Coaching For Success
IBC
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Posts by IBC
Two Kinds Of Internet User
Sep 1st
Two Kind Of Internet Users
There are 2 general types of internet users: those looking for information and those looking to buy. We all wear both of those hats at different times and sometimes something is so compelling we put our buying hat on when we thought we only wanted to wear our research hat. For purposes of most effective optimization you want to make sure you are targeting both groups of people.
You want researchers because catching them early in the process exposes them to your expertise and creates you as a possible future solution for them. You also want buyers because that’s your bread and butter.
Which group you attract is determined by your keywords. You want keywords that call out to researchers and you want keywords that reach out and grab the buyers.
It’s important to consider commercial intent when selecting our keywords. A great tool that can be effective for this is http://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/
New Changes To Googles Algorithm Mean Content Reigns Supreme
Mar 9th
As an internet business owner, one thing you have to do, if you want your business to be found in the search engines, Google in particular, is stay abreast of changes to search engine algorithms as best as you can.
Google’s Changing Things Up Again
Google recently announced a major change to its algorithm that, according to their blog, may affect as much as 12 percent of sites on the web. This change will target sites Google regards as providing low value due to poor content or duplicate content or simply because they just aren’t very useful. And those sites will end up having their rankings lowered, so this is potentially very damaging when it comes to a site’s position in the search engine results.
As with all changes to Google’s algorithm, ignore this at your own peril!
Give Google What Google Wants
If your site is made up of quality, informative content that provides value to your visitors, you won’t have to worry about losing your rankings. That worn out old epithet that you may be tired of hearing that says “Content is king” looks like it may be truer than ever going forward.
The sites that will probably be in serious trouble are such as the ones known as content farms. These sites are more concerned with quantity rather than quality and up until now they’ve profited from the volume of content they contain, resulting in a lot of poor quality content littering the search engine results.
And, as long as Google is upping the ante in the content stakes, you can guarantee the other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing won’t just sit around and watch the quality of their results sink compared to Google’s. So, watch for similar changes to be announced by the other search engines before too long.
Quality Content More Important Than Ever
What’s obvious here is that quality is going to rule supreme from now on, with quantity taking a back seat, but that seat will be waaaaaaayyy back compared to content.
Bloggers beware! Posts need to offer something new or at least a new twist on something that may already be familiar – just re-publishing a story or news item won’t cut it going forward. The emphasis for Google needs to be on quality, original content, meaning that you need to be saying something new, or risk losing out in the rankings.
Overall, this should be a change that’s a win-win for everybody – those seeking good, original content and those producing it.
What This Means For Your Internet Business
The first thing you should do (and this is something you should already be doing as part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy) is keep a sharp eye on your analytics to make sure your traffic numbers haven’t been adversely affected.
One thing to bear in mind is that search isn’t the only way to get traffic. Now’s the time to boost your social network presence; if you have an e-mail list, begin to interact with them more and work at expanding your list, or if you have newsletter subscribers, the same advice applies. In other words, increase your user base.
Work at increasing the number of inbound links by soliciting links from sites with quality content using anchor text that is keyword-rich. Quality inbound links are still an important factor as far as search engine rankings are concerned.
Vary your content by adding videos on YouTube, post photos on such sites as Flickr and create podcasts. The search engines love variety.
You may also want to look into hiring a good writer to produce quality content for you. Excellent content will help attract links and improve the overall value of your site in Google’s virtual eyes.
As you may gather, internet business owners need to evaluate the content of their sites and, if necessary, consider the above steps to make their rankings more secure.
A UK internet business coach will work with you to ensure your content is of the highest calibre and that your search engine rankings aren’t adversely affected.
Google Putting Greater Emphasis On Social Search Recommendations
Mar 4th
OK, so nobody can say we haven’t talked about this and that we haven’t tried to emphasise its importance to you and your internet business, but now the proof of how much effort you’ve been putting into the social networking area of your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts will soon be evident.
Google’s Really Going Social
That’s because Google is putting more emphasis on social search results (it may be more accurate to refer to them as social recommendations), bringing them more to the forefront by actually listing them in their search results pages.
These results will be mixed in with the rest of the search results based on their relevance to the query submitted by the user and also taking into consideration the content from the user’s social graph. Results will also be dependent on which accounts the user has connected to their public profile on Google.
This represents a major change in Google’s philosophy, since social search results were previously only listed at the bottom of the page. Now they can appear anywhere in the results and a notation will appear alongside the results showing their origin, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Twitter Firehose Makes Results More Comprehensive
In 2010 Google paid a lot of money for access to Twitter’s database of tweets (also known as the firehose) and is finally using that data to produce more comprehensive socially based results, meaning that links shared on Twitter may now be displayed as part of the search results.
