About a week ago, we had a customer buy 200 facebook likes. They sent us an email asking for a specific area and/or country, as well as a targeted age group. Up until then, we only focused on targeted countries or areas, not age groups, or other specs – males/females, interests, common religion, common niches, and on and on. However, as soon as we got to thinking about it, we decided what an excellent service that would be if we could deliver on such specific niches and target audiences… We then began to research the possibilities! We couldn’t help but think about the multitude of people who would love to reach such a targeted audience, not to mention there’s really no other service like it!

It didn’t take long until we started to dive right into it. Our number one reason was so that we could deliver what one of our customers wanted, as well as future customers looking for the same thing. We started out by trying to create a network of facebook users, who, for monetary gain, like specific accounts. The system is currently a volume gig, a single like isn’t something you could retire off of, but nonetheless, it’s a great way to get real people, who may be interested in a particular product or service, in front of what your offering… The problem is, because it’s based on monetary gain, people are too quick to like for the purpose of monetary gain… We needed to create a system that rewards following the guidelines – a system that has account users choose their interests, their age groups, their niches before continuing… If we could get this going, we could have databases of specific people, in specific areas, interested in specific things, ready to like an account that’s similar to what our customer requests.

We’re still in the beginning phases of this process and it’s not a real easy thing to nail down. There’s also the difficulty of trying to figure out how many niches and locations and age groups to create. Needless to say, we’re not finish with it, but we have high hopes for it once it’s completed. It never really occurred to us that designing a system that delivers such targeted results would be invaluable, and we do appreciate one of our customers bringing it to our attention. Unfortunately, we simply couldn’t get this thing done in a reasonable amount of time, so we decided to issue a 100% refund. Instead of delivering on something that isn’t 100% what our customer is looking for, we rather lose the sale and the revenue, rather than getting a reputation of not delivering on our promises! In all honesty, it could be a a couple months before something like this is complete, and it may cost a little more than our current prices. However, the small increase in price may be well worth it to get an exact targeted audience.

In any case, we’re sorry we couldn’t deliver on this order, but we’re happy to be working on it for future orders. In time, we may very well have the most targeted source of social media services, not many can say that! We’ll keep you updated!

It looks as though Google updated their PageRank Toolbar today, May 03, 2012. What’s unique is that SeoMoz also updated their data (Domain Authority, Page Authority, MozRank, etc…) too, just yesterday. So between Google’s PageRank update and SeoMoz’s update, SEOs should be fairly busy! I was reading SeoMoz’s Blog, where they explained what’s up with their update, and it looks as though there could be yet another update within the coming weeks. If I recall it correctly, I believe they are shooting for another update within the next 3 weeks. I was somewhat disappointed with SeoMoz’s update, because it lacked a decent amount of link data. However, they explained their reasoning for this, as well as other concerns, due to the fact that they massively increased their URL total (which is a good thing), but the data is roughly 90 days or so old. So links gained in the last 90 days had no impact or at best, very little impact on the new Moz stats. Their new update, coming within the next few weeks, should have more complete and/or updated data, which I’m looking forward to seeing! Anyways, given these updates, we should all be busy checking out the new data and figuring out what worked and what didn’t work…

How did you do? Are you heading in the right direction or did you slip from your current ranking(s)? Overall, we’re fairly pleased on all the ranking updates, though we’re more pleased with some rankings more than others… All in all, these metrics and the data displayed from these metrics serve a useful hand in your seo efforts. However, it’s not the be all – end all for your website. These rankings change so often, that it’s not worth solely concentrating on these rankings. There’s much more to SEO than just SeoMoz’s Rankings and Google’s PageRank. Moreover, in many cases, the moment these toolbar rankings are updated, they could be outdated! You could have gained a few quality backlinks within the last 24 hours and those new backlinks were likely not counted in your new, updated ranking(s). Just remember, good or bad updated rankings, it’s just a moment in time. In a few months there will be more updated rankings. Keep plugging away and work on the things that are working for you! If you’re concentrating your efforts in improving your website overall, adding quality content, making your website user friendly, and working on optimizing your keywords, these rankings will follow, and improve, as you work to improve your website. So be patient and continuing working!

We’d love to hear how you did, so let us know!

