Tag Archives: Improving Google rankings

Is Your URL Working for You?

Posted on by
Reply
{lang: 'en-GB'}

So we have discussed content and meta data.  Next we need to look at:

IS YOUR URL WORKING FOR YOU!
Quite simply, if it does what is says on the tin – then its going to work for you!  Company name specific URLs are great to be found for a search featuring your company name, but why not also register URLs containing your keywords.  For instance, if you repair televisions – also use www.tv-repair.co.uk.  You can have as many URLs as you like pointing to your website, but I would suggest you keep it real.  Try to keep to the highest regarded URLs – such as .co.uk or .com.  Although I have recently been told that more credence is being given to .net extensions.  Similarly .co extensions are one to watch out for. Nevertheless the search engines still hold the main two extensions in high regard.

In addition to your your main URL, use your keywords in your page URL trailing slashes.  For example, the “about page” for our television repair company could be www.tv-repair.co.uk/about tv repairs/.

For more information, or to receive an optimisation report for your website, simply give me a call!

Let's Look at META Data

Posted on by
Reply
{lang: 'en-GB'}

Last week we discussed the importance of content.  Although that is probably the most important factor, it’s still only a fraction of the battle!  

LET’S LOOK AT META DATA

This helps describe an item and allows it to be found by the search engine spiders.  Your website will have three main meta data fields <title>, <content> and <description>.  If you right click on your website and select “view page source”, this will be clearly visible in the code.   You can also use this technique to see what your competitors are using.  This meta data needs to reflect your chosen keywords, but unlike the content of your website you can simply list your keywords and it won’t have a negative impact.  For instance, if you are a patisserie your <description> could be “homemade patisseries, cakes, desserts, puddings and confectionery”.   Make sure you use this meta data to best effect, because the search engine place a high value on this.

Next week I’ll discuss how to make best use of your tags.  If you would like us to run our report, which compares your website to your top ten competitors and advises on ways to out-perform them, simply give us a call!

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – tips to achieve higher rankings

Posted on by
Reply
{lang: 'en-GB'}

I need to drive more traffic to my website, by achieving a higher ranking in the search engines!  Sound familiar?  Well there are two ways of doing this on and off-site optimisation.  It is quite simple really, although many digital marketing agencies like to make it sound complicated.  I intend posting regular blogs each week, to help you make the most of the internet – the first of which is below:

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTENT
By far the most important way of optimising  your website is to ensure the content is correct.  The search engines want to present the most appropriate results to a user searching for a specific keyword.  Hence you need to think carefully about the most appropriate keywords for each page.  Use the Google Keyword Tool to find out the highest performing keywords with the least competition.   Use these keywords within the content, but don’t overdo it – too many will have a negative impact and you will be seen as a “keyword slut”.  Around 3%  density is right – that is one keyword for every 33 words.  Put one keyword in bold, as that will make a difference.  An average website will only be able to host about three keywords for each page, so it is important you get this right!

If you have any questions about the content on your website, simply post on this blog and I’ll do my best to answer them! Alternatively we can run a report, which will compare your website with your top ten competitors and advise how you should change the content and code to out-perform them.

 

 

5 Reasons to use a professional website developer

Posted on by
Reply
{lang: 'en-GB'}

Today I want to discuss the importance of using a professional website developer, I have encountered many businesses who either use a family member or friend, someone they know (maybe a student studying IT or Website development), attempt to build the website themselves or use what we call an ‘off the shelf’ package. None of these methods will produce a website that will be technically or visually as good as one made by a professional website developer.

1. The first and most obvious reason is Expertise – A good web developer should build a cleanly coded website and include a minimum amount of essential SEO on the website. As they work in the industry they will have knowledge of and understand the latest technologies and trends that are happening (i.e. Twitter, Blogs etc) and be able to advise you on how they could benefit your business.

2. The next reason is that a professionally designed website is virtually always much better visually than a non professionally designed website (though obviously some people do have a good creative eye and will be able to design a beautiful website). It is important to remember that your website is a window on your business, many people will visit your website and form an opinion of your business based on your website: amature website = amature business. No matter how good an impression you make when you meet this person they will review your website and this will partly form their opinion of your business.

3. As mentioned, some people will opt for an off the shelf/Out of a box packages which will require the website to conform to set features or a set frame work that has been pre-built into the package, no matter how much freedom these packages claim to offer the user you will still have to work within some form of frame work, where as using a website developer means complete freedom of design and functionality.

4. Another issue faced when not using a professional website developer is that little or no support is available. If a friend or someone you know has built your website in their spare time, then when something needs updating or maintenance is required it will be done when this person has the time. A professional website developer has an invested interest in making sure your website is live and up-to-date as it reflects their work and will probably be in their portfolio so potential clients could be looking at any one of the websites they have built. Worse still, if you have bought an ‘off the shelf’ solution there will certainly be no invested interest in you or your business as you are just another anonymous user, through using a professional website developer you can develop a personal relationship with them and a good developer will inform you of any business opportunities they see for you and other clients, either through networking and collaboration or through adding additional or the newest, latest features to your website.

