Prior to hiring an SEO Company, you need to clearly understand SEO is a long-term approach to building your business. You need to set reasonable expectations, otherwise you are going to be disappointed. If you desire instant results, we highly recommend doing Pay Per Click advertising. The cost is higher, but if you desire instant results and maximum control, PPC is the way to go.

Here are a few key questions to ask when hiring an SEO company:

1. Ask how they will Benchmark and Forecast ROI on an SEO campaign and how they measure success.

I recommend working with providers who understand SEO in terms of ROI to your business. Paying $99 to rank #1 in Google w/ a money back guarantee isn’t exactly what I call planning for ROI. If the company you’re evaluating can’t help you forecast the value of SEO to your business then they probably don’t understand business enough to provide long term successful SEO services. I actually recommend establishing benchmarks and creating ROI based goals for your campaign as another way to measure the effectiveness of SEO.

2. Who exactly will be doing the SEO on my site? You should receive a name, a phone number along with their social accounts and instant messaging. Why is this important?

Unfortunately, many SEO companies range from shady to pure scams. Some companies are simply fronts who accept business for many services and outsource everything. They do not even know or have any idea of who will be performing the SEO for your site.

A ton of SEO work is outsourced to India or other countries where the “SEO” assigned to your account is working for $2/hr. I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with this practice other then the lack of transparency. Buyers should know exactly what they are purchasing.

3. Request a defined communication plan that explains points of contact, frequency of contact, and length of contact.

You should discuss how frequently you will receive account updates and what level of detail you should expect during your scheduled communication. With SEO work often taking months to see real results in the SERPS it’s vitally important that you have defined communication expectations with your SEO company and that there is a mutual trust and respect.

4. Ask what form of project management will be in place on your account and what level of access you will have to view the tasks, resources, objectives, and timelines in place regarding your project.

This could be an online project management system where hours are being logged and tasks recorded, or it could be as simple as excel spreadsheets logging the time and tasks performed. Regardless of the mechanism the important point is to define an Accountability Plan and stick to it. You may not see tons of value in having accountability when things are going great, but if you don’t prepare for any obstacles in SEO then you’re setting yourself up for failure. The accountability plan should be interwoven with your communication plan to ensure maximum satisfaction.

SEO is somewhat abstract and intangible which lends itself to more potential problems regarding customer satisfaction. The end results are real, but sometimes the process and strategy of how to achieve those results is a little more difficult to grasp and value.

With high levels of communication in place, a lot of the accountability issues should be at ease, but there should still be some visibility into the actual workload being performed by your SEO company. This helps you understand the amount of tedious work that goes into successful SEO campaigns and it also helps the SEO company ensure customer satisfaction. When results aren’t coming as fast as you had hoped, it really pays off to make sure you’ve established a project accountability plan.

5. Ask for a high level SEO plan. Most agencies will tell you they intend to build links to your site. My advice…run! At a high level, SEO comprises three elements: website architecture / design, content, and site promotion (social media + earning links). Once you have a solid website with great design and fantastic content THEN you can begin promoting the site.

Many SEOs are still caught up in years past where you could simply build links to a site and get it to rank well. They never learned about onpage optimization beyond adjusting a few meta tags. In my experience the best long term results are achieved for a new client when you first focus their website architecture, then work to raise the quality of the site’s existing content to “best on the web” levels. You need to distinguish between “link builders” and SEOs. A working analogy is the difference between a guy who changes oil and a certified mechanic. There are too many oil changers who are presenting themselves as mechanics.

6. Ask to see examples of how the SEO company uses analytics to optimize client’s sites and measure how that impacts the bottom line. If they fumble on this one you might want to take a closer look.

Last but not least, analytics should be an important part of your buying decision. Analytics provide you with data, but it’s what you do with that data that matters to your bottom line. Anyone can install Google Analytics and print a report, but the more valuable skill is in the ability to draw insights from analyzing the data. If the SEO company is offering you reports without recommendations then I would say they aren’t too focused on truly optimizing your site. Analytics will give you the data you need to make the right decisions in your online marketing strategies. The goal is to work with a company that not only understands the analytics but can explain them to you in business terms that make sense so you can feel good about implementing the recommendations.

Thomas DiSanto

WordPress is a flexible and robust website platform with many useful and practical plugins and themes. WordPress is a competent platform for just about any website function from complex ecommerce websites to private “members only” social networks.

One of the greatest perks of the WordPress platform is its endless affinity for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are many useful SEO tools in the WordPress arsenal, from internal permalink settings to SEO-friendly navigation and site structure. One of the best ways to optimize your WordPress website is with one of the many free SEO plugins that can be found performing a basic plugin search.

