SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

Search engine optimisation is an art or a science, depending on who you ask. It is certainly a game in which the rules are constantly changing. Choosing an SEO company would be easy if they were all the same, but just as every company and every website is different, so are the services offered by SEO consultants, and you need to be sure that you choose the right one to suit your own individual needs if you want to get the most out of optimising your site.

The principle of SEO is that you improve your site in terms of giving the search engines reasons to rank you highly on their results pages. While this doesn’t change, the methods that you can employ are many and varied and some SEO consultants will surely give advice that isn’t suitable for you.

If you have a site that you’re already happy with from every angle except search optimisation, it could be that the changes you’d make to suit the requirements of one team of experts would compromise your site beyond what you’re satisfied with. A worst-case scenario would be if you chose to employ SEO consultants who compromised your company’s image and integrity. Make no mistake, there are still those who subscribe to outdated ideas that a site can rank highly through tricking users into visiting it. While you’re probably familiar with the most common spamming methods, as a publisher you might be naive to other so called ‘black hat’ methods such as cloaking, which could get you onto blacklists and removed from results pages entirely.

There are other reasons why choosing the right SEO company is not as easy as it might sound, but we hope we’ve given you reason enough to read on.

Given the importance of ranking highly on results pages, there was certainly a gap in the market for companies professing to give good advice on SEO. As with any other service, it must be presumed that there are charlatans out there. These days you can find a great many companies that offer different SEO strategies and to a varying degree of effectiveness.

We’ve put together some tips that should help you navigate the unpredictable waters of search engine optimisation.

1. Choose an ethical company. Wondering whether you might want to cross over to the dark side? Well, ‘black hat’ methods of SEO have really had their day, take our word for it. There are still those who advocate spamming, hiding text and false links but everyone knows that the big name search engines like Google are wise to these tactics, and ready, willing and able to punish them severely.

2. Select SEO consultants who will provide an ongoing service. If the professional you employ truly understand SEO, they won’t expect to optimise your website and then just leave you to it. Search engine optimisation needs to be maintained, and you’d be much better off keeping the company that advised you first than changing agencies every few months.

3. Make sure they really are experts. It’s all too easy to present a good profile on the Internet. Choose a company that has the credentials to back up its claims. If it claims to have a good internet reputation, expect to see client testimonials. Expect a degree of transparency also. A good SEO agency should be able to give you some idea of the cost before the optimisation begins.

4. If you need an individual approach, make sure they offer one. By its nature, SEO inhibits certain aspects of design. For a site to be indexable by search engines it needs to have a lot of HTML text, for example. If yours is a site that relies on Flash, JavaScript and frames, this is going to be a problem. While some search engine optimization services would tell you that you need to overhaul the entire site, others would suggest compromises. Having text alongside Flash would be a good compromise, for example. If the features that exist on your site are important to you, then be sure at the outset that the company you employ will work around it.

In conclusion, it is best to find like-minded individuals when searching for the right SEO Company. Be wary of con artists or those who advocate tricking users into visiting or linking to your site. Know your requirements before employing a company and learn at least a little about SEO.

China is a big market, and depending on what you provide, it is there for the taking. While it might traditionally be the case that China provides for our consumer wants in the West, trends like that are being reversed as we type. There are many reasons why ranking well on Baidu is a good idea for virtually any site, Think sheer volume of visitors for example.

If you want to get ahead in terms of ranking on China is biggest search engine, our advice on how to do it will be a great start.

In terms of Professional SEO services, there is no doubt you can find some who will assist you in cornering the Chinese market. Here in the West though, you’ll usually find SEO consultants who know more about Google, Yahoo and Bing than they do about Baidu.

Baidu is currently China’s most popular search engine, though it’s by no means the only one. If you want to target a Chinese audience it’s a very good place to start. You’ll have seen Google’s efforts in China well publicised in the news.

Search engines in China are not so fundamentally different from those in the West. They rely on keywords, link building, titles and Meta tags just as Google and Yahoo do. The importance of these factors may differ though, and the results certainly will.

If you’re wondering how to optimise a site for the Chinese search engine Baidu, you’d do well to pay attention to our advice.

Get a Top Level Chinese Domain

These include .cn, .net.cn and .com.cn. Any one of these domain names will stand you in good stead for high ranking. Try to have one that corresponds to your main keyword if possible.