Most of us have been there, where we contemplate trying our luck using black hat seo tactics for some quick gains. The temptation is there, as quick (and usually cheap) potential gains are hard to ignore…

Black hat SEO often uses tactics that the search engines frown upon. It’s sort of gaming the system the search engines, like Google, put in place to make the search results fair for everyone. Google, for example, spends a lot of time and money combating black hat seo. Some of these tactics include the buying and/or selling of backlinks, usually to link farms, stuffing keywords into bland, low quality content or even copied content, comment spamming on thousands of blogs, and a host of other tactics. If all black hat seo worked,  it would junk up the search results with poor quality and poor content websites, which almost no one wants to see. The search engines know this, so they do their best at removing websites who are practicing black hat seo. This is where the risk comes into play…

Sure you may get some quick gains employing black hat tactics, but these gains are almost always temporary! Sooner or later the search engines will catch on, and when they do, you could have your website penalized via a lower ranking or worse, like being removed completely! The risk vs reward to black hat seo is similar to a casino’s risk vs reward. Casino’s pay out from time to time, but in the end, the odds are stacked against you! Ultimately, black hat seo is used by website owners looking to make a quick buck; they’re not website owners looking to build a reputation and create long term growth. In our opinion, black hat seo is something that should be avoided! There’s something to be said about buying links at all, and to some, that’s black hat as well. However, if you gain backlinks, whether through networking or buying backlinks, if the link is placed on a quality website, that’s trusted and respected, the backlink is worth getting. It’s sort of like advertising, if you’re buying links solely for the purpose of PageRank or improving your search ranking position, then that’s getting into unethical seo. If you’re buying backlinks on high quality websites, with the hope to gain targeted visitors and traffic, as well as expand your exposure, then buying backlinks on quality websites is an ethical seo effort.

White hat seo, on the other hand, is the practice of natural looking, organic and ethical seo. The goal of white hat seo is the same as black hat seo – getting to the top of the search results page, but the tactics used are tactics the search engines approve! White hat seo practices natural growth and/or organic growth of a website, or at least a natural and organic looking growth. Instead of buying non related links, for example, white hat SEOs would look for quality backlinks, relevant to their website theme or topic. The growth of backlinks would also be a natural looking gain of backlinks. The main goal of white hat seo is long term growth, usually with a solid reputation. A website owner looking for quality optimization, without risk of being penalized, would want to use ethical practices. Tactics or techniques like improving both your on page and off page optimization, which includes optimizing keywords, title tags, meta description, as well as gaining quality backlinks from authoritative websites with relevant, quality content. Someone looking for ethical seo services will usually have good quality content or quality products and/or services. They’re not interested in spamming or getting backlinks from low quality websites. Most of us already know – the search engines reward quality! A combination of quality content, on user friendly webpages, without a ton of advertisements, gets rewarded. Unique, quality content is hard to come by, so this alone gives you a leg up on other websites using black hat tactics or even websites using white hat, but lacks quality content. The best thing about white hat seo is the payoff for patience. Instead of looking for instant success, that may get you penalized, build a brand, a reputation, a fan base, add quality content and optimize your webpages using logical keywords! In time, other websites will come and go, but your website will keep growing, as well as your customer base.

Ethical, white hat seo is the way to go in our opinion. The short term gains just aren’t worth the investment, even if black hat is cheaper. Sure, black hat SEOs offer thousands of links for a few dollars, but what are you really getting with those few dollars? Do you truly think you’ll gain quality, interested visitors from non relevant websites? Do you believe you’ll get a PR5 website from thousands of spam comments? Do you think the PHD’s over at Google won’t catch on to what the black hat SEOs are up to? Time and time again black hat tactics get busted, and those involved get penalized! White hat seo is your only sure bet to success. It may not be the cheapest route and it may not be the fastest, but over time, it’s the only way to successfully build and grow your website. Remember, it may take a little extra time, so be patient, but over the long run, your website will be the one that continues to grow and expand, while others come and go.

We don’t mean to toot our own horn, but we notice we’re now on the first page (top 7) for one of the most competitive keywords we were trying to rank well for to date… With over 55 million search results found, ranking #7, up from #12 overall, is a good momentum builder. The main reason I wanted to talk about this was to share the amount of money we’re spending on our own marketing efforts. To date, we’ve spent roughly 200 dollars on marketing and advertising! Obviously, that’s not a great deal of money, especially considering we’re ranking in the top 10 for a host of keywords and phrases… So why tell you this?

