Author: Nancy McCord

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SEO Firms Trawling for Business – Don’t Get Fooled

I have a number of clients who have been forwarding me emails from SEO firms saying that there are problems with their websites and these clients ask my advise. “Are these real problems?”

I have to say even with great organic placement on many of my keywords, I get these emails too! Don’t jump to a conclusion that you need help based on an email from a firm trawling for business hoping to scare you into action.

One email I saw said that if you did not have a robots.txt file it would impact your organic placement, another mentioned link references in the content with a complete URL versus a relative URL, and another mentioned that real estate in their content was killing their results (the site was an attorney’s site that specializes in real estate law).

You just cannot believe everything that someone sends you unsolicited. Yes there may be opportunities that should be addressed, but with the business economic climate the way that it is, you will see more and more of these type of emails as firms start looking harder for clients and try to scare some into action using questionable practices.

So watch out, ask a reputable firm their opinion before you react and buy so you don’t get fleeced without knowing what you are really paying for.

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New Blog Writing Levels

Blog writing is a core business for my firm. Because it is a service that is in demand today, we have expanded our services for a wider variety of word counts.

You can view our full blog writing program, prices, and writing samples on our website.

We now have four levels of service:

Jade – our starter level at $18 per post

Ruby – our good level at $22 per post

Emerald – our better level at $28 per post

Amethyst – our best level at $32 per post

Each level provides for a different word count, number of keyword dense links, and a variety of services. We offer a blog posting frequency of three, four, and five days a week. We even offer, for clients that need greater flexibility, a choice to have us blog once a week or a certain number of times per month.

I invite you to visit our blog services page to find out if our blog writing services would be a good match for your needs.

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What Will You Do To Get Your Money?

Man, it seems like the law is on the side of debtors and schemers. I have recently had a situation where a past client passed a credit card to me that was really under the name of someone else as his own. The real account owner disputed my charges and I have been left holding the bag. When I factored how long it would take me to make up the profit loss I was staggered – nearly seven months!

In the meantime the past client has now given me a new credit card to cover the disputed charges but every time I try to transact the card they are over their credit limit. To get my money I am now getting up at midnight every night to transact money on their credit card to cover their debt (with their knowledge). Unfortunately I have to get my payment in $15 to $400 lumps. I never thought that I would have an issue like this, but have found that the credit card company won’t help me, the client won’t help me – so I only have myself to rely upon.

What I have found out from this issue is that I will do anything to legally get my money from a debtor. I used to be afraid of collection agencies – no longer after three bad debts last year, and now I am not afraid of personal inconvenience – with the situation I am currently in. I am also no longer afraid of taking a debtor to small claims court to get a judgment.

What I have found is that with the economy the way that it is, as a small business person, you must be very careful, be sure (with verification) that the client is the actual owner of a credit card you take for services, and be extremely proactive when someone falls behind in payment. Why? Because no one will help you resolve the problem other than yourself. You know it only takes being burned badly once to make some serious changes in what you do to prevent being burned again.

So my question to you is, what would you do to get your money that is owed? Would you sue? Would you get up in the middle of the night to ring their card before another debtor snagged the available cash? Or would you just let the “bad client” move on to the next unsuspecting party and take the hit?

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ChemTec Pest Control Website Launched

With 80 hours of design and SEO integrated into this new website ChemTec Pest Control is ready to be an organic leader. We’ve just launched the website on Friday for ChemTec Pest Control.

This business based in Saddle Brook, New Jersey has been in business 78 years.  The client came to us after doing a number of web search where another of our clients was continually returned in the results. His year old website simply was not performing and bringing him business. The new site takes some of the elements of design that the client loved from his old website and was built to grow. With search engine friendly and reader friendly text based navigation elements, a local website search engine to help readers find content fast, and deep linking to inside page, this content rich website is sure to bring them new customers.

With the planned addition of a blog, a Google AdWords program, and regular content building, this website is now being put to work to become a lead generator for the client. Additionally planned this month for this site is a client testimonial form and client rating system as well as a form to help client’s pre-select a service appointment. You can view a before picture of this website in our April 2009 newsletter so you can get a before and after view. Or you can visit this site online at www.ChemTecPest.com. We’ll keep you posted on this site’s performance over time on our SEO client results page.

For now you can see a quick image of the new site just to your right in the top right sidebar of our blog.