There are many SEO plugins to choose from and it’s difficult to know which one is best fit for your needs. Researching SEO plugins can be even more confusing as it seems that everyone has their favorites. Most SEO professionals can agree that two of the best plugins are SEO Ultimate and WordPress SEO by Yoast.

SEO Ultimate: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-ultimate/

This is a very well thought out and feature rich SEO plugin. It allows for complete control of your on-page SEO with user-friendly settings and tools for optimizing your titles, meta data, robots tags, canonicalization, auto-links, post slugs, and much more. Added features such as Competitive Analysis for Keyword Research, the Deep-link Juggernaut, Link Box Insertion, Social Sharing Capabilities, Tag, Title and Description Re-Writer (Altogether Or Post-By-Post: Nice!), Post Slug Optimizer and 404 Monitoring make this a tool to be reckoned with. One of the best features of this tool is its simple insertion of schema.org rich snippets which can significantly positive effects on your search rankings. This is a great feature for review sites and other product related websites. Automatically inserts the Google+ Authorship data.

WordPress SEO by Yoast: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/

WordPress SEO is one of the most complete SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps, and loads of optimization options in between. SEO by Yoast offers systematic control over your Post Titles and Meta Descriptions, Robots Meta Configuration, Canonical Links, Breadcrumbs, Permalink Organization, XML Sitemaps, RSS Feeds, editing of your robots.txt and .htaccess files, and header code. One of the best features of SEO by Yoast is the page analysis data which scores you on things such as keyword density and readability. This is the perfect plugin for the serious blogger, or informational type website. Automatically inserts the Google+ Authorship data.

I would highly recommend using either plugin, based on the type of website you operate. Many WordPress users gravitate to the All-In-One SEO plugin, which isn’t a terrible plugin if you’re looking for something you can set and forget. But if you are serious about your SEO, you will need a plugin that offers greater flexibility in customizing things such as meta descriptions and includes such tools as anchor text linking and authorship markup.

They’re both great and they both offer unique and compelling features. I love SEO Ultimate’s options for including schema data as well as the automatic linking of select anchor text – two very juicy features. But I will admit, in general, I am a little more partial to the Yoast plugin, as it pulls in extremely useful page analysis data from Linkdex, which for general SEO purposes makes life a heck of a lot easier!

(Note: The nitty-gritty fundamentals of SEO are beyond the scope of this article, but if you would like to learn more, a great place to start is with SEOMOZ’s Free SEO Beginner Guide which can be found here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo. I also recommend Yoast’s WordPress SEO guide: http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/ )

Thomas DiSanto

Use Images! Image posts receive 22% more engagement than video posts and 54% more engagement than text posts. Video comes in as a solid secondary favorite with 27% more engagement than text posts.

Schedule Posts for first thing in the AM. Brands that post outside of business hours had 20% higher engagement rates. Though for some verticals, such as quick serve restaurants (i.e. Taco Bell, McDonalds) the data skews differently as consumers search for dinner coupons, overall Facebook posts made before noon (12AM to 12PM) get 65% more engagement for all fan pages analyzed. This correlates to the theory that many people check their Facebook profiles first thing in the morning, quite possibly over a cup of coffee at the office and before the day gets busy.)

Engagement rates on Thursday and Friday are 18% higher than any other day of the week. Post effectiveness varies greatly by industry vertical, but when all the data is viewed in aggregate, Friday posts generate the most engagement while Saturday and Sunday posts have the least engagement. Overall, Friday gets the most engagement with 64% more shares, likes and comments than Sunday (least engagement).

Keep it Short! Posts 80 characters or less in length have 27% higher engagement rate.

Use the Full URL not a “shortened” URL, such as www.bit.ly. Engagement rates are 3 times higher for posts that used a ‘full length’ URL.

Ask a Question! Posts that end with a question have a 15% higher engagement rate. The 5 interrogative keywords that drove the highest engagement were: “Where”, “When”, “Would”, “Should”, and “How”.

Don’t ask “why”! “Why” questions had the lowest number of ‘Likes’ and ‘Comments’ as they are perceived as intrusive and challenging.

Fans follow simple instructions well; asking them to ‘Like’ a post is the easiest. If you want users to take action, you must tell them. Asking fans outright to “Like”, “Post”, “Take”, “Submit” or “Watch” something will drive the greatest level of engagement. Fans will listen and respond.

“Fill-in-the-blank” posts are one of the most effective ways to illicit response, and have shown to have 9x the engagement over other types of posts.

Fans are happy to engage with “Events” and “Winning” offers. Stick with this type of ‘softer’ language, as opposed to more direct language such as “contest” or “promotion”. The 5 best performing keywords for consumer engagement were: “Event”, “Winner”, “Offer”, “New”, and “Win”. Keywords such as ‘save’, ‘free shipping’ and ‘exclusive’ scored the absolute lowest.

