Is Google Page Rank still a valid metric?

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Posted on 15th November 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

Google Page rank has acted as a metric for the popularity of a web page for some time now.  It is measured by the number of quality back links that point at the particular page in question.  It has been a metric that search engine optimisation experts have been measuring for years.

I’ve found, that over the last few months, Google’s Page Rank algorythm seems to be counting less and less as a factor for search engine rankings.  Why have I come to this conclusion?

Well, take one of my clients sites for example and one of his keywords – Radio Hire.

His site is now appearing 3rd in the Google rankings and he has a Page Rank of 4.  Above him are two other sites that have been around for some time.  Both sites above him have a Page Rank of 2.

See my reason for questioning the current relevance of Page Rank?

SEO, Alt Text and the Title attribute

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Posted on 6th October 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

I’ve just been posting over on the Iniquitous SEO Forum and the question was raised about the Title attribute in HTML and how it is important to SEO.

Here was my (short) response:

The ALT attribute (and it is an attribute, not a tag) is an alternative text description for images that often displays before the image is loaded (if it’s loaded at all). Or if the image fails to load the ALT text is shwon. ALT is a W3C required element for images and can only be used for image tags because its specific purpose is to describe images.

You can use the TITLE attribute for most page elements, but, unlike the ALT attribute, it isn’t required. As far as SEO goes you should use it to describe links. They’re more versatile than the ALT attribute and many search engine ranking algorithms read the text in TITLE attributes as regular page content.

Here is an example :

<a href=”http://www.online-digital.co.uk” title=”Search Engine Optimisation”>Search Engine Company</a>

If you are looking for a UK SEO Agency, or just want some advice on Search Engine Optimisation why not get in touch?

Worldwide Twittering up 19%

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Posted on 4th October 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

Twitter has recently increased its traffic around the world from 37.3 million users to 44.5 million.

This growth is impressive, but even more so, if you go back 12 months you’ll find the increase in unique users has been a staggering 1,460% from a user base of just 2.9m.

So why has Twitter grown so fast?  With the help of exposure from celebrities no doubt, and with a little bit of forward thinking many businesses have used Twitter to help them grow their customer base and sales.  However, the social networking site war goes on and Twitter is still lagging behind the networking giant, Facebook which has around 307m users worldwide.

Getting businesses to buy into Twitter has sometimes been a bit of a challenge due to the stigma surrounding social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, so it might suprise you to know that more adults are using Twitter than teenagers.   Companies such as Dell have led the way in showing how powerful social networking can be for your business.

For more help or information on using Twitter as part of your online marketing campaign, or for information on Search Engine Optimisation services contact Online Digital today.

What sort of an SEO are you?

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Posted on 26th September 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

It seems that there are many different types of SEO professionals on the market.  Some do just enough to get web pages up the rankings where as others go the extra mile and focus on enquiries and conversion rates.  So what is being an SEO really all about and what should you offer as a service?

I think that its fair to say that in the current SEO climate, the role of Search Engine Optimisation goes beyond the technical boundaries of optimising web sites.  It forms a part of the overall marketing strategy of a web site from the coding right through to the analysis and conversion rates.

Here is a list of 10 things that I believe every SEO should be able to do and offer to their clients as part of a search engine optimisation campaign.

  1. Provide keyword analysis to enable optimisation for appropriate keywords
  2. Implement proven and white hat techniques to optimise web page content
  3. Have knowledge of URL architecture and web site layouts with a view to improving for SEO
  4. Implement and understand analytics and metrication of an SEO campaign
  5. Understand and have the ability to measure the effects of SEO on conversion
  6. Make appropriate use of social networking sites – and not just to provide links!
  7. Research and react to new search marketing techniques
  8. Understand the internal strategy of any business that the SEO is working for.
  9. Have the ability to communicate with sales, marketeers and technical professionals in a language that they understand.
  10. Be able to work with and understand the mix of CRM, PPC, Organic Search and Email marketing to help optimise your campaigns.

 If you are looking for an SEO professional who can tick all the boxes above, why not get in touch with Ian Sheldon from UK SEO Company, eSoftware Solutions.  We have solutions available for most budgets and have enjoyed success with both localised and national SEO campaigns in the UK and USA.

Understanding Google Penalties

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Posted on 10th September 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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Search Engine Optimisation techniques vary, from white hat techniques such as Link Building, Content Copy Writing and Blogging to black hat techniques bordering on SPAMMING.   Googles main aim is to provide a trust worthy search service, presenting search users with a list of useful web sites based on their search criteria.

