If you’re a busy entrepreneur, having a blog can be something of a burden. Finding the time to constantly update it can have a real draining effect on your precious time. Nonetheless, a company needs a blog as one part of its SEO campaign. Blogs with fresh and relevant content tend to rank extremely well on Google. Businesses with blogs tend to rank higher on search engines than those without but having a stale and seldom updated blog section is not good for business. Below are 5 reasons why you must continually add content to your blog, even if you need to hire a writer to do it.

1: Search Engines

The whole point of having a blog in the first place is to keep customers informed and improve your search engine ranking. Google has started to take a shine to blogs which are updated on a regular basis. Therefore, sites with no blog or an inactive one are already at a disadvantage. When a blog is updated regularly, search engine spiders visit your site more often. If the blog is not updated, the Googlebots won’t search as often as it knows the blog is stale.

2: Your Brand

The majority of online businesses have static sites that look dead and customers aren’t even sure if it is being managed or not. As a result, visitors are unsure if they should waste time completing the ‘Contact Us’ form. When you update your blog, visitors know you’re active and gain familiarity with your company and brand. It increases trust and this in turn leads to better sales.

3: Authority

Rather than using your blog to sell company products and services, write about your personal experiences and knowledge. Readers respect bloggers who are open, honest and appear to know what they’re talking about. Think of your blog as a communication tool and use it to write about the most recent occurrences in your industry. Be as detailed as you can without alienating your readership. Soon, your blog will be seen as the place to go for new developments in your industry.

4: Engage With Customers

Regardless of the industry you’re in, the level of competition is likely to be fierce. With a constantly updated blog, you are in a position to respond immediately to the queries and concerns of readers and customers. Instead of being forced to listen to endless corporate spiel, visitors feel as if they have a voice and are more likely to do business with a company that is seen to listen to its customers.

5: Joining Forces

Every online business needs help and if you get the chance to collaborate with another well-respected blog, grasp the opportunity with both hands. This allows you to send your message to a wider audience using another company’s blog as a vehicle. There are a number of world class bloggers with huge audiences who don’t have the time to blog regularly. They are thrilled to accept guest posts from high quality writers. When creating a guest blog post, be sure include a link to your site at the end.

Updating your blog constantly gives you continued exposure. If you don’t update it, you’re doing your company a disservice.

When you create a site, the first thing you need to do is submit it to Google. Although submission may not be 100% necessary as search engine spiders pick up well optimised sites, there is no point in leaving anything to chance, adopt an SEO strategy with a reputable SEO company. It’s important for you to understand how Google works. Google uses a ranking system where it finds sites and gives them a rank which relates to how relevant that website’s content is. You also need to install Google Toolbar in order to see a site’s ranking. Between 65-70% of all internet searches take place on Google with thousands of search queries answered a second. It’s clear that a good Google ranking is essential if you want your business to be visible to potential customers.

Here are some tips that should help your site rank higher on Google as well as a few words of warning.

?  Headings: Always make sure that your site’s headings appear in order (h1, h2, h3 etc) on the page.

?  Intro: Your website should have an excellent introductory paragraph which explains what your site is about in clear terms to readers as well as containing relevant keywords.

?  Links: Every single page on your website needs to have text links. These links should describe where they are sending the reader rather than just saying click here. You should also ensure that your links are updated regularly. Google frowns on outdated links.

?  Site Map: You need to have one of these but ensure that there are less than 100 links a page.

?  Title Tag: A good title tag will make you stand out above rival websites. Google search results only show titles so generic titles will not rank well.

?  Flash and Images: Google’s spiders find it hard to read sites containing too many images and Flash websites. By all means use images but keep Flash to a minimum.

?  Content: Don’t fall into the trap of writing your pages for Google. It’s possible to write a high quality article for readers that also contains the requisite keywords. In fact, good writing normally contains the necessary phrases as a matter of course.

