What is Honest SEO?

SEO professionals are known in some circles as the “used car dealers” of Internet Marketing. I’ve spoken with many businesses who feel like they’ve been taken for ride just trying to get a website, which is about 90% tangible. It stands to reason why so many are skeptical of a service that is 90% intangible.

What is SEO and Why is it Important?

SEO is a passion of ours at Holistic Visibility. Why you ask? Because having a website is pointless if you don’t get traffic. Using paid Search Marketing is one tactic to get the traffic necessary to make your website worthwhile, but even that is benefited by SEO being it brings down your average cost-per-click.

Also, if your site isn’t ranking well, you’ll not receive the traffic you should. We wrote last week about why poor search ranking is really bad for your business as every position lower than #1 drops your CTR by 30-35%.

Learning Who Can Really Help

When it comes to working with any SEO professional, whether it’s an outsourced firm or hiring someone in-house, you must be able to tell who knows what they’re talking about. If you’re not familiar with SEO, which most business owners aren’t, how are you supposed to tell who really knows their stuff? Here are some helpful hints:

• Look at that person’s own website and/or blog. Are they ranking well? Are they doing what they recommend you do? If they’re not “practicing what they preach”, then the next logical question is: do this person/firm have the necessary skills to execute the theory they’re selling?
• Does the person practice white hat SEO or black hat SEO? There is a big difference between these two, and your long-term ranking success with be impacted by this. If the person doesn’t know the difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO, then run the other way. If they don’t think black hat SEO is bad, get out of the line of fire. Make sure to check out our SEO Strategies post for more on why this is so important. (more…)

What will happen to MobileMe webistes and the iWeb App?

Earlier this year, Apple unveiled iCloud. This means that MobileMe is being discontinued and all of its users are being switched over to iCloud. For those of you that rely on MobileMe for website hosting, here are a few short FAQs to prepare you for the transition.

What happens to my MobileMe website?

In short, it goes…POOF! Apple has confirmed hat iCloud will not support the website hosting feature that so many have depended on in MobileMe. A short time after iCloud goes live, MobileMe will completely shutdown and you will need to find other options for your website.

What will happen to the iWeb Application?

No one knows for sure. I have heard a lot of speculation that the application will be discontinued, but that story hasn’t been made official yet. Even if iWeb is discontinued, you will still be able to use the old application. You should, however, consider moving to a more appropriate website management tool such as a content management system (CMS). We recommend using WordPress or Joomla.

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