Coaching For Success
Posts tagged SEO
It’s Time For A New Year SEO Checkup For Your Internet Business
Jan 31st
Regardless of how successful your internet business was in 2010, the start of a new year is always a good time to take a look at your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts and review what worked well and see in which areas there’s room for improvement. Basically, it’s time to perform a checkup of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy to set your business up for a move to the next level as far as your results and overall success are concerned in the coming year.
Take Away The SEO Barriers To Your Success
The first part of the checkup is to remove the barriers to SEO success within your web site. If there are errors on your site’s pages that prevent the search engines from crawling your entire site, this can harm your rankings in the search engines.
The most common problems that prevent pages from being crawled are broken links, so it’s important to track them down and at least reduce them by either building the pages that don’t exist or creating a 301 redirect to an existing destination. A useful free tool for doing this is W3C Link Checker.
Eliminate Duplicate Content
Another problem area is duplicate content, normally found in such areas as title tags and product descriptions. These can be located using tools like Xenu Link Sleuth (detects broken links but data can be exported to help find duplicate content) and Yahoo Site Explorer.
Make Sure Your Site Is Relevant
One thing that can really mess up your site’s rankings is irrelevant content. Google’s Webmaster Tools can show you the most relevant keywords for your site’s topic, from which you can develop focused content.
Another option is to develop a tag cloud focused on relevant keywords, using such tools as TagCrowd.com.
Keep An Eye On Your Site’s Rankings
It’s essential that you know where your web site ranks for a given keyword so you can tell whether the changes you are making are working or not. Again, Google’s Webmaster Tools provides a set of reports called Search Queries, which shows how your site ranks for various queries.
Reviewing the above Search Engine Optimisation factors on a monthly, rather than an annual, basis will help you keep your internet business on track as far as your SEO strategies are concerned and at least maintain, if not improve, your site’s rankings.
A UK internet marketing consultant is well versed in all aspects of search engine optimisation (SEO) and can provide you with the expertise you need to make sure your SEO checkups are thorough and effective.
Use Yahoo! Clues To Discover Search Trends
Dec 6th
Knowing what people are searching for, the keywords they’re using, the search volume, etc., are important aspects of search engine optimisation (SEO) for any internet business. Up until recently there haven’t been too many tools that could be used to measure trends when it comes to search terms, other than Google Trends.
Discover Trending Information
That is, until now. Yahoo! has decided to delve into its massive database to provide a tool that not only supplies search trend data, but enhances it and takes it to a new level. Say “Hello” to Yahoo! Clues, Yahoo!’s new web based tool that can be used to explore trends in a visually appealing and interesting way. Using this tool allows you to discover trending information and then make comparisons using the data you just discovered.
Many Interesting Features
Not only does Yahoo! Clues provide search volume charts but it does so much more in addition, including displaying maps, demographic graphs and even searches related to a demographic group. In fact Yahoo! Clues is so all-encompassing it makes Google Trends look like child’s play by comparison.
Apart from the aforementioned, other interesting features include a time filter, which allows data to be filtered for 1, 7 or 30 days, comparison of two terms and various categories of information, including location, gender and income.
There’s More To Come
Yahoo! is working on more search tools, including a feature they’re tentatively calling “Search Flow”, which looks at search patterns and attempts to predict the next search term following on from a previously entered search query. You’ll also be able to see “related searches”, which will be a boon when it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO), which will go beyond “Search Flow” by providing related search terms commonly used across the entirety of Yahoo! Search.
Yahoo! Clues looks like it will be an excellent tool all around, especially the new “Search Flow” feature, which will provide data based on concrete evidence rather than mere guesswork. The only thing that might improve it is to provide trends for more than 30 days, preferably up to a full year. This will provide internet marketers with another fine tool to add to their arsenal to provide additional search engine optimisation (SEO) ammunition.
For help with all your search engine optimisation (SEO) needs, contact a UK internet marketing consultant, who will get your internet business web site optimised for success across all search engines.
5 Tips To Getting The Most Benefit Out Of Commenting
Nov 26th
Making comments on other web sites and getting links back to your internet business‘s web site is one of the primary methods of getting exposure for your brand and should be a weapon in every business’s search engine optimisation (SEO) arsenal.
This is a great way for you and your company to share your thoughts and opinions, get yourself recognised as an expert and get your brand recognised in the form of increased exposure.
Not All Comments Are Good Comments
When you do comment on other sites, it’s important to make sure you provide quality, informed posts to develop the trust and respect of users reading your posts and to get your brand noticed. If not, you run the risk of being regarded as a “spammer” whose only goal is to get a link back to your site, and thus actually end up damaging your brand.
To help you make sure your comments are appropriate and meaningful, here are 5 tips that you can use on your own and others’ web sites.
Five Tips To Guarantee Comment Engagement
1. Take Part In The Ongoing Conversation
If you find a comment thread that is relevant to your business, you’d want to add something meaningful to the conversation that can enhance not only your reputation, but that of your brand. Adding a comment that is irrelevant and/or completely off-topic not only doesn’t help anybody, but can do irreparable damage to your credibility as an individual and ruin the reputation of your brand.
2. Rewarding Positive Contributions Shows You Care
If somebody leaves a noteworthy comment on your web site or blog, just take a moment to acknowledge that comment with a comment of your own or by sending an email. This will help foster relationships and encourage further contributions.
