I also seem to be on the first page of Google and Yahoo! for “Chicago SEO” and “Chicago SEO Services”. I think that improving my rankings for those terms would require a little bit of additional link building. That might be hard, considering that I have a regular nine to five job that I have to attend to.

I think I will utilize some blogging skills at first and then focus on my link exchange (maybe eve post a video SEO tutorial on YouTube). For those who don’t know I have set up a link exchange page on my website, so feel free to utilize it if you are in a middle of a link building campaign.

Internet Marketing might be time-consuming and a little tedious at times but I sure as hell am enjoying myself when I do it! That is especially true when I see my or my client’s website pop up number 1 in Google.

I will post an update on this SEO campaign when something moves forward (suggestions are welcome!).

Any other SEO freaks out there? Or maybe potential link exchange partners or clients? If you feel like sharing something, feel free to drop me a line!

Thanks for reading! I promise I will make time to post some new SEO tips for you guys and gals within the next couple of days!

Cheers!

After we fix everything and have a 100% spam free website, we go to Google Webmasters Tools (www.google.com/webmasters). In the Dashboard, on the right hand side, we’ll have messages, and tools. Last on the list is a link called “Request reconsideration.” Note that previously it was called a reinclusion request, but since that was not really true – it’s more than just bans, but also penalties, delistings, etc., they changed it to what it is right now.

So now, how do we write the reconsideration letter itself?

Well, first of all be truthful. If you used an SEO firm, please do state so. I was fixing one site, ant the client had an SEO company do it first. They didn’t get him anywhere, actually they got him banned. What those brains from an undisclosed company did, was to put a PHP script on the bottom of every page (using a global footer) that would go into a loop and generate several hundred of 1px by 1px spacer GIFs that would be a link to one of the subpages and be totally stuffed with keywords in the alternative text attribute of their img src declaration tag. I’ve stated as much, and guess what? Within 4 days my client from ranking nowhere for anything, jumped into #1 position in Google SERP for his targeted keyword (and some other ones as well).

So yes, be honest, tell them what happened, tell them that you’ve fixed it. Also, you better be darn sure to state that you promise never to do that again!

I’ve noticed that some people tend to throw in some reference to their Google adwords or adsense affiliation, thinking that Google’s gonna let them of the hook because they’re doing business together. Well, that’s not gonna fly, so forget about this part.

That would be pretty much it, worked for me. Keep in mind that it may take a while (probably weeks) for Google to do something about your site’s status and if they do they might not even let you know about it. So yeah, monitor the SERPs for your keywords.

Quick recap of what to do when your site gets banned:

Remove all Black Hat practices.

Request reinclusion stating:

What happened?

What did you do to fix it?

Will it ever happen again (better not)?

Hope it helps, thanks for reading!

On-Site Optimization

• Choosing the right domain name

One of the first choices that you have to make when starting your website is the choice of your domain name. This is important because Google and other search engines look at your domain name when determining the relevancy of the search engine results page (SERP). It is therefore beneficial to have the keywords that you are targeting present in your domain name.

• Title

Title of your web page (specified with the use of the <title> tag) should be descriptive and relevant to the content of your website. It is beneficial to include some of the targeted keywords and/or keyphrases in the title of your site. Also, be sure to have unique titles for every each one of your sub-pages, as it is more descriptive and increases the amount of keywords that you can use.

• Keyword density

When writing content for your website, try to include all your keywords within the body of your pages. That way, when a search engine bot (crawler) indexes your website, it sees the keyphrases included in your copy, and thus can determine the relevancy of your website for a given search querry.

• Header tags

Divide the content of your site into certain parts and begin each with a relevant (keyword-rich) description bound by the header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.).

• Links

Make sure that your site does not have any broken links, for it is frowned upon by the search engines. The anchor text (name that your link is displayed as) should be relevant, and keyword rich. If certain keywords are more important to you, you may increased their value in the eyes of search engines by using one of the bold and strong tags or putting them as a header.

• File names

Make sure that the file names of your web pages contain the targeted keywords. For example instead of calling your gallery page gallery.html, call it fast-cars-photogallery.html (for a gallery of sports cars). Remember not to go overboard with sticking too many keywords into one file name, because it may appear too spamy to search engines.

• Image alternative text.

Remember to include the alternative text for all your images (ex: <img src=”dogpicture.jpg” alt=”Picture of a dog” />). Alt text is important for a variety of reasons: it helps visually disabled people to read your website, helps when somebody is using text only web browser, it is standards compliant, and of course it is yet another place to put some more keywords.

• Meta Data: description, keywords

In your html code, be sure to put adequate, not too long, not too short description of your website and the list of your keywords.

• Url rewriting

Remember that you can manipulate your urls and make them more search engine friendly with such tools as .htaccess on an Apache server or the IIS on a Microsoft platform.

• W3C compliant syntax

Make sure that the html you are coding is compliant with the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium. You can check your site at validator.w3.org. Some people believe that having valid html helps with your SERP, some think otherwise. In my opinion it is a good prudent and proactive step to take; it won’t hurt, but it may help. I myself, try to always use valid strict xhtml (specified in the doctype statement in the top part of your code).

Off-Site Optimization

• Link building - you can submit your link for free to many websites such as:

• Yahoo & Google Locals

At these sites you can submit your business listing, and not only get a valuable link from an important, high PR site, but also increase your brand awareness and potentially land some business deals.

• Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo Directories (paid listing), etc.)

There is an abundance of online directories floating on the internet. Some of them are free such as DMOZ (very hard to get listed, but extremely beneficial to your SEO and eMarketing efforts), some offer paid inclusion (Yahoo directories, I think annual fee of $290), and some offer you a listing in exchange for a link back to their site. Be careful with linking to those directories because some might be treated as link-farms and will get you penalized by the search engines. If linking to a directory, find out if it is a legitimate website first. Also, try linking only to those sites that are related to yours in some way.

• Video sharing (Youtube.com, Google Videos, etc.)

If you have some skills at shooting interesting videos or making video tutorials (such as a SEO tutorial or a witty Photoshop technique tutorial) you can post them on a variety of video-sharing networks, and put a link to your website in the description of your input.

• Social Networking (MySpace.com, Facebook.com, etc.)

Social networking sites are a great way to show of your business along with your website to the world. A profile on MySpace or Facebook can gain you new clients, help to stay in touch with existing ones, develop business relations with other companies, and be a source of links and traffic to your website.

• Blogs (blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.)

Blogs, similarly to social networking sites, are a good way of sharing information about your business/website with the world. By writing relevant content, you can gain links and exposure

• Message boards, forums
• Digg.com
• Wikipedia.org
• Google Pages
• Link Exchange

• Email Marketing/Newsletter

A company online newsletter can keep your visitors updated and in touch with your website. Marketing emails can also attract possible clients for your business. If you decide to engage in an email marketing campaign, keep one thing in mind: “Don’t SPAM!”

I will be posting new techniques and tips for search engine optimization, as well as discussing the ones contained in this article in more detail, so stay tuned!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

-Konrad