Everyone needs SEO
In a world where we are bombarded with more and more choice, how do you get your message heard above the din of clamoring advertising on the television with annoying theme tunes like, “we buy any car” or who can forget “its’ fun to shop at confused.com”. Well the simple answer is online marketing. From a business point of view Search Engine Optimisation or SEO has to be the answer.
SEO is one route to market that has no boarders or class distinctions, it offers a democratic approach to any size business weather you’ve a small start-up or a multimillion pound corporate giant. The only pre-requisite is good quality compliant practices from your marketing agency. So as a business what should you be looking for when trying to find an agency to work on your behalf?
Quality Agencies
It can be a mine field out there when picking an agency so what are the elements that indicate a Quality agency that offers the best chance of success for your business? The first place to start is in the Google listings themselves, if an agency is worth their salt in the SEO marketing sphere they should rank highly in the natural listings of Google specifically. Being No.1 in Bing or Yahoo has very little real Kudos, as whilst this is impressive to a new comer; in reality this is quite an easy win compared to Google.co.uk. Currently Google accounts for around 86% of all searches on the internet in the United Kingdom and therefore represents the best chance of success from any single search engine.
So what are the key indicators to look for when choosing an agency to trust your business to? Once you have established a short list of agencies highly ranking in Google’s natural listings, it is worth spending some time reviewing their web offerings. Look for good clear language (beware of agencies that use highly technical language to baffle you with) and website that have clear service offerings. If these elements start to make sense to you then review their client list (Testimonials & Case studies). See what they actually do for these clients and measure the success they bring them. Remember anybody can add a logo to their website just because they printed a batch of business cards for the prestigious client.
Agency Short List
Once you’ve establish two or three agencies you like the look of, give them a call and ask some practical questions to test their level of expertise. You can use a number of online forums to establish the top line questions you wish to ask, as new comers to Internet marketing don’t be surprised at the apparent costs of this service. Remember the professionals working on your campaign come from a development background and are highly qualified individuals who have an immense knowledge of Google’s algorithm and how it performs.
Not many people actually like the new feature known as Facebook timeline. A lot of users see this as a step back in social media and Facebook as a whole. If anything it shows off a profiles past which, 9 times out of ten people don’t like.
Because so many users have taken a disliking to it, this has created a lot of scam apps and so on. It’s also given me a great linkbait title. We can take from this and pretty much every change in social media history that whenever there is a change, there are users who are dissatisfied and marketers/scammers will take this opportunity and use it for their own benefit.
Who is to blame?
It’s easy to point the finger, but when you actually think about it, who can really be blamed? Let’s take Facebook and their Timeline as an example. Facebook are doing their best to stay ahead of the social networking game, which is basically Twitter and Google +. They are trying to show their users that they have a tonne of features and can be perceived as the best network around.
Scammers are using an opportunity. If anything they are being very clever about their actions. Ok, they are exploiting people’s dissatisfaction, but they are using an opportunity created by Facebook. Agreed that this is unethical and can piss a lot of people off, but ask yourself this, would you do it if you had thought of it first?
Conclusion
There have always been these sorts of scams on social networks, but also with PPC and SEO campaigns. There is nothing new here. What is new is the features that are being exploited. We as users need to accept that social networks are going to keep changing, that is simply a part of life and we must learn to change with it or fall behind.
Press releases are often considered the secret weapon of SEO companies. While there are many things businesses can do to raise the profile of their website (marketers can, for example, set up a regularly-updated blog to encourage interest in the site and add a unique sense of interactivity to the platform), press releases remain a sure-fire way of increasing the exposure of your firm and cementing its reputation within your business sector.
However, it’s important that marketing directors assess the impact and implications of purchasing the service and pick a package that suits their exact requirements. Many companies may choose to write these articles themselves, but here at SEO Positive we believe that employing professional writers to create your releases remains the most economical way to utilise this advertising approach, as you may find that your own marketing team may struggle to find the time and resources to distribute press releases regularly. Producing press releases for the online arena is different to writing for traditional outlets such as newspapers and magazines, after all.
Below we’ve listed the pros and cons associated with press release writing and distribution. These points will help you decide whether this service will suit the vision (and budget!) of your business.
Pros:
- Writing and distributing press releases boosts link juice and is notoriously good for SEO because many PR sites are authoritative and have a high PageRank. Remember that making use of anchor text links in the articles is especially beneficial for your campaign.
