people take courses in public speaking in high school or college, the format of those courses tends to emphasize the content part of speaking rather than the actual physical behaviors one needs to understand in order to acquire The Skills.

If you have ever taken a course in school, we bet that your assignments were to create a series of different types of speeches: The Informative, The Inspirational, The Motivational, etc., etc. Sound familiar?

But what were you taught about the actual delivery, other than to look at everyone in the audience and watch your umms and ahhs? Worse, during your speaking career you probably have been receiving positive feedback for your behaviors no matter what you’ve been doing by people either too polite or simply not knowledgeable enough to tell you otherwise.

Speaking well: talent or training?

When people learn the proper way; when they understand what the audience expects of them as human beings; when they embrace the idea that it’s OK to go into a presentation without having spent hours and hours rehearsing it; when they become comfortable with not knowing what they’re going to say until just before they say it; and when they come to accept that often the most powerful thing they can say is nothing at all, they never engage in the old behaviors again.

They approach every opportunity to speak to a crowd with desire and enthusiasm, and the larger the crowd, the better. They actually see speaking to a group as one of the most relaxing things they can do, as it is one of the few times left in life where they are free to do only one thing at a time. These people have The Skills.

And we can’t emphasize enough that The Skills are, indeed, a set of behaviors that you learn, and not something that you are born with. Only a very small subset of people is ‘born’ with the ability to move a group to action with their words and actions. Those people have what the rest of us don’t: it’s called “charisma”. Charismatics have been known to lead thousands to action by the power of their spoken words, often for good, and sometimes not.

But charisma alone didn’t get Bill Clinton to the top job in the world. Bill Clinton, believe it or not, was not always a great speaker. What he had was both charisma and the brains to know that he did not know everything - and that becoming a great speaker was both an essential job requirement and something that someone could be taught.

Bill Clinton was one of only a handful of men who was elected president of the United States without great personal or family wealth. He got elected on his ability to motivate people to listen to him, work for him, follow him and support him all the way. He was successful because he didn’t simply speak; he spoke with a manner and a style that caused people to not only listen to his words but also to hear them, remember them, and to believe them. Bill Clinton has The Skills.

The Skills supersede genes, culture, background, heritage, and to a large extent even education. Many clients come to us because they want help with their accents or they feel their voice needs correcting in some way.

Although we grant that there are some people with a speaking voice better suited to silent films, for the vast majority an accent or unique pitch only adds to the level of interest they can create as a speaker. That’s because, as we’ll learn, these traits simply add to one’s “humanness”.

It’s about being you

People are not moved by messages delivered by speakers whom they don’t feel are “real”. And yet most of us were taught behaviors that cause us to adopt completely alien personas when we speak to groups. We try to become “Presenterman!” or “Presenterwoman!”. Sadly, Hillary Clinton does this. Could you imagine spending dinner across the table from Hillary Clinton and having her speak to you the way she does to crowds? Pretty painful thought! Yet you could pretty much imagine that if you were sharing dinner with Bill, or Ronald Reagan, the conversation would be not unlike how you know them to speak in public.

Alas, Hillary does not have The Skills.

J. Douglas Jefferys is a principal at PublicSpeakingSkills.com, an international consulting firm specializing in training businesses of all sizes to communicate for maximum efficiency. The firm spreads its unique knowledge through on-site classes, public seminars, and high-impact videos, and can be reached through the Internet or at 888-663-7711.

Public Speaking - Masters of the Pause Part II

An Inconvenient Speaker

We have made the claim many times that Bill Clinton is the Master of the Pause. In fact, we have said that it is exactly this mastery that causes more people in polls to name the former president as the greatest living public speaker hands down.

If you doubt Bill Clinton’s ability to embrace the pause might have been responsible for his being elected, it might be useful to look at the other side. A great example of somebody who didn’t until recently have a clue about the pause is Al Gore. Do you think of Al Gore as being a great speaker? Do you think there might be a relationship between his speaking ability and the fact that couldn’t maintain the Clinton dynasty even four more years?

