New Google Algorithm Update !

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Well it happens apparently something like four hundred times per year, the old algorithm updates at Google, however maybe many of them are kind of like tweaks. Every now and again however there is something pretty major that hits the scene. Last year it was the Panda update this year it could be the Penguin update.

The Penguin update was launched on the 24th of April, only a few days ago however it is really causing a stink on certain posts online. I read one last night from some dude who claims his website employs a couple of people, gives him a living, supports the family, pays his mortgage but now it has all gone in days due to the update. I saw that some other guy had even started a petition against it, wow!

Essentially the update is targeted at web spammers, low value content, paid link schemes, keyword stuffing and regarding on page factors the structure of a site has come under increasing scrutiny. Duplicate pages and so on.

So as always there are people like the cases above who have been hit hard by this and are complaining and of course there are certain people who sound like holy smart arses saying that it is cool, to be expected blah blah.

My opinion on it for what it is worth…….I kind of feel a bit of both ways on it and for two reasons. First of all in defence of such changes, yes they are intended to make search a better and more rewarding experience that is for sure, however………….It seems to me that a new change comes out, SEO changes a little because of what it demands. People quite innocently do what they are told to do and because of the competitive nature of business, of the internet they do what they have to do to get ahead. Let us not forget that low value sites can and do get high rankings through certain link building and other SEO efforts. I am not excusing this, far from it because in many ways such unfair techniques are in a way ripping people off in one form or another. However it seems to me that many people have tried to build links quite innocently and even offered value in the process, think high quality article sites, not bad ones. I personally feel very sorry for the innocent people who have got stung from such activity because at one time that was very much where the arrow was pointing in terms of getting high quality backlinks with good velocity. But at the same time(innocent people aside) spammers are a pain in the ass, they are the pollution of the online world and for environmental reasons they need to be addressed:)

The crazy thing is in my mind that Google announces something and everyone jumps in that direction, they change direction and then there is a car crash so to say. As of today, social signals are very important to search results. In fact this seems to be the new buzz for SEO. Get people talking about your site, links from FB, Twitter blah blah. You can see the logic behind this, because such signals, such votes are human…….but are they? I say this because there are ways to manipulate social media for your own gains, for the benefit of your rankings in search engines. I do not necessarily use such techniques but I know these techniques or at least where or how to do them. Of course others know this too and in time more people will and then there will be as much social media spam as there is backlink spam and so on and so on. However long down the road, there will be a car crash again I am guessing and people who have been investing man hours and cash in their projects thinking it is the right way to go will be super annoyed to say the least.

But at the same time and it is kind of bitter sweet, I guess human emotion cannot be taken into account  and things need to be done to improve things and make things more honest for people. My only gripe is what next!!! Of course I myself look at the Google webmaster guidelines and what is stated within has been Google’s Gospel for a while now however…….I am not so sure if great websites make it to the top on looks and content alone. I say this because I myself two years ago invested quite heavily in the creation of a website that to be quite frank about it was much better than any other website in the world for that particular subject and still very much is. I know this because I made it that way, I looked at what my competition would be and acted accordingly, nothing compares! However where is that site today? Well it is on page one for the main keyword a keyword that gets typed into Google about half a million times per month! It also has about eighteen million competing pages, however it is not on the top of page one, in fact it is at the very bottom……so, I could be forgiven for asking “hey,where is my commercial”. On top of this, I can honestly say that I had to get extremely aggressive early on SEO wise with the site. So for me personally it feels like six of one and half a dozen of the other, know what I am saying:))) If I had not worked on it from an SEO angle I doubt one could even find it, I mean for a while it was hanging around way back there! I have to point out also that when I was starting a strategy for that site, I by chance found an incredible website, in fact it took my breath away a bit, everything was right about it but from what I could see it was nowhere. I remember to this day how sorry I felt for the owner, it was a great site at the time!

I do not know, well in one respect I do know, I mean if a client comes to me tomorrow with a fresh plan then I have got one for them too in fact it is the same as I have had for a while now, for me kind of nothing has changed but…….I can see that some people with good sites have been hit hard.

It is one of them nothing and nobody is perfect, there is actually something about this exact website that runs foul of this new update, although to my knowledge it is not due to spam but instead something else and quite innocent too.