Make Use of a Keyword in the URL

More so than Google, Baidu seems to ascribe importance to the featuring of keywords in a web address.

Have Your Site Hosted in Mainland China

Having a site that’s hosted and registered (icp) domestically will avoid a host of potential problems. If you happen to be hosted by a company that also hosts sites that the Chinese government decides are detrimental then you could end up being banned through guilt by association. Being hosted in China helps avoid being banned in the future.

Have Your Site Translated by Professionals

Just as with pages in the west, grammar and spelling and punctuation count for a great deal. Don’t lose respect through failing to have your content properly translated.

Re-Remember the Importance of Your Meta Tags

In the west, Meta tags have been abused to the point where their relevance is no longer truly significant. In China this is not the case and it’s worth revising your SEO guidelines where Meta tags are concerned.

Remember On-Page SEO

For the Chinese search engine Baidu, internal links are very important for SEO, possibly more important than for our Western search engines like Google.

Maximise Links

If you’re used to thinking that less is more for search engines like Google, think again for the Chinese search engine Baidu. More is definitely more so link as much as possible. Don’t forget your reputation though. While a lot of links will get you results they might reduce user experience for exactly the same reasons Google discourage them.

Submit Your site directly to Baidu

There is an easy way to get to the right page to do it; search on Google for Baidu submit.

In conclusion, many of the same tactics that work for you with Google will serve you well where Baidu are concerned. Pay attention to the differences though, and remember that when in Rome you should do as the Romans do. Get recognition by having a Chinese domain and do not fall victim to being controversial if you can help it.

Remember that Chinese SEO services exist and that man will provide an English language service and provide well for your needs. You might also want to find Chinese link building services, Chinese online reputation management companies and social media optimisation agencies. Where China is concerned, the possibilities are almost endless.

Think of Baidu as your platform to China. There is really no reason not to optimise your site for their results.

You can be sure that your competitors will soon be clamouring for market share where China is concerned, so why not get in at the start and build a reputation before the competition?

While it’s very useful to always talk about ways of getting search engines to notice you, not all attention is positive. There are some ways to get noticed that will definitely harm your chances of getting onto the results pages you so desire to feature on. The SEO news over the last two decades has been full of scandal.

Given the desirability of ranking highly, it’s no wonder there’s been a huge rush to the top from day one. In the clamour to get to the top of results pages things certainly did turn ugly. In the 1990’s spamming affected everyone’s experience of using the Internet negatively. It was obvious that things couldn’t go on the way they were and search engines have been tireless in their attempts to bring about good practise on the Internet. It’s not an entirely unselfish wish on their behalf, of course.

Spamming mars the experience of searching the Internet, and search engines rely on visitors. Providing a good service in terms of showing relevant and useful results amounts to providing customers with a good service. It’s a competitive market, and users not getting the results they want can easily use a different search engine.

So, how have search engines gone about cleaning up the web? They’ve developed sophisticated ways of getting an accurate picture of what’s really on a site, so that they don’t have to rely on information that can easily be manipulated. They’ve also taken it upon themselves to exercise their authority to punish sites that abuse the privileges the Internet offers them. These days, using the most unethical link building strategies or abusing the fact that keywords represent your site can result in exactly what perpetrators fear the most, being relegated to the back of the Internet where they’ll not appear on results pages.

What are some of the unethical, ‘black hat’ practices that search engines take most seriously? We’ve prepared a list of five activities you should definitely avoid if you don’t want to raise their ire.

Cloaking

Cloaking is one of the most serious methods of deceiving the search engines. Any good SEO agency will tell you that it’s to be avoided at all costs. To understand it you need to know something about the specific ways search engines evaluate the content of a site. Search engines send software to explore the Internet and report back on what’s there. In common parlance the software they send are robots, and they crawl the web by travelling via links. While they’re getting to be more sophisticated, robots are still limited in that they don’t interact with pages in the same way as humans do. Robots don’t have eyes like ours.

Robots

They rely on text to understand the nature of a site. It’s relatively easy to include text on pages so that robots read it but humans don’t. It’s as easy as hiding text against a background of the same colour, in fact. By employing this tactic, robots are deceived into thinking a page is something it isn’t. A different set of pages is effectively presented to humans. This is cloaking, and it’s used to appear on results pages that have nothing to do with the actual content of a site. Commonly, a user searching the Internet for something as innocuous as a chocolate cake recipe might be faced with pages marketing prescription drugs or something else they don’t want or need.  It’s unethical practice and cloaking pages is a sure fire way into the search engines’ bad books.

