Just this week it was announced (via this killer meme) that SEOmoz received $18,000,000 in venture capital investment.  You read that right, 18 MILLION DOLLARS. That’s great for SEOmoz but what does it mean for the rest of us?

This investment, by one of the industry’s most respected and successful venture capital firms no less, shows the world at-large that SEO is important.  SEO is valuable and justifiable – and here to stay. For every SEOmoz, there are 10 kick-butt SEOs  that do awesome work and that you’ve probably never heard of (@audette made this great point on Twitter).

An investment like this says that SEO has been accepted into the mainstream.  In today’s business climate, you must have a website.  There just isn’t any way around that anymore.  If you’ve got to have a website, why not make it successful and make it work for you?  This is the point of SEO.  Search engine optimization advances your online presence, drives more people to your website, increase leads and sales and makes you a thought-leader in your industry.

So, are you ready to get started?  Fortunately, you don’t need $18 mil to get really good, effective SEO services from EBS IT Solutions.  If you want a partner and guide in advancing your SEO efforts and getting your website to work for you, give us a call!  You can reach us at 713-522-3480 or shoot an email to info@ebsit.com

So, first and foremost, the Google algorithm – you know about it right?  If you’re looking around confused and wondering if you’re the only one, you’re not.  Trust me.  The Google algorithm is the core of what makes Google Search work.  An algorithm is a step-by-step problem solving procedure.  The Google algorithm is what is used to scour the internet whenever anyone performs a search and bring back relevant results.

One of the most exciting or tiresome parts of SEO, depending on your outlook, is that the Google algorithm is always changing.

I’m a glass-half-full kind of girl, so to me, this is fun stuff.

Anyhow, changes in the Google algorithm means that what worked in SEO last year or last week, may not be effective now.  The foundations of SEO are quality, unique, fresh content and back links – those elements will always be good.  There is however, what is called “black hat SEO” – this utilizes tactics that Google sees as cheats.  For instance, back a few years ago people would “keyword stuff” their websites by adding keywords in white text on a white background.  Website visitors couldn’t see this trick but the search engines would recognize a keyword-rich page and reward it accordingly.  Of course, cheap tricks will only get you so far.  Google wised up to this sort of practice and through algorithm changes, was able to penalize sites that employed these kinds of tactics.

So whats all this talk about cute little animals? – It is standard practice for Google to name their official algorithm changes.  The 2 changes or updates that were recently released are Panda 3.4 and Penguin.

If you remember, earlier I mentioned that the Panda update is over a year old now.  The Panda update is an algorithm change that targets what Google deems as “low-quality pages”.  The Penguin update is more strenuous and targets web spam.  If you’ve seen your website traffic dip considerably in the last 2 weeks, you may have been hit by either update.  If that’s the case, its time to re-think your SEO strategy.  Google viewed your content and website as spam or low-quality.  That hurts but you can change it.

If you need help in getting your site back to where it was pre-algorithm changes or if your site has had no SEO work at all, we can help.  Give me a call at 713-522-3480 or email me at info@ebsit.com !

1. Beware of Promises: There is not an SEO company in the world that can promise you “the number one spot on Google in 10 days!” SEO takes time. It takes time to build up keyword-focused content, backlinks, a social media presence, etc. Sure, with hard work and good content, you may very well be the #1 search result on Google. But your position in the search engines will invariably fluxuate depending on your output, your competition’s SEO efforts, Google’s algorithm changes, etc.
2. Ask Questions: Don’t be afraid to ask questions! SEOs are nice and we certainly don’t bite, in fact, we love when people are interested and want to understand what we do. When hiring an SEO consultant, you need to make sure that you’re comfortable with them, as they’ll have access to your website, hosting info., etc. If you’re unable to ask questions or don’t like the way they are answered, keep looking.
3. Ask for Results: Again, no SEO company can gaurantee you the top spot in the search engines but that doesn’t mean you won’t get there if they know what they’re doing. Before hiring any SEO consultants, ask to see results from some of their current clients. Ask for client references, as well. The good guys will be more than happy to supply you with satisfied client referrals. You can see one of our client’s results with the graph below – this graph measures the website visitor’s per week.

