Are cheap search engine optimization companies actually offering value for their money? Are the rankings sustainable or are they just a flash in the pan?

Unfortunately, many people tend to opt for the quick and cheap option. By the time they get burned, their websites are already de-indexed and they often have to start all over again. It becomes increasingly worse if the domains have been around for a long time and a lot of time has been spent building the website.

Most search engine optimization companies offering a quick and cheap way to higher search engine rankings often do it the wrong or unethical way. If you doubt it, when next you find a company that offers that service, contact them and ask them what methods they would be using. You can be sure that they will be evasive and not forthcoming with the necessary information.

On the other hand, genuine and reputable search engine optimization companies will not hesitate to show you what they will be doing to help your website get higher search engine rankings. These white hat companies spend time doing it the right way. And while the results may not be as fast as the cheap, shady options, you can be sure that the website will rise through the ranks naturally. The search engine algorithms have been designed in such a way that websites that quickly rise through the ranks are viewed as suspicious and probably spammy.

The natural and safe methods often work well for webmasters that are willing to wait just a little longer. While this method might be a little pricey –hence the reason many individuals opt for the cheaper and faster method- the benefits in the long term far outweigh the little fee paid. White hat methods play by the rules of the search engines; thus they are safe and produce long lasting results as long they are maintained and updated once in a while.

Higher search engine rankings are possible using the right means and methods. The cheap ways may give you temporary results and this is ok if your target is temporary. But then, why spend time and money on the temporary when you can make the results permanent! Thus giving you the ability to consistently earn more money and build your lists from the website for a long time.

Therefore, it is advisable that you opt for the natural and safe methods of search engine optimization. The benefits will last for a long time and you will make way more than you invested.

This also applies to your internet marketing business. Knowing what is happening in the market can both save your business and prevent you from taking a dangerous leap into unknown or murky waters.

If your business is internet based, then you know that your livelihood –whether you like it or not- depends largely on the different search engines. If these are gone today, you are not likely to make a dime from that business anymore.

Since an important aspect of your business online is search engine optimization, being on the lookout for recent hot trends and updates will help you navigate the treacherous waters of change. Staying on top of seo trends include

* Attending Conferences and Events

Sometime ago, just before the google duplicate content “slaughter”, some marketers who had tons of duplicate content online took them down and in the process, were able to stay afloat during the purge. They were able to do this simply because they had insider information about the intention of google to clamp down on duplicate content.

People who had high search engine rankings were suddenly thrown off balance and websites fell from first page to the 2 millionth page. Most of those who were able to escape the cleansing did so because they attended events where rumours about duplicate content clamp down were strong.

* Keep Your Ears on the “Ground”

In the past, people were able to hear a war coming from as far as three days away. The reason they were able to do this was because they knew how to put their ears on the ground and listen intently to the varying sounds emanating from the earth.

This way, they were able to escape before enemies attacked them. You should do the same in business. Keep your ears to the ground. No matter how big you get, hang around industry forums and authority websites once a while and just listen to gist going around these places. It could be your saving grace.

Know More about predictability of GOOGLE Search Trends

* Pay Experts to Do It

Search engine optimization companies, services and professionals are often insiders in the game. They know where to get the right info, contact the right people and even know about any major “storm” way ahead of its occurrence.

You can easily pay services like this to once in a while look over your website and see if there is anything they can do. A steady appraisal –probably once every 6 months; more if it necessary and affordable- can help your website stay alive.

It is crucial that you stay afloat during any major search engine “storm”. Getting expert SEO opinions and the costs involved are puny compared to the benefits that can be obtained from consistently listening to their advice and following their recommendations.

The way out now –apart from doing all the necessary off-page and on-page seo- is by taking advantage of web 2.0 properties., these properties when used effectively can help get your website listed on the search engines faster than any other method.

* Hubpages

Hubpages is one of the more recent web2.0 portals. It is a website where you can post up your content, images and embed videos. In the past, it used to be outranked by Squidoo given Squidoo’s dynamism and its favoritism by most search engines.

With a well targeted keyword and article, you can easily write about your website, place your links in your profile –not in the article unless absolutely relevant and necessary- and rank well for your targeted keyword. The only negative side to hubpages is in its speed of indexing. It talks longer –often about 72 hours- but when it gets indexed, it rises through the ranks very fast.

* Squidoo

Squidoo used to be one of the fastest ranked web 2.0 properties. But after it got “hijacked” by spammers and marketers, it had to undergo what was popularly referred to at the time as “Squidoo slap”. This inadvertently led to Squidoo’s rankings dropping in the search engine. But after the purging, Squidoo has started ranking higher in the search engines.

As against hubpages, Squidoo has more dynamism in that you can insert links, videos, audios, arrows and a whole lot of trappings. Squidoo has very strong authority with the search engines and will rank well if the keywords are properly targeted.

* Twitter

In the past, twitter used to be just a mini blogging platform. Now, it is still a blogging platform but with more dynamism. Recent research has shown that even twitter listings are showing up in the search engines and ranking well. Available at twitter.cm, all you have to do is sign up and start “following” people. Next to Facebook, it is currently one of the fastest growing social networks and is likely to remain so for a while.

* 43 Things

Amazingly, not many people are aware of this platform and its ranking potentials. It has been quietly ranking well for long tail keywords and has remained steady in a long time. With a very interactive and easy user interface, signing up is easy as you do not have to jump through hoops to get signed up.

