SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

If you have an online business then setting up a blog on your website can help your SEO efforts no end. It can be a great medium for allowing you to raise the profile of your business and a means to disseminate information to your potential customers about the products and services available. If the blog is updated with fresh, relevant content on a regular basis then it can be a great way of building relationships between your audience and the business. This type of bond can engender ongoing interest in the company and blog readers are more likely to come back to read more and also go on to explore more of your website.

If you are just starting out with a blog then it may be a challenge for you to promote your blog and attract readers. Creating a blog on your website is a great step forward for your search engine optimisation but if people don’t know it’s there they won’t visit. Here are some simple steps you can take to launch a blog properly:

Direct Your Own Website Traffic

One of the simplest methods are creating abuzz around your blog is to direct existing website traffic to the blog area. Whether the blog is within the website or not, your existing traffic is likely to have an interest in what you write there. Publicise the existence of your blog on your website and set up a link so they can access it. When a user lands on a website and are researching a company or product they are likely to find the blog an interesting source of information.

Develop a PR Strategy

PR is a great way of promoting your business. Use a press release to inform people that you now have a blog and again embed a link in it. PR like this can create great exposure for a company and will attract high levels of traffic is written well. Let people know the blog is there and make it easy for them to find it.

Include the News within Your Company Newsletter

A good way of building loyalty and keeping communication channels open with customers is to send those who are happy to receive information a newsletter. Here you can keep them up to date with developments within the business and product portfolio. This marvellous SEO technique is also a perfect way of informing people about your blog and also including a link. It will attract attention and those who have already expressed a keen interest in your company will be interested in your blog also.

Use Email

You can also create interest in your blog by adding a small amount of information about the blog to the bottom of any emails sent out. Include a link also to make finding your blog straightforward. People who you interact with are again likely to find the information in your blog useful so it will be well received rather than being seen as spam.

At www.searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we are an SEO company expert in content writing and link building.

When using the various internet marketing techniques knowing their strengths and weaknesses is crucial. This is never truer when looking at search engine optimisation and PPC side by side. The two can be used to complement each other but you need to know the limitations.

The Limitations

Paid search is easier to measure and will create the more noticeable response from al the search marketing techniques. However it uses an auction model and can get expensive and there are signs within the web marketing world that companies are hitting their CPC maximum and are capping their PPC spend.

On the other hand organic search does not involve bidding and budgets and can provide the same volume with lower associated costs. However it’s less easy to control how keywords rank.

Using PPC Tactically

PPC is best used as a tactical mechanism based on its monetary constraints. Organic results can be seen in just a few days in some cases, however with PPC you can have a campaign up and running within minutes and see customers landing on your site within the hour. Using search marketing cleverly PPC can be used for time sensitive promotions.

Look After Your Brand Terms

The terms that rank well in the natural search realm are a site owner’s own brands. However, on the same page there can be other less positive results also. An SEO company can offer guidance on a variety of online reputation management strategies to get rid of negative listings but using paid search using a brand term can help to shove anything negative well under the fold.

Using Competitor Terms

Once all your own terms have been optimised you can start to get more adventurous and implement a paid search campaign with the goal of reaching the brand terms of your rivals. It is possible to have your AdWords displayed using competitor terms for a premium cost. For example, type money supermarket into the search box and there will be no rival companies in the natural results. However cast an eye over the sponsored links and you will see them there.

Testing Positions

Many web marketers fantasise about having the top spots for both organic and paid search marketing, but given the cost of PPC a lower position may be more strategic. There’s no winning formula for positioning but the best policy is to keep testing.

Use Different Landing Pages

Landing pages that deliver positive results for SEO may not do the same for PPC. PPC landing pages tend to have a more sales orientated theme whilst SEO landing pages focus on high quality content.

Combine Costs

By blending costs for both paid search and organic search can help to create a lower cost per acquisition on average on the one hand whilst creating the maximum lead return. These cost savings can then be channelled into further market development or used to enhance profits.

At www.searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we offer expert advice on all aspects of search marketing including pay per click and search engine optimisation.

When managing a search engine optimisation campaign for your website the content you place on the site is very important. This also relates to the images you put there. The number of image searches is increasing online today, and this influential part of the content strategy can be a great way of attracting traffic to your site. It has also been proven that the type of images chosen can directly influence the length of time that a person stays on a web page, and it is imperative that business owners approach images on their site with great care.

