Distinct SEO Inc. provides more than SEO services for our clients. In fact, we do our best to distance ourselves from an exclusive SEO offering. We believe that the realm of web marketing is comprised of many crucial components, of which SEO is but a mere subset. In reality, web promotion, content development, web development, branding, and so forth, are key cogs to any online marketing strategy.

Lately, we've been rolling out some of our web development and design capabilities to our clients. We'd like to share with you one of our latest partners, a non-profit organization, who were looking for custom solution to a brand new venture. Read the rest of this entry »

I just want to jot down a quick post on a question that seems to be keep cropping up. It usually stems from new web sites who are approached by third party vendors or simply through owners/webmasters doing some quick research.

The question revolves around submitting your web site to the search engines. Should you do it and does it help?

The answer is no on both accounts. Read the rest of this entry »

The emergence of the social networking tool Twitter, which enables users to post snippets of up to 160 characters per post (tweet), has raised some questions on its impact on the SEO industry. Frankly, I think this is the wrong question to ask. Twitter has only a distant and indirect relation to SEO.

However, it has a HUGE impact to the overall web marketing picture.

On one hand you can develop a following of interested, lurking, and completely useless followers. Some may be induced to visit your web site through your tweets, some may even link to you. That's the indirect benefit to your SEO endeavors. But given the nature of Twitter, this type of tactic doesn't fit within the ethos of network. Let me explain. Read the rest of this entry »

You've installed WordPress for the first time, lined up your theme and have added a few wordpress plugins. Now you have to write some posts and you ask the questions, "is there a system I should employ while writing?"

The answer is 'yes' and 'no'. No you shouldn't change your writing style or purpose for the sake of search engines or WordPress. Yes, there are are some best practices you need to follow when writing which will help maintain clarity and popularity. So pay attention to the following suggestions, they'll go a long way to help increase visibility and visitors.

Title Tags

The single most important element that will help your visitors find your content is going to be your post title. Think of something that's not too short, that's relevant, that's appealing and attention grabbing, and also contains relevant keywords to your content. Avoid punctuation like commas, quotes, or periods. (You don't require a full stop at the end of your title.)

For example, rather than a title: I like WordPress

I'd write something like: Distinct SEO's Top 10 Reasons We Love WordPress

Read the rest of this entry »

*We've updated this post on September 30th with our tools and plugins for your benefit.*

WordPress is probably the easiest and most malleable blog tool on the web that functions on Apache. Although it doesn't permit complete customization, it does provide a solid blogging tool with many additions to keep you're information and SEO needs satisfied.

We don't use many plugins, but over the years Distinct SEO has learned a few things through trials and tribulations. Here is a list of some of the plugins we use ideal for building a community and optimizing wordpress blogs.

Top WordPress Plugins for Search Engine Optimization

Read the rest of this entry »

Updated from the original post in May 7th, 2007.

Some critics have noted consumers are growing dissatisfied with the SEO industry due to the lack of accountability (with respect to results) and lack of transparency (with respect to what is actually completed for web sites). It's true, nearly anybody regardless of qualifications can figure out on-page SEO (changes made to your web site) and create an online firm to start garnering consultation dollars. The problem is the absence of SEO standard for training or governing body policing rogue consultants means the chance of 'pulling the wool' over the eyes of unsuspecting consumers grows. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicken or the Budget? What Comes First?

**Originally posted on Mar 12, 2007**

I recently engaged in a spirited discussion about business strategy and planning with some posters at SEOChat. Basically, I was challenging the position on how to go about creating SEO budgets. My basic premise was that budgets come out of plans, and not the other way around. Here is some key highlites to help you create the right goals for the right budget and not the other way around.

SEO Plans Lead to SEO Budgets

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Answer, none.

This question pops up on forums time in and time again. You'd think with so many asking the same question people would see the same answers and stop asking, but alas, they don't.

Before I go further let me state unequivocally that domain names are strictly for branding purposes only. That doesn't ignore them since you don't have a brand because branding is the single most important element online for your business.

So why do people still think keywords in the domain name will rank them higher? Read the rest of this entry »