Combining all these properties for your benefit takes some tact and skill. Thus, you need the help of a seo professional to be able to get the best results from them.

If you’ve read enough articles on copywriting, marketing and SEO in general, you’ve probably already heard of keyword stuffing. The moniker for dishing out senseless marketing content for the sake of getting more keywords on a page, copywriting is generally frowned upon by the search engines and penalized by the search engines. But you could actually be stuffing your content with keywords, all without meaning to do so.

There’s a lot of software on the Internet that allows you to measure the keyword density of your SEO copywriting, so you may as well use them. Check the numbers for the density in your content: if they’re double digit (meaning 10% and above), you’re way over the safe line, and chances are good that the search engines have already penalized you.

Start by doing a revamp of your existing content. Traditionally, 3% to 6% is considered the safe range for your keyword density; the ideal number, though, varies with the algorithms that the search engines use. Although it might seem that your content will seem a bit thin in terms of keywords, it’ll be just fine for the search engines if you keep your density on the lower end of the scale.

Perhaps that’s one of the advantages of getting copywriting, marketing and SEO services from professional service providers. Most of them have their respective techniques for researching and determining the ideal density for a particular keyword and even for specific search engines. While it sounds like you’ll be taking the easy route, it’s actually the more sensible way because you’re sure of compliance with all the latest SEO standards – something you just can’t afford to miss.

And I must mention that I’ll make some nice use of seo copywriting in sulumits retsambew seo contest as well; that’s what the first target of re-launching my personal blog.

Chill & cheers!

This piece of news should come as a surprise if you’ve been keeping tabs on the contest: SulumitsRetsambew.org was dethroned. Hellas lost his sleep and rest :p. The Bosnia and Herzegovina-based ex-first ranker has been knocked down one step to rest at page 3, then page 2, then lower page 1,and good news, he is back today. But I’m sure it was a bad time for him.

It’s done a pretty good job for the first several weeks of the contest, quickly garnering the top spot and holding on to it for a relatively long time. Now that he’s back to first place, though, the contest is up in the air again.

Asia is still holding on to its dominance in the contest, particularly on Page 1. For almost the entire duration of the contest, most of the Top 10 pages have come from Asian countries. At the moment, it doesn’t seem like that trend will let go anytime soon; Asia-based sites still have a strong hold in the first few SERPs.

.biz entry is surprising everybody with #2 hold as the rumor is of site being offline and out. My first sulumits retsambew entry is back to #3 after 17 days. mygulfcoastbeachteam.com, sulumitsretsambew.com and Firtown.com are doing real good but fluctuating with their positions pretty frequently.

Slideshare’s entry is back to page 1 after a drop but now it’s not in top 5. Good job by sulumitsretsambewblog.com as I notice it making a jumpr from page 3 to 1.

Social networks seem to be an emerging trend in the SEO race to #1. While the initial Top 10 lineup was composed primarily of blogs and news sites, more and more social network pages are creeping their slow but sure way up the search engine rankings. Only time will tell how well the social networking shtick will hold up in this free-for-all SEO contest.

Although it would be a pleasant surprise to find out that a second domain somehow helps me win, this second entry is all about a change in tactics. I want to see how tweaking some of the strategies from my first entry would help this second one along. After all, there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do SEO; there’s just SEO, and then there’s SEO that gets you to #1 at the end of the day.

This second entry will be my testing ground for a couple of new SEO tactics that I discovered recently. I also want to try mixing up the variables, such as by losing the domain-with-a-keyword tactic (like I did in my first contest entry) and just going with a plain vanilla domain name. Wasn’t experimenting with different SEO techniques the whole point of this contest in the first place? I’m just looking at this second entry as my way of making the most of that unique opportunity.

I’ll keep my first entry for more of conventional seo tactics while this would include some new seo stuff and tricks. Let’s see what works better for me. Moreover, needless to say, I thought of branding my blog too with this contest :p .

I still have to wait and see how things play out. The two domains won’t exactly be starting from an equal footing, and keeping certain factors constant isn’t as easy as it looks. But then again, it may all be worth the effort. For all we know, you might just have finished reading the future #1 pagest kidding but of course efforts are TO GET that sulumits retsambew winner position.

The answer above begs the question of what exactly an SEO contest is. Now, this competition is by no means the first; there have been numerous notable ones in the past, some of them much larger and more prestigious than this one. Its goals and principles, however, remain the same.

As an SEO contest, it’s a free-for-all for anybody who has access to SEO resources. Whoever gets to a certain search engine result rank within a certain amount of time wins; anything else you want to do is entirely your choice. Sites of all backgrounds and home nationalities are welcome to join and compete.

Redefining the Contest

SEO contests are meant to be opportunities for you to try out various SEO techniques in a controlled setting, and to compare how well your techniques fare compared to others’. More recently, many sites have been taking that experimentation aspect just a little bit further.

An increasing number of sites competing for sulumits retsambew are trying out methods that the SEO community has long held to be ‘bad’  or ineffective. And, to the surprise of many, those techniques are getting the pages to rankings that the community had previously believed impossible to reach. It’s groundbreaking, it’s revolutionary and it’s all just part and parcel of an SEO contest. Good luck to all

Chill & Cheers!