Buying Links

From an SEO perspective search engines like to see a lot of good quality, relevant links. Having a lot of links is no longer enough; they have to be relevant. If a search engine sees that you’ve bought a lot of links that don’t improve your site in any way for real users, you’ll be penalised. Use only ethical link building strategies. Use link building services for results.

Site Maintenance

Avoid pages that keep users waiting. Users have little patience generally, and neither do search engines where these pages are concerned. Good planning can minimise the length of time sites need to be out of action for necessary alterations.

Get advice from knowledgeable SEO consultants if you want to know what other things to avoid. Being looked on unfavourably by the search engines is undesirable to say the least. Avoid getting blacklisted by keeping your nose clean. Avoid the methods we’ve highlighted here!

One of the first things you’re going to think about once your new website is up and running is how to get the links you need to attract the attention of search engines for their results pages.

One of the first things you might ask yourself is whether your website is optimal in every way where SEO is concerned. If the answer is no or not sure, then you might want to bring in a good SEO agency.

Agencies generally provide a wide range of SEO services, but if you’re thinking specifically about links you could always employ a specialist link building company for the best results.

So, having asserted that the best advice is to get the best advice, there are still some things you can do yourself to get the ball rolling in terms of good links to your site. Here’s our list of ten things a new website should do in order to link well for SEO for those who are wondering how.

Have Firm Strategies in Place

Strategies for linking should not be taken lightly. Link building is a vital part of marketing as a whole, just as it’s key to good SEO. The way in which your company encourages links, and which kinds of links it wants to invite ought to be the product of research, meetings and management decisions. It is to be hoped that the importance of relevant links for SEO purposes has featured in every aspect of your decision making.

Pay Attention to Your Competition

Do some research into where good links to your competitor’s sites are coming from. There’s really nothing preventing you from going after the same links, if you think they’re also right for you. When different businesses are competing in the same marketplace, common links are commonplace.

Bought Links and Other Black Hat Methods Don’t Work Long-Term

As a rule, you should beware of any SEO methods that claim to bring instant results. Suddenly featuring a high volume of irrelevant links on your site is one of the ways of attracting negative attention from search engines you’re trying to impress.

Realise the Benefits of Exactly Matching Terms in Links

Links that feature keywords and phrases that exactly match anchor text can be very useful from an SEO point of view. Remember not to overuse keywords as it can be counter productive. Try to achieve a balance.

Examine On-Page SEO in Terms of Linking to a Homepage and a Sitemap

If your site’s been designed with SEO in mind, it will feature a sitemap and a useful homepage. Remember to link effectively back to both of these from every page on the site to get the most out of them in SEO terms.

Start a Social Media Campaign

Social media optimisation, or SMO, is at the vanguard of current theory. The possibilities for good linking via social media sites are phenomenal. You might decide to get advice on this from a specialised social media agency.

Think about Authoritative Links

Some links are better than others, and in search engine terms some are very good for a site, just as others are very bad. Some of the best links come from sites that have obvious authority. This authority can be discerned from the domain name. Educational and government sites are authoritative. There are many others. Seek them out!

Be Generous When It Comes to Linking out

Linking to good sites can be useful for users, for the sites you link to and for your own reputation. Sites you link to might well reciprocate by linking to you in return.

Check the Links You Feature for Validity

Getting links is not the whole story. You need to check regularly that they lead to active pages. So-called broken links are bad for a site in that they simply make it look bad.

Link Effectively to and From Your Blog

An SEO blog tends to be included on a site for the benefit it brings in terms of new content and linking opportunities. If yours is a blog that’s been included for the SEO benefits it brings, then you probably don’t need telling that you need to maintain it and continue to encourage links to it.

There are a lot of ways that you may find online to improve your website and market your business, but they may not work and you can end up spending a lot of time on something that does not work. If you want to do better with the website and find the most customers, you can use SEO to help you. Using SEO is one of the most effective ways that you are going to find the people that you need online and to reach more customers.

