SEO Workshop 100% Focused On You!

Imagine being able to attend a SEO workshop tailored just for you, where every question is answered and your Web site is well on its way to becoming successful.

Whether you're a Business Owner, Webmaster or a Professional SEO our new smaller classes will give you the individual attention you need.

Learn search engine optimization in a stress free, laid back, step by step study, with hands-on and personal attention to you and your Web site.

Each workshop is 100% focused on building YOUR SEO skills with close attention to detail. Class size is now limited to 6 students and you will receive a 2:1 student/instructor ratio of personalized individual attention!

No other SEO workshop or seminar offered throughout South Carolina offers this personalized hands-on approach.

It's more than a lecture it is a true student instructor participation workshop!

Visit our SEO Workshop Registration Page to join us for our next scheduled personalized 2:1 Workshop.

New Competitive Intelligence Session Added to Workshops

We have just returned from a 2-Day SEO leaders conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Many new and exciting sessions will be added soon to our 5-Day SEO Certification Workshops.

Would you like to be able to measure your competitive
landscape?

One of the sharpest techniques for "competitive intelligence" was
introduced by Michael Marshall and will be added to our October Class Agenda.

Competitive intelligence will be able to accurately analyze multiple factors
saving literally months of research time and easily discern exactly
what needs to be done to your Web site so that you can truly compete
based on the accurate measurement of many influences?

This technique does not require you to buy any software but its relatively easy to learn and puts the power of truly advanced competitive intelligence into your grasp
quickly.

Watch our class agenda for more updated inforamtion soon.

Minds in Motion Conference

SEA of SC will be attending the Minds in Motion conference in New Mexico on August 13 and 14.

We will be covering all the new search engine optimization principles and techniques. We will be brining these new items back to our students and class curriculum. Watch our class agenda for news sessions that will be added after our return.

Google's Webmaster Guidelines

When was the last time you reviewed Google's Webmaster Guidelines?

You should re-read it from time to time. It is an excellent resource and it can and does get updated from time to time.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Is Your Site Optimized for Local Search?

Most of us concentrate so much on optimizing our sites for the popular keywords that we completely forget about making sure our site is optimized for our local area. If you are a "Google Junkie", like I am, you will have noticed that Google displays 3 local search results before the regular organic results.

If you are a local retailer or offer a service that is mainly purchased by local customers it makes more sense to be sure your site is getting good listings for your local area then fighting for those popular keyword phrases?

Here is a list of sites that play a key factor in local search results. Most of these sites will let you register your site for free.

Google Maps
Yahoo! Local
MSN Live Local
SuperPages
YellowPages
Switchboard
CitySearch

Another key factor in getting your site to show up in local search results is to include your geographical information, such as zip code, area code, street address and city and state. The search engines read this information and use it when displaying local search results. A clue to this is be sure this information is in straight html text and not embedded in a graphic you want it spiderable to the engines.

These are just a couple tips to help guide you along the way to making your site appear more local search friendly.

Can Search Engines Index PDF's?

One of the most important issues with PDF's and Search Engine Optimization is how the original PDF was created. Like any other page on your Web site the search engines love to see text.

You need to write your document in Word and then convert it to a PDF file. What you don't want to do is create your PDF using Photoshop. When creating a PDF in Photoshop you are actually making a big image file, spiders cannot read "image files" only "text." You should always make a PDF that you want indexed with MS Word or Adobe Pagemaker so that the final document is text-based and is crawlable.

You can tell is your PDF is Search Engine Friendly. Copy and paste the body from the PDF into a text editor like Word or Notepad. If it copys over then Google, Yahoo!, MSN/Live and Ask will index those files.

Building Traffic Reciprocal Linking

While building traffic through reciprocal link campaigns is a long and often tedious process, it is essential to the success of any website. Most sites receive only a portion of their traffic from search engines and instead receive most traffic directly from other websites. When building reciprocal links, focus on finding sites that are open to sending a link to your site and whose visitors would appreciate knowing about your content.