What To Avoid

?  Hidden Text: Don’t try and be clever by using hidden text. This is when the text and background is the same colour. Sites try and do this as a means of slipping in extra keywords and links while keeping the content’s integrity intact. This doesn’t work as Google only ranks text and links that can be seen by readers.

?  Cloaking: This is a black hat technique which involves sending search engine spiders to a different site that visitors don’t see. Again, this site will be filled with keywords and links that would make it virtually unintelligible.

?  Keyword Stuffing: Google changed their algorithm years ago to ensure that all sites had quality content. The practice of keyword stuffing is outdated and simply won’t work. You can keep keyword density relatively low and still rank high if the content and links are of sufficient quality.

?  Loopholes: If you ever think you’ve found a loophole that will ‘beat’ the Google search engine, forget about it. Even in the unlikely event that it works, Google will quickly catch on and penalise your site.

Improving your site’s search engine ranking is a long process that requires hard work and patience but if you follow the above tips, you’ll already have an advantage over lazy competitors.

No matter how good your on-site work is, you can’t guarantee a high ranking on the search engines unless your off-site work is just as spectacular. Of course, off-site work relates to link building. If a site that is well-known links to your page, the search engines views this as a vote of confidence. As a result, your search engine ranking improves. Here are the 10 of the best link building strategies which will do wonders for the SEO of your site.

10: Don’t Let Keywords Dictate

You should worry more about increasing targeted traffic to your site through link-marketing than focusing solely on keywords for SEO. It is foolish to risk your site’s future on a single strategy. Devote at least as much time to link-building as keyword placement.

9: Look For Link Patterns

Do relevant topical keyword searches on Google to see which sites rank highly for certain keywords. Create a list of the top 50 sites that are an accurate representation of the competitive landscape. Use link analysis tools to find patterns between the sites in your top 50. This may help you find out which links your rivals are getting that you aren’t.

8: Don’t Just Copy Your Rivals

However, you can’t just copy the links your rivals have. In order to beat them, you need to find links that they don’t yet have.

7: Clever Link Purchasing Is Okay

As link building can take a long time, there are plenty of companies offering to do it for you at a price. Yet you need to avoid SEO companies that use spam links as this will see you being penalised by the search engines. Buying links is fine, just make sure you use a reputable company and don’t fall into the J.C Penney trap.

6: Forget Link Exchanges

A link exchange involves you reciprocating links with another site. This won’t work as Google sees it as an attempt to manipulate their system and won’t rate it highly.

5: Look To Get Listed In Online Directories

Web directories are useful tools as they list your business and have a backlink to your site. Directories edited by humans and ones relating to your industry are your best bets.

4: Be Generous

Create high quality content that has a link to your site and offer it to another high ranking site. Offer to write a blog but make sure you know the target audience of the site you’re placing the content on.

3: Focus On Quality

Another word for content that is relevant, meaningful and inspires debate is ‘link bait’. This type of content is readily shared by users on social networking sites and these links do wonders for your search engine ranking.

2: Stay Legitimate

A handful of links from sites with authority and a good reputation are worth far more than hundreds of spam links from sites of dubious value. Try and ensure that your links come from sites that are in the same industry as your company.

1: Ensure Quality

Once upon a time, merely having more links than another site was enough to get you ranked above theirs. These days, Google only cares about quality links. Therefore, any time spent pursuing links from pointless sites is wasted. You’re responsible for checking out sites that link to you. Ensure that these sites provide visitors with value.

The above tips should be more than enough to get you started on the road to success when it comes to link building.

If you have an online business, improving your website’s SEO ranking should be high on your list of priorities. Virtually everyone who uses the internet uses a search box to find what they’re looking for. With good SEO, you can ensure that your site ranks on the top page of search engines like Google for keywords which are extremely important in your industry. Once you have such visibility, you will receive more visitors which will eventually lead to greater profits and this is hopefully your main objective if you have an ecommerce site.