Some, although not all, of the known black hat techniques can quickly get you to the top of the Google rankings for your chosen keyword.  In the short term you can yield some excellent results, enquiries and conversions, but you will find that eventually your site will drop like a stone or in the worst case scenario dissapear completely.

Why does this happen?  You have been penalised by Google for using black hat techniques to promote your site.

This is one of the most frustrating things to happen for any SEO, or web site owner.

Depending on how serious your violations are (against the Google Webmaster Guidelines) depends on how serious your penalty is.  In some cases you may only be blacklisted for a few weeks and you can correct your penalty by dropping your black hat techniques and working towards Googles Webmaster Guidelines.  In the most serious cases web sites have been known to dissapear completely from the rankings forever.

There are two major levels of penalty that have been reported, the -30 and the -950.

The-30 penalty basically does what it says on the tin.  It drops your web site ranking by 30 places.  Minus 30 penalty is one that filters for handling spam in Google algorithm.  The only solution to get around this penalty is to have unique content on your site, to get links from well trusted sites and to link to high quality sites.

The -950 penalty is a different beast altogether.  It only affects precise URLs for particular keywords.  However, the -950 is also the harshest penalty and web sites can be dropped to the bottom of the results for the given keywords. How can this be avoided?  The only thing you can do is to stick to the Google Webmaster Guidelines and stick to White Hat SEO tactics.

If you have been penalised by Google then don’t take it out on the Search Engine.  You have been penalised for a reason and it’s nearly always down to the techniques that have been used in an attempt to promote your web site.

What does SEO mean to YOU?

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Posted on 12th August 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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Having now worked on a number of SEO projects over the last 12-14 months it’s becoming more and more apparant that Search Engine Optimisation means different things to different people.

To some it means being able to rank highly in the results for quality key phrases, for others it means being able to push increased volumes of visitors to their web site.

Then we have those that get heavily involved in the metrication in terms of visitors vs enquries and enquiries vs sales.  Those that want to understand what people are actually doing on their web site – what pages they visit and what call to actions are triggered.

SEO being what is doesn’t have an actual defintiation and there is a fine line between SEO and Internet Marketing (if there is a line at all). 

So why today’s blog post?  If you are looking to employ the services of an SEO professional then think carefully about what you are looking to achieve from the project.  Some SEO’s may offer more than others and its important that you team up with the right one in order to achieve the desired results.

Bye for now!

Writing content for the Web

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Posted on 10th August 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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One of the most important things to focus on when developing a new Web site is your content.   You should treat each page individually, with the view that each page has the opportunity to either capture or deplete your audience.   You should not only consider the actual copy content but also the volume of copy on any given page.  If a site visitor sees reams of text, they may well be put off and close the browser (or even worst go to another web site!).

When writing good copy for a web page make good use of the page title.    Make the headings attractive and descriptive of the subject of the page.  Your opening paragraph should then give an overview of the page.  Tell your audience :

  • What you are going to be discussing
  • Why you are discussing it
  • How it can be acheived

If you need to make use of lists within your copy then keep them tidy and precise.  Make sure you use the list tags to create a structured ordered / unordered list.

Create content relevant to your audience

Know your audience and talk to them, not at them.  No matter what your objective play to people’s emotions.  Try and stay away from technical terms so as not to alienate your non-technical audience.   Dont assume that people have read other parts of your web site before reading your copy.   With deep links and SEO site visitors often arrive at pages two or three levels deep into a web site.  Consider that your visitor may have never read anything concerning the topic in question when writing the content.

Proof read everything you write (twice!)

Make sure that you proof read all the content on your page.  It’s very easy to write web copy ‘on the cuff’ whilst typing but this can lead to unobvious grammatical or spelling errors.  If you can, ask a second pair of eyes to review the copy for you.

Finish with a call to action

Beleive it or not many readers won’t actually reach the end of your content, but for those who do conclude with a summary and action point.

To summarise

These are just a few basic pointers to help you write good content for your web site.  As you may well know, quality content is an important part of any Search Engine Optimisation campaign and help can to boost your rankings.

An example of how simple design errors can damage your SEO

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Posted on 4th July 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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I recently logged onto a forum I read quite alot and noticed a post from somebody promoting a new web site they had done.  Being the curious type I thought I would take a look.  Design wise the site looked quite nice, but the way it had been built made me very uncomfortable. 

