Small businesses are now profiting largely from SEO content targeted to specific interested parties. SEO needs to be applied systematically, and it needs steer away from bedeviling, empty content that tricks people into landing on a specific webpage. Reputable sources have recently proven that companies that try to trick people, by falsely providing services, their success tends to be short lived as people begin to catch on.
However, there are some effective methods that can garner success, in regard to SEO practices, that can skyrocket the success of small businesses. There are campaigns that offer keyword research and optimization at low cost. As long as the small business is legitimate and provides tangible products or valuable information, in addition to the patience and money required for up-front for SEO services, then success will surely follow. There is an entire science in online optimization that focuses only on keywords, through research of previous user linked word choices, and predictions of ones to come. Another portion of SEO for small businesses relates to a summary of the page: this information needs to describe the small business, its functions, products, etc.; therefore, when relevant data is keyed into a search engine, the subsequent webpage surfaces.
Effective SEO implementation is a vital component in every small business because it adds another dimension to marketing. The webpage may be structurally perfect, and amazingly delivering beyond aesthetic expectations, yet if nobody ever sees it then it might as well not exist. Through SEO advertising, in addition to tagging, retagging etc, the efficiency of the links will be examined next: strong links produce more traffic. Upon completing the process, the small business is submitted to the monster search engines for approval. Lastly, comparisons from pre-SEO influence to post SEO treatment will be analyzed by staffing to ensure reliability.
Recently I had an e-mail exchange with a potential client that goes into great detail about what you should expect while working with The Dominant Apporach. There are very specific techniques released in this e-mail that most SEO companies wouldn’t dare disclose, because the methods described are the entire foundation of what some of their businesses are based upon. Our wide range of state of the art services provides me with confidence that our clients will largely benefit. TDA enjoys a transparent working relationship with our clients, and is committed to extinguishing the “black magic” image that SEO has, and replace that with good quality education of services.
This e-mail describes the rights to intellectual property, and the detailed reasoning behind it. The client was concerned about very valid specifics of what exactly we would be creating for them, and also which entity holds ownership. My response is based on the core policies and procedures of The Dominant Approach.
-Start E-Mail-
Ok let me go through these questions for you.
1. Q. Can we see some examples of articles that you will be writing for our business?
A. I just wrote an article last night actually, you can see an example of a web 2.0 property that will be created for your business at:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Small-Business-SEO-Services-and-Systems . In this instance I am “promoting the promoters”. This site links to another web 2.0 property (http://hubpages.com/hub/Northern-Virginia-SEO-Services) that then links to my website, reinforcing my marketing efforts. I used hubpages because they have strict standards on what they accept as “hubs” for their site, and in turn google ranks these sites very well. This is done in layers, wider and deeper than what you see here. Normally I would submit an article to an article directory first, I am using slightly different methods for testing purposes for my own marketing.
This was made for the marketing of my site, your web properties will most likely include pictures and video also. I do not add everything to these properties at once, these pages are constantly changing, that is what google likes to see. I drip the content out to these sites, first text, then pictures, then video and links. Every single piece of these properties is highly optimized for search engines. This is very effective, and I usually don’t share this with everyone, but I want to be as transparent as possible with my clients so that they understand what exactly is happening. Most SEO companies like to make their clients believe that there is some magic happening here, but its a numbers game for me, and I usually win it.
Articles written for your business will most likely be related to your best selling products. a 300-500 word article will be written for a topic such as “*market*”. That article will be submitted to article directories, and then similar articles will be used to create a web 2.0 property(such as hubpages.com like the one above). Both of these will be linked to your website, or a website created by me in your marketing network.
I do not share information about other clients marketing campaigns. The only examples of video I can show you are of me talking about different aspects of internet marketing. The idea is simple, I can do minimal edits to the video, adding text and an intro animation. You can do anything that you want in the video, I will supply the recorder and come on site to take the video. Another option is to take pictures as we discussed before, and put them into a collection, save it as a video, and add music and text. The purpose of these videos to me is linkage, I know what google likes, and I give it to them. The content of it is up to you. All videos are properly linked, keyword optimized, and socially bookmarked.
If you would like to see a small example of what my clients can expect from me as opposed to any other SEO company please type in: “the dominant approach” in your google search window. You will see multiple page 1 and 2 listings for my website and my business. Keep in mind, most of my competition for the terms I am marketing are other internet marketing and SEO companies. What I have done so far for this site is VERY (less than 5%) minimal compared to what I do for my clients. This marketing was started very recently (less than one month), and that term has over 1 million competing webpages.