The above are just a few pointers to keep in mind when you’re shopping about for an SEO consultant. If you have questions about SEO or EBS IT Solutions’ SEO services, give us a call at 713-522-3480. It’s time to put your website to work for your business! Feel free to shoot us an email too.

Back Link Campaign Survival Guide

1. Have a Plan – Back linking can seem like a massive undertaking.  You don’t want to be overwhelmed before you even start.  Make a plan and stick to it.  Decide what kind of back links you want to go after and then divvy it up.  Say you want to write and submit articles, you want to guest post on blog and you want to submit your site to local directories.  Submit to 10 articles sites, approach 10 bloggers with unique content and submit your site to 10 local directories.  It may not seem like a lot but if you do it consistently (which you should), the back links will add up.
2. Steer Clear of Content Farms - Yes, some back links are better than others.  Steer clear of content farms – A content farm is a site that has been set up for the sole purpose of providing back links.  There tends to be very little, if any, unique and useful content.  The Google Panda Update has targeted this kind of site as “bad” and back links from content farms won’t help your case.
3. Investigate Your Competitors – This is a great tactic which we learned from Ken McGaffin and our friends over over at Wordtracker.  When you’re not sure where to look for links – check out your competitors.  You can use a tool like Wordtracker’s LinkBuilder or SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer.  These tools will tell you what sites link to your competition – you can then approach those site for a link as well!
4. Make Back Linking Fun – I won’t deny it, back linking can be very tedious and monotonous.  But it doesn’t have to be!  Try to make back linking fun – back linking is really about people and content.  Sharing good content with people around the internet.  So when approaching people for back links, remember that they are, in fact, people.  Through building back links you can also build relationships and a community!
5. Write Interesting Content - It seems we write a lot about back linking here and we do.  But back linking is really about content.  In order for people to want to link back to your site, you need to provide them with something interesting.  You’re an expert on your business – write content that is useful to your customers and let your personality shine through! 

Use these tips and you’ll be a back linking and SEO pro in no time.  If you have questions regarding back linking or any other SEO elements, call EBS IT Solutions at 713-522-3480 – Alyson (your SEO jungle guide) would be happy to talk with you! Plus, you can always shoot me an email. 

To learn more about back linking and SEO, search engine optimization, visit our website.  We have an abundance of information on SEO & Back Linking, SEO & Content Building and much, much more!

Blogs are a huge part of today’s internet culture and everyone has their favorite, whether its a gossip blog, photo blog, professional blog, you’re best friend’s online journal, etc.  Blogs are not only a great avenue for procrastination at work (don’t worry, I won’t tell your boss…) but they can also be utilized in your search engine optimization, SEO efforts.

The great thing about blogs is their democratic nature – all businesses, no matter their industry, can have a  blog.  Whether you’re a marketing firm, titanium bar manufacturer, IT services company or law firm there is an audience interested in your area of business.   You might be saying “Ok, I’ll buy that, but how is my manufacturing blog going to help my SEO efforts and my business?” – Well, since you asked!  Blogs can help in your SEO efforts because they are a great source of new, fresh content.  Additionally, your blog is another source of back links to your website – when you blog about something interesting that relates to your website, add a link back to it! 

Another thing to keep in mind is the social nature of blogs and the blogging community.  When you produce unique and interesting content, the chances that another blogger will read it and share it with their followers is pretty good.  Blogging, like all social media, is about building relationships with your followers, customers and the blogging community.  By employing search engine optimization, SEO principles within your blog posts (keyword-focus, fresh content, back links), you’ll help your SEO efforts while building up a following. 

Aside from all the SEO goodness of blogs, blogging is just plain fun.  So go on, give it a try!  If you have questions about blogging and SEO, check out our Blogging and SEO information or give us a call at 713-522-3480.  Don’t forget you can always shoot us an email, as well.

