Posted on 27th May 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation
Backlinks, Keywords, Page Rank, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Company, UK SEO Company
Google Page Rank (PR) is a measurement of relevance / popularity. Each page in your web site will have its own ranking.
The scale of Page Rank goes from 1-10, although it is possible that your pages could have no ranking at all. Generally this means that they havent been indexed yet.
So how do you improve your Page Rank?
The simple answer is to get good back links to your site from pages that already have a good page rank. Each time Google links out from a page with a good PR it passes a peice of that Page Rank to the destination page. Due to this it may be better for you to get a back link from a page with a PR of 4 that has 10 back links on it, than to get a backlink from a page with a PR of 6 with 70 back links on it. This is because the PR is distributed across the outgoing links equally.
Building back links is an important part of any Search Engine Optimisation Campaign. If you need help or advice on building up back links then please get in touch with UK Search Engine Optimisation Company, eSoftware Solutions
Posted on 14th April 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation
Article Submissions, Articles, Back Links, Keywords, One Way Links, Search Engine Optimisation
Writing and submitting articles is a great resource for increasing traffic to your website and also getting one way links back to your site.
There are a thousands of article directories on the internet that will accept your article. Each article directory is split into categories and it is important that the category that you pick is relevant to the content of your site.
Article Submissions are not only a great way of providing back links for your site, but also for creating click through traffic aswell.
There are hundreds of thousands of articles posted on the internet each and every day – so what can you do to help yours stand out from the crowd?
- Firstly, make sure that you are providing unique and valuable content. Make your article interesting and engaging. Give people a reason to click through to your web site.
- Keep the article relatively short. Between 350 and 500 words should suffice, although some article directories will request that you use more words.
- Make sure that the article fulfills the promise of the article title. Dont promise one thing and then write about another!
- Include your keywords! To get the maximum benefit out of your article, both in terms of click throughs and search engines make sure that you use your targetted keywords in your article.
- Make sure you read the guidelines of each directory that you submit to. Some directories only allow you to put URL links in your resource of signature area of the article. If you don’t adhere to the guidelines your article will be rejected!
So why will submitting articles help my Search Engine Optimisation campaign?
- Articles provide a great source of one way links to your web site and you can target deep links aswell as the home page.
- You can generate human click throughs by writing engaging content.
- Submitting articles is a white hat SEO approach.
- Some article directories allow members to replicate your article on their web sites or other directories and blogs. What can be better than free marketing and backlinks!
If you follow these basic guidelines when submitting your articles you will start to see your SEO campaign move in the right direction.
For more information on Article Submissions, or if you would like to talk to us about an article submission project then please email info@esoftware-solutions.com
Posted on 7th April 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation
Keyword Density, Keyword Optimisation, Keywords, Search Engine Optimisation, Title Tag, Use of Keywords on a Web Page
Choosing the right keywords for any SEO Campaign is absolutely essential. The keywords create a foundation on which the entire project is built.
But once you have your keywords what do you do with them?
The Title text of your web page is what you see in your Web Browsers address bar. This should be a short, concise description of your web page and should be no more than 100 characters in length. Many SEO’s beleive that the Title tag is THE most important part of the page in terms of web page optimisation, although that could be disputed.
You should always ensure that you are using your keywords in your Title tag, and that you have formatted it correctly. Where possible seperate your keywords using a comma or pipe ( | ) symbol. This creates a definate break in the Title tag text so that the search engines know its the end of the word or phrase. For example:
Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing and Web Design
Is not a good way to format your Title Tag, where as
Search Engine Optimisation | Internet Marketing | Web Design
Is the optimised way to format your Title Tags.
You will see that the optimised way to format your Title Tag removes any unnecessary words – how easy is that!
A well optimised page can see your (established) web site shoot up the rankings by hundreds of places in a space of 48 hours. For new builds or immature domains you may find this takes longer as Google builds up a trust relationship with your site.
Posted on 2nd March 2009 by iansheldon in SEO Q&A |Search Engine Optimisation
Google Results, Keyword Frequency, Keywords, Search Engine Ranking, SEO, SEO Company, SEO Traffic
Search engine optimisation is simply a must have for any web site.
If you are looking to optimise your web site you will hear about the different tools and techniques you can use to help improve your rankings. This article describes the most popular myths going around the SEO Industry. Whether you are planning to do your own SEO, or hire an SEO Specialist make sure you keep this list in mind.
The importance of Meta Tags
Not all Meta tags are important, or at least not as important as they once were. There was a time when SEO was all about Meta Tags but these days the search engines prefer better content. However, dont neglect your Meta Tags altogether, just dont focus all of your efforts on them.
Monthly submission to search engines
Many SEO companies will tell you that they will submit your web site to the search engines on a monthly basis. This will not help your rankings. If your SEO company are creating your backlinks on a monthly basis then the Search Engines will pick up your site through these anyway.
SEO is too expensive
Not true, and SEO should always be seen as an investment, not an expense. With the right SEO, the right keywords and the right strategy you can expect to reclaim your costs through good search engine postioning and increased visitor traffic.