Ranking for this term was not intentional, but collateral for a broader campaign that I am working on to rank for keywords related to my business. Your marketing will include campaigns for 5 keywords most trafficked in your market, but you can expect these “freebies” to show up in your campaign also. All stages of this campaign have not been implemented because I need to finish the website first. I will OWN my local market, and competitive keywords related to it with video, articles, social bookmarks, web 2.0 and pages from within my site. When people search for terms related to the services I offer, I will be seen as a dominant authority very soon with my lead generation on auto-pilot. This is what I intend to do for you and your business.
2. Q. Will we maintain administrative rights over the web properties that you create?
A. As policy, The Dominant Approach maintains the rights to the properties that we have created. All traffic and benefits from these sites are solely those of your business, and will not be shared with any other business in your market or any other market for that matter. No links will be made to or from these properties that don’t directly benefit you and your campaign. They are essentially yours, but without a contract, and even with one, it is not good business for TDA to give you all of the rights to everything created.
This is simply not the way that the marketing industry works, not online or offline. Any form of advertising whether it be yellow-pages, radio, or television, your advertisements are ran for as long as you are a paying customer, and it is no different here. You are renting these properties, and I believe that you are getting this real estate at a very competitive price considering the ROI.
The reason that I do this is for my own protection. In most instances, I do not require a contract for my services. Countless hours can not be spent working on a marketing campaign for your business only for you to take these properties and stop using my services when it starts to produce. This is more about waste than anything else. Eventually these properties will lose their value, and everything that we have done will have been for nothing. The point here is to create consistent new content and promotion of your business. The results do not happen overnight, and the results do not last forever without consistent promotion, these are just the facts of online marketing. I know how the system works, and I stay on top of it as it changes. This is my passion first, but because it is also my livelihood, these things must be in place.
If this is a deciding factor that must be agreed upon, I am willing to negotiate, but I hope that you understand my position. I am running a legitimate business here and have to keep the longevity of my business in mind. I always like to make this clear before going into a new agreement with a client, and I apologize that I hadn’t yet. Thank you for bringing this up.
3. Q. Will we own the rights to the articles and videos that you create?
A. With that being said, I also hold all of the rights to articles that I write myself unless I am compensated for writing them, or having them written. The videos are yours, all of them, it is personal to your specific business. I have no problem allowing you the rights to your articles, but if I write them myself on my own time, I hold the rights to them. Any articles or content you provide will remain your own property and will be marketed and linked properly. This is included in your monthly fees. Web properties that are created during your campaign are also property of The Dominant Approach unless they host content that you own.
Another way to think of this is:
1. You can rent these properties, and benefit from the traffic generated and link structure created, or
2. You can own all of these properties, but it will take either
a. more coordination between us for you to create the content for me
b. I will need to be compensated for the intellectual property that I am creating for you. ($100/article, I create at least 10 articles per month.)
c. Some type of further negotiation between us.
4. Q. Can you give me a short list of Web properties that will host our content?
A. A short list of social networking sites that will possibly host your content:
Hubpages.com
Zimbio.com
Wikispaces.com
Blogspot.com
Wetpaint.com
Wordpress.com
Ezinearticles.com
Blog.com
Squidoo.com
I choose which sites will host your content on a case by case basis depending on what the search engines are responding to at that moment. I have a very long list of web 2.0 sites and article directories, and will post to almost all of them over the course of the first few months of a marketing campaign. These are all properly linked, some to each other, some to your website, some to articles. All of them are socially bookmarked by at least 10 social bookmarking sites (digg.com, diigo.com, stumbleupon.com, etc.) and then steps are taken to ensure that every single one of them is indexed in google. Add video submissions to the list (youtube.com, flurl.com, bofunk.com, multiply.com, viddyou.com, viddler.com) and you will own google.
Please keep in mind that I am a person interested in doing business with people. Every business has its rules and policy’s and they are all in place for great reasons, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t have different circumstances that businesses should take into account. I am honestly telling you that I will be gaining many new clients that will happily abide by my policy’s and procedures to reap the benefits of my marketing in the near future. Acquiring your business is important to me. I have already met you personally. I do believe that your business deserves to be the authority in your market, and I would love to help you to do that. If you have any further questions, or concerns, please ask. As I said before I like to create a good working relationship with any of my clients, and I want to make sure that you are getting the results that you expect. Thanks for your time, I look forward to working with you.
~Thomas