Research Or Fail

Everyone who uses SEO knows that keywords are vital but a low percentage of companies use relevant keywords correctly. Using keywords without finding out more information about their popularity/level of competition is a waste of time. There is no point in having a beautifully optimised website that uses keywords which have just 14 monthly searchers. Equally, it’s futile trying to rank for ultra popular keywords such as football or golf as the level of competition is too high. If you go down this route, prepare to spend a lot of money on your SEO campaign. Instead, you need to use long-tail keywords and take advantage of Google’s free keyword tool which shows you the keyword competition.

Headings/Subheading

Optimizing the basic blog and article content is not enough, you also need to optimize title tags, headings and subheadings. A lot of businesses waste time trying to optimize meta keywords tags without realizing that Google don’t count these tags in the ranking criteria. HTML tags and meta tags need to be different on your website’s pages if you want these tags to be stored and used in search results. Your homepage title must be less than 66 characters as Google does not display anything longer. When assembling your page, make sure you only use one H1 tag for your heading while using several H2-H6 subheadings. Of course, a page full of headings doesn’t read very well so enter text which contains important information relevant to your company ensuring that keywords are sprinkled throughout.

No Duplicate Content

All content that appears on your site needs to be regularly updated, created with the right keyword density in mind (1-2%) and also contain numerous links to other high ranking sites. The content needs to be useful and original because search engines heavily punish duplicate content. To be honest, you have no excuse to plagiarise when there are tools like Copyscape available to check all your work and ensure it doesn’t clash with other work on the web. Photo and video content works well too just don’t add too much flash content as this does not get picked up by search engine spiders.

In the end, SEO is not nearly as complicated as certain people make out. Yes, Google algorithms change almost daily it seems and this does keep online businesses guessing but in general, sites that use white hat SEO techniques effectively are not penalised. Keep your content fresh and relevant, perform a keyword search before using them and optimize headings and your site will stay well ranked on search engine pages for a long time.

The ability of the internet to provide a level playing field is something that has often been remarked upon and there is no better equaliser than Google Places. It gives you the chance to rank high on local search engines and when the majority of your potential clientele hail from your local area, it is an opportunity that simply can’t be passed up. Google Places also enables you to print information about your company such as phone number, physical address, email address etc., all of which make for excellent SEO.

Instant Rankings

The chief benefit of Google Places is the fact that it enables you to suddenly usurp larger, more established organisations in terms of search engine rankings. Let’s say that you wanted to rank for Leicester Pizza. Trying to get ranked in the top page for that particular long-tail keyword could take more than a year if you went through the usual channels. With Google Places however, you will be able to immediately shoot to the top of the rankings even if you have created a brand new site.

Mobile Users

Another major benefit to getting on Google Places is the fact that you’ll automatically be seen on Google Maps and searches from iPhones. If this doesn’t seem significant, then you don’t realise how quickly iPhone and Smartphone usage has increased in the last couple of years. If you own a salon in Leeds and an iPhone user in Leeds types ‘Leeds Salon’ into the search box, your location would show up on Google Maps. If they are in a hurry and your shop is nearby, you may gain an instant customer!

Photos

One of the most remarkable things about Google Places is that they are willing to perform free photo shoots for companies located in major cities. The photos they take are of premium quality and the process actually helps them too. Having high quality photos improves their listings and ensures that they are seen as an authority on local businesses. From your point of view, Google confirms that your business is legitimate because they have actually been in the place and photos make your company look more professional and real which heightens your chances of gaining new customers.

Free

Google Places really provides a winning situation all round. It is free to use for businesses and provides them with a number of amazing advantages over rivals who have not yet seen the Google Places light. You can also drum up interest in your business by offering discount coupons on the site. This helps you gain more customers and the public gets to sample your products/services for a significantly reduced price.

