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Three SEO Magic Bullets and How to Use Them 
By Scott Jason (c) 2008

There are the three things the top experts rely on to snag
the top spots on Google, Yahoo and MSN; Stats, Spying and
Shortcuts. Simply put, stats show you where to spend more
time than money, spying shows you how to beat your
competition and shortcuts show you how to do it as quickly
as possible.

Search Engine Stats: Up to date Statistics show you who is
searching where and what they are clicking on. This will
help you make the best possible decisions on how to spend
your SEO time and where to spend your SEM money (search
engine marketing, including pay per click advertising.)

A.) The following search usage information is based on the
Nielson/Net Ratings of May 2008.:

59.3% - Google | 16.9% - Yahoo | 13.3% - MSN | 4.1% - AOL

That's almost 94% of all searches going through just four
search engines and well over half going through Google
alone!

B.) Knowing exactly how much each search engine is used is
the first big step. Now we know where to focus our time and
effort. But that's only half the story. We need some
reliable inside information to help us plan for search
engine optimization and search engine marketing strategies.
So we turn to a leader - the UK based company
Neutralize.com. They confirm that users of Google versus
those of MSN are almost exact opposites when it comes to
clicking on natural versus pay per click search listings.
Here's what their extensive research has revealed:

On Google, 72.3% of visitors rely on the natural listings
that SEO helps you get.

Only 27.7% use the paid links you purchase as part of your
SEM plan.

On MSN, the opposite is true. Only 28.8% of their visitors
go for the organic listings you get from SEO.

But a whopping 71.2% can't wait to click on those paid
links.

This information alone can be worth its weight in gold! I
cite these numbers when I tell my clients paying me to
optimize for MSN is almost a waste of money, since they
would spend about the same on PPC and get instant results.
But by the same token it helps them understand why they get
so few clicks for paid listings on Google and it's more
evident that SEO efforts are well spent here.

The Art of SEO Spying: If you want to beat your competition
you really need to know what they are up to. Otherwise
you're just guessing and that gets expensive.

So forget about guessing your way through or spending tons
of time and money on research. You can get most for free
and the rest for just a few well placed dollars. Just head
on over to SpyFu.com and check out the free information
they offer. Or, if you want the bigger picture go to
https://www.spyfu.com/WhyBuySpyfu.aspx to see everything
they offer, free and paid. If you decide the free stuff is
not enough, I suggest spending $6 for a 3 day full access
package and test drive it.

Here's a blurb from SpyFu.com..."Want to know which of your
competitors has the largest ad budget, or which term gets
the most clicks per day? Use SpyFu's Advanced Search to
find out. Advanced Search allows one to search by all the
metrics provided on the site and allows you to focus on the
data that's most important to you. What's more, you can
save your Advanced Search results to Excel with the click
of a button."

SEO Shortcuts; Top Industry Tools: Before we get into the
details I want to stress that shortcuts should NEVER
involve cutting corners. The shortcuts we will explore are
based on discovering how the experts get their top results
so quickly and then following in their footsteps. When it
comes to SEO, the best shortcut to success is through the
use of SEO software tools.

There are plenty out there so I'll just focus on two of the
most widely used.

Both of these tools are fantastic but designed to
accomplish very different things. One of the first SEO
tools I used can be found at webposition.com. They have a
professional version for $389 (plus $99 per year) or a
standard version for $149 (plus $99 per year.) I only used
the professional version because it had more than the
standard. The reporting was great but I found it to be a
better tool for working with pay per click than doing
actual SEO.

I switched over to the little beauty available at
http://www.SEOeliteWeb.com and have had no reason to look
for another. For $167 with free lifetime upgrades and no
annual fees it's the best money I've spent so far. I like
it because it's a real down in the trenches SEO tool that
even handles linking and I can show my seminar attendees
how to use it in a matter of minutes. And to be honest,
even my least knowledgeable students get some top spots
after a month or two with it, so I tend to recommend it
heartily.
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Scott Jason is the owner and president of
http://BestSEOcopywriting.com . An accomplished SEO
consultant and SEO copywriter he has been getting top
ranking results from Google, Yahoo and MSM for more than
nine years.
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