When you start using SEO, there are a lot of things that you need to know and you need to take the time to research everything first before you submit your website to the search engines. The reason why it is so important to use SEO correctly is because search engines will not index a website if they are not using SEO correctly and if they are not able to find the information that you have submitted to them. The way that you can change this is by making sure you are using the content that you can to create links online.

Using the content on your website is a valuable way to market and create links. You need to be sure that when you are using content to submit online, that you are first using SEO. If you are not sure what kinds of things you should be checking your content for or how to use the right kind of content, you can find information online. You can also work with SEO specialists to make sure that you are doing what you can to make it work for your business. Most people find that one of the best ways to start out with using SEO is to get a free analysis of the website.

When you get an analysis, you are able to see what areas of the website you should change, what areas you can improve and what kind of content you should keep. The more that you learn about how SEO works and what search engines are looking for when they index a website, the more you are going to be able to make it work for you. You also need to make sure that you are always using the right kind of keywords in the website and that you are using them throughout the content and in the links that you submit online.

Keywords are important to help market your website and to find the best ones takes some work. You can find SEO companies that can help you choose the best keywords to use and be able to see how they are doing online. You also can find the keywords that people are searching for online and see which ones you can use that are related to the content that you have. You may want to use all of the popular keywords, but it is important that you only use the ones that you have throughout your website.

You can also create links that you can post on other websites to get more people to see your website. The more links that you create online, the more people are going to see the website. You can use keywords to attract people to the website and you can use them to promote any of the products that you have. When you need to find help getting started with using keywords and creating links, you can find the SEO companies online that know how to create good links that are going to get more people to your website. You also need to find a way to be able to track the progress of each of the keywords that you are using and to see which ones are performing the best for you. When you find the keywords that are getting a lot of clicks, you can keep using them and find other ways to market your website. The more that you learn about using SEO and choosing the best keywords, the more you are able to start getting people to your website and finding the customers that you need. You can find the tools to use online that can help you to track each of the keywords and see which ones are working and which ones you may want to change. You can find all of the ways that they can help you online.

Making a business work online can take some work but, with the right tools, it can be very easy. Starting out with a new website means that you have the ability to create a great looking website that has good information, great content and you can create effective ways to market the products that you are selling. You can find that using SEO and the right tools can help you reach your goals online for the business and also help you find the people that you need to see your website and see the content and products that you promote and sell online.

Get Your Website Indexed
If you want to start seeing more people on your website, you need to first get indexed with the search engines. This requires you to use SEO and keywords in the content that you have on the website and in the links that you submit. Once your website is indexed, you can then start to see the people that you need to your pages. You can also start doing better in the searches online when you know what keywords to use.

Find the Best Keywords to Use
You need to focus on the keywords that you use because it is one of the best ways that you can use search engine optimisation. When you use keywords in the content and articles that you have on the website and you use those same keywords in the links and ads that you post online, you are able to be seen by more people. The first step is choosing the keywords that are going to help you. You can start by creating a list of keywords that describes the products that you sell and the business that you have. Once you have created this list, you can then go online to see if those keywords are being searched for. You can find online tools to download and see what keywords are being searched for the most, but you also want to make sure that you are only using the keywords that are related to your website.

Build More Business with Links
You can build links to help get more people to see your website and you can use the keywords that you are using in the content to create those links. You can then submit links online to a number of different websites and be able to reach more people. If you are looking for good places to submit your links to, you want to make sure that you find websites that are related to your business and that are going to be able to target the people you are trying to reach.

Join Networks and Other Groups Online
Find groups online that you can join and that can help you also target more people. When you join groups of other professionals, you are able to see who they are marketing to and if it is the same targets that you want to find. You can also find more customers when you belong to groups and are able to find out where they are online to place your links. You want to be creating your links and ads using search engine optimisation and you want to post them on websites where people are going to be interested in what you are selling.

Find the Markets to Reach Online
Before you begin placing ads and links, you need to know who you are marketing to. That can help you find the best places to have your links and to find the most effective ads that are going to appeal to them. It can take some time to find out where the best places to market are going to be for your business but, if you keep using SEO and learn about the different ways that it can help you build a better website, you are able to improve the amount of people that come to your website. Research what people are searching for and find the best ways to use that in the ads that you post online. If you need help with any of the uses of SEO, there are a number of services and companies that are online to help you. You can find the resources that you need to turn your website into a success and reach the goals for  your business online.