It seems as if Google has decided that local businesses need a boost when it comes to local search engine rankings. From Google’s point of view, Google Places ensures that visitors to the search engine find only the most relevant content. This stops people switching over to rival search engines. As a result, they have created something that will help your ranking, ensure that you get greater publicity and hopefully more customers. Whether they keep coming back for more is entirely up to you.

It is puzzling that many savvy business people who run an online company still view SEO as an unnecessary expense. Such individuals need to look beyond the initial cost of SEO and start seeing the bigger picture. They need to decide what they expect from an SEO campaign. Naturally, the whole point is to increase visibility on search engines which leads to a higher level of traffic and ultimately more sales. As SEO is a proven method of improving a company’s fortunes, it’s odd that certain companies refuse to utilise it. Perhaps the best way to truly understand the usefulness of SEO is to find out the potential return on investment and hope search engine optimization can deliver it.

Patience

The whole reason why you’re using SEO is to make a profit. However, you can’t expect to get a return on investment immediately. Strategies like link building can take several months to deliver results. Instead of looking at the investment in a month or two, analyse it after a year has passed. You also need to look at the number of leads and sales that have been generated by your SEO efforts. Google Analytics is a fantastic tool for helping you find out specific site statistics. Finally, you calculate how much each lead or sale cost you.

It should also be noted that the time you have spent on your SEO campaign must also be added to the cost. For example, if you spent an average of 10 hours a week on SEO for 26 weeks and made a gross profit of £1,300, your average hourly earnings from SEO would be £5 an hour which is certainly not good enough.

Lifetime Value

Another classic method of discovering whether or not SEO gives you a good return on investment is through the calculation of a customer’s lifetime value. For example, your average customer may spend £30 each time they purchase something from your business which they do 4 times a year for 4 years. In addition, the average customer refers your company to his friends and brings in 3 new customers who buy an average of £300 of goods each over a 4 year period.  The first customer spends a total of £480 (30 x 4 x 4) and his friends spend a total of £900 (3 x 300) so the lifetime value of your average customer is £1,380.

Conversion rate

Then you have the small matter of calculating the conversion rate of your SEO campaign. This is the total percentage of people who have visited your site and purchased something, subscribed to a newsletter etc. You can take this to a more complex level by looking at your conversion rate per keyword. For example, if 5 keywords convert at 10% and another 5 convert at 6%; your overall keyword conversion rate is 8% (10 x 5 + 6 x 5/10).

These are just some of the ways that will help you determine whether or not your SEO campaign is delivering a satisfactory return on investment. In all other forms of business, it is a well known fact that you have to invest capital in order to succeed and online business is no different.

Did you know that the name of your website could be one of the best SEO tools at your disposal? Long before you fill your website’s pages with up to date blogs and articles which contain outbound links through anchor text which connects your site with another highly ranked one, you have the chance to get a massive head start over your rivals. Do not choose any old name for your website address. The key to starting SEO on the right foot is to choose an exact match URL. In this instance, the exact match corresponds to a keyword which is relevant to your business.

A Weighty Issue

Search engines see your website’s URL as a good indicator of what’s contained in the page and ranks accordingly. This is why you can’t be too clever with your website address. For example, which address do you think will show up after a user types in ‘golf’ in a search engine, www.golf.com or www.fiveiron.com? Although a five iron is part of a person’s golfing equipment, it will be buried beneath all the domains which have ‘golf’ in the title. It should be noted that it’s unwise to change the URL of a site that is already getting good traffic. Once you change a URL, you’re starting from scratch in the eyes of the search engines who essentially view you as a new site.

Simply put, domains with a keyword in them will consistently outrank sites that don’t have a matching URL. The reason why exact match URL’s are so important is because Google’s algorithm places a huge amount of weight on a site’s domain name. This weight increases the older the site gets which is why it’s so unwise for a successful site to change its URL. In essence, exact match URLs play the percentage game perfectly. An exact keyword will always be given 100% weight whereas any deviations whatsoever will lose weight and be worth say 80%. Once you start adding signs and symbols outside of the main keyword, your website’s URL dramatically loses its power.