PPC is better than SEO
Some will argue this is correct until the cows come home. As a short term strategy PPC can be better than SEO. We don’t beleive that PPC is better than organic results. Why? Search Engines results are built on content and relevance and this builds up trust between the search engines and the searchers. Searchers are now aware that anyone can buy a position on the sponsored links and look to the trusted organic results to offer web sites that are relevant to their search criteria
Optimising your sites home page
SEO is about optimising web PAGES and not web SITES. Make sure that each individual page is optimised, not just the homepage.
Content is King
Yes, the content of your web site is important, however it is only one part of SEO. Your efforts should be focussed on both on and off site SEO activities.
Competitive Keywords
If you are in a competitive industry then don’t give up on keywords just because they are difficult to conquer. Stick to your SEO plan, and in time you will reap the rewards.
Guarantee SEO
There are absoultely NO guarantees with SEO. No SEO company or consultant can offer you a guarantee of what position they can get you to in the search engines.
So there we have it. A few myths surrounding SEO, that you are now aware of. As always, if you have any comments or suggestions with regards to our article posts then please feel free to contribute!
Posted on 16th February 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation
Google, Google Algorithms, Keyword Density, Keywords, Latent Semantic Indexing
You may have heard people talking about keyword density, and the effects it can have on a Search Engine Optimisation campaign. It is important that you make good use of your keywords in the copy of your web site, but remember that you are writing for your site visitors and NOT the search engines. What use is your site if it doesn’t make sense to the people you are trying to promote or sell your services to?
A few points to consider regarding keyword density are:
- Significant weighting is put on the age of the domain, the domain name and link anchor text
- The most important part of the page for your keywords is the page title.
- Hidden elements such as description and keyword META tags are given less weighting, but should not be overlooked.
- Page copy which is bolded, linked, or in a heading tag can be given greater weighting than normal text.
- Use tags correctly. For example do not use H1 tags around an entire page or paragraph.
- Avoid duplication such as bolding H1 tags. It won’t make any difference.
- Semantic related algorithms, may look at supporting vocabulary when determining the relevancy of a page (See our post on LSI). If you pulled the keyword phrase you were targeting out of your page copy would it still be easy for a search engine to mathematically model what that phrase was and what your page is about given the supporting text?
- When people focus too much on keyword density they tend to write content which people would not be interested in reading or linking at. Make sure that your copy makes sense!
Posted on 29th January 2009 by admin in Search Engine Optimisation
Keyword Analysis, Keyword Frequency, Keywords, Search Engine Optimisation
Your marketing strategy may be made up of a number of different sources such as web sites, blogs, article submissions and social media channels, but in any of the above situations using the correct keywords, correctly, is essential.
Search Engine Optimisation can have a dramatic effect on your business. Do it well and site visits and sales can increase, do it badly and the results of your marketing efforts are greatly reduced.
Keyword strategys are a fundemental part of any SEO project.
Proper keyword optimisation can yield excellent Search Engine rankings, and therefore a higher number of site visitors.
The search engines use the text on your site to identify the relevance of your site against the search phrase that the ‘search user’ entered. If you don’t use enough keywords you will suffer, and likewise if you cram too many keywords into your copy you will get penalised.
There are three main areas that you should focus on when it comes to keywords. Accuracy, Positioning and frequency.
Accuracy
Keywords should be relevant to the topic of your web site. Search Engines are very clever when it comes to understanding the relevance of the copy on your site through technqiues such as LSI. If you don’t follow the strict practices of white-hat SEO you can quickly find yourself buried in the rankings.
Positioning
The placement of your keywords on the page is absolutely essential. Where possible use the keywords in the title of your page (even name your page using keywords if you can), and also use them in the description of your page. The description is often picked up by the search engines and displayed in the search results.
Remember that your copy must make gramatical sense. Google can pick up on that aswell. Write you copy for the site visitor, not for the search engines.
Frequency
Don’t get carried away with key words in your copy. It’s easy to over use key words and phrases to grab the attention of the search engines. Keyword spamming or stuffing is generally marked down when it comes to SEO, and could end up dropping your site down a few pages in the rankings.
The big question is what weighting should you look at when it comes to using keywords. Opinions vary as there is no strict rule, but anything between 2-5% of the copy as keywords is generally safe. There are many free keyword density tools on the market to help you in the right direction.
Finally, never forget the golden rule. Be natural with your copy. Write it for humans, not for Search Engines.
Posted on 29th January 2009 by admin in Search Engines
Google Algorithms, Keywords, Latent Semantic Indexing, Web Site Copy
As an SEO I can spend much time trying to work on how Google indexes sites. Unfortunately this is a secret that Google (rightly) keeps close to it’s chest and no SEO can claim to know exactly how it works.
This post explores the LSI technique. Just one of the many Algorithms that we beleive Google has in place.
Latent Semantic Indexing
Ok, I will try not to get too heavy here, but basically LSI is all about processing language. Latent semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine what a page is about outside of specifically matching search query text. It considers the natural flow of the text and the relationship between words on a page. The purpose of LSI is to distinguish between natural text (i.e. text written for the site visitor to read) and keyword-heavy text (text inserted by the SEO to try and improve the ranking of the page).
LSI is designed to set apart text designed to manipulate search results. For example, if you are writing an article on Golf Putting aids it will scan the article and pick up words such as Golfer, Driver, Green, Golf Course, Putting, Golf Club etc
LSI is the reason that SEO’s should write natural copy on their pages, and not cram them with keywords.