Do Your Image Research

It is worth putting some time into researching the best images to put on the website. There are plenty of high quality sources of images on the internet which offer a wide selection. Most businesses will find images online that are appropriate to their industry and product. Take time looking over the various images available to you and be very choosy about the ones that make it into your final selection. You want to be 100 per cent sure that the images you use are right for the site – a good choice will make all the difference to your traffic volumes.

Keep Your Images Relevant to the Content

The images you choose for your web page should relate closely to the content displayed there in order to provide you with the most effective results. The aim is to attract visitors to an image and then once they land on the webpage they should find relevant content to read. It is only this way that people will stay on the sight. If the images have no relevance to the content there. The content must be appropriate to their interests and appealing from a layout and content point of view. In SEO relevancy of content in all its forms is crucial to the success of the campaign.

Spell Things Out for the Search Engines

Relevancy is also important for the search engines. If you want your results to be found and ranked highly then you have to ensure that you make it clear to them what the image is relating to and which search it matches to. One of the best ways of doing this is to add a descriptive image file name. In the title you need to add the main components of the image to the file name adding a keyword if possible so that the search engines stand the best possible chance of understanding what it is.

You can also add descriptive text to the alt tags. Images cannot be explored in the same way that text can be by the search engines so they rely heavily on any text attached to the image. By adding relevant text you can fully optimise your web page and be assured that you have given your site the best chance of ranking well in the SERPs.

At searchengineoptimisation.com we are an SEO company offering a full SEO service to our clients ensuring that their SEO campaigns are successful and real results can be seen.

There is many an SEO company out there that deals in black hat techniques wanting your business. These unscrupulous organisations aim to make as much cash as they can and will manipulate ill-informed website owners into parting with their search engine optimisation budget. Most website owners are savvy to black hat techniques and are aware of the pitfalls of going down this route. However there are also many site owners that can be encouraged into following these unethical practices.

It is often said that black hat SEO is easy to master and can bring much success whereas white hat SEO can seem challenging and hard to learn. It is true that going down the ethical route will mean digesting large amounts of information and learning new techniques and this fact can be exploited by those looking to tempt you down a disreputable path.

It is also often said that black hat SEO produces results fast. Here is where the alarm bells should really start ringing. Ethical SEO practices create results gradually. You need to invest a significant amount of time to see your search engine optimisation develop whereas some of the less reputable techniques will create positive results quickly. However, as with all quick fixes the effect is not long lasting and there can be some dire consequences.

Although on the surface black hat techniques may seem to offer great results with the promise of great rankings, huge surges in traffic and great sales increases are usually false. This can often appeal to website owners who are looking for a reduction in costs however there will be no value for money in choosing this route.

True SEO experts will advise you that each business is different and therefore each SEO campaign is unique. A black hat SEO company will offer a blanket approach that cannot work for all companies. Their reassurance that there is little risk to using these methods is also false as approaching SEO without fully understanding the individual markets and audience is sure to fail.

Another way these unscrupulous companies lock website owners in is by appealing to the fear element. Many business owners are frightened of tackling SEO and therefore shy away from optimising their sites. This plays right into the hands of black hat companies as they will offer a one-stop shop where everything is taken care of. This removes control away from the website owner giving them false reassurance. It’s very important to be involved in the SEO efforts on your site even when dealing with true SEO professionals. Only you can advise the SEO team about your market, customers and product offering.

Finally, if a black hat SEO agency advises you that there is no need to worry because the search engines aren’t interested in these techniques and that because so many sites employ these method they won’t be penalised. Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth as search engines are very quick to punish sites who employ this form of SEO.

Avoid the unethical methods. At searchengineoptimisation.com we offer a reputable service to our SEO clients.

Sitemaps are usually recommended by many reputable companies offering search engine optimization services. However, not everyone who runs a website knows exactly what sitemaps are and do, so here is some background on sitemaps and some tips on getting the best out of them.

“Sitemap” is the label for a protocol launched by Google in 2005. A “sitemap” itself is an XML document that lists all the pages on a website. A sitemap is authored and submitted via Google Webmaster tools along with other information about the site itself. However, the sitemap format initiated by Google is also welcomed by other leading search engines, including Yahoo, Ask, and Bing.

It is therefore well worth generating and maintaining a sitemap, simply as a current record of your content. This is particularly the case if your site is complex, and goes down to three levels of navigation, perhaps even down to five levels. The sitemap will ensure that every page gets indexed regardless of how deep in the site hierarchy it lies.

There is also a strong practical reason for keeping a sitemap, which is to do with maintaining an overall grasp of your site architecture. The map, looking something like a family tree, will give you a handy ready-reference overview of the site, with all its nooks and crannies. As a site owner, you will find this bird’s eye view invaluable.

