SEO Search Term Suggestion Tool
By Jon | July 18, 2008
It has been a long time but finally Google have released their search term suggestion tool and it’s fantastic. Finally we can actually see what people are typing into Google. Google have had this tool for a long time but it didn’t contain actual figures in the past. Obviously this is supposed to be used for Adwords but it is very useful for natural SEO.
It allows you to view different sets of data from the ‘Choose columns to be displayed’ drop down box which is very useful. This tools i by far the best that I have used and I love Google’s added touch that allows you to enter your URL to see possible phrases that your website is optimised for / or can be optimised for.
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Topics: Key phrase analysis, Web Marketing | 1 Comment »
Google Local Business Listings
By Jon | July 4, 2008
Get your company listed in Google Locally - Google local business listings
There is now a very easy way to get your company listed locally in Google.
For a while now Google has had Business listings. You may have seen these when you search for something locally.
If you haven’t here is what it looks like:
How did I get JDS Website Design above the natural number 1 listing in Google?
The first step is to setup a Google Account at https://www.google.com/accounts/Login
Once you have set this up go to http://www.google.com/local/add/
Simply follow the instructions and enter as much information as you can.
Once you have registered your business there are a few ways to help your listing:
Make sure that your company address and phone number are on your homepage and inner pages.
Add your website to local directories and other local websites, making sure that your address and phone number are added as well.
Ask some of your customers, clients and associates to write you a review on Google.
Note: This is for local listings only and geographical location is a key factor.
Due to geographical location being a key factor there are companies out there buying PO Box addresses in city centres solely for this. There are a lot of PO Box addresses that are close to the centre of cities. I’m not saying this is right and I’m not saying it’s wrong I’m just letting you know that it’s happening.
I have not bought a PO Box address.
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Topics: Off-Site Optimisation | No Comments »
Onsite Optimisation - Offsite Optimisation
By Jon | July 2, 2008
In a recent post I talked about keyphrase analysis; you must have been thinking ‘What do I do with these keyphrases?’. Here is where you find out.
There are endless ways that you can use these phrases, mainly through search engines.
In future posts I will cover the majority of web marketing strategies. In this post I will cover the basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
SEO can be split into 2 main categories: Onsite Optimisation and Offsite Optimisation.
Onsite Optimisation is letting search engines know what your website/company is about. Obviously this is where you use your keyphrase analysis so can include phrases that people are searching for when they look for your products or services.
Offsite Optimisation is external link building. You don’t have to search for links yourself as your website will build links naturally but if you do you will see quicker and better results. I like to think of Offsite Optimisation as a method of voting. People vote for your website using the text that they deem fit (this is explained under Offsite Optimisation) .
How do Search Engines Work?
You can spend so much time reading about how search engines work and end up knowing useless information about how Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked in a garage and PageRank is actually named after Larry but what you really want to know is how can you use search engines to your advantage? Forget about algorithms, spiders, PageRanks etc… Just think about it logically. Google and other search engines are just looking for an efficient way of allowing people to search for information on websites and get the most relevant results for what they type in. So if your website has the phrase they type in all of the correct places in your code and you have links into your website from external websites using these phrases then you are basically optimised.
Onsite Optimisation
So where do you put the keyphrases to let search engines know that they are important to your website? You need to strategically place the phrases in the correct places but at the same time don’t go overboard. I recommend that you place the keyphrases in the following places:
Title Tag: This is a key factor in Onsite Optimisation. I recommend that you do not exceed 80 characters for this. Have your main phrase at the start of the title tag. Use your homepage for overall phrases for your website. For example if you are sell used books don’t use specific book titles for the homepage use a more general phrase such as ‘Used Book Shop’ or ‘Used Books’. So your title tag could then be : <title>Used Book Shop | Used Books - Seymour Books UK</title>. Use a good relevant title tag because although this is in the code it is displayed at the top of the browser and will be the link that people see in the search engines.
Meta Description: This will be displayed in the search engine listings below the title tag link. Keep this to less than but close to 25 words, try to have the main phrase in this text two or even three times. However I recommend that you do not repeat any one word more than three times.
Example:
See more books at Seymour’s used book shop. A wide range of used books including
comics, thrillers and classics . Seymour’s used book shop Est 1980.
Meta Keywords: Although keywords used to be valuable but are quite useless now I recommend that you follow the rules and keep these in your website. Include the phrases that are in your title, description and on page text. Again I recommend that you do not exceed 3 repetitions of any one word.
Example:
used book shop, used books, seymour books, used books, uk
On Page Text
The on page includes 4 main parts:
Headings: Headings are similar to those in word documents. Heading 1 is simply <H1></H1>, heading 2 is <H2></H2> etc… I recommend having one H1 that includes the keyphrases. You can have as many of the other headings as you like and if you can include the keyphrases in these heading then this is great.
ALT Text: This is text to let people and search engines know what an image is about. It is the text that you see if you hover over an image. If possible include the keyphrase in 2 Alt texts.
Inner Page Links: These links are links to other pages on your website. Try to include 2 links with the keyphrases.
Body Text: Search engines only view text so this is what we give them. I recommend a minimum of 300 words of text. In 300 words of text I would have the keyphrases mentioned approx 4 times, not including the H1 tag. If you can make the keyphrases bold and large or either then this helps.
These are the main changes to make to the homepage to include the keyphrases on your optimised page.
Link Building
There are two types of link building Internal Link Building and External Link Building. I will explain external link building below for Offsite Optimisation but internal link building is simply using the keyphrases on other pages on your website to link to the optimised page.
For example my homepage is optimised for Search Engine Optimization Services so for these links I have used the text Search Endine Optimization Services to link to my homepage.
Remember: This is only the basics and there are many other Onsite Optimisation key factors that will be discussed in further posts to improve on this.
Offsite Optimisation
This is basically external link building. When link building you are looking for websites to link to you. The more relevant and stronger the website is the better. You obviously know if a website is similar to yours or relevant.
There are two main factors to take into account when getting an external link. The first is the strength of the page that is linking to you. Google have made this easy for us, simply check the PageRank of the page (the Google toolbar has this feature) . The other is how many links are on the page that is going to link to you. The fewer the better.
When you get these links use the same rule as when linking internally. Use one of your keyphrases as the link text (link text is also called ‘title’ and ‘anchor text’)
Where do I get links from?
There are 3 main categories of links that you should use.
Directories
There are a wide range of free directories on the web. From the amazing DMOZ.org (this is the one that Google uses for it’s directory) to many more business specific directories. Simply add your website to these directories in the usual way by finding the relevant category for your business then clicking ‘Add your website’, ’submit URL’ or something similar.
Forums, Blogs, Article
Get out there, chat to people in forums and blogs and help people that need information or need to find your service or products. Many forums and blogs will allow you to add links to website while you chat so add your website using the keyphrases as link text where possible.
There are also a lot of places such as the legendary Gumtree where you can write articles to promote your business or just let people know your thoughts.
Suppliers, Clients and Customers
They all have websites, simply email them and ask them to link to you. A lot of the time you will have to link back (reciprocal linking). This is not as good as just an incoming link but it’s good.
Back To Thinking Logically
Think about it. By putting the keyphrases in the correct places on your website you are stating to search engines ‘This is what this company does’. Then when someone links to your website they are saying ‘Hey search engines, he’s not lying. This is what he does!’
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Topics: Off-Site Optimisation, On-site Optimisation, Web Marketing | No Comments »
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