Finding An Exact Match

However, it is pretty unlikely that an exact match URL will be available for your website. Of course, it’s always worth having a look and seeing if the .com, .org, .net and .co.uk names are taken. You could also look for less popular addresses but perhaps you’re better off concentrating on the main four above. One idea is to add your location to the keyword so a golf equipment company in Leeds could call themselves golfleeds.co.uk or golfequipmentleeds.co.uk. In extremely competitive fields, these URLs could also be taken. If nothing else, add the keyword to the end of the URL address so it would look like www.yourdomainname.co.uk/golfequipment.

Do whatever you can to ensure that your website’s address is as close to an exact match URL as possible because it weighs heavily on search engine rankings. Naturally, your site must still contain relevant content, keyword usage, links and other SEO tools but to get off to a flying start, get an exact match URL

Despite several years running high-value and highly profitable Google Adwords PPC campaigns for our clients – Zeno had never taken the official Google exams, favouring a more hands-on approach, and seeing these as more of a non-necessary formality.

Well, in January 2012, we finally linked one of our paid search manager’s qualifications to the company and officially became fully Google Adwords Certified.

This gives yet more credibility to our Paid Search team, and provides extra assurances to new clients we speak regarding Adwords and PPC.

If you have a Google Adwords related enquiry, we’d love to hear from you – as we are currently taking on a large number of paid search projects and looking to grow heavily in this area over the next 12 months.

Currently we help clients get cheaper conversions, better quality clicks, eliminate wastage and more.

Contact us to see how we can help your paid search campaign with our PPC management options

If you trawl through the internet, you will find a host of articles old and new which say that flash websites are harmful to SEO. It is said that the main problem with flash when it comes to SEO is the fact that search engines struggle to read your site’s content. Although there are occasions when the search engine gets into the site and follows the links, it is unable to separate the content into pages which ruins your chances of ranking high because targeted search results are not possible. However, Google has improved its crawling and indexing of Flash content and as it is by far the world’s largest search engine, suddenly Flash does not seem like the death knell to SEO it once was.

Simplification

In layman’s terms, Flash websites only offer a single URL for Google to index which means that your entire site only has one URL that can rank for keywords. Naturally, this is terrible for SEO. One method used by advanced web designers to ensure that Flash websites don’t automatically equal a terrible SEO ranking is through the use of simplification. Essentially, it means that a website needs to be built in a manner which ensures that it remains functional to a browser that lacks the highest level of support. This enables it to still load the page. The less advanced the browser is, the simpler your site becomes. Eventually, your site should still be functional with nothing more than plain HTML.

This means that Flash websites also have a non-Flash version that works for browsers that don’t have Flash support. Unfortunately, only a fraction of websites are built in this manner. Opponents of this form of site building point out that the majority of browsers do have Flash support. What they fail to realise is that this method also improves a site’s visibility when it comes to keyword search.

Flash Replacement

Even if 90% of visitor’s browsers have Flash support, you need to remember that search engines do not. Flash Replacement enables you to deliver Flash content to browsers that can handle it and non-Flash versions for browsers lacking this support which of course includes search engines. JavaScript is used to decide if the browser supports the Flash version or not and if it does, the Flash movie is loaded. If it doesn’t support Flash, the plain version becomes visible instead.

If nothing else, this proves that Flash content does not necessarily have to come at the cost of losing SEO rankings. However, there are a couple of problems when it comes to implementation of the above. The first is a complete lack of awareness on the part of most companies. Few online businesses are even aware that their Flash content is hampering them so badly. The second issue is one of finance. Hiring specialists to carry out the above techniques is a costly process and may be beyond the budget of most organisations. Although Flash websites are visually spectacular, failure to solve the SEO problem will ensure that few visitors ever see it