- Press articles can be distributed at the click of a button to relevant industry sectors, encouraging quality traffic to your website. Although many consider the typical press release format to be a more traditional form of marketing, this template remains an age-old favourite with the media, which means that editors are more likely to take a look at what you have to offer as all the information they need is easily identifiable and in one place.
- If written well, press releases can help with the corporate branding of your company. These kinds of articles add credibility to your firm and signal to your competitors that you’re a force to be reckoned with in your industry.
- These kinds of articles can support your online reputation management strategy, too. Well-distributed press releases will often appear high in the search engine results, pushing down unflattering entries and making your company appear in complete control of its image.
Cons:
- Competition for distribution is high and there is no guarantee that your article will be successful.
- Finding newsworthy topics can be difficult. Standard, run-of-the-mill press releases are unlikely to be picked up by online editors and journalists. However, if companies choose to partner with professional press release writers, they are able to leave this side of the process to creative individuals who will be able to provide a fresh take on the news story.
- Press releases will only remain in prominent positions on associated PR sites for a short amount of time. This means that if the approach is going to remain worthwhile for your business, you need to be writing regularly.
Put simply, writing and publishing press releases will dramatically improve the image and standing of your company on the web, but you will need to review whether press releases are as valuable as other marketing channels. Investing in an on-going service can be daunting for small to medium sized firms who are used to running similar projects in-house but with the knowledge and support of the right provider, you can save your team time and money by choosing to outsource the work to the professionals.
Our expert copywriting team at SEO Positive are able to tailor their press release packages to your needs, so we recommend you get in touch today to learn a little more about what we can do for you.
For bloggers using social media networks know as Google Plus, there is a way, it has been available for a few months, to claim an article as your own. Having authorship of an article has a few benefits.
What’s The Point?
The first and most obvious when seen is that your Google+ photo appears in search results. This is more of a vanity feature but it is a cool one and makes blogging a real form of writing. Very similar to a hard copy book In the way that the author is given a lot of credit for it.
Another benefit is that it makes all content written by an author easier to find, when you find the author icon on a search result then there will be a link for more by that author. So this makes finding content by a specific blogger easier than ever.
One of the biggest points is that it puts your name on your own articles, which means that the problem of having articles stolen is finally combatted. This problem will no doubt continue, but if someone is stealing an article, it is easy to prove who the content really belongs to, which will make it embarrassing to be proved wrong and that you are stealing articles.
How To Do It
Matt Cutts has made a few videos explaining how to add authorship to content and this can be found easily on Youtube. The simpler way is to add HTML code. I will show an example, for your reference “URL” would be the URL of your Google Plus profile. <a href=”URL”?rel=author> +You</a>. The text within the link can say whatever you want but its best to say +”your name” but it really isn’t essential.
According to the instructional videos, the next step is to share the article on your Google + profile, this seems simple enough and if you are an active Google + user you are most likely already doing this.
Conclusion
The benefits of having authorship are definitely worth the effort of inserting a small chunk of HTML code, and if you’re a heavy Google + user then the only thing you will have to do differently is add the HTML code which can be copied and pasted.
Written by + Lewis Austin
Reputation can be a very important factor for a lot of businesses and maybe even people. When running an SEO campaign, reputation management goes hand in hand to make sure that your company does not get any bad publicity.
One great way of doing this is by having an active Google Plus account. When your account is indexed, this can take a few days or even weeks. Once it is finally crawled then your profile or page will rank high for the title or name it has been given. If you use your company name, then this will help it to appear in the results for your company name.
Another benefit of using Google Plus is that all posts you make that are public, also get crawled by G. so that means that providing they contain enough information about your business, your posts will also appear in the listings for your company name.
If you are already running a reputation management campaign, then your Google + profile will take longer to rank, especially if you are having press releases written and so on. The one thing you could do is send links towards your + page/profile. This can be done in loads of ways, the best would be an anchor link with your company name as the text, although you can use widgets and buttons.
If you are not running a reputation management campaign then you can use the techniques above however it is not necessary, this is because the profile will have less competition so will show higher. Link building to this profile will secure its position and if you would like your page to have a solid rank then this is recommended.
Conclusion
Google Plus is a great tool to use when it comes to reputation management as it naturally ranks higher and gives you full control of what is displayed about your company to the public. This can help increase sales and your general reputation.
Recently, many SEO ’s and tech heads noticed that Google’s campaign for Chrome, which was how the browser could help your business. Was somewhat spammy and didn’t mention how it could help businesses. Every article had the Chrome video at the bottom and this was seen by the viewers as a paid link attempt.