Well, the main reason we wanted to share this with you is to give you an optimistic view on search engine marketing. One of the best things about Google is the fact that they do things based on your website and the SEO work you’ve done on your website. Quality content, useful resources, a very low bounce rate, and good conversions on our seo shop, are all helpful factors. It’s not about whoever drops the most money on SEO gets the best ranking! With even a small budget, you can rank among the largest of companies. We are purposely keeping our marketing budget low, so that you can see – we practice what we preach. The money we’ve spent, was from a few featured directory listings and a couple classified ads-like listings. Ultimately, this got us on the map when we first started out with seovolt.com. As mentioned before, we’ve only had this website since December of 2011, after selling our 2 older websites, one of which was our original website which launched in late 2002.

Over and over again we tell customers it’s not all about gaining the most links. It’s not all about spending big dollars on your seo efforts. It really comes down to doing things in an ethical manner, using resources available that won’t jeopardize your website and potentially penalize your website and all the hard work and time you’ve put into it. It also has a lot to do with improving user experience. One simple example is ads that pop up right when a visitor goes to your website. Think about it – do you like those annoying ads? Sure that may help you make a few extra bucks in advertising, but is that little money worth losing visitors who simply close out? Is it worth the higher bounce rate? If you truly concentrate on making your website user friendly, people will remain on your site, click through additional webpages, and you’ll have the potential of them becoming a customer, re-visit your website, bookmark you, or place a link to your website. Developing a website that users like to be on, with quality content and information, will do your website wonders!

Constantly continue to work on and improve your website and your website ranking. SEO is something that constantly evolves and changes, so try to stay on top of it. If you want to go with a company, obviously we’d suggest you try us, since we are capable of ranking in the top 10 for keywords with 55 million plus total results – not to mention this website is only a few months old… But no matter who you go with, make sure they’re truly interested in your website and it’s ranking. Make sure they practice ethical seo services, so you don’t have to risk being penalized. It’s also important to be patient! If an seo company is practicing natural, organic seo, it will take time to see results. When you do seo in an organic manner, it will take more time to reap the benefits. However, unlike black hat seo, organic and ethical seo doesn’t risk your website being penalized or banned!

Looking for seo work for your small business? Visit our SEO for Small Businesses page and let us give you a quote, with additional helpful information, as well as multiple seo options and packages.

An excellent way to get your brand, services, products or website in general, publicized and shown to the masses is to have people tweet about it! Moreover, think about the possibilities if the people tweeting about your website had 1000 or more followers… Having people tweet about your website can get others to tweet about it, perhaps going viral, or they could visit the link in the tweet (going to a specific webpage of yours). A tweet could simply be a tweet, but the potential for visitors, conversions, or even going viral is possible from a single tweet!

We’re offering a unique service where we go out and get someone, with many followers, to tweet about your website. Instead of us doing it, where it could come across as spammy, we get others to do the tweeting. However, if you want us to tweet about your website, we’d be happy to do it! The potential from a single tweet could be huge, but the price for this service is very affordable. Not only will we get 1 person to tweet about your website, but multiple people tweeting about it, increasing the likeliness of you gaining visitors, conversions or perhaps having some of their followers “retweet” about your website.

So here’s what you get in this Tweet Service:
We’ll get 3 people to tweet about your website, and each person will have a minimum of 1000 followers!

We’re excited to offer a new feature at SeoVolt.com! We now offer an affiliate program, where you can add our link (soon we’ll have banners as well) to your website! These links will be tracked and each sale made from your referral will earn you 10% of the sale price. This gives you an opportunity to offer your visitors quality seo services from an experienced seo company, while also earning something for it. We do all the work, all you have to do is bring us the customers!

We’re still in the beginning phase of this, so all possible options aren’t quite set. For example, as of today, our only payout option is via paypal. However, we’re working to add additional options, like payouts via check. Each affiliate member will have a unique ID and cookies are set for 100 days to track returning visitors from your referral.

We’ll keep you updated on our progress and updates, but as of right now, we’re ready to add affiliate members. If you’re interested, please visit: SeoVolt’s Affiliate Program Signup.

Read over our basic terms and conditions, which, in a nutshell, states we only want our links on reputable, family friendly, websites that are related to the niche of website services, tech and/or web/internet. If that matches your website, come join us and make 10% of all sales!

