New Orleans Internet Marketing

Today I did a little work on a privacy policy I have been writing for a website. Privacy policies are something I have ignored in the past, but they are becoming increasingly important as more people on the web these days actually read them, and they can give more “trust” to your site from certain parties.

I started it off with the information gathered from Google Analytics that I use for various purposes. Google Analytics is a really great analytical tool, and it is an effective way to run pretty reports that clearly show visitor trends, effectiveness of marketing, search queries, etc. I’ve had a few clients ask some pretty tough questions in the past, and on occassion, I’ve had to dig deep into Analytics to find the answer. Did you know that Analytics tracks visitor stats down to browser type, OS, geographical location, Java version, network location, screen resolution, and more? Read the rest of this entry »

I recently upgraded to MS Office 2007, not really because I wanted to, but because there were some glitches with Office 2003 that were giving me trouble and I was sick of fighting with them. I tend to avoid new MS products for a while when they first come out due to their mass quantities of bugs and patches…

So the upgrade goes smooth, then I notice the slowdown. OMG every time it does a send / receive, it’s like my computer locks up for 5 seconds! How can Microsoft screw up a simple POP3 connection? Shouldn’t innovative new updates to existing programs IMPROVE their efficiency? Why do we keep having to get bulkier programs that use up more system resources with each new version? This is why I need to buy a new computer every year, to keep up with the trash that MS puts out. Done venting.

How much per month do you spend on SEO, not including on-page stuff like content and changes to your site? Is it enough? How much would you need to spend to be comfortable with the SEO effort?

I do SEO for a bunch of sites, some for other people, some for myself. I think I spend around $700 / mo. on link building for my own sites. Although I’m really not happy with that. I would like to spend $1000. If I spent $1k / mo. on link building I think I could totally dominate the keyword phrases I want. But I do have top rankings for like 7 out of 10 kw phrases I want (see the correlation there?) :)

Without going into details that would help my competition devour me (I think they probably spend twice as much for not nearly as great results), my budget breaks down to about an even split of several different forms of link building. Including the occasional email from yours truly to the more exceptional websites I want links from.

For my clients, I find I can hit moderately competitive keyword phrases for around $600 / mo., given about 6 months time if they were no where on the charts before I start. By “moderately competitive,” I mean the top results have some well optimized PR4 sites, maybe a PR5 or two. It seems like a PR5 is more difficult to attain these days than it was a year ago.

What do you guys spend on link building, and how competitive is your market?