Optimising a website to achieve high rankings in search engine results pages is an extremely effective internet marketing strategy to drive leads and sales to any given website. But be careful, SEO is highly technical and mysterious discipline any so called “SEO professionals” rely on the lack of knowledge to the subject scam prospects.

Which leads us to the question: How to Identify Bad SEO Services?

First lets understand what SEO or search engine optimisation is all about. SEO is an ongoing process of optimising individual pages of a website with related keywords so when prospects search for these terms, the optimised pages appear in the first results of SERPS (search engine results pages). This process will start to generate qualified traffic to the website which will start to generate conversions, sales, leads, sign ups, etc.

Avoid False Promises

With SEO there are no cutting corners so substantial results cannot be achieved over night. Avoid agencies and freelancers that promise high rankings in just 30 days or less. Anyone promising or guaranteeing first positions in Google is using deceiving techniques that will hurt your website in the long run.

What would you prefer a sudden surge in traffic that will go away fairly quick or a steady increase in traffic which will continue to grow constantly without fading away?

Black Hat Techniques

There are many techniques used by these so called “SEO professionals” to game the SE algorithms in order to achieve high rankings in a short period of time. These procedures are known as “Black Hat” and are the signs that make seo services bad and ineffective.

Some common black hat techniques are:

Keyword Stuffing: Adding keywords right, left and centre on a page making it look unnatural not only for the search engines but also for its visitors.

Invisible Text: Using same font colours as the background to try and fool the SE crawlers. This for me is child play; anyone who still believes that SEs are stupid enough to fall for it should look for help.

Doorway Pages: Pages created with the sole purpose of ranking high, attract visitors and redirect them to another location.

There are many more black hat procedures but the bottom line here is the Search Engines are very strict with their guidelines and do penalise websites that make use of such techniques.

Bad Selection of Keywords

Keywords are the core of SEO; it is their rankings that will drive qualified traffic to your website. Some SEO agencies will come up with a huge list of keywords that relate to your business services and products, do not simply accept them. Go over the list selecting the ones that you would like to rank for and feel free to make suggestions of keywords that are related to your business but are not listed.

Sometimes keywords with high search volume might not deliver the expected results because they might be too generic for your business. Work together with your selected agency or freelancer to come up with more descriptive keywords that despite having a lower search volume could deliver far more conversions.

Paid Links Schemes

Avoid such schemes by all means. Links are on the strongest ranking factors, search engines are strict in identifying and classifying them and yes they can recognise paid links by a mile away. SEs have no mercy with websites that engage in paid links schemes so make sure when you hire the services of an SEO they do not engage in these kind of schemes.

Driving Irrelevant Traffic

There are many ways to drive traffic to website but unfortunately most of them are not effective. When I say not effective I meant that the traffic being driven is of low quality and by low quality I mean traffic that doesn’t convert at all. There are many ways to identify low quality traffic.

A reliable SEO service should provide periodical analytics reports that indicate the behaviour of visitors when they land on your website. A high number of unique visitors doesn’t mean that the traffic to your website is good. Look for signals like bounce rate, average time on site, page views per visit and conversion rates.

Be Careful with Pricing

SEO services vary in price according to a series of factors. Sometimes the most expensive ones might not be the best ones while affordable seo services could end up costing more than they were actually marketed. There are no set prices for internet marketing services some agencies offer set packages, others charge by the hour but the most important thing is to know how to identify bad seo services and with this guide you are now able to do so.

About the Author

Felipe Bazon is an SEO specialised in small business internet marketing also a blogger, link builder and social media enthusiast.

Article Source: How to Identify Bad SEO Services?

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An essential skill to use a computer is to know how to touch type; it took me years before I learned how to type fast without looking at the keyboard. But nowadays there are typing tutors to speed up this process which led me to write this guide to help people looking for a touch typing tutor, be it downloadable software or a web-based tutor, find one that best suits your needs.

Computers are an essential part of our life nowadays, be it for leisure or professional use we can’t simply not live without it. Touch typing is an essential skill needed for anyone using a computer these days, whether they are simply using to chat with their friends on msn or to write professional articles like I’m doing right now.

Back in the days of the old typing machines you had to take classes to learn how to type faster. A lot has changed since those days but anyone that is looking to learn or improve their typing skills must make use of a typing tutor, the advantage today is that you can easily download one or even use a web-based tutor.

So what to look for in a Touch Typing Tutor?

First and foremost you need to decide what age group is the program aimed at, since there are specific software’s for each group (kids, juniors and seniors).

Will it be used at home or in schools? Most typing software suits both needs but make sure you choose the one that suits your needs best.

Does it offer educational benefits such as helping to improve reading, spelling and grammar skills? Depending on the age group that you are planning to use the program with this is extremely important.

Make sure it suits your language skills and literacy, we all know the spelling differences there are between American English and British as well as Australian.

Avoid typing tutors that market magic formulas such as type like a pro in less then a day. Generally a good typing program will improve keyboards skill within a week but that doesn’t mean that you or your pupils are then ready to give up the program. Remember practice makes perfect.

Is it special needs friendly? Children with Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Autism/ASD and VI have great difficulty in writing but that doesn’t stop them from learning how to type and teaching touch typing for them can be life changing to say the least.

Does the program have tests to measure improvements? It is extremely important to measure the achievements after completing the learning levels. Normally the achievements are measured with a speed test (how many words one can type in a given period of time).

Now that you know what to look for in typing tutor you can rest assured that you won’t be wasting your money with ineffective programs and that you or your pupils will have their keyboarding skills improved.

Remember not knowing how to touch type is like writing with a feather and pot of ink to write – painfully slow! Stop hunting and pecking and start improving your typing skills right away.

Touch typing is an essential skill that must be mastered by everyone using computers and remember it is never to late to learn to touch type.

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