Yes in case you have not noticed, this site is kind of still under construction. The reason, I am always super busy with new projects and stuff. I keep making my posts though, so as to offer readers some value. If anyone reading this is keen to read more then this is a super SEO blog or here is another great blog for the world of SEO.

 

Interesting News About The The sites That Inspired SEO

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It is a mad old world, you turn on the tv watch the latest news report,see the euro zone shrinking, growth in the UK as minimal and then notice the BRICS countries growing at a rate of knots. I think the Brazilian economy for example is growing this year at something like 8+%.Sounds pretty big hey?But what about 24%? Super growth! What country is that you may be thinking? Answer, not a country but Google. Yeah in an SEO blog post I ain’t going to get all economics but I think it illustrates a point pretty well.24%!!!
Interesting really, or I thought so anyway! In an article that I found very interesting, it tells you why! I could write a summary of it here but it if you are interested it could be better to get it straight from the horses mouth and go have a read from the source where I found it,SearchEngineWorld.com. It is a super site for keeping up to date with news in the SEO world and personally I check it a few times a week, it really is highly recommended.
Yes and If you go take a look at the site you will also notice a couple of interesting posts concerning Yahoo’s fortunes.
Personally, back in 1997 when I first started to use the Internet on a very regular basis I never thought the site would go in the direction it has. However there is a future for all of us and who knows Yahoo could still turn it around one day. However, let us not forget that along with a link from DMOZ a paid link in the Yahoo directory is still pretty much the best and most powerful back link you can have for your site. Apparently, I read somewhere else that although the number of people using yahoo has declined rapidly over the years, it has supposedly maintained a loyal following among the older generation.
If you are interested in these two great sites which help to give birth the wonderful industry of search engine optimisation then head on over to searchengineland.com for a good read.

SEO social media and a little about Twitter

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Thanks again for checking out my SEO blog posts! It has been a while since I made my last one, sorry life kind of took over for a while!
Well, what is new today or since the last time I made a post, in a nutshell, not much I don’t think or at least maybe things SEO wise are still heading in that more social direction. What I mean by that is that SEO through social media still to me seems to be the future of things. I think I may have wrote this at some other point in the past however if I did, to reiterate the point. In the past and still now,people out there attach heaps of importance to back links and indeed it is true you certainly need them I just think it is more going in the direction of where these back links originate from. Traditionally and it sounds funny saying that:)) backlinks were to google a vote for your site and still are however let us say that the back link strategy has been abused over time and now there are some very dubious networks that could seem kosher but would do your site no advantage at all.Think dodgy article networks or article syndication with dodgy link velocity on your part. So of course if you have links now coming from social media sites such as Facebook Twitter and Google+ and these are legitimate links with people actually talking about your product or service then then it is a no brainier these are real votes and votes done by a real human at that!
A slight problem may have occurred though, think about it and it should not be too hard to get your head around. Of course, people out there are starting to spam the hell out of social networks with useless comments that offer no value to anyone, such links are just intended to give a site a push and not to engage real people who are using social media.
Well maybe just maybe that will be coming to an end shortly as the latest word from a cool little SEO resources are telling me that Twitter in particular has had a gutfull of this kind of activity and wants to protect its web properties in the best way possible and I got to say, can you really blame them. After all, just like google, Twitter will want to give its users the best value for their time and let’s face it, who the hell wants to follow some idiot who tweets every five seconds and just talks rubbish for the sake of a link. Your feed would be crowded out by rubbish and you may well miss out on what the latest celebrity has just tweeted, not too cool aye!
So, you could be thinking what is the squeeze here and how will this apply to my SEO.Well like always I say keep your SEO clean and simple then you lessen your chances of something coming back to bite you on the bum. Just like smoking maybe it can feel good in the short term but not so hot years later when you are out of breath.
Regarding Twitter however they are taking action against a number of entities that sell or advocate software that helps people to spam their system.
There you go, another real example illustrating how uncool it is to be a spammer these days. I mean really every business or service that has succeeded in history did so by offering value if only online marketers and webmasters gave the public what they are looking for then achieving good rankings could be that whole lot easier. Just good honest content, on time with real people talking about it can work wonders for your website.
Well thanks again for taking the time for reading this post, it is always cool to ramble on about what is going on online and there is always so much to talk about it is just the time especially when it comes to search engine optimisation. I am thinking that it must be the fastest moving industry in the world or at least one of them, I know it makes my head spin. Til next time take it easy!

