Nancy Andrews talks on SEO Radio about The current state of Google and small business.

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I just got done doing a little “inventory” of our main consulting site’s rakings (http://smbconsultinginc.com), and we’re moving up the charts and maintaining some valuable positions. 

Business consulting–rank #3 (Google) of 25,200,000 competing pages; #8 (Yahoo) of 1,450,000,000 (that’s BILLION!)

Marketng consulting–rank #8 (Google) of 16,500,000 competing pages; #6 (Yahoo) of 661,000,000

We started out optimizing the site for terms such as “business consulting Louisville” and “small business consulting services,” but the broader (and more competitive) terms have driven more traffic our way and increased awareness much better.  While we rank very well for the “longer tail” terms we set out to rank well in the beginning, the broader terms provide a much better proof of concept of the knowledge we’re sharing in The SEO Bible. 

If you want to rank well, our methods must work pretty well based on the results shared above.  These aren’t overnight wonders either–it’s taken awhile to get here (8 months+), and we’ve been consistently climbing for the last three months so they are fundamenally sound (white hat). 

Why share this information you might ask?  Most people tend to say “show me some results” before they start digging deeper when evaluating SEO firms or training material. 

Time flies doesn’t it! We’re already to FAQ 4 in our ongoing series. This one is a good one that I hope everyone reads.

Q. Why should I buy the SEO Bible instead of the SEO Book?

A. The SEO Book is a great product, and I’d highly recommend purchasing both products as we’ve read the SEO Book and believe Aaron Wall has done a tremendous job with his book. We also reference some of the free tools on Aaron’s site. Our product is more of a step by step guide along with videos to show you the way as you attempt to optimize your site to appear in the top ranks of search engine results. That’s not to suggest you can’t learn everything you need to know in the SEO Book, but we’ve tweaked The SEO Bible to quickly get you up to snuff on SEO and show you step-by-step the things we’ve done to optimize our clients’ sites in addition to our own.

In an ideal world, you’d purchase both products, but we realize it’s not an ideal world. If you want to quickly learn specific search optimization tasks and some of the theory behind them, our product offers that. Most people are visual, and our video series will show someone visually how to get up to snuff. Reading a book will eventually get you where you want to go, but videos will reinforce what you read so we believe our one-two punch will take you there quickest. 

We’re also bundling some additional products that will teach you other key concepts of internet marketing to increase awareness of your business and ultimately generate more sales.

We’re nearing the most frequently asked question about The SEO Bible, and today we knock out number five.

Q. What led you to want to share this information with the public anyway?

A. The reason for sharing this with the public is we have gotten a lot of requests for SEO training from small to medium businesses that can’t afford a full blown search engine optimization campaign. Back in June of 2007, we conducted a couple of “boot-camp” type seminars in Louisville that were well received so we decided to take the book from those classes, add a series of how-to videos, and offer the course to the public for a fraction of a full blown campaign.

Obviously, we stand to generate significant revenue from such an offering, but that’s not the #1 motivator for producing this training series now. We’re aiming to help small and medium businesses along with sole proprietors generate greater awareness, increase leads, and improve their marketing ROI through organic search engine optimization. We feel the pain of the small business owner because we were in the same shoes not too long ago and will price this package similarly to what we’d charge for one month’s worth of service yet offer a 25% discount to anyone purchasing the training that ultimately contracts us to do some of the optimization work or help with any marketing program.

Onto question #6 in our series of FAQs.

Q. Why should I trust that your product is legitimate and you’re not some fly-by-night operation?

A. First off, we appreciate this question as it may appear that we’ve come out of nowhere, but our company (SMB Consulting) has been providing marketing services for a couple of years, and there is a legitimate consulting business behind this product and not just one internet marketer behind an e-book series designed to generate enough revenue so they don’t have to work a “real job.”  Not that we’re slamming internet marketers as a whole because many of them are operating sophisticated growth organizations by implementing highly effective marketing methodologies, but there are a great number of scam artists out there.  We empathize with this, and that is the reason there is a 30 day money back guarantee on our SEO training package.