It’s been a lovely weekend here in the UK, almost ‘Summer like’. It’s been an opportunity to spend a bit of time outdoors, something us brits dont get chance to do that often! A whole two days away from the screen explains the lack of recent activity on the blog, but I hope you find this latest post useful.
You will hear from many Search Engine Optimisation professionals, SEO Web sites and forums telling you that Blogs are a great way to create relevant back links to your web site through regular posts. There are many free blogs out there, both hosted and available to use on your own servers. The most popular blogging software is WordPress.
Here are some tips to help you optimise your blog posts for SEO.
1. Use Permalinks for your URL structure. Permalinks include the title of your blog posts in the URL (with hyphens replacing splaces). This flags for attention when Google is crawling the site.
2. Make use of H tags in your posts. Where you can use the Heading1, Heading2, Heading3 etc tags when writing your posts. As with any SEO content the search engines value the text in these tags and see them as an important part of ranking the page.
3. Dont stuff your blog posts with keywords. Make your blog posts interesting and relevant. Remember that you are writing your blog posts for humans to read. Make them engaging – offer readers tips or advice. Google likes human readable content!
4. Dont stuff your blog posts with links. Typically try to use about 5-6 links, all to different pages – maybe even some to different web sites. Your links should always be anchored on your the keywords that you are optimising you target site on. If your blogging software allows, aways make use of the Title tag on your links and include your keywords.
5. Dont forget to register your Blog URL with the Search Engines – and also register it with Blog directories. If you are writing good content then people will link to you, your Page Rank will increase and your outgoing links will become more valuable.
I hope you all have a good week. If anyone has any other tips on blogging for SEO then please feel free to comment!
In the early days of Search Engine Optimisation, the only way to get your web site listed by the Search Engines was by submitting it on a regular basis. There were even companies that specialised in submitting your web sites on a regular basis to make sure they kept checking out the content.
Thankfully, the world has moved on (be warned, that some companies still think that submitting your web site on a regular basis is a fruitful activity – it isnt!).
The modern way to manage your Google inclusion is through the user of XML sitemaps and a well structured web site.
All Search Engines use spider programs, also known as robots or crawlers. The scour the web and visit web pages to scan their text and links. The text and links are then sent off for indexing . The spider the Google uses is called Googlebot. If you have access to an analytics package you can probably see when Googlebot has been viewing your site.
The first step to getting your site indexed is through classic submission. Let Google know that you site exists. Then, if you haven’t already got one, sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account, register your site and create an XML Sitemap containing the structure of your web site.
The big question on everyones lips (especially customers of SEO companies) is how long will it take for your site to be indexed?
The truthful answer to this is that there are no guarantees, however by following the correct “white hat” procedures you can expect your site to be crawled with 1-2 months. As your campaign grows and you create more backlinks and on site content the frequency of crawls will increase along with your ranking.
One of the reasons that back links are so important in any SEO campaign is that they help Google find your site. Each time Google scans a page containing a backlink to your site it credits the landing page with being an authority on the topic of the originating page. This is why back links from relevant sources are so important and should never be underestimated.
In a nut shell thats how Google find your pages. The key is backlinks…
Google is to change its algorithm to tackle the problem of spammers using black hat search engine optimisation to get malicious pages at the top of results pages, it has emerged.
An unnamed source at the search engine told WebProNews that the algorithm for calculating search rankings will change in due course and should mean that web users do not see malicious results at the top of listings “nearly as often”.
The spammers in question get their pages to the top of Google’s search results by using Google Trends and Google News to research the most popular keywords of the moment, including these in their web pages and distributing links through comment boxes and forums on social media
Google uses over 200 different signals to determine the ranking of a website by calculating its importance to the rest of the web and its relevance to users’ search queries.
No one is sure about exactly what changes will be made, and the chances are that no one will ever find out but it will have an effect on the SEO techniques in the future.
I found this good article on another SEO blog via Twitter http://twitter.com/seodenver) - and thought it would be informative to our readers
A search engine is basically an information finding system in a computer that helps one find out information they are trying to find. They dramatically cut down the time needed to find the information one is looking for.
The concept of optimizing a website for the search engines began in the mid 1990s when webmasters saw the benefit on high ranking of their sites.
In earlier years webmasters were able to manipulate their websites with the result of them being able to get high ranking in the search engines regardless of whether the content of their web page was actually relevant to the targeted keyword or not.
Over time the search engine computations of the relevance of a particular web page to a particular keyword or set of keywords became more sophisticated so that the search engine could tell what web pages were relevant to a keyword being searched for and what web pages had just been manipulated just to gain traffic. This was done by those computing by being able to determine the quality and strength of incoming or inbound links to a web page. This system however was still not foolproof as webmasters were still able to manipulate by exchanging, buying or selling for the higher quality links to their sites. From that point on other factors were entered in to the computations the search engines use in ranking pages. This information is not available to webmasters and the public at large.
There are companies that are search engine optimisation companies. The service they sell to the public is to optimise their website to give it the best possibility of higher ranking with the search engines. If their techniques are too aggressive the effect may be detrimental to their clients to a point where their websites could be banned from search results. Not something you would want to pay someone for.
Some of the search engines have made efforts to communicate with the search engine optimisation companies to get their efforts aligned for everyones benefit. There are those who use search engine optimisation (SEO) to conform with the desires and wishes of the search engines and there are those who seek to get around the search engine rules and guidelines to get what traffic they can until they are caught.
