How many times can I vote to get this article up to a 10? This is a story every business owner considering a new website or a redesign should read.

As an SEO person I do have a few comments about #2 in how it affected your site. Not that you don’t’ have VERY valid points, just to clarify.

Keywords. The keywords on each page are not the same. A couple of pages have the keywords I gave them, a couple have the craptastic ones they came up with. Oh, and the contract called for 50-70 keywords per page; they gave me 5. – You should not be targeting more than 5 key phrases a page!!! Their contract with 50 to 70 key words (and words are different than phrases) per page promised should be a huge red flag to anyone considering SEO services. A. The page titles don’t contain the correct keywords. - That's a problem. Search engine love title tags. B. The meta tags don’t contain the correct keywords. - If by "meta tags" you mean the key word meta tag, that's not a problem. Search engines don't pay attention to those anyway. The only people you're helping with nicely written keyword meta tags are your competition. If by meta tag you mean the description meta tag, that’s a problem. C. The images have no alt-tags. - This is a big problem on a site with a bunch of images.

Sorry you got burned. That sucks.

Where I see the inefficiency is in slogging through every mention of a key phrase with the hope that one (or more) of them is going to turn into a business opportunity. It's kind of like trying to optimize your website for the word "consultant." Yeah, you'll get some hits but how many of them are going to be relevant and worth the time you put into it?

I'm all for finding new and creative ways to connect online but there are SO MANY ways to do it, you've got to evaluate the return on investment even if your investment is 'only' time.

You're right. There's ways to use Twitter. Here's an excellent post by Guy Kawasaki on the subject. http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/10/how-twitter-mad.html

I don't disagree that it's possible to start a business coversation by monitoring Twitter for pertinent key phrases. It just seems like a very inefficient way to do it.

Hopefully if folks have success with it, they'll post their results.

If you're seriously suggesting this as a way to get clients, I've got to disagree. With the hundreds of ways you can market your services, it would be more effective to pick phone numbers out of the phone book at random and call them.

However, if you're suggesting this as a research tool, I could see some value in it. For instance, when you really want to see what people are saying about a particular topic or for brand management. But as a way to directly generate business, I don’t think so.

Good advice and very timely considering Biznik'snew video capability.

Good advice Joe! This will be my first saved article. I'll refer back to it next time I'm strategizing for an event. :-)

Elge

This might be a little too high level for newbies. But if you need to, read it twice to make sure you get it because it includes great examples of how social networking and social media can be used to make connections online.