SEO And A New Found Keyword With High Commercial Intent!

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I got to be quick with this SEO post but I just have to write it, it could let one see a big plus in SEO! Really, take a read and think to yourself afterwards how you would feel if you found the same.

So what is the story? Let me start by saying that if you have read any of my other “off the wall” SEO blog posts and if you are new to all things SEO then you would have gathered that a very important part of SEO is the initial keyword research to build your site around.

Well……guess what? Let it be known that although I am a graphic design,multimedia design and illustration graduate who has been making the most out of IT for almost 15 years, it is through my interest in business and making money that got me started in SEO. My introduction to SEO came some time ago now through affiliate marketing and all that it takes to understand it successfully!

Well of course affiliate marketing is a hard thing to get right if one is not doing it right, same as anything you know. However with affiliate marketing you have to get it spot on and then some for instance, how far down the rabbit hole can one go with marketing alone, you could find that magic bullet and then split test it even further.

Well anyway I do not want to sound like a swell head but after so long and also with a good helping of intuition, I am, I can honestly say, pretty hot at finding profitable niches despite many things being kind of tapped out.

So, back to my main reason for writing this post and also following on from the last paragraph:) Wait for it………………………..just now I found a keyword or search term that received 60,500 searches per month, the cost per click was almost £2 and happy days for me, getting on page one for this keyword did not look like it would be too much of a headache. On top of all this I did a search with godaddy and with a slight variation I can buy the exact match domain too.

Of course I am not going to reveal this keyword, why would I?……….it could be worth £100′s or even £1000′s to me every month if I do the right thing, whilst all the time being under the radar so to say. Am I happy about this? Yes of course, in fact I am pretty super stoked about it however…………Think about it, how would you feel if this was you?

Really, go on think about it,what if? What if someone approached me told me what their target market was expecting X. I returned to them and told them of X amount of other approaches they could take to get to their target market by way of search terms.Search terms they did not know even existed, among competition they need not worry about not being able to dominate online. How would they feel? How would you feel if my find was really your find? If really I had found you an easy path for 60,500 people to get to your site every month, how would you feel? Your product or service costs how much? How much even 5% conversion of 60,500 can be a lot of money depending on what you are selling.

Yes many things are tapped out online yet in many other ways a huge land grab has been and is taking place. Surely if you are doing business online, you must want some right? Well if you do, there is no time like the present and I really would like to be able to do some great things with SEO for your business. Until next time…:)

SEO,Social Media And The Way Of The Web

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About six weeks ago after a long week of doing SEO on a number of different sites, a friend of mine decided to hold a party one evening. It was a fantastic night for sure but the thing that stayed in my mind the most from that evening was a discussion I had with a web designer who was also attending. It was funny because this person was all design and design is great (I myself was once a graphic designer:)) and of course now I do SEO.

After all of about five minutes this said person turned to me and asked “where do you feel this is all going” it was said in reference to the web, search engines we use and indeed the role of sites such as Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn, although Facebook was of more concern to this person. You appreciate why too! Think of it, how many brands do you see advertising on the TV, the daily press etc etc and the address they post is not a standard URL, as one is more familiar with, but instead  facebook.com/theirbrand . Yes for a dude like the web designer perhaps he was thinking, something like “will people still want web sites made in the coming years or will they become dinosaurs” or of course perhaps the question was out of pure interest for my opinion, who knows, never asked the guy:)

Anyways…….. The question kind of had me thinking, not because I have never thought of it myself, au contraire:) but more because in my explanation to him I did not exactly know where to start, as in what does this person know about social media in the first place, probably quite a bit considering, everyone seems to use it……..but then?

Yes, think about it, so many people use sites like FB solely for their social life, but beyond their social life? I remember about a year ago I read something like FB should be 10% social and 90% for business, if one is in business of course and that statement really got me thinking.