1.  The site had a splash page as the opening page.  No text on it, just a large logo type image in the centre of the screen.  On closer inspection this image had no ALT tag, there was not description or keyword tags in the META data.  The guy had used an external CSS file though so give him credit for that.

2. On clicking through to the site the page loaded slowly.  Could be a hosting issue, or it could be that ALL his graphics were PNGs, where he could have easily used GIFs or JPEGs.  There was nothing overcomplicated about this page that would have required transparent PNGs.  Again, the layout of the page was nice and pleasing to the eye

3. HORROR!  To my amazement every peice of text on this page is embedded in a PNG.  Basically there is NO text on the page at all, and even worse the images containing the text don’t have an ALT property. 

4. Again, these main pages dont have description or keyword tags and the Title property just contains the name of the web page i.e About Us, Constitution etc.

It may well be that the designer of the site isn’t too bothered about SEO, but why get into the habit of using bad techniques to build your site.  Start as you mean to go on.  There is no reason why design should suffer when it comes to building a search engine friendly web site.  The two can co-exist with a little bit of time and effort.

If you are looking for an SEO review of your existing web site then contact eSoftware Solutions, a UK SEO Company, who will be more than happy to help you out.  We are a friendly, trust worthy SEO with references available on request.

SEO Professionals – Would you whistle blow black hat SEO’s?

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Posted on 28th June 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

I engaged in an intersting blog comment exchange last night with some people from the USA, where the blog owner had started to scrutinise techniques used by SEO companies on his own patch (namely Denver).  Something didn’t sit quite right with this for me.

Now I don’t engage in, or condone, Black Hat SEO Techniques, although from time to time I will admit that I have slipped into the grey area in between (but what SEO is actually whiter than white?)  However, running down your competition in order to make yourself look good – that’s just wrong and unethical in a business sense.

If I found an local SEO company that was engaging in black hat techniques I would contact them directly, question their methods and wait for their response.  After all, every tale has two sides and everyone deserves their right to comment.  Directly posting on a public forum is not a professional way to do it, although maybe this is a sign of the behaviour of people raised in the Internet Generation.

I’ve found that the best road to business success is to work with companies, not become known as a ‘sneak’ who goes round whistle blowing their competition at every given opportunity.

So my question is, would you publically hang a company for its techniques, or engage in a dialog with the company to question their methods and integrity?

Bounce rate – an important metric in SEO

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Posted on 27th June 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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One of the most common questions concerning measurement of web site activity is what is Bounce Rate and what does it mean?

Put in very simplistic terms, the bounce rate percentage is the number of people that have visted one page on your web site, and then leave.  This may be for any number of reasons, but the bounce rate metric is especially important if you are trying to engage your site visitors and want them to visit other pages featuring product / service information and promotions.

Why do people bounce from my web site?

There are a number of reasons why people might contribute to a high bounce rate.  The first of which can be poor keyword choice in your SEO campaign.  If you are optimising your site for the wrong keywords then your site visitors might be landing on your site and not finding what they expect. 

Another reason might be poor web site navigation.  Maybe they find your site easily on the Google search results, but once they hit the landing page (the page on the Google link) they cant find an easy way to view other pages on your site.

Do you offer external links away from your site on your landing pages?  If so, these can be a contributing factor to increasing your bounce rate.  Consider your external links carefully.

If a site visitor leaves your web page open for 30 minutes, and takes part in no further SEO activity then this can be recorded as a bounce.  Even opening a new tab in their web browser can classify as a bounce.  Visitors may do this if they need find an explanation of a term or phrase on your web site using another method such as Google or Wikipedia.  This is a great reason for making sure you right top content for your site.

To quote Google.com itself

“It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying.”

Sometimes, it can be difficult to get to the bottom of why your bounce rate is so high, but in time, with some careful attention you can help to turn it around.  Recently, we noticed that a client was optimising their Google PPC campaign for a huge array of keywords, and since refining them and doing a bit of keyword research they have reduced their bounce rate by over 45%.

How can I improve my bounce rate?

  • Check out the content of your web page.  Is it self explanitory?
  • Are you optimising your site for the right keywords?   Is the content on your web page relevant to those keywords?
  • Can people easily navigate around your web site?  Do you need to consider a new menu structure?
  • Do you have external links on your web page inviting people to leave your site?  Remove them!

Bounce rate is an important metric in any SEO project.  eSoftware Solutions are a UK SEO Company, based in Staffordshire.  For more information visit our web site or call Ian on 0845 838 8588.

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