There are moreover some less obvious benefits from sitemaps. Firstly, it’s possible to specify within in your sitemaps file the relative importance of each page on your site from values of 0.0 to 1.0. This can be helpful if you want to underline to search engines that a particular page should get priority treatment. This “page ranking” feature can be a useful weapon in your SEO armoury.

There are further features which come exclusively with having a free Google Sitemaps account, and these include:

- A list of words Google has found (on other sites) which link to your site, and a list of words that Google “thinks” characterise your site according to your site content. This information can be used to tweak both your site content and your offsite SEO strategy.

- A report on any faults on your site that trip up the indexing programme called “Google WebBot”; basically where navigation on your site is broken: a helpful early warning system.

However, you might still prefer to leave sitemap handling to a professional SEO services company, and here at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we can help.

We can fine-tune your sitemap, given our expert knowledge of the SEO terrain. Part of that process could involve in-depth technical and specialist work customising your site’s “robots.txt” file, the file which tells search engines how to crawl your site – that’s precisely the kind of task you would rather leave to the experts.

Professional, tailored, SEO services such as these are often the preferred route for a large-scale commercial web site, keen not to miss any tricks in terms of boosting their site in search engine rankings.

Website writing is not a straightforward business, as there are so many different interests to satisfy. The site needs to be accessible to both specialist and general readers: then there’s the casual visitor, just dropping by, as well users staying for a longer time, perhaps aiming to make a purchase. Then again you might have the CEO breathing down your neck, urging you to drive up traffic by optimising the site for the major search engines.

Getting the balance right can be tricky, and there’s no such thing as the perfect website, but you can do a lot to manage the various demands upon you.

First, don’t neglect the obvious steps, such as:

- writing in clear, clean prose, and avoiding over-long sentences.

- ensuring your pages don’t outstay their welcome, at a length appropriate to what they’re trying to say.

- avoiding spelling mistakes.

- Avoiding grammatical howlers, whilst not being overly arcane or pedantic.

Having got the basics right you can proceed to optimising the site regarding search keywords. ‘Keyword’ in this context can mean more than one word.

A good start with keywords to think how your users might think. Ask yourself what keywords they might use when searching for your site as a whole or some content it relates to. Users are becoming more specific in the way search these days, so simply thinking of punchy one-word keywords will not necessarily boost your site effectively. Also, the competition for rankings based on single keyword searches is massive and potentially overwhelming. If you run a computer support company, for instance, you would struggle to see much benefit from simply optimising your site for the word “computer”. It is far preferable to feature ‘intelligent’ keywords which more specifically align with your content.

The next step is to place keywords appropriately. First, ensure that you all your page titles contain one or more of your keywords. Then make sure that the page titles match phrases in the page description, and body content areas of your pages.

A further measure is to ensure that you provide internal links from page to page, and that these links also contain priority keywords. Image alt-tags, where appropriate can also be good places for your keywords.

The next step is to register your site with all the major search engines, and provide them with your site map. The site map ensures that no content is inadvertently missed, and facilitates the indexing process. The onus is on you to keep the site map up to date.

If you are extremely very tied up with the administrative aspects of setting up your site, or simply too busy running your business, you could benefit considerably from leaving these crucial steps to a company offering professional SEO services, such as the kind we provide here at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk. It’s our job to give tailored support with the kind of SEO services that are just right for your site. The kind of Search engine optimisation services we provide could give your site just the lift it needs.

Although the algorithms used by many search engines take into account a variety of elements there are certain factors that will gain more attention than others. One such factor that gains a huge amount of focus from SEO professionals and webmasters alike is keyword density. This is the amount of times a phrase or word is used on a webpage and it can be argued that this attention is unwarranted.

Why Do People Worry About Keyword Density?

There are two possible reasons for the focus on keyword density. The first is that it is one of the easier search engine optimisation concepts to understand and this makes it easy to implement. The second is that historically, when Google was much less advanced than today, it was a key factor in search engine rankings.

Is Keyword Density Still Relevant?

As with most ranking factors that have in the past been very important but have been found to be relatively easy to ‘optimise’, keyword density has lost its value. There was a time when people would cram web pages with high ranking keywords and put ads everywhere to maximise revenues. This was then coined as ‘keyword stuffing’ and is now renowned as spam practice. To rank pages more accurately Google sought better ways of identifying the weight of these keywords without encouraging behaviour of this sort. In response Google developed a complex algorithm that evaluates a page looking at synonyms and other relevant phrases which is known as latent semantic indexing. If you look at a document which includes the words ’Bing’, ‘Microsoft’, ‘Excel’ and ‘Outlook’ for example latent semantic indexing would identify that the document was about Microsoft. It wouldn’t need the word Microsoft to be stuffed into the text for you to know that. This case highlights just how important related words can be. If ‘windows’ were to appear in the same document as ‘glazing’ then it could give the piece a completely different meaning.