Overall, it’s highly possible that, if someone is connected to you and your business publicly and decides to share a link, that may well appear in Google’s search results.
The More Connections The Better
The obvious takeaway from this (at least, we hope it’s obvious!) is that, if you haven’t done so already, you should be out there in social network land building a fan base and a following for your business. The more social connections that can be established between your business and social media networks the more search results may be displayed with references to your internet business.
We can’t emphasise enough the importance of establishing a presence for your internet business on the social media platforms from a search engine optimisation (SEO) standpoint, and, with Google’s latest initiative, that fact has become doubly important.
Check with a UK internet marketing consultant for help getting your business established on the social media networks to take full advantage of Google’s latest search initiatives.
How Is Google Categorise Your Internet Business Website?
Mar 2nd
In the fast moving world of internet business marketing we all know why we need to be visible to prospective clients, you know what it is your offering them and how your product or service can help them, but have you ever stopped to wonder how search engines like Google view your site? How it is being categorised?
You know how you would look at your site and categorises it but what if search engines do not see it the way you are categorising it. Lets face it if you think your site is about one thing and search engines think it is about something else the end result is that you will not get traffic or the right type of traffic, you could be ranked incorrectly or not at all – sobering thought isn’t it but how many internet business owners really check to see how they are being categorised.
This potential issue is not difficult to sort out as using tools and certain search operators you can find out easily and fix any potential problems. For example if you use the search operator “similar” you can check how Google views your site. To do this simple go to Google search and type in related:www.domain.co.uk/~domain.co.uk Replace www.domain.co.uk with your own internet business domain name. Make sure there is no space after the colon. You will then get results pages, which will show other sites Google thinks are related to your site.
This is very useful to see how Google is looking at your site, if they are related (similar) then that is good your on the right track and the search engine understands what your site is all about, however if they are unrelated then you have issues you need to fix as soon as possible even if it is partially related i.e some of it is similar and the rest is not you still need to work on harmonising your site so search engines categorise your site properly.
Some simple tweaking to your Internet business site can allow for clarity and show Google without a doubt what the topic/category of your site really is. Search engines like Google determine what your site is about by looking at your content on the site and the search engine optimisation (SEO) you have used for the site along with the type of links coming into your site to categorise your site.
If you have lots of links coming into your site from totally unrelated external sites then this will not help with clarifying your position or reinforcing the ideas you have about your site and the category it falls into. If you are in this position then you need to look at your links again and ensure they come from related sites that compliment your own. Any anchor text you are using should be one of your keywords this will help your search engine optimisation (SEO) as well.
Ensuring that your Internet business website’s search engine optimisation (SEO) matches your content is important to ensuring that search engines categorise your site properly to effectively maximise your potential to generate useful traffic and gain potential customers.
Internet Business SEO On A Budget
Feb 28th
When it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) no one needs to tell any Internet business owner how important it is to do it right because they all know the reasons why they need to do it, however being able to afford it is quite a different thing. Small businesses typically have much smaller budgets, little or no staff or resources and are under strain regularly to cover all bases with the little time and finances they have. This makes spending money on SEO and where to spend it a challenge for any Internet business trying to get noticed.
Small Internet businesses have the advantage of being able to trial different methodologies and experiment with their SEO, they move faster than big companies to get things done but in the end cost is the biggest deciding factor in the choice of SEO they decide to implement. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) does not need to be costly however and can be achieve cheaper in order to get you the ranks you would like. Hopefully the tips below will help.
- Find a company good Internet marketing service that specialises in dealing with smaller businesses that will work with small budgets of around £200 – £500 per month, who is reputable.
- Ensure you find a company who will do you a custom deal where you can pick and choose what you want and what you pay for (one size fits all is not the company to go for), by doing this you are maximising your budget and getting results that suit your business needs not theirs.
- Learn to do it elements of it yourself; there are lots of free keywords tools like those on offer by Google. For link tools try SoloSEO, Majestic SEO or SEO for Firefox, for rank checking why not try SEO toolbar and last but not least you could try content writing yourself or your social media.
- Don’t be a last minute dotcommer and wait till your Internet business website and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is failing before finding help, it will be more costly to fix if you do this.
- If you cannot afford an internet marketing service provider buy books, not those from gurus online but real ones which give solid basic SEO advice and guidance, however do not take this option if you have no time or the will to read or learn SEO otherwise you are just wasting time and making your internet business website SEO worse.
The most important thing you can do as an internet business owner is take action, decide what you can comfortable afford, find a good internet marketing service to provide the service within your budget and get your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) underway or do it yourself either way you need to get your website out there and in front of prospects so you do not miss out on the opportunity of gaining new customers.