5. The final reason is it will ultimately be cheaper, amature a website can cost your business money through missing out on business. If you are lucky enough to have the ability to build your own website, your time would surely be better invested in running your own business and potentially earning money. Also if you have an off the shelf package, although it may be cheaper in the 1st year, over 2 or more years it likely to cost more: Off the shelf packages usually range from £10 – £30 a month or more.

A final thought, imagine someone informing you that they were going to do what your business offers themselves, do you believe that they would be able to do the work to the same standard that a company specialising in that industry would be able to offer?

Links – Generating Backlinks

Posted on by
Reply
{lang: 'en-GB'}
Generating Links in the Blogging World

Generating Links in the Blogging World

I’ve spoken about linking in previous posts, it’s in my top 5 SEO tips and I’ve spoken about the annoyance of spam, but the Internet is made up of links and it is essential. We all now that generating links to our website or blog will have a huge influence on traffic and search engine results and usually with my Web developer hat on I would recommend contacting customers and suppliers and anyone else you know with a business to see if you can get a link, though it is important that the website linking to yours is relevant (hence customers and suppliers) or you can look for businesses working in the same industry which can link to you, my ideal example is the wedding industry, it’s made up of so many different parts which don’t necessarily compete with each other. So assuming you’ve exhausted this route and have all the links your going to generate you turn to your blog and it can be a powerful tool.

One of the excellent things about a blog is the way in which it is structured means that it creates loads of internal links when you post, and it helps to create pages quickly almost everything you create on your blog, be it a post or category, or using the archive or calendar feature, they all help create unique pages so if you had enough material to blog daily you could create 365 posts, if these went into 30 categories was part of your monthly archive and you had a tag cloud active on your site well I’m sure it would generate nearly 500 pages! All of which will have an effect on your search engine rankings.

Having hundreds of internal links is great but how do you use the blog to generate incoming links? Well you need to get into the world of blogging, research bloggers in your industry or field, or even just blogs your interested in, take the time to read them and then comment on them, but only if you have something to say, I’m sure they will be interested in who commented on their blog and visit your blog, but by leaving a comment you have left a link back to your site. Hopefully by writing good relevant comments you will generate interest in your blog and bring readers in, but better still if they read your blog and like it they will recommend your blog to others and then the world of word of mouth marketing takes over.  Think about it, if you could comment on a blog a week, that’s 52 blogs a year, now imagine they have a strong readership of say 100 each that’s 5200 people who will see your comment, not say only 10% of those people take an interest in your blog it’s 520 visitors, now what if half of those visitors went away and recommended your blog via their blog – that 260 in bound links plus your original 52 which is 312 links, not I know this is a lot of what ifs – but by being a proactive member of the blog community you can reap the benefits and contribute some value to it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read some of my favourite blogs and hopefully be able to make some comments on them

Keyword Research

Posted on by
Reply
{lang: 'en-GB'}
Today I’d like to talk a little about keyword research, it’s an important part of not only Search Engine Optimisation, but also in my opinion of developing a website, though those lazy web developers do help create work for our company.  There are a few free and paid for tools available as listed below and all of these can be used for keyword research.
  • Yahoo Panama Keyword Tool
  • Google Keyword Tool, traffic estimator, Webmaster Tools; Google Suggest and Google Trends
  • MSN Keyword Forecast
  • Hitwise
  • WordTracker
  • Keyword Discovery
  • WordStream

One of the mistakes people make when conducting keyword research is targeting highly competitive keywords, I’m not saying that these keywords shouldn’t be used but when considering the size of your website and business and the competition in your industry there maybe better keywords to target. It is also worth noting that it is generally believed that when someone searches online if the keyword is a broad keyword, say, compact digital cameras, then they are browsing or researching the market, they are not looking to buy, but if the keyword is more precise, say Sony T77 compact camera, then the searcher is looking for a specific product and is more likely to have intentions of buying.

Some businesses or industries may also benefit from including their geographical location with their keywords, ‘homes for rent’ isn’t going to get you as many conversions as ‘homes for rent in Cardiff’ but this depends on your business, if you can trade internationally then you may be loosing out on business by including your location, but if your goods or services are generally location dependent then include it in your keywords.

When it comes to keywords, the one with the highest search volume isn’t necessarily going to be the one that lands you top spot in Google or gets you the highest conversions and it might be worth targetting a handful of keywords with a lower search volume but are more likely to be converted into sales.

Quick Win – Google Business Directory

Posted on by
1
{lang: 'en-GB'}

Following on from my earlier blog on SEO I wanted to draw this little gem to your attention.  An excellent way of getting yourself instantly into top spot – well kind of is to register on Googles Local Business Centre.  If someone searches for your service in your area then quite often Google will produce a map with a list of businesses and this helps you get found.

So what you waiting for, head over to:

https://www.google.com/local/add/

it will take you 5 minutes and may get you number one results instantly!