3. Bring A Halt To Disruptive Behaviour Immediately
In the same way you should be quick to reward positive behaviour, you should probably act even more quickly to stamp out disruptive behaviour. If you’re doing the commenting, avoid engaging in threatening or inflammatory remarks, as this could lead to you being banned. You yourself should be equally swift to react to such behaviour by banning the IP involved. Act swiftly and positively and you’ll be doing your part to help stamp out negative behaviour.
4. Back Up Comments With Supporting Data And Arguments
It’s one thing leaving a comment and providing information or insights, but supplying supporting arguments and/or data adds a whole new dimension and immense value to that same comment. The supporting information you provide may be a link to another site or a written piece detailing the research you’ve done, but, either way, everyone benefits in the long run.
5. Be Upfront About Personal Interests
If you’re making a comment and representing your company or business, it’s always best to be as transparent as possible and to make it known that you have a vested interest. Otherwise, you’ll end up being exposed later and the damage could be far-reaching.
Commenting is a great way to spread the word about your internet business, and to foster a sense of community on your own web site.
A UK internet business coach will work with you to develop the art of making your comments valuable to the community and to furthering the influence of your brand.
Use Optimised Press Releases To Boost Your Rankings
Nov 25th
One of the best and most accepted ways to generate publicity for your internet business is to create optimised press releases. But, what exactly are press releases? When we think of press releases, we generally think of them in the context of news releases. Those still exist and are still used, but online press releases in the context of business are more akin to publicity blasts or advertisements that can be used to generate much-needed publicity for a company to help grow it and establish its brand.
Make Them Easy To Understand
Press releases, like your web site’s content, should be written so they’re easily read and understood. Getting thousands of users to see your press release can actually harm your company’s reputation if it’s obvious it’s been written solely to please the search engines.
So, although optimising your press release for the search engines is important, like your web site’s content, it also needs to be written for human readers. Failing to do so can do more harm to your company than good.
What Is An Optimised Press Release?
The first thing that needs to be made clear is that any publicity is NOT necessarily better than none at all if the publicity itself is poorly managed. So, although you may decide to take on some of the PR tasks yourself, it should be borne in mind that the creation of effective optimised releases requires knowledge of public relations writing as well as the ability to enhance the release with keywords specifically for SEO purposes.
A professional expert in online PR can provide these same services for you as well as handling the distribution and any other aspects of your campaigns.
Other optimisation techniques include adding photos and graphics named using appropriate keywords to stimulate interest, as well as embedding video and/or audio clips. Bear in mind that a press release can also double as a web page; in fact, companies on a low budget can often get ranked just using well-optimised press releases.
Running A Press Release Campaign
Having determined to embark on a press release campaign, a commitment to the process is required, meaning that releases need to be scheduled, results evaluated and finally adjustments made where necessary.
To achieve optimal results, it’s essential to provide quality content and it’s recommended that releases be published prior to Wednesday and at least 4 releases be published annually.
A well-run press release campaign will increase your internet business‘s relevance and, as a result, its page rank, and can be an integral part of your company’s search engine optimisation (SEO) programme.
A UK internet business coach can help you set up and run your press release campaign and advise you on how to make maximum use of press releases.
Getting Your Site Ranked For Questions And Answers
Oct 27th
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an ongoing process that, when done correctly, can reap incredible benefits for your internet business web site. But, if you’re attempting to compete for highly competitive keywords, you may be finding it a very hard struggle, and one that may not warrant the amount of time and effort it takes to finally realise you may never get to rank highly for your chosen keywords.
But, did you ever give any thought to just how users enter their search queries? We’re not referring here to the use of particular words or phrases, but to the actual format of the query itself. Many of the queries entered in the search engines are entered in the form of questions, and this presents a great opportunity to optimise your site for this type of query.
Ask And Ye Shall Find!
Ask.com has stated that their more than 50 million visitors per month are 3 times more likely to enter their query in the form of a question on their site than on other search engines. Can you see the seed of a potentially very lucrative SEO project revolving around answering search query questions?
Here are some of the more common openings to queries in the form of questions:
- What is…?
- How do I get…?
- What are…?
- How much should….?
- When will…?
- Who is….?
Most of the questions asked by users when trying to get answers are the “Who?”, “What?”, “When?” and “How?” type.
Ask The Questions, Supply The Answers
So, since we’re asking questions, you’ve probably got one yourself about now, which may go something like, “How do I optimise my site using questions?”. Let’s go over that now.
Since you know your products and/or services, you should put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes, and, considering your products, ask yourself what type of questions you yourself would ask when trying to track down the products you’re offering.
For example, if you have a site selling bicycles and bicycle accessories, a question someone might pose could be, “What type of wireless speedometres are available?”. Take that question and optimise the page related to speedometres, and wireless speedometres in particular, for it and then answer the question. As a result, you’re not only asking the question, but then, in addition, supplying the user with the information they’re looking for, thus satisfying both parts of the equation.
If your internet business is selling products in a competitive niche, getting your site ranked for the more competitive keywords and phrases may prove a frustrating, if not futile, effort. But, turning your focus to questions your potential customers may ask and optimising your site for those questions, while supplying the answers, should prove to be a more productive way of investing your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts.
If you’re unsure of the best way to implement this strategy, contact a UK internet business coach, who will supply the expertise you’re looking for to get your site ranked for questions relevant to your internet business product offerings.