Google finally penalised the Chrome page, if you search the word browser, Chrome no longer appears on page 1 and is now position 61. Google has said that they will penalise this page by reducing its PageRank which will reduce its ability to rank for terms such as browser. G also added that this punishment will last for at least 60 days.
Comparing The Damage
If a webmaster was to do something like this on their own site. There is no doubt that the website would be taken off of Google’s listings. Whereas the chrome page is still in the listings, well the sub-listings for the Chrome support page when the term “Chrome” or “Google Chrome” is searched for.
Looking At Both Sides
Many webmasters would not hesitate to complain about the “unfairness” of this occurrence. Google basically paid for links and slightly lowered their PR, like I said before, if anyone but Google were to do that, then their site would be removed. It can be argued that if Google is really aiming for fairness with their search engine, then they would have been treated like everyone else.
Looking at it from Google’s point of view and also the users of Google (who are the most important), if Google did completely remove the Google Chrome page, then this would have a negative search experience for the user. Which could end up diminishing the amount of searches Google receives and for us SEO’s that is bad news.
I’d also like to mention that it is Google’s search engine. This is an obvious statement, yes, but all complaints are based on how unfair the situation has been treated. Google could have simply shrugged off any complaints and done nothing to “resolve” the matter. At least some action has been taken.
Conclusion
Of course Google are going to drop the charges as soon as the 60th day comes along, but why wouldn’t they? Many people in their position would completely ignore the complaints made and carry on as normal. If anything it is surprising that Google has taken this action because that now leaves Mozilla Firefox in the top spot for the term browser, so we could potentially see a rise in users for Firefox and possibly a decrease for Chrome. We will have to wait and see what is to come in the 60 days to come.
Hoping that you have all had a great time over the holiday season and wishing you all the best in this New Year. Many things are happening this year such as the 2012 Olympics which are coming to London this year, not to mention Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee this February.
For SEO companies and enthusiasts, we could be looking at a huge or minor change in the industry this year. There where algorithm changes last year with the integration of the social network Google Plus. So what has Google got in store for us this year? Without a doubt there will be more changes to the algorithm but maybe a few more features will be released and majorly impact search as we know it.
Another possibility is that Google Plus becomes a hugely dominant social network and leaves Facebook in the dust, which will give Google the full Monopoly board so to speak. All of this is yet to come in 2012 and there will be things that no one could have predicted as with every year.
Predictions based on last year can be made by anyone and really they are simply preparations in case something like an algorithm change happens which will cause a few sites to drop dramatically in the SERP’s. All there is to do is to wait and see until Google or any other SEO, Social Media, PPC or even Web Design related news is released.
Checking your SERP’s can be a time consuming task, whether on a mobile phone or a desktop computer, 9 times out of 10, SEO ‘s are searching their keywords into Google and CTRL F for their website until they find it. Well there a small solution called Serps.
To download this free SEO app, just search SERP into the app store and it is the application with the purple line graph. It only takes a few seconds to download and install, depending on your web connection. When you first access the app, you will be taken to a domains section. This is where you add your domain(s) that you wish to check the rankings for. Make certain that you enter the full domain and spell it correctly as this will affect the results given.
The next step is to add the keywords for your domains, you can have as many keywords as you want. The only problem with this (similar to many SERP checkers, is that a few mistakes are made, thus the results will not be accurate. From further investigation I have found that when searching for a result on Google (computer search) map results and so on will appear, this shows up as maps.google.co.uk. On top of that, there are a few occasions where domains will be repeated. This obviously affects the results, however the duplicates are shown next to each other and all that is required is to make a note of how many repeats there are and then take the off of the position which the app shows you.
Because of the mistakes that are present in this app, some may feel it is worthless and takes just as much time as counting your positions from Google’s results. This may be true on a desktop however the positions displayed on a mobile device are different to what a desktop computer would be. That being said, it is more accurate to find any repetitions instead of counting results that would be different on a computer.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, a reliable SERP checker has not been found yet. Although a close second is available on a mobile device, saying that, it is the users choice whether they use this app is it can provide uncertain results. It is a good alternative to checking SERP’s on a smart phone.
Many users may have realised YouTube’s new layout that is a little odd when compared to the previous. There were no problems with YouTube previous to the update. However YouTube now looks to put a huge focus on channels and also the social media side of videos.
One of the first things you may notice on YouTube’s new web design is the dark bar on the left hand side. Upon looking at this section, you can see that Google Plus and Facebook are pushed upon the user, but there is also the option to add other accounts such as Twitter and MySpace. When social media accounts are added, you can click on the social media icon and you will then be shown all videos on YouTube which have been shared by your peers and so on.