It got me thinking indeed and then I put it into action for a site I had spent nine months working on, (albeit slowly) and which had also cost me a pretty penny to make, the result was Bang! literally, no joke, it was ssweeeeeeeet! All of a sudden I had a portion of my target audience looking at my new site within hours, traffic started to go through the roof, I was super stoked. I was thinking to myself at the time, this is just great, instead of all these people finding my site by luck over the next few months, they are becoming aware of it now. I should also mention that at the time the site itself was ranking way back on Google it was not on page one, in fact far from it. It is on page one today, for a keyword  with nine and a half million competing pages, but that is another story.

So….going back to the conversation at the party! It startled me that this person I was talking to was perhaps quite unaware I think of the application of such sites and how they could be leveraged for business, including his own.Why was this, I dunno:)

The first thing I said to him was that ” no matter what great traffic and following you achieve for your like or fan page, you will never own it, it could go tomorrow because of that”. However I then went on to explain how such a  page can be used as both a funnel to drive traffic to a main site and indeed to make a mailing list which in online marketing is pretty much damn well essential.

Now, I am a man of the world and I love to help others, I believe that life equals growth and blah blah but this is where my story of my party conversation ends. Why? you could be thinking. Because I know too much! Well you can never know too much, it is a bit like money in that respect but…..if I continue with how I approach social media then people are going to start asking “what the hell are you charging for, we know this stuff, thanks to you.” Think I am joking here:) Well, such is the beauty, simplicity and power of social media that when you know how to use it correctly, you got some serious leverage.

In fact the leverage is so powerful, if anyone is reading this post who wants to get into earning a living or extra money online, then do yourself a favour and consider doing it from the start using social media in conjunction with a site.

So……. SEO,social media and the way of the web……..what is it? In my mind it is a mixture with a future. Do not want to sound like an old fart here but…..I remember the day before Google even existed, I remember when sites were merely an extension of print based media, I remember when optimizing a website was just the “craziest ting gwan man”:) Like if anyone reading this did SEO ten years ago, what did it look like, how easy was it, how funny was it, how different was it compared to now!

Then came the next phase of the web, the interaction, the increased simplicity, usability and indeed increased value one received from search engines, it has just got better and better and better and will only continue to do so.

Can you remember when email was kind of different to surfing the web, can you remember when personal homepages were just all over the web, randomly it seemed. Can you see how these things have now come together? The web is constantly expanded by way of information, can you see how easier it is now to spread that information. Groups were once groups, they still are, but now they are in colour and each member is a world in itself. These groups are banded together and easy to find, these individuals can be contacted. These individuals talk among themselves, share ideas and give personal recommendations to others regarding brands services and products. Life is kind of getting quicker because in one major way it has got way simpler. FB is the most popular site on the web, number two is Google and number three is Youtube. The direction of all this, I really cannot say I know it, however, cheesy as it sounds, through my time in SEO I can kind of feel it, so I am sure can many others. Water always finds its own level and so far we are seeing the influence of social media in ways which may not be too apparent or even visible. FB and Google are serious competition right? I guess so but how much has Google taken from FB in terms of inspiration, think Google+1, also it is pretty much acknowledged now that a like on a FB page helps the said site in the big G SERPS. Everything seems to be helping each other and why should it not, because if you think about it, to a large extent the web is very much like a huge mirror for what the world is thinking and doing and lets be honest, human nature kind of works:)

As for web design and where does that fit in, for all those who do not know, like pages can be fully customized with bespoke graphics, email capture, video….you name it and every time a person, a company or service goes down this route and does it properly the results are super positive, in fact it is a bit like someone turning the light on. So…….thanks for reading, not all SEO but at times I do not even get off on the word SEO, I just call it getting it right and thanks to social media there are indeed more ways to get it right, help others and provide more value. Oh I forgot to mention, FB pages can be optimized (or optimised depending on if you are an American or a Brit) for Google, so yeah, SEO does rule and SEO is always trying to get it just right!