Perhaps we’re lucky enough to be one of the few, but over the last couple months (March and April), it seems more small businesses are seeking SEO (search engine optimization) and/or SEM (search engine marketing). Having been in the SEO field full time since 2002, owning a couple of “SEO” websites, and doing SEO services for smaller firms who are outsourcing, I can say I see a bit of a trend up in seo efforts by small businesses… Orders are coming in, from buying backlinks to social media services, as well as custom seo services. This also has something to do with us not really keeping up on our blog and adding more useful content or going through and approving/deleting comments! We’ve been swamped!

This is a good thing to see, for obvious reasons, but it’s also good to see more and more companies and small business owners are realizing the importance in getting found on the search engines. The fact is, if you’re relying on your website to bring in business or make sales, you’ll need to be ranking as high as possible. Often, the higher you rank in the search engines, the more traffic you’ll generate, and usually more traffic translates into more sales, quotes and/or conversions. Small business seo efforts can make a huge difference, even if it’s off of a small budget! Perhaps this is just a short term thing, and average volume is right around the corner. However, I’m staying optimistic about it!

If you’re thinking about pulling the trigger in optimizing your website, looking to improve your ranking, or interested in increasing usability, or getting your website more socialized, now is the time! Whether with us or any other seo firm, make sure the seo company is willing to work with you and have you comfortable in what they’re doing for you. Ask questions! Be sure they use ethical practices, as using less than ethical practices could jeopardize your website. You don’t want to be going backwards simply because 1 company was a little cheaper than the other… Sometimes less isn’t more! Compare services from 2 or 3 good seo companies, but make sure you compare apples to apples. There are many different seo companies out there, many offer top notch services. However, there are even more seo firms that look good, sound good and have prices that are good, but not long after paying for services, you find out they are anything but good! So be careful and diligent!

Perhaps you’re interested in trying your hand at search engine optimization, and looking to buy backlinks, read and learn about seo, or get into social media. This can seem daunting, especially at first, but take it a step at a time. Typically speaking, any best effort, using ethical seo techniques, is better than no effort at all. If you’re budget is tight, try asking for some free tips, or contact a reliable seo firm asking for a basic, non-comprehensive, strategy or game plan. Let them know you’re giving it a go yourself and looking for some direction. They may provide some seo tips for free or at most, they may want a nominal fee to cover their time. They may even include a custom seo quote and that quote may be less than you were thinking it would be!

In any case, things are looking better! What about you? Are you in the seo industry and seeing an increase in interest? Are you a small business owner who’s looking to get back into SEO and/or having your website better optimized?

The other day, I was asked by a friend exactly what is SEO and what’s all involved with it… What a loaded question, right? I began answering in broad terms, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more specific I was getting…

SEO is more than just building links; it’s more than squeezing keywords in without looking like it’s keyword stuffing or looking spammy. It’s more than website structure, social media and marketing. It’s so much more; one good way to put it: it’s an art! It’s about research, not just checking out a competitor or researching the keywords a customer wants to use, but researching data and metrics, trying things over and over again and coming up with some sort of consistency. It’s about managing every detail and putting it together in a way that makes sense, so you can practice the things you’ve learned, the things that made a positive impact. It’s about algorithms, metrics, and developing a way to market a website to both the search engines, who ultimately brings you traffic, as well as marketing to visitors, so you can actually get conversions. It’s about learning this ever evolving thing – no matter how much you read or how much you learn, it’s not enough! To be honest, since the beginning, it has never stopped evolving. There’s no 1 master of SEO, while there are plenty who are better than others, with so many different aspects, no 1 person can be the best… The moment you take a break from it, stop trying to learn more or think you know it all, you’re behind the 8-ball and behind the times. While it may not seem like it to some, it’s a fast pace job and industry, simply because nothing is a constant, remember it’s always evolving!