Language and Its Nuances

It can be very hard to determine the relationship between words when looking at content through the eyes of a computer. As children we evolve to understand how the intricacies of language affect meaning and we have a complex understanding of grammar albeit an unconscious one. Most people will understand that a word cannot be used in certain ways but will be unable to articulate how exactly they know that.

How Will This Affect Web Content?

This actually makes your life easier when writing content. There was a time when you had to write content to appeal to two audiences. You had to write appealing content for readers whilst also tailoring the content to make it easy for search engines to rank you. Thanks to latent semantic indexing as long as you stick to the topic Google is capable of defining the meaning of your content and ranking it. However don’t forget how search engines operate and use this knowledge to keep you on the straight and narrow.

At SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we are an SEO service company and can help you achieve the desired results with your SEO.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been practiced, to varying degrees of complexity since the mid-1990s. It started modestly with optimising site titles for the directory based search engine Yahoo, developing in to the sophisticated range of SEO services on offer today.

However, as the SEO industry has become both more competitive, it has developed something of a “dark side”. This takes the form of promotional practices which give sites an unfair advantage, whilst also cluttering the web with copious amounts of “junk” content. Such practices are known as “black hat SEO”.

Here is some information on certain “black hat” SEO practices, to help you steer clear of them should they ever be proposed to you.

The first dubious technique is artificially to create hundreds, possibly thousands of web pages, even whole websites, which link to the site being marketed. The purpose is to increase the page rank of that site by boosting the number of back links it receives. The more cunning practitioners of this “web page spamming” can create such bogus content using scripts, so no human intervention or effort is required. If you visit any popular blogging portal you will inevitably come across some examples of these bogus pages. They will contain plugs for one or more sites, but lack any holistic meaning. However, the major search engines have now got wind of this scam, and have subtle methods for unearthing it. The sites being promoted in this way then get penalised, sometimes heavily, in the search engine rankings – the exact opposite effect to the one intended.

Another black hat technique, now outdated, but worth being aware of is “cloaking”. This is the use of white text on a white background to pack a site with promotional content. Users can’t see the words but search engine crawlers can still pick them up. The site retains a veneer of legitimacy but is busy plugging itself in the background.

Some black hat practitioners don’t bother to conceal their marketing keywords. Instead they use a method called “keyword stuffing”, whereby the keyword tag on a web page is blitzed with ostensibly essential keywords. Keywords may also clog other parts of the page, such as the body content, ultimately detracting from its meaning, and overwhelming the user. These days, this practice is also likely to send the promoted site plummeting in the rankings. Search engine tools are increasingly attuned to such overkill tactics.

Finally, steer well clear of “doorway pages”. These are pages stacked with search engine fodder, but not meaningful to users. Such pages, when accessed, immediately redirect to a more meaningful page so users never really catch site of them. However, despite this search engines will still pick them up eventually and the site will then be penalised.

Such underhand bogus pages are not recommended, and undermine such professional search engine optimisation services as those we offer here at searchengineoptimsation.com. We practice scrupulous and content-rich search engine marketing services, and steer well clear of black hat practices.

There is no magic bullet that will whisk your site to the top of the world’s major search engines. This is as true for global corporations as it is for a small hobbyist site about growing azaleas. The global corporations can afford to advertise, using large budgets to invest in AdWords to boost their sites in the sponsored sections of results pages. However, it remains the case that there is no single straightforward technique to achieve high rankings in the core, non-sponsored areas.

Rather, the key to effective search engine optimisation is to find the best combination of practices and techniques which collectively enhance the search engine rankings of your site.

Such a combination of practices is not always easy to determine and you might benefit from the guidance of professional SEO services, such as the kind we offer at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk.

Here however are some pointers to set you on the right path.

First and foremost, the time-honoured cliché “content is king” remains as true as ever, especially where SEO is concerned. Nothing beats an interesting, lively, frequently updated website for attracting returning visitors, generating links, and gaining healthy search engine rankings. This is especially the case if your site strikes a chord with a contemporary theme, interest or “craze”. Therefore, before trying any more advanced strategies start with simply optimising your own website.