Another very important piece of the search engine optimization puzzle is the back link.  A “back link” is when another website has a link on their website that points back to yours.  A good way to think about back links is as “votes” – search engines see back links to your site as “votes” for your site.  Say, for example, that you are a manufacturing company.  Suppose that you’ve written an article about a new manufacturing process that is more efficient, better for the environment and cost effective.  Now suppose that the Manufacturers Club of America (fictional club, at least I just made it up) sees your article and uses it as a reference source with a link back to your website.  This is a back link , and a QUALITY one at that.  An organization like the MCA would be seen as something of an expert on manufacturing – if they linked back to your site, the search engines would say “Oh hey, this MCA knows what they’re talking about, if MCA links back to your website, this other website must be something special.”

While associations, clubs, organization, governing bodies, etc. make for great back links,  a back link can really come from anywhere.  From blog posting, blog commenting, articles you’ve written, social media shares, etc.  There are back links that are better than others but they can all work together to help in your search engine optimization, SEO efforts. 

On tap for next time – We’ll talk a little bit more about the different kinds and sources of back links.  If you want to learn a bit more about back links and how to use back linking as part of your search engine optimization, SEO, game plan head over to EBS IT Solutions and give our page Link Building & SEO a read.   Also, you can  give us a call at 713-522-3480, our SEO team is always excited and ready to answer any questions you may have!  Don’t want to call us but still have questions – that’s OK too!  Just shoot us an email.

It is true that social media has saturated the internet culture and that social media can be used to help grow your business – BUT social media is most effective when thought of as part of your overall website marketing and search engine optimization, SEO, strategy.    Here at Houston’s EBS IT Solutions, we like to use social media for our SEO clients because it is interactive.  Social media is all about, you guessed it, being social.  Social media allows you to build relationships with your customers in a very real way.  Sure, you can use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to marketing and sell your business but that is not it’s main function. 

If you’re not supposed to sell, sell, sell through social media – why bother?  In terms of search engine optimization, SEO, social media platforms are a great source of back links (a back link is when another site has a link back to your site).  If you have really great, interesting, share-able content on your website – Link to it through your social media platforms!  If your customers, followers, likes find it interesting they’ll pass it on – thus the power of social media. 

Learn more about how you can use social media to help in your search engine optimization efforts -

• Facebook, SEO & Your Business
• Twitter, SEO & Your Business
• Linked In, SEO & Your Business

Questions about search engine optimization, SEO, in general or about EBS IT Solutions’ SEO services specifically?  Call us! 713-522-3480 or shoot us an email at contactus@ebsit.com – We’d love to hear from you!

At EBS IT Solutions, we start with the keyword.  We do an extensive keyword analysis to find out what exactly people are searching for.  After the initial keyword analysis, arguably the most important piece of the SEO puzzle is website content and content building.  The goal for the search engines is to find and return in your search results the websites that are the most relevant and most informative on any given keyword.  Having factual, accurate, engaging, unique content that is keyword-focused goes a long way with the search engines. 

Consistently building new content for your website is important because search engines will take into consideration the “density” of your website.  A website with 20 keyword-focused pages will likely rank better than one with 5 keyword-focused pages.  When building content pages, you want to produce pages that mean something – to your customer, your business.  Fluff isn’t enough.  Building content isn’t about tricking the search engines with a fluff piece that is stuffed with keywords.  Remember, the search engines want to return the best sites available – by building pages with informative, interesting, valuable content you’ll be giving the search engines exactly what they want.

The search engine optimization picture is getting clearer by the minute!  Keep checking back with us – we’ll have more from our SEO specialist, Alyson, in the next few days.  If you want to learn more and you want to learn it NOW, check out our information on SEO and Content Building.

 EBS now offers both possibilities – colo your physical server in our rack for backup, storage or for a hosted application OR place your backup data or IT operations on our physical servers in a hosted environment.

We have fewer clients all the time who are using Microsoft Exchange hosted on their own servers. More and more clients are using hosted Exchange with “cloud computing”. A number of our clients are using AppRiver which has been an excellent provider of hosted Exchange services. Now Microsoft is offering hosted Exchange for a lower price than AppRiver.  Also Microsoft is about to release Office 365 a hosted Outlook Exchange, Office and SharePoint cloud computing service bundle.

For $6 per user per month you can get these full services. We will be monitoring these Microsoft services for recommendations to our clients. Windows cloud is a reality.