The #1 Thing Fans Want: Coupons! Retail brand posts containing “$ off” receive a 55% higher user engagement rate, followed by Posts containing the word “coupon,” which is 39% above the average.

Facebook Rules of Engagement Cheat Sheet

Thomas DiSanto

It is not too far flung to accept that 82% of home buyers begin their search online, considering the ease and convenience in which you can shop for a potential home. Not to mention the wealth of images, video and information about area schools, neighborhoods and local conveniences. Makes perfect sense.

New and Used car buyers follow in a similar vein, with roughly 70% using the internet to perform research or shop for a new vehicle. There again…considering how easy and convenient it is…makes perfect sense.

These stats are great to know if you’re a realtor or a car dealer. But what if you’re a local hair salon, or a local plumber? Not to worry! Fortunately there is the “Pew Internet & American Life Project”. The Pew Research Center surveyed more than 1000 US adults that get information about local businesses. To Summarize:

Some 47% say they rely most on the internet to get news and information about local businesses, including:

• Search Engines – 36% rely on them;
• Specialty Websites – 16% rely on them;
• Newspaper Websites – 2% rely on them;

Other:

• 29% rely on Printed Newspapers;
• 22% rely on word of mouth from family and friends;
• 8% rely on local TV, either broadcasts or the websites of local stations;
• 5% rely on local radio;

Additionally, people were asked if they got local news and information their cell phones and 47% of all adults said they did. Those mobile consumers were also more likely than others to get material about local businesses: 65% of mobile local news consumers got information about local businesses, compared with 55% of others…

Where do consumers get information about Local Businesses?

Thomas DiSanto

The apparel and technology categories take up the largest chunks of the top 50, with brands as diverse as Blackberry and Victoria’s Secret capturing tens of millions of followers. Overall the Top 50 brand related Facebook Fan Pages fell into multiple categories, including 15 Food related, 13 technology companies, 12 Apparel and 7 entertainment brands. The only auto maker to make the top 50 was BMW clocking in with a little over 10 million followers.

Top 50 Facebook Brand Fan Pages
Thomas DiSanto

More than 64% of all Internet Users in the US are registered Facebook users and in some states like Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Kentucky more than 70% of internet users are on Facebook.
US Facebook Growth by State – 2008 to 2012
Thomas DiSanto

Post Effectiveness by Post Type: In a surprising turn, image posts are more engaging then video or text for Facebook as measured by the number of fan responses, likes and shares. Image posts received 22% more engagement than video posts and 54% more engagement than text posts. Video was a solid secondary favorite with more than 27% more engagement than text posts.

Post Effectiveness by Day of Week: Post effectiveness varies greatly by industry vertical, but when all the data is viewed in aggregate, Friday posts generate the most engagement while Saturday and Sunday posts have the least engagement. Overall, Friday gets the most engagement with 64% more shares, likes and comments than Sunday (least engagement). Friday is only 7% more effective than Monday and 3% more than Tuesday and Thursday.

Post Effectiveness by Time of Day: Though for some verticals, such as quick serve restaurants (i.e. Taco Bell, McDonalds) the data skews differently as consumers search for dinner coupons, overall Facebook posts made before noon (12AM to 12PM) get 65% more engagement for all fan pages analyzed. This correlates to the theory that many people check their Facebook profiles first thing in the morning, quite possibly over a cup of coffee at the office and before the day gets busy.

Summary:
Best thing to post:   Image
Best day to post:      Friday
Best time to post:    Mornings

Thomas DiSanto

Create a profile for a designated online social ‘manager’. 50% of online branded social communities/pages do not have an active ‘manager’. There is no one to represent the face of the brand. This is a missed opportunity to ‘humanize’ your brand and/or products and services. People are more considerate when they know they’re communicating with a ‘real’ person and not the austere ‘corporate’ image. Give your online brand manger a face!

Send a welcome message to all of your new followers! Make them feel appreciated and also orientate them to the key benefits of your community/page/brand. This will ensure a return visit. Only 50% of online communities/pages do this.

Less than 20% have a brand advocates program. “Micro-fame” is a one of the key drivers behind sustained participation. Recognizing ‘key influencers’ is essential as these deeply engaged members represent the voice of the customer and possess a deep affinity for the brand. ‘Key Influencers’ will actively recruit others, accelerate engagement and are typically prolific contributors. Recognize and reward these important brand advocates!

