Assuming that you already have a business, and some products or services to sell, then understanding the way your prospective customers search is the first and one of the most important jobs you will undertake in your search engine optimisation - in many cases, this is done so very poorly that it can undermine subsequent, higher cost SEO efforts such as link building and content development.

The remainder of this article is going to cover some of the concepts you need to understand to do effective keyword research and then a following article will look at the actual process of doing some simple yet solid keyword research.

How much does SEO cost? Well, after answering this question far too often I decided I wanted to write a post about how much SEO costs but whilst trying to do that, realised just how difficult that is (hence no blog post for a week). I kept coming to this article, trying to pin down some good price examples and ultimately, I hit a brick wall. So, I figured, lets look at why it is so difficult to price up SEO and what the various factors are.

Hopefully, whilst this won’t give a general and definitive answer due to there being too many moving parts it will let you get a handle on what SEO would likely cost you.

Nearing the end of 2012 we are entering a new era for link building where the old link building techniques don’t work any longer - the only problem is that link building is still crucially important for good results with SEO.

We are moving forwards (back?) toward the true earning of links and only having links that will generate real click throughs and traffic without any SEO benefit. In short, links you would be happy showing to your mother.

The only problem is that whilst it would be great if we knocked out a couple of Blog posts and the links came tumbling in, it really does not work that way and you need some real game and hustle to build earn the kind of links that will help you move up the rankings.

Over the last 18 months Google has been aggressively punishing weak content and manipulative SEO practices and rewarding quality and relevance. This is all an effort to improve results and level the playing field. What this means is that if you have a great site, but have never really done any SEO then the competition is reeling and the barriers to entry are lowered so now could be a great time to get started and make a name for yourself.

The remainder of this article will give you a little more background to what has been going on in the last 18 months and why and how you can get started and piggy back some of your opposition who are seeing the value of their SEO dwindling and may even be up against the ropes due to search penalties. 

With all the search penalties and recent Spam Wars I would imagine most website owners are growing rather tired of being told off by SEO’s due to their dark marketing techniques. So, rather than chip in with more finger waggling berating people for the errors of their search marketing ways, the following article will show you how to use the Force in your Internet Marketing.

We will look at the quicker, easier and more seductive ways to do SEO which ultimately leads you down a dark path to pain and suffering. We will see how most businesses are like Luke, impatient, desperate for results, but require patience to really develop their SEO force skills.

Read on Padawan learner!

Yesterday Google released a new tool known as the Disavow links tool. The purpose of this tool is to allow you to remove or at least discredit what Google refers to as ‘Unnatural Links’.

The tool exists within your Webmaster Tools account and can be used against any site registered in Webmaster Tools, as of yet there is no menu or navigation pointing to the tool but you can find it here.

There is a great new video over on SEOMoz covering the changes in on page SEO now in 2012 and beyond. The basics, the keyword optimisation, the physical optimisation of the page, that is all still as relevant as it ever was but the main thrust of the video is all the additional nuts and bolts stuff we have beyond the on page basics.

With all of the recent hoo-ha over Google penalties for bad link building practices the SEO world has moved ‘en masse’ over to Guest Posting as a big part of the link building process.

Now, whilst reading the updated webmaster guidelines and specifically the page on link schemes and what constitutes a link scheme one small section jumped out at me:

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link

So far this year, the big ripples in the SEO world have come from Google’s crackdown on the manipulation of search results. We have had the Panda update that has focused on removing weak or thin content and we have also had the Penguin update that has waged war on over optimisation and aggressive link building tactics. We have also had the EMD update that has put a final nail in the coffin for Exact Match Domains. 

Despite some serious aggression against manipulative linking practices of late you still can’t get away from the fact that links are crucially important for SEO. So, it naturally figures that if you want to compete, great content, whilst also critically important still needs to be supported by strong links from external sites.

Great content = Great Links (right?)

Well, if only, if only the world worked this way but the fact is, whilst you can write great content, truly killer stuff, without links, it often may not be found, and this is certainly true for newer sites or those in a competitive niche.