Secondly, there are categories in the bar such as: popular, trending and music. No doubt that YouTube takes location into consideration; however this is quite a good feature as YouTubers can find videos that are growing in popularity with ease.
Finally, there is a suggestions box, potentially stolen from Twitter? Although it is a good feature that is emphasised in the new design. I believe there was a suggestions section in the previous layout but in comparison this is now stressed to the user quite heavily.
From what I can gather, the new layout is a way for YouTube to push channels and for those on YouTube to actually subscribe to people instead of checking back every now and then. On top of that, I think this is also a way to push Google Plus. YouTube is owned by Google and there is no question that it is being used to help get some publicity for Google +. It has taken Google a while to advertise their social network on this scale because their biggest effort in the past was to add a huge arrow pointing from their home page to the link that sends a user to Google Plus.
There are now also promoted videos, this is nothing new, but what is new is that promoted videos are moving to Google Adwords, this may bring a new market into the industry of SEO and PPC because they would be managed very similarly to a text ad for Google.
Conclusion
Google have used YouTube well to promote their network subtly, however overall it does look more complicated than the previous version but YouTubers will just have to get used to it as there are no other services which are quite as good.
On a fine and bright morning, you take your seat with a cup of coffee and start doing the usual stuff in Google analytics. It is a perfect setting for a great day but lol! Something is wrong in Analytics. It just cannot happen. How could the number of visitor plummet to an all time low? And the mad rush begins. Most of us, especially who have to deal with visitors trending, conversion optimization, PPC and other stuffs are well aware of the fact that this is not anything unusual as long as you are completely dependent on a single entity – Google. A slight change in algo or a minor tweaks in its existing pattern and you lose everything you have built up so dearly for long. A single wrong move in your online marketing can devastate all your good efforts. So, if you are tired of playing the patience game with Google or looking for an alternative way of generating some leads, here we are going to list some ideas that can be catapulted into success depending on how well you are using them.
Less is More: After the panda update, we have realized the hard way of course that quality and quantity cannot go hand in hand. I personally feel that we need to upload only those articles that have spark on them and that can trigger fierce debate. So, that means, you need to publish those articles that really adds value to users experience. Now, these kinds of articles take time to write. So, take your time and publish 1 article in a week rather than go on heaping up garbage on garbage. Great article will lead to great brand presence and this has got nothing to do with Google. You will have a steady flow direct traffic no matter what Google introduces.
Tweet To Blow Away: Twitter is a great marketing tool but still majority of marketers are clueless about how to use it to their advantage. You do not need to tweet insistently or 24X7. This has got nothing to marketing. You need to make people retweet your coverage without doing anything sneaky and this is bottom line with twitter marketing. It is a vicious circle of promotion and all you need to do is to make it roll. Just a push and there it goes. It will keep driving visitors to your website who are really interested about your product or service.
Connect via Facebook: Facebook is one such source that could help you keep alive your website even if it got thrashing from Google panda. To draw a good amount of traffic, you need to create a buzz in facebook and this can be done by adding some controversial elements in your posts and then posting that thing in the facebook wall. As the debate rages on, more and more facebook users will be engaged in the discussion and the number of visitors from facebook will surge. However, to make it work on regular basis, you need to do a real brain storming session before we publish something.
Do More than What is Necessary: Just blatant promoting for driving traffic to a website may not work all the time. So, why not reverse the trend. Rather than slapping a facebook fanpage box in the website, we can work hard to make social presence of the website as an inseparable part of the living presence of the website. Website should be transformed into a social content delivery mechanic that contributes to the growth the website as a whole.
Tie up: You can either save your skins by signing business partnership with some websites that are similar to your niche, forgetting the old animosity. But this pact has its own share of advantages and shortcomings. On the positive note, it can help you get some supports for the rainy days but on the slip side, your brand image may come under fire. Another alternative way is getting your articles published in other sites. Now, this is a win-win situation for both the parties. The hosting site is getting a really well written article whereas you will get some visitors thanks to the presence of a link at the end of the article.
Do Not Miss Out On Opportunity: You need to monitor every single metrics and changes of your website analytics daily. Out of these complex analytics, you should try to find out the perfect scope for new opportunity that may come along the way. A small opportunity can be snowballed into a massive opportunity that may drive a considerable amount of traffic to your website.
Author Bio
Michael Evans is a writer who enjoys writing in the tech niche and he also promotes Flash templates with the integrated Flash CMS.