It is a good practice to mix a campaign using search engine optimisation with one of a good paying campaign. The reason for this is that the computations that the search engines use do change and one may see a drop in unpaid traffic due to this factor. It is also a good practice to avoid search engine optimisation companies that make false promises they can not deliver, that guarantee a top rank with Google, that are secretive, that are nondescript about where your money goes, etc.
Searching for anything on Google is now much harder than it was 5 or 10 years ago. This is due to the ever increasing amount of content on the internet.
Google Squared seeks to add another dimension of structure to the wildly fluctuating net environment. By analysing, structuring and categorising web pages, Google Squared claims to be able to provide more relevant content.
Current Google results are currently based on keywords or phrases. This method is open to manipulation by optimising sites, both internally and externally for these phrases.
Google Squared builds on the tradition of providing quality content by sorting resources available on the SERPs. According to a source, Google Squared will provide “squares” – small window-like features in the browser – which represent web pages. Each square will be categorised graphically based on search results.
What does this mean for SEO’s? Will we need to adapt new techniques and methods to help our sites rank high on the results? Initially I envisage that the concept of content being king will utimately prevail and the new Algorithms put in place have been developed to cover the weaknessess of the current search patterns. Does this mean that link building will become a thing of the past? Will Search Engine Optimisation become a thing of the past and the focus shifted to internet marketing / social media channels promoting “Content”?
Webmaster tools is a pivitol tool in the arsenal of goodies used by SEO’s in any Search Engine Optimisation campaign. It provides the information that we need to use to understand how the sites we are working with are a) Seen in the eyes of Google, b) Performing in terms of backlinks and c) Performing in terms of impressions and click throughs.
Google have responded to comments and suggestions and Webmaster tools is undergoing a radical makeover.
Highlights include a one stop dashboard (excellent!), up to 100 queries to track for click throughs, multi user site maps, help in 21 languages(!) and improved navigation.
Google have released a short vide on you tube as a brief introduction to the newly designed interface.
We’ve had a quick play around with the new site tonight and we are fairly impressed. The same data is available as before, but the presentation allows site administrators to find the information they want more quickly.
We understand that the new and old versions will both be available during a transition period.
Google serves a purpose, it has a job and it has responsabilities. People trust Google to deliver relevant content to their search criteria. They rely on the leading search engine to give them content that relates to what they are looking for. It bases its results on the relevance of content within a web site.
So what does it think about SEO? There are millions of web sites out there, of which a huge number are all related in terms of topics, products and services. Many companies and SEO’s are frantically working away to get good links back to their sites through articles, directories, social channels and link exchanges (by this of course I do not mean the black hat link buying or selling). So as an SEO, are we basically tricking Google into thinking that sites are more popular than they really are? Are we manipulating the search results in such a way that Google would prefer us not to - and in which case are all techniques apart from content building really black hat?
Interesting thoughts for a Saturday – now back to the Tennis as the rain covers are coming off…….
Ugh, ok, so I’m raising the ugly head of black hat Search Engine Optimisation again. It’s not really a topic I like to talk about but I feel this is a grey area. The area I am talking about is Micro Sites.
I recently read a proposal from an SEO company that was written about 12 months ago, and the main focus seemed to be built on building 40+ micro web sites based on the agreed choice of keywords that would all link back to the main web site. Great idea in theory but a totally unacceptable method of SEO in my eyes that does nothing more than litter the web with useless SPAMMY content.
Now, I met with a client this morning and we discussed the possibility of building 4 or 5 micro sites based on products that they sell. Now from a marketing point of view this makes sense as the sites can focus on these products specifically and they can genuinely link back to the main web site. I beleive that these sites will provide added value both to the customers and to the client but I am also aware that this isn’t exactly 100% approved by Google – or is it? Am I reading into Black Hat techniques too much and at the end of the day does it come down to common sense and knowing when you have crossed the line.
There has been a lot of recent talk about Google aquiring Twitter due to the enormous amount of interest and activity the social networking site has generated over the last few months.
Would it be beneficial for Google to purchase such a network?
It’s an ideal channel for product marketing, viral marketing and such what and could fit in well with Googles strategy.
The recent news about Ashton Kutcher breaking 1 million followers is said to be a milestone in the use of social networking sites, and one that has raised a few eyebrows and opened a few eyes.
This story is of interest to SEO’s as Google seemingly see’s great value in social networks when it comes to Search Engine results.
Ever seen the Guinness advert here in the U.K.? “Tick followed tock” and the finale saying how long it takes to pull the perfect pint of Guinness?
Well in my world SEO is like a pint of Guinness, in that the best results are found by people who persevere and remain dedicated to the cause.
SEO is not, and should never be sold or perceived as a quick fix. It is a science, one that is to be studied (if not totally understood) with great detail. Changes to results in SEO can take months, and the best way to measure the performance of these changes is to limit them to one at a time. It’s not uncommon for SEO campaigns to take 6,12 or even 24 months to yield rewarding results.
SEO comes with no performance promises – you can never guarantee a position in the rankings , so be wary of anyone who promises the earth. There is a very big chance they will not be able to deliver. Ask your SEO about their long term strategy. Talk to them about keyword analysis, periodic reviews and realistic goals.
If you need help with SEO or are looking for a Search Engine Optimisation consultant give eSoftware Solutions a call on +44 (0) 845 838 8588 or email ian@esoftware-solutions.com. We would love to talk to you about your project, even if you just want a little bit of advice. After all, SEO is no secret and we are happy to help.
