I was doing some SEO research the other day getting prepared for my SEO seminar at Specialty Engraving of Wilmington NC.

I came across Webconfs.com which has a ton of cool, free SEO tools. Here is a sample of what you will find on the site:

Similar Page Checker
Search Engine Spider Simulator
Backlink Anchor Text Analysis
Backlink Builder
Backlink Summary
Keyword Density Checker
Redirect Check
Reciprocal Link Check
Check Yahoo WebRank
Domain Stats Tool
Domain Age Tool
Website Keyword Suggestions
Keyword-Rich Domain Suggestion Tool

Link: Find out more info about our SEO/Search Engine Optimization Package in Wilmington NC

Link: Webconfs

Impulse will be doing an SEO seminar at Specialty Engraving, located in Wilmington NC. Specialty Engraving has just launched a new website and is looking to make expand their client base by reaching a broader audience via the world wide web.

Specialty Engraving provides employee recognition, motivation and retention programs to a wide array of clients throughout the nation such as Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Applebee’s, Chili’s and Target to name a few.

The SEO seminar will primarily be focused on ways to improve the new website and make it more search engine friendly for popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

For more information on our SEO services, please visit the main site at Wilmington NC SEO Firm.

Link: Employee Motivation, Recognition and Awards – Specialty Engraving

Was checking my stats this afternoon and saw that someone had come to my site after searching for ‘web hosting in wilmington, nc’ on Google.

I was ranked number 2 baby!! Right under the corporate giant that is Sage Island – the biggest web design firm in Wilmington NC.

Link: My Ranking as of 11:15 pm on 3/11/07

Just got a new e-newsletter from Wordtracker today. They have launched a free tool tha will allow you to see what the most popular searches have been in the last 90 days.

For example, I typed in Wilmington NC Web Design and here was the result:

316,456,828 searches ( last 90 days )

5 searches for wilmington nc web site hosting and design

So basically out of 316 million searches done on the web in the last 90 days, only 5 people were searching using this term. Now, there are about a gazillion web design firms in Wilmington right now, which means I have my work cut out for me. I currently offer a Basic SEO package – you can read all about it here: Impulse Web Solutions Basic SEO package

Link: Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

SEO (search engine optimization) is pretty huge right now. Just go to Google and type in SEO and you will get a gazillion companies promising to rank you number one on Google. Truth is, Google keeps their ranking formula a secret, so there is really no one that can promise you that. However, Google does provide some basic SEO best practices on their website.

SEO is a web marketing strategy designed to get your site ranked as high as possible on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. So for example, I own a web design firm in Wilmington NC. When someone goes to Google and types in ‘Wilmington NC Web Design’, I want my website to come up first, right at the top. At Impulse Web Solutions, we follow the Google webmaster guidelines and implement industry standard techniques to help your site get noticed by your target audience.

Other options for SEO include Pay Per Click advertising and Ad Campaigns. Basically you tell Google what keywords you want to appear for. Then, when someone clicks on your site Google charges you. If you have ever done a search on Google (who hasn’t right?) you will notice some links appear at the top in a blue box, then some links appear right beneath that and then some links show up on the right. The ones on the top and right are paying to be there using pay per click advertising while the other ones are what we call organic links and are not paying to be there. Pay per click advertising is great for a new site to get some hits, but eventually that will get expensive and what you want is to be an organic link. You want to rank high because you have a great site, not because you paid to be there.

Less expensive methods include optimizing your page content and HTML code to be more search engine friendly. At Impulse, we provide a basic SEO package that includes the following and is a one time cost of $100.00:

-Site submission by hand to the top 3 search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN
-Google Account and Webmaster tools so you can monitor your site’s progress
-Sitemap development and submission to Google and Yahoo
-Access to monthly reporting tools Google Analytics Account for monitoring site stats
-HTML code optimization and meta tag design for optimum visibility
(Note: Sites over 10 pages will be charged $10/page for HTML code optimization)

For an additional cost, I can also help you setup Adword and Pay Per Click campaigns with Google. Visit my site for more info.

Link: Google Webmaster Guidelines

We now offer an SEO package for clients interested in improving their ranking on search engines. The package includes but is not limited to:

• Site submission to the top 3 search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN
• Google Account and Webmaster tools
• Sitemap development and submission to Google and Yahoo
• Access to monthly reporting tools
• Google Analytics Account for monitoring site stats
• HTML code optimization and meta tag design for optimum visibility

I found a very nice tool today (it’s free by the way) that gives you a GUI interface so you can make subnavs.

So for example, a lot of sites have a main nav element called Products. This tool will help you create a subnav so that when you put your mouse over Products, another menu opens up giving you more options.

http://www.opencube.com/imenus.asp

The tool is free and does not use Flash or Javascript so everything is SEO friendly.

As I peruse the online plethora of “how-to’s” on the web about how to rank your website higher on search engines, I keep running into the ‘keyword density’ enigma.

No one seems to know what the magic percentage or number is as far as how many times to use a certain keyword/keyphrase on a webpage.

You don’t want to repeat them too much or you might be considered spamming the search engines; but then you want to make sure you use them enough or you don’t get your point across. It’s a mystery. Google certainly won’t give any hints about it, so how do we know what’s acceptable and what’s not? Should I repeat the same keyword 5 times? 10 times?