Now before we are accused of being anti-Gore, understand that one of the worst places to go seeking great speakers is your local, state, or federal government. Most politicians’ egos are greater than their intellectual capacity, and many simply won’t take anybody’s advice, period. So we end up having to endure the insincere-sounding shrill of a Hilary Clinton or the mind-numbing drone of a John Kerry.

But back to Gore: When Al Gore delivered his acceptance speech for the presidential nomination at the 2000 Democratic convention, he had a 30 point Program for America that he thought was very important to get out. He had 30 points and 45 minutes in which to deliver them.

What happened was that during the first 20 minutes of his speech, people in the audience would hear things that they liked and, quite naturally, applaud. At least they tried to applaud. But instead of pausing and bathing in the glow for a moment or two, Al would hold up his hands to silence them and just kept on speaking. This went on for 25 minutes - although they would applaud, he wouldn’t stop speaking.

After a while, the audience started to become uncomfortable, because they were applauding over him. The applause then became more sporadic, and eventually stopped altogether. And so for the last 20 minutes of the speech, he continued to speak, and nobody applauded at all. He just spoke for 20 minutes straight. Not a single break.

We think if you were to have given a pop quiz to the audience and ask them how many of those 30 points for America they could remember, it probably would be no more than three, if any. Al thought it was all about the content, without consideration for the audience’s ability to take it all in.

Years later, prior to filming An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore sought and received professional presentation skills training, and he has a somewhat better grasp on the process that when he ran for president in 2000. In fact, in a May 2007 article in The New York Times Magazine, Gore was asked if he had any regrets about how he ran the campaign.

The reporter was hoping to get him to say something related to the legal process, but instead Gore replied, “If I had had the presentation skills I’ve since learned, I think I’d be in my second term as president”.

J. Douglas Jefferys is a principal at PublicSpeakingSkills.com, an international consulting firm specializing in training businesses of all sizes to communicate for maximum efficiency. The firm spreads its unique knowledge through on-site classes, public seminars, and high-impact videos, and can be reached through the Internet or at 888-663-7711.

Public Speaking - Masters of the Pause Part I

It’s common to believe, when you listen to great speakers at work, that certain people are simply born with the talent to speak well, and therefore no amount of training or practicing is going to transform you into a great speaker, no matter how hard you try. And while it’s true that both John Kennedy and Bill Clinton have what most people don’t - charisma - their ability to speak as they do was not part of what they were born with.

Bill Clinton was not always a great speaker. He was guilty of several bad practices, one being common to the political class: Clinton actually thought people wanted to hear elected officials go on at the mouth for one, two, or even three hours. The truth is you rarely hear someone say, “That was a great presentation - I only wished he would have droned on for another hour or so”. And FDR is famous for his advice to public speakers: Be sincere; be brief; be seated!

Brevity is the soul of wit, but it’s also the heart of a great talk. President Ronald Reagan, the person for whom the name “The Great Communicator” was coined, had a strict limit of 45 minutes, but preferred to stay under 25 whenever possible.

Another annoying practice of Clinton’s was the repeated use of his forefinger to point at the audience when he spoke. People tend to feel uncomfortable when pointed at, and we know how important it is for audience members to feel comfortable. His handlers never could break him of the general motion, but they were able to train him to crank that finger back into his hand and then lock it down with his thumb.

You can probably easily picture Bill Clinton with his fist moving up and down, thumb pointed outward as it held a firm grip on his finger, declaring to the assembled press, “I did not have relations with that woman, that Monica Lewinsky…”

Finally, like most people, and by far the majority of politicians, he would rarely stop the word flow once he started. As charming and charismatic as he was with individuals, when speaking in public, he did not understand the essence of the pause. But his handlers knew the respect he had for his “mentor”, and so they sat him down and had him watch videotapes of JFK over and over again until he got it.

A New Style

Clinton’s speaking style is really a modernized version of Kennedy’s. But JFK was one of the most influential speakers of the 2oth century, in that he really introduced the “humanistic” style of public speaking. Prior to Kennedy’s showing the world the power of an authoritarian’s speaking to his “subjects” on equal terms, we had the “oratory” style, best exemplified by Winston Churchill.

