I don’t know about you, but I have studied the most current SEO principles and practices quite extensively over the last many months and I still find it mind-boggling as to the evolving activities and analysis required to keeping our SEO efforts at an optimal level! I am a busy web entrepreneur with multiple things on the go, so it is virtually impossible for myself to continually implement new SEO initiatives.

As you also know, I am a HUGE proponent of outsourcing and the reality is even if I decided I wanted to try to hire an SEO guru in house, the likelihood of being able to find them and afford them for that matter would be rather challenging!

So, I firmly believe in having a team of consultants that tweak the various aspects of our SEO efforts as well as other areas. For example, I like to enlist a Website Analytics specialist, Affilate Marketing Consultant, Social Media Consultant and others that provide ongoing advice and strategies that help to leverage the potential of my web marketing efforts.

Lee Odden had a great post last  week on the Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting which I concur wholeheartedly - a good read!

The bottomline for me is that the the Internet Marketing Space is evolving at such a rapid pace that is easy to get lost in the shuffle and lose ground on your competitors. I believe Outsourcing is one of the remedies to keeping your Web marketing efforts as current and competitive as possible. This is one of the big reasons why we decided to create ESalesGuru.com, which is slated to go live this summer!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If I could be painfully honest, I would have to say that one of the biggest headaches I experience in my business is the ever-changing and highly unpredictable world of Search Engine Optimization. I am an avid reader of Search Marketing trends and still find it difficult at times to stay ahead of the curve.

As you know I am a huge advocate for the Outsourcing of Search Marketing Tasks, primarily because I have personally reaped the benefits of recruiting outside Search Marketing Experts to bolster the success of my campaigns. In 2006, Marketing Sherpa conducted SEO research with 2000 marketers whose sites had been optimized and it revealed the following:

• Marketers who use in-house SEO resources saw a 73% lift in overall traffic
• Marketers who outsourced SEO to an expert saw an average of 110% increase in overall site traffic.

Okay, I will stop preaching the virtues of outsourcing  your Search Marketing tasks!

Whether you choose to outsource or to keep your SE efforts in house, I would HIGHLY recommend an invaluable SEO resource I purchased the other day. SEOBook.com is a 328 page PDF that is full of many nuggets of wisdom for building a successful SEO platform for your business. The great thing about the  resource is that the author, Aaron Wall, updates the content on a regular basis. This is a major bonus, as I have purchased multiple hard-copies of SEO books, only to find that some of the content quickly becomes out-dated and not as relevant. I noticed that Aaron last updated the resource just in January.

For $79 US, you gain access to life-time updates of the SEObook, plus some very useful add-ons such as recommended SEO tools and interviews and resources from SEO and Internet Marketing gurus.

Now, although I outsource a lot of my SEO tasks, in order for me to effectively manage those specialists and projects, it is imperative that I remain in the know on current SEO practices. This is a KEY point when it comes to outsourcing… Some businesses fail to outsource effectively primarily cause they do not have an in-house project manager that has a good working knowledge of the outsourced project at hand - big no no!

I know that I certainly will not able to do all the tasks he includes in the book in-house, but by digesting this current SEO information, I will be in tune with the questions to ask and what to evaluate when managing my Outsourced Search Marketing Specialist.

I have to say that SeoBook.com will be the best $79 you will ever spend on your Search Engine Optimization endeavors… NO, I am not getting paid for this endorsement - this is just the plain truth!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Well, I wanted to hold off on publishing today’s post until after the Canada/Russia World Junior Hockey Final, so I could say a BIG “YIPPEE” for Canada’s Gold Medal Win today! Great job guys - Way to make your country proud!

As you can probably tell, I am a bit of a hockey nut being a Canadian and all eh?:)

I digress….On to the topic of the day.  A couple weeks ago, you might remember a post I wrote titled, Red Flags To Watch For When Recruiting a Search Engine Marketing Specialist of Firm. Well, I came across a very informative ebook that certainly compliments my initial post… More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you had an awesome holiday with your family and friends!

Well, I want to let you in on new SEO strategy that I am rather excited about….

As many of you know, our business, esalesguru.com, is presently in “Pre-launch mode” with the upcoming launch of our Outsourcing Portal slated for the last half of this month! In the first week of December, we ran a Press Release campaign through PRweb to kick-start the Pre-launch of our site. We optimized the content of the release with targeted keywords as anchor text linking to our homepage.

Well, last week, I checked the status on my keyword listings and was rather pumped to see one of my keywords crack the top 10 at Google with other popular keywords hitting the top 20 in a couple of the other major SEs. Through this targeted Press Release campaign, we were able to get a top 10 listing for one of my keywords in Google in about a 2-3 week period! These listings have resulted in an increase in organic traffic to our site, leading to more signups. It is important to understand that before the first week in December, ESalesGuru did NOT exist in the SEs!

You may be already making good use of Press Releases in your SEO endeavors, but I wanted to briefly give you a snapshot of the steps we took to effectively optimize this Press Release campaign. More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Well, I have to say I am growing weary of shovelling snow here on the west coast of Canada! It is cutting into my early morning blogging time:)

In finishing out our “mini-series” on Outsourcing in the Search Marketing Realm, I would like to discuss the important practice of “Out-tasking” in your Search Marketing Endeavors. Now, quick definition: Out-tasking involves the outsourcing of certain tasks within a particular business process. So, Out-tasking your Search Marketing endeavors would involve contracting out certain elements of your Search Marketing Platform, while retaining core tasks in-house.

For those new to the “Outsourcing Game”, I actually highly recommend that you begin with Out-tasking a non-core task or two and closely evaluate the success before ramping up to a Full-Service Outsourcing program. This gradual process enables you to test out the potential of outsourcing without having to make many adjustments to your in-house roles and functions.

Now, Out-tasking is becoming a very common practice for many ebusinesses give the wide range of current SEO activities and development of niche firms that specialize in specific SEO functions. These emerging niche firms might concentrate on such tasks as:

• One-way Link Building Partnerships
• Website Page and Copy Optimization
• Pay Per Click Management
• Blog Content Writing and SEO Optimization (Credible Blogging and Pinging Strategies)
• Keyword Rich Articles and Press Releases
• RSS Feeds

Of course, there are also many reputable full service SEO firms that could provide one or all of these services as well. Personally, I believe that the practice of “Out-tasking” is a sensible way to keep your Search Marketing Platform fresh and competitive in a cost-effective fashion.

It is evident the SEO trends are moving at a meteoric pace and it is hard to keep up, so out-tasking certain functions to those experts “ahead of the innovation curve” might give your ebusiness an edge over some of your competitors. Out-tasking will also free up internal resources to invest more time on the core-competencies of your SEM platform (ie. PPC Management).

In my own experiences, I have enjoyed working with a small group of niche SEO specialists that I can continue to add certain tasks to the mix as my confidence grows in the outsourcing partnership. There is some wisdom in diversifying your SEO outsourcing endeavors to at least a couple different companies, so that you don’t hold all your SEO initiatives with one firm.  There might be some differences of opinion on that one, but that has been my experience!

Have a great weekend everyone!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

In my next couple posts, I am going to be doing a little “mini-series” on the popular trend of Outsourcing Search Engine Marketing Services on the Web. Now, as many of you know, there has been a widely held debate on whether to keep Search Marketing Services inhouse or to outsource to a SE Specialist or Firm. More

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!