Here at seovolt, we generally market our services to people who simply do not understand the complexities of seo and/or those who do not have the time to learn it, like small business owners. This is perfectly acceptable, because you simply can’t run a hair salon business, landscaping company, or any business and also spend hours a day keeping up with your seo efforts, as well as your general marketing and advertising efforts. However, we encourage everyone, whether they are a customer of ours or not, to take some time and learn a little about seo. Again, it’s not all about links, using good H1 tags and meta descriptions… The depth and scope of seo seems to go on infinitely… Before you go with a SEO company, whether with us or someone else, get familiar with the process, trust me, it will be beneficial to you. If the seo firm is really only talking links, continue looking for a seo firm. This is such a basic, elementary level of the seo process, that it’s only going to waste your time and money if you were to go with them. You want a firm that’s more of a consultant, who tells you what they are doing or plan to do and why they think it’s a good idea and will have a positive impact. They should be explaining how they’ll market your website to both the search engines and visitors. The plan shouldn’t be summed up in 5 bullet points! If they do not include the process of evaluating and analyzing your competitors, they’re either not serious brokers or lack the knowledge it takes to get you where you want to be… This leads me to my next point.

Don’t believe the hype, no matter what they promise! No one can promise to rank you number 1 or in the top 3 or top 5 and so on, unless it’s Google and Bing working together on your SEO. Since seo firms have nothing to do with Google and/or Bing, how can they make such a claim? At best, the only thing an honest seo firm will tell you is: “based on experience, knowledge and the techniques we have had great success with, we believe we can significantly improve your search engine ranking.” Some will toss out a placement where they believe they can get you, and if they do their homework, there’s a good chance they could achieve it, especially if that estimate is based on something or it’s not a competitive industry. Be skeptical, seo is a business filled with those who can and those who can’t, those who apply themselves and those who don’t, those who make an effort and those looking for a quick buck. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! We like being a straight shooter in every custom seo plan. If it’s overly competitive, we’ll tell you it is and that it’s going to take a lot of time to get you where you want to be… If your niche is not that competitive, we’re happy to tell you about it as well! We assume you don’t want to be over promised and under delivered and because of our honest approach, we continue providing seo services to our customers, as they’re not stopping service with us. We’ve been fortunate to get referrals from happy customers who spread the word about our services. We strive to build relationships and really get to know you, your people, and your industry. We’ve made multiple trips out to some of our clients, just to get a better feeling about their industry and what they’re offering. A good seo firm doesn’t just want your money; they want a relationship and considers your success as a measure of their own success. They’ll take your website under their wings and care for it as if it’s their own website and when you move up the ranks, they’ll be just as happy as you are to see the improvement(s).

Well anyways, that’s what seo is to us, at Seo Volt!

Our link wheels come in 3 different packages. Please Contact use for full details and different link wheel packages. Each package includes unique articles, not 1 unique article that’s spun a bunch of times. Each and every article is unique! These articles will be posted on various web 2.0 sites and free blogs, like wordpress, blogger, tumblr, etc… We’ll then bookmark these articles and point some of the articles and/or mini sites back to your website. We’ll also bookmark your actual website as well. Moreover, and far different than other link wheel services, we’ll add pageranked links to the newly created articles/mini sites that are pointing to your website.

This particular package is the ENTERPRISE Package. It consists of 7 unique article creations. These 9 articles will be placed on web2.0 and/or free blogging websites. 3 mini sites will be the anchor sites which we’ll obtain one PR3 backlink for both of your anchor mini sites (3 total PR3 links – 1 to each anchor mini site). These 3 anchor mini sites will be the sites pointing to your website. We’ll then social bookmark each of the mini sites to a handful of social bookmarking websites. After this, will ping and report everything back to you!

Our link wheels come in 3 different packages. Please Contact use for full details and different link wheel packages. Each package includes unique articles, not 1 unique article that’s spun a bunch of times. Each and every article is unique! These articles will be posted on various web 2.0 sites and free blogs, like wordpress, blogger, tumblr, etc… We’ll then bookmark these articles and point some of the articles and/or mini sites back to your website. We’ll also bookmark your actual website as well. Moreover, and far different than other link wheel services, we’ll add pageranked links to the newly created articles/mini sites that are pointing to your website.

This particular package is the STARTER Package. It consists of 5 unique article creations. These 5 articles will be placed on web2.0 and/or free blogging websites. 2 mini sites will be the anchor sites which we’ll obtain one PR3 backlink for both of your anchor mini sites (2 total PR3 links – 1 to each anchor mini site). These 2 anchor mini sites will be the sites pointing to your website. We’ll then social bookmark each of the mini sites to a handful of social bookmarking websites. After this, will ping and report everything back to you!