SEO - Archive

Why DIY SEO?

I must admit that this may sound odd since I am always preaching about why DIY websites just do not cut it (another post!). But I am a complete believer in DIY search engine optimisation.

SEO is effectively broken down into the following types of task

1. Competitor & keyword research
2. Updating your website (on site SEO)
3. Monitoring

And the process goes on. 

You can spend as much or as little time on SEO as you like.  The more time you spend the better the results and the more skilled you’ll become.  There are some HUGE  benefits for small companies to SEO their own website(s)

1. Budget.  Initially there may be some costs involved, I would definitely recommend a good training course or mentor to ensure that you have a sound foundation of the process.  And you may need to pay a professional to make some changes to your website (that you can then self maintain).
2. Control.  I outsourced SEO to an external company about 4 years ago.  I paid the money and then they wanted FTP access to my site to make changes – I am a bit dubious about this, I didn’t really want people playing around with my website without understanding or reviewing the changes first.  I’d invested a large amount of time on my wording and just couldn’t have a stranger changing it around!
3. Realistic goals.  If you are optimising your own website you will be forced to set realistic goals.  You will soon realise that optimising is not all about getting a top stop on Google – hits mean very little if you do not convert them to paying customers.
4. Font-line.  Part of the process of optimising your website will involve searches on Google and looking at competitor websites.  And this is good.  It’s so important to be checking your completion and to be aware of change. 
5. Context. Fancy tools are not required to optimise a website – you can do it all by hand. It’s all very well receiving a report each month from your SEO company with your new Google position – but far better to do the search manually and see who is ahead of you.  If the only people ahead are the major players like: wikipedia, yell.com, tesco or argos then you can pat yourself on the back.  If your arch rival is ahead – then you’ll be inclined to take a peek at their website and see why.

DIY SEO is not without it’s issues.  It will take time and you will want to ensure that you have a firm grounding in the process before you start.  But once you get going I am certain that you will see lots of benefits including more customers!

“Thank you so much for such an interesting and invaluable training session on SEO, your pitch was exactly right and I can’t wait to start using my knowledge!” – @katielevett

“I really enjoyed this SEO workshop – thank you so much” – @BojangleComms

“Lot’s of information, great support and endless knowledge” -  @q5partners

“I just wanted to thank you for yesterdays SEO workshop. It was so informative and such great added value and support for your clients” Giselle -www.infocus.co.uk

If you would like some more information about how to DIY SEO then I would love to hear from you. 

SEO | 21.07.2010 11:05 | 2 Comments

Keyword stuffing – are you damaging your website?

Getting to the top of search engines can be a  bit of an obsession for some businesses. The truth is this obsession can result in wasted time and money.  And so often the website suffers as a result of poor or lazy optimisation techniques.

I am sure you’ve seen plenty on websites with seemingly irrelevant words simply plonked in the header or the footer. This is quite a common practice for some SEO companies as it’s an easy way to work in keywords to a website.

But there are some real problems with this practise:

1. It looks really really horrible and can confuse your visitors.
2. Google clearly states in it best practices that website owners should do nothing to trick it’s algorithm and that doing so could result in blacklisting. Google much prefers and nice honest approach to the content on your website.
3. Google can spot duplicated content on web pages and decide to ignore it.
4. Stuffing the keywords on every page actually dilutes your keyword density per page.

There is a much nicer way – nicer for google and nicer for visitors!  For most businesses keywords fall into 2 groups: either a service/product provided or a location served. 

Working service/product related keywords into your website

1. Each service or product provided should have it’s own dedicated page.  The dedicated page will naturally be keyword rich.
2. Use the product/service name in the content a couple of times including in the headings.  Ideally you want a paragraph or two.
3. Include a glossary page in your website with a list of all your services/products.
4. Include a sitemap on your website with a list of your services products and links to relevant pages.
5. You can even put your main services/products in the footer as a mini sitemap.  The is not quite the same as simply plonking them in the footer since they have a clear purpose of quickly helping your visitors find content.

Working location related keywords into your website

Building in content related to the locations you serve can be a bit tricky.  It’s not as natural to have content on the website related to towns and countries.  You could try these

1. Include a page in the website listing the area’s served.
2. Include a case study page for each of your main area’s.  For example you could have a page called “Work completed in Guildford” and insert content related to clients in this area.
3. Include testimonials from clients in your served area’s and be sure to include the area in the credit. Eg “I was really happy with the service provide by.” Paul Smith, Guildford.
4. Include your address in the footer if related to the area’s you serve.
5. If you serve a very specific area then it’s fine to include this in the banner or footer. Something like “Serving Woking and Guildford”

Essentially content is king – and if you want to be found for a keyword then you need to use it!

SEO | 21.05.2010 10:28 | No Comments

The hidden dangers of updating your website design

Moving your website to a new design? There are some challenges when moving to a new website design. Lots of people simply throw away their old website, replace with the new one and cross their fingers that the new one will work better. However, there is a better way…

1. Never take down the old website and replace with a “coming soon” type message or image. Doing this could literally wipe away ALL your historic status with Google and the other search engines. If Google comes round to index your website whilst it is effectively down, there will be no information for it to record – everything you have built up will be wiped from it’s records.
2. Always transfer the important tags: keywords, description and title tag. Even if the old website was not doing much in the way of SEO it is important that you at least reuse the old tags or build on them.
3. Keep track of your stats. If the motivation for the new build is the belief that you will receive more hits, then prove it. Be sure to stick Google Analytics on the old website so that you have a before and after snapshot for comparison.
4. Keep the old website. I am sure, in most cases, that your new website will be amazing. But it is always worth keeping your old website code available should you need to either revert or analyse some unexpected events.
5. V important – Tell google. There is a special file call .htaccess – it allows you to tell Google that a page name has changed. By setting up redirects correctly in the .htaccess, visitors to your old pages (from inbound links or bookmarks) will automatically be presented with your new equivalent page.

You should expect to pay a little bit extra for your developers to take a more care over your website transfer. But in my opinion it is worth it – there is no point is simply throwing away all previous credibility with both your visitors and Google.

SEO | 14.05.2010 10:14 | No Comments

Want to find more customers online?

You might laugh (or sympathise!) but over the years I have spoken to a few business owners who had launched their new website and literally sat by the phone expecting calls!  You and I both know that it takes a bit more than a website launch to win clients. 

Promoting your website (and therefore your business) is an absolute must.  Even the most fantastic website won’t do very much just sat in cyber-space.

I have almost grown to hate the phrase SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, mostly because it seems to have turned into some kind of mythical being. The truth is I firmly believe that SEO is well within the grasp of any business owner and can be broken down into some very simple steps.  After all, you know your business and customers and are best to judge if your website is providing more leads.  Basic SEO is an essential skill to have in-house, saving you money on outsourcing and to help generate more sales.

With this in mind we are running an SEO workshop in May for anybody who currently uses either wordpress or our own SMART CMS to update their website.  (We’d happily also accept delegates who are planning to use either of these in the future or who just want to know more!).   The workshop will dispell some myths and set you on track for finding new customers online, just by updating your website.

More details here…

SEO | 21.04.2010 20:03 | No Comments

SEO workshop – Fantastic Success!

“Thanks for all the hard work you put into the workshop. It certainly means that things have moved on since we set up Thoughtful Products Ltd.” – Mike

 

“A good session explaining many of the intricacies and misconceptions of Google” – Norman

 

“Zoe gave me the courage to have a go myself along with her support” – Anne

 

“Well prepared, informative and helpful” – Tom

 

“Thank you very much very good!” – Kim

 

SEO, Workshops & Training | 9.02.2010 10:58 | No Comments