Happy New Year And SEO In 2012

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Well happy New Year to everyone out there:) So, 2012 and what will this spell for all those in and indeed interested in the world of SEO? Of course, always a hard one to call partly due to the fact that there are something like 400 changes to the Google algorithm alone every single year, however………..You know the old sayings along the lines of today you are a result of yesterday and indeed you can know your future from what you are doing today, blah blah, blah blah:))))

Well truth say I think it can to some extent be applied to SEO. Look what has really taken off even more so in 2011, social media plus video even seems to have stuck out more than previously.Then of course there are the massive things such as Google Panda, perhaps that will be expanded upon. This probably sounds like nothing new and I guess in a way it is not, because if you ever take the time to read up what google likes to see in a website it is fresh, new applicable content and the more of it the better!!! The social media side, the panda updates and whatever else may be coming is all pretty much towards new stuff, constant updates, new relevant blog posts, rich web 2.0 sites, video content but all being quality and aimed at the right place.Perhaps the term branding is something I should mention here too nudge nudge, you know, think about all that social stuff, fan pages what is it centered around?…….branding, just remember that you read it here first:) It sounds tough, too simple because we are all aware of SEO  and usually what it takes. But if you have quality, SEO is getting easier, what you need to do is in a way getting in our faces, just the challenge to us in SEO is how much we can best leverage the options at our disposal to pull it all off, considering the web and of course our time.

Personally I view these algorithm changes as all part of the cleansing process and I think searches are better for it, no doubt. It is just a funny one because doesn’t Google consider all SEO to be black hat, as in “you’re trying to twist the system somehow”. Don’t you just love that, black hat, white hat or maybe grey hat, someone throw me a bone here:))

Maybe SEO will not be SEO in the future, perhaps it will just be known as the art of getting it right or something along those lines.Tailor made content creators providing all we can to ensure our sites and those of our clients will never fall foul of a Google algorithm ever again. Then again, if someone wants to get to page one within 5 days to two weeks for a gig that is only going to be playing three nights in one town,  they will need someone to do the necessary 200 profile link blast or whatever other crazy cool stuff can weasel its way through google for a few days and get the traffic they want in the time frame they have.Ah so that is what black hat SEO could be really good for,yawn yawn. Saying that though perhaps Google will get even better at noticing spam backlinks, sure it will really, why wouldnt it, no brainer……Well one thing is for certain, I am sure the web will be a better place and indeed a better environment to work in throughout 2012, every year it always is.

A Wonderful Tool For SEO Yahoo Site Explorer Is No More

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Another old story in the fast moving world of SEO but one that cuts me quite deep, the end of the wonderful, fantastic and highly helpful Yahoo Site Explorer

Yes it is true and is indeed in my opinion more than sad that Yahoo Site Explorer came to an end on November 21st. I am am pretty sure I am not the only person who is feeling this way either. Yahoo Site Explorer was just so helpful however after the 21st this great resource became part of the Bing Webmaster Tools and unfortunately for us in SEO Bings Webmaster Tools do not quite cut it in the same way, sad but true!

I suppose there could be some people reading this thinking yes I agree with you there yet there could be others who were unaware of this great tool thinking what is this all about. Well for those of you who have never heard of this great now extinct resource  let me enlighten you:)

Something I mention to people in fact rewind………….the main thing I mention to people when I chat SEO is that first of all in an ideal perfect world you need a foundation for your website. One does not want to just build a website blindly, one wants to build a site around traffic, or one wants to provide a site for which there will be a demand. Common sense,right? Or put another way, with an anology, let us make believe and pretend that we are going to construct a new town, first of all we need to decide on where to put it and only an idiot would consider putting it far away from major road systems right?Yey!

Well without blowing the bag apart here as it is a service we all charge for in this supercool world of SEO let me introduce the one time role of Yahoo Site Explorer in all of this. Us SEO people for whatever reasons ( nudge nudge wink wink) explore the viability of certain search terms, then when we get an idea of the terms we wish to optimize the site for we then need to check out our competition and indeed what our competition is made out of, what is enabling them to a large extent to rank for. In comes, sorry in came Yahoo Site Explorer! All we would do is copy and paste that URL featuring at the top of page one, go to Yahoo , type  Link: then paste the URL and bingo! We would get a certain picture which would help us to a large extent to make a calculated guess as to how long it could take you to rank given the competitions backlinks.

