When to Hire a Professional SEO Firm?

SEO News Tip of the Day!

I thought it would be nice to make this post and more to point, share my joy with all three of you that may be reading it. Over the last few weeks I’ve started experimenting with writing articles and distributing them to see if it would help with SEO.

What is Article Distribution for SEO?

In short, article distribution is writing articles that are focused on your market sectors target audience. The articles could be news worthy stories or anything else you feel people would like to read about. You then submit the article to websites that display them. There are even services dedicated to distributing articles. I would recommend Articlesender which is one of the best distributors I’ve used and completely free.

When submitting your article you can normally add what’s known as a bio box. The bio box is displayed at the end of the article and is your chance to inform people who wrote the article. You can add a link to your site in the bio box.

If your article is accepted and posted on the site, it should be indexed by the search engines. So you will now have a new one way link pointing to your site. People who are looking for content to publish on their site or ezine may find your article and choose to use it. The rules are if they do use your article they have to include your bio box with the links.

Does it work for SEO?

I don’t know? Not yet anyway. I’m still tracking the results of the few articles I’ve wrote and distributed so far (some of which I’ve posted on SEO Forum Watch). There is a good thread over at WebWorkShop discussing the same question and I came across an interesting discussion on Matt Cutt’s blog. Matt didn’t directly say article distribution doesn’t help Google SEO but did say he felt sites that simply reproduced articles where not adding any value to the web. Whether that means Google discredits links from article distribution sites or sites reusing the content I don’t know. But as mentioned before I’m tracking the articles to find out if any SEO benefit is happening on what search engines.

Other Benefits of Article Distribution

The last article I published did however produce significant traffic. The article titled “The SEO Snowball Effect” was picked up and used by both WebProNews.com and WebProNews.co.uk. This had the effect of referring traffic from their site through the bio box link on the article to the company I work for. Looking at our stats I could see in two days WebProNews had referred just over 180 visitors to our site. We even had someone requesting a SEO campaign because they read the article.

In my opinion this is where article writing is going perform. If you can write articles of such quality, that the authority sites in your sector use them. Then your going to get both targeted traffic and recognition of being an expert because of your association with them.

I will be posting more on this when I get evidence of whether article distribution has any SEO benefit. I’ve got a feeling it will work on Yahoo and MSN but not the big G. If I fail to make another post before Christmas or you fail to make it back, have a great Xmas and a good new year.

In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more companies are turning to online marketing initiatives ? specifically, search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization or (SEO) is the art and science of blending technical and marketing skills together into a finely tuned website that is both search engine-friendly, ranks well for specific keywords and phrases, and is tailored to your audience from a buyer and seller perspective.

According to a recent U.S. study, only 20% of all businesses outsource search engine optimization programs to professional SEO firms. The remaining 80% either do not conduct search engine optimization at all or they believe they have the resources and skills to do it in-house. Of this 80%, it is probable that 90% of these companies can't be found on the web ? they don't exist. In order to generate any amount of significant web visibility, your website must typically rank within the top-30 results.

Conduct your SEO program in-house or out-source it. To answer this question, let's first take a look at the knowledge, skills and resources necessary to implement and maintain a successful search engine optimization program.

This may seem overly obvious, but you would be amazed how many people do not understand how they actually work. This knowledge provides the foundation for your SEO program.

Although SEO is not completely a technical marketing process, it does require a fair amount of technical knowledge of what constitutes search engine-friendly web design. Certain web design elements can either help your search engine rankings or hurt them. You simply have to know which is which.

This is the most important and most difficult knowledge to obtain. If you have never implemented a SEO program, then you are in for a big surprise. Search engine optimization programs require a lot of research and are extremely time consuming. Most importantly, they require actual SEO experience. This means knowing what SEO strategies and tactics work and which ones don't.

If your company is considering conducting your search engine optimization program in-house, here are some questions to consider.

Typically your IT department handles multiple daily tasks from trouble-shooting your company's LAN or WAN to fixing the sales department's laptops? Out of a busy IT person's day, what priority and focus do you think he or she will commit to for your SEO program? And even if your IT department has some skills in web design or development, these skills make up only a small percentage of the knowledge required for a successful search engine optimization program.

Typically, your marketing department juggles many marketing projects at once and faces strict completion deadlines. From handling new print collateral campaigns to getting ready for new product or service launches, marketing personnel's time is spread very thin. In addition, how knowledgeable is your marketing department in the technical aspects of web design and search engine optimization? Do they have the time to become well-versed? Do they have sufficient internal resources? Often the answer to both questions is no, they do not.

Ok, so the responsibility falls onto someone outside of your Marketing or IT department. Who will that be and why are they responsible for your SEO program? Providing these individuals with a new "project of the month," will typically result in another check mark off of their monthly to-do list and frustration by top management of why their website is not producing any sales results.

From a business standpoint, it makes sense to try to leverage internal resources to maximize your company's productivity and profitability ? whenever possible. However, there must be a line drawn in the sand between knowing what your organization's capabilities are and what they are not.

As you can see, there is more to search engine optimization than meets the eye. In order to implement and maintain a SEO program, you must acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources. This can be done by hiring a professional search engine optimization firm. Professional SEO firms have dedicated resources and experience to support your company's web marketing initiatives. By leveraging their experience and know-how, your company can quickly and more efficiently implement a successful search engine optimization program.

Corey Wenger is owner of Key Position Web Marketing and is a professional Search Engine Optimizer and Consultant who has over three years of experience in helping companies increase sales and profitability through strategic web marketing programs. For more information, please visit www.key-position.com or email him at corey@key-position.com.