Ensure the site is written in grammatically correct, clear, unfussy, yet informal prose. Sentences should be short but sweet, and pages should never be too long, unless you are presenting academic material. Page titles should match their content precisely, and keywords should be given judicious exposure, but without bogging down the reader down in stuff and nonsense. If you are selling merchandise, make your e-commerce process crystal-clear, easy to use, and faithful to what’s currently in stock. Offer users help (online and by phone if possible), and respond speedily to queries. These should be routine practices in launching and maintaining a website, and they still provide the best foundation for any search engine optimisation strategy.

On-site optimisation should be complemented by off-site strategies, which can also play their part.

One helpful off-site strategy is to create a blog, which keeps users up to speed on the subject-matter of your site, as well has increasing the number of links to it. Also, take time to comment on other user’s blogs, adding links that way too. Manually creating back links can be time-consuming, but worth the investment.

Also take time to be a player on the big social networking sites. Having a presence on one of the key social sites such as Facebook, can help generate interest in, and draw custom to, your main site.

Finally, consider search engine keyword advertising. Here in particular you could really benefit from a company offering professional SEO services. Putting together the “right” kind of promotional campaign, using keyword investment, is quite a complex and time-consuming business; especially if you want the campaign to generate the maximum return on your investment.

Of all the ways in which SEO can be improved, creating a newsletter is one of the most exciting. Not convinced? Think about the opportunities for improving your rank on results pages while promoting your business, getting creative and even re-inventing some of your marketing strategies at the same time!

A newsletter has to be one of the most effective free SEO tools at your disposal, and all good search engine optimisation services will tell you that to have the best chance of getting an edge on your competitors, you need to take advantage of every opportunity you can. Professional SEO services can provide search engine marketing services to help you to get the most out of newsletters, blogs, links and other great SEO tools. Whether you’ve already employed one or not, you’ll probably want to take our advice and produce a newsletter. It’s such a good SEO tool that we’re guessing you’ll want to start straight away. Follow our five great tips to create a newsletter that’s great for optimisation.

1. Target your audience carefully. Think about who you want to appeal to and find the best way to reach them. For most services and products, there’s a pre-existing online community of bloggers, commentators and eager customers. Newsletters offer an excellent means of connecting with this community for your benefit. Spend some time planning who you want to receive your newsletter. Choose your target audience carefully, by deciding who’s most likely to be interested, and to visit or even link to your site.

2. Use keywords effectively. Keywords are what will bring highly desired attention from search engines to your site. In the same way as you’d optimise your pages for SEO using keywords, a newsletter needs to feature them well. Do a search of newsletter that are already in the public domain to see how other publishers have used keywords to attract attention to their material, and adapt your own methods accordingly. Get advice on technical issues from search engine marketing services to be sure you’re making the most of the potential to benefit.

3. Make it appealing. One of the most exciting aspects of producing a newsletter is the opportunity to create something that is useful, but also dynamic and attractive. Use the opportunity a newsletter gives you to promote your business in a sophisticated way. Design the newsletter with your product and image in mind. It could be that you want to maintain a particular theme or style. Equally you might want to use the opportunity to bring about some changes. You should consider every aspect of your newsletter carefully. It’s promotion, information and advertising in one.

4. Make it professional. Use the opportunity a newsletter provides to market your website in the most professional way you can. This means not getting carried away with gimmicks that might bring a high volume of traffic to your site but which might not result in an overall improvement to your business returns. If you’re thinking about featuring some exciting new products or offers, be sure that they’re backed up on your site. A newsletter should not in any way look like a spamming method. Newsletters are distinct from spam in that they are carefully targeted, informative and above all relevant. Bear in mind that if search engines perceive your newsletter as an empty tactic for bringing irrelevant users to your site, there could be penalties, and that a badly conceived newsletter could prove counter-productive.

5. Try to attract visitors who are likely to become customers, and from an SEO perspective, think about good link building strategies. Encourage links back to your site by creating a newsletter that will engage with your industry in a useful way. If you are marketing books, for example, think about ways in which your newsletter might encourage inbound links from libraries and other services that appear to be authoritative in the eyes of search engines. Remember that links from high quality sites are invaluable for good SEO.

In conclusion, design a newsletter that balances good SEO with good overall marketing strategies. Remember that effective marketing is always effective optimisation, since a reputation can only be improved with good content and relevant links. Have fun with your newsletter but keep it professional. Don’t lose sight of your set goals. Encourage people to subscribe so that the newsletter continues to work for you. Think of it as a useful vehicle for new improvements across the board.