Fewer than 40 percent of communities have a rewards and recognition program. Why not reward followers for their participation, whether it’s a $5 gift card to Starbucks or new Porsche 911 GT3. This can be formalized into a points system, or it could be random. It doesn’t even have to be monetary. Establish a points system with cool badges. We can all be micro-famous! Think “Foursquare”. For businesses who do not offer Foursquare incentives other than being the “Mayor” or getting a cool badge…what real value is there in Foursquare check-ins?

About 60% of brands have integrated the Facebook “Like” button as well as a “share” button that allows users to more easily promote your content to their friends. This helps attract new members as well as syndicates your rich content throughout the web.

Consistency matters. Sporadic posts and updates do not encourage other members to contribute. Make time to engage with your Fans and Followers on a regular basis. Answer all inquiries. The “Face” of your social presence must be accessible and approachable for maximum engagement.

Polling your Fans and Followers can yield greater engagement if it is relevant to your brand, or if it just plain strikes a chord. One of the best off-topic strings I ever saw was post that asked “Did your parent’s make you take piano lessons and did they make you happier?” Be a conversation starter!

Witty comments on the news of the day will always get a little attention, as long as the viewpoint it might express will appeal to your members. Topical is fine, as long as it does not offend or alienate anyone.

Along the same line as topical, expressing some good vibrations is a wonder to behold, and will have members “liking” your comment almost instantly. So, say something positive! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the children are singing! Try and inject a little positivity in everything you do and say! Your warmth will attract and encourage others.

Comment on the status of others! Show your support and commitment to engaging with them. It can be as simple as: “Hey! Thanks for posting! That was really cool!” Connect with other HUMAN beings and show your eagerness to be a part of the conversation.

Sincere expressions of support for a worthy charitable cause will always be viewed as a positive. Support a worthy cause, not because it makes you look good, but because it’s the right thing to do. Good things come back to you! (If you’re looking for a great cause, please check out: www.donorschoose.org)

The most influential content you have in your arsenal is the reviews and ratings from real customers. It is perfectly acceptable for you to post excerpts and links to customer reviews, as the vast majority of customers want to hear about the experiences of others.

Share Your Valuable Expertise: Answer questions, make problem-solving recommendations, write content laden articles. You are the expert and the authority! Take it to a new level by creating podcasts and “How To” videos. Be generous with your knowledge and you will find that others are most willing to reciprocate.

Turn your employees into ROCK STARS! Your employees are the greatest asset you have! Talk about why and how they’re great at their jobs! Talk about what it is that they do. Post pictures of employees, your office building, your equipment, the view from the roof of your building. Put a face and place in your posts!

Take it offline! Only 20% of brands do this. Throw a party for your fans & followers, invite them to kibitz and have a good time. Make yourself accessible, have face to face conversations with your customers, fans and followers. Personal relationships are what make a difference! This will grow your reputation and your business in ways that you could have never anticipated! This is truly an opportunity to create lifelong brand evangelists!

“Y’all come back now, ya’ hear!”

Thomas DiSanto

• 901 million monthly active users at the end of March 2012;
• Approximately 80% of our monthly active users are outside the U.S. and Canada;
• 526 million daily active users on average in March 2012;
• 488 million monthly active users who used Facebook mobile products in March 2012, and more than 500 million mobile monthly active users as of April 20, 2012;
• During March 2012, on average 398 million users were active with Facebook on at least six out of the last seven days;
• More than 125 billion friend connections on Facebook at the end of March 2012;
• On average more than 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook per day in the three months ended March 31, 2012;
• An average of 3.2 billion Likes and Comments generated by Facebook users per day during the first quarter of 2012;
• More than 42 million Pages with ten or more Likes at the end of March 2012;
• Facebook is available in more than 70 languages;

Top 10 Facebook Countries:

1.     United States          155,707,900
2.     Brazil                         51,172,180
3.     India                         49,806,680
4.     Indonesia                43,833,000
5.     Mexico                     35,619,320
6.     Turkey                      31,112,380
7.     United Kingdom   30,632,220
8.     Philippines              28,259,940
9.     France                      24,300,860
10.     Germany               23,750,160

The Average Facebook User:

• Spends 55 minutes on Facebook per day;
• Has 130 Facebook Friends;
• Is a member of 12 groups;
• Sends 8 Friend requests per month;
• Uses the ‘like’ button 9 times per month;
• Writes 25 comments per month;
• Becomes a fan of 2 pages per month;

In addition, according to some recently published statistics by Facebook, people who click on the “Like” button are more engaged, active and connected than the average Facebook user. The average “Liker” has 2.4x the amount of friends than that of a typical Facebook user. They’re also more interested in exploring content they discover on Facebook, and click on external site links 5.3x more frequently than the typical Facebook user.

Thomas DiSanto