Churchill spoke to us from on high - Kennedy brought speech down to the level of the common man, and people loved him for it.

We are not suggesting that every time you give a speech or deliver a presentation you should speak as if you were the president of your country. We use these two men as examples because they learned just how powerful the pause can be when needing to persuade others to see things as you do. The reality is that few people will ever use as many pauses when they present as these and other Masters of The Skills, but then most people don’t average 10,000 or so people in their audiences.

But we want you, from this point forward, to be constantly hearing these cadences in your head when you speak, with the understanding that you’ll be gaining more and more message uptake the more you strive to hit their stride. Right now, we would wager that you probably average no less than 25 words between pauses, and that many of you don’t pause at all. If you want to be a speaker who can truly lay claim to having The Skills, you must work to incorporate the pause at least at the end of every thought.

J. Douglas Jefferys is a principal at PublicSpeakingSkills.com, an international consulting firm specializing in training businesses of all sizes to communicate for maximum efficiency. The firm spreads its unique knowledge through on-site classes, public seminars, and high-impact videos, and can be reached through the Internet or at 888-663-7711.

Getting a Job in SEO

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

When search engines decide what pages to show in response to an inquiry, they consult their indexed database of millions of web pages and decide which are the most relevant results, and in what order they should show them. A job in SEO involves figuring out what search terms a particular website should try to rank highly for and then helping the site to move up the rankings for these terms.

In some industries, like travel, high rankings in Google and Yahoo can provide a huge increase in sales and revenue, and SEO is becoming increasingly regarded as the form of marketing that provides the best return on investment for many niche businesses.

What does an SEO job involve?

Search Engine Optimisation begins with keyword research, finding out exactly what people are typing into search engines, and then evaluating these keywords and key phrases on a number of criteria (frequency of search, level of competition, relevance to the client website and so on.) A number of key phrases are selected for each page on a site, and the content and code of a page are enriched with these key phrases.

For seriously significant increases in rankings, however, you need to increase the number of one way links coming into a site. Links are regarded as votes of confidence by search engines – the more links you can get, the higher that page will rank (although individual links vary greatly in value). A job in SEO focuses heavily on attracting links to a client’s website, often by creating viral content (articles, videos, applications and so on) that spreads around the internet and generates links.

How do you get into it?

There are no specific qualifications required for a job in SEO, although a degree is preferred by many companies. Typically, if you want to work in-house at a large company they will require you to have several years experience, while an agency may be willing to take you with no experience and train you up if you display some of the right skills. Entry level jobs in SEO are advertised through a number of online sources, and there are even recruitment agencies (like mine!) that deal specifically with online marketing jobs.

What skills do you need to succeed?

A job in SEO requires a broad range of skills. You’ll need analytical and organisational skills to do keyword research and understand website statistics, combined with the creativity to produce great content and think up effective strategies for link building campaigns. Strong writing skills are very useful, as you will be expected to produce plenty of written material, and some degree of HTML and basic web design knowledge can also come in handy.

Above all, if you want a job in search marketing you’ll need a passion and understanding of the internet, including concepts like social media and Web 2.0. SEO is a rapidly evolving business, and you’ll have to be able to stay on top of all the latest online developments in order to be good at your job.

How much does it pay?

Salaries for search marketing jobs vary greatly depending on your level of experience, location, size of company, and whether you are working in-house, for an agency or as a freelancer. An entry level job in SEO might pay between £20,000 – 25,000, but as your experience increases, so does your earning power. Higher level people could potentially earn over £50,000 if they’ve got the right skills and experience.

Gail Kenny is the managing director of Puregenie, an online travel jobs website. The site deals with jobs in the ever growing travel sector and offers a wide selection of PPC and SEO jobs, as well as other roles involved in maintaining a presence online. Although the site is mainly travel focussed, it also displays vacancies in the hospitality and leisure industries.

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