But anyway………..those days are over now and there are some good alternatives but in my mind, in my feelings they aint Yahoo Site Explorer:( Still there are options and better still there is such thing called the future and indeed progress, both together they should bring us something way better in time. I am now using MajesticSeo.com and have to say it is pretty darn good, it does the job you know!

I love talking SEO however if I keep rattling on and on I feel I may give a little bit of the game away as in the analysis of links with such tools so I guess I will end it here!!! Well
maybe next post I will have a bit of a chin wag about Google Caffeine and Google Freshness, pour quoi pas:)

SEO And A New Way To Help Rankings?

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seoIn a way what this SEO post covers is kind of yesterdays news but at the same time it isn’t because it is only just really kicking off!

SEO is a funny old game! I mean for those of us who have been involved in it for some time you got to laugh:) But seriously………….it has changed a heap even over the last couple of years and I guess that is one of the good things that keeps our job kind of exciting, because it seems to me that there is something new to take in or pick up on every other day.

I guess looking at the big picture we have to realise that Google is a big thing that makes big money through advertising and succeeds like any business does by offering the best value it can. If all the results on page one were junk sites then surfing the web would not be much fun would it.  I was told there are something like four hundred algorithm changes on Google per year, pretty much I guess all geared towards refining the search process and indeed results we receive. This is great really, it is progress, however if your game is SEO and there are four hundred changes in the algorithm each year, ha ha ha, great but like I say, that is what keeps it interesting. Not only that, but it appears to me that every little thing we as SEO folk have to take away, change or add does in the end appear to be common sense and I think to myself yeah why not!

A while ago now, knowing what I do know, I was thinking of ways Google could possibly improve itself or should I say how it could change or find ways to give a more accurate representation and in turn give ranking to good appropriate content. I was considering this because in my mind things from an SEO perspective were just getting insane. Backlinks, one of the main components of good SEO were just going bananas, what I mean by that is how easy they were to obtain and the push they could give a site. This may sound strange, but how long ago was it that certain people starting mentioning link velocity and bad linking neighbourhoods? In the big scheme of things not that long ago! In fact it is that soon ago that as a result of possibly sketchy linking strategies a whole heap of websites particularly it seems  in the US have pretty much s*** the bed in the Google rankings due to the Google Panda update.

It was a stinker for these sites for sure and in a way tough to blame them because to a large extent it was the way pretty much a whole heap of people were doing it. Anyway…..back to the while ago when I was thinking about ways to improve Google if I could of course. It dawned on me pretty much straight away that Google needs to provide a way whereby people can vote for sites positive or negative depending on the experience the said site gives. Yes I am a genius for thinking this I admit it, however as I was thinking this, Google was working on it and indeed making it happen. The result Google +1 and the ability to block other sites from your future results! Truth say, I really like it! I mean when you read the guidelines Google gives out for successful rankings, it does pretty much spell out that quality updated  content is a prerequisite for good rankings and I guess it has stuck by its word on that one, no robbery:)

So………how does it all work? I would love to know myself:) No, seriously now, I guess the basics are pretty much common sense for everyone to get. You have a plus one button on your site, posts etc etc and the more +’s you get the better you are!No joke, you could be thinking, tell me what I don’t know! OK, I hear that not every +1 is equal, that is my big news for the day! Yes so I hear or so I have read on an SEO site of quite high authority out there, is that the +1 kind of counts on the person doing it, maybe the person who has spent the most time on and reading quality content websites has the most powerful +1! It just could well be and if it were to be then it would make common sense, Google has always reminded me of a big robot with common sense anyway, one has to treat it like a person, with respect. Happy days anyway,what a friend we have in Jesus:) Google will be better and so will our SEO:) Well when I hear anymore, upon this subject I will write some more, later!

“SEO” A Rough Idea

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It is great that you are researching SEO! This is said with real enthusiasm because believe it or not, many website owners are unaware of the numerous benefits good SEO can have upon their businesses. Fact is, many website owners are unaware SEO even exists at all! This is where you have the advantage to take your business to the next level and this really is so exciting!

Of course, the internet is an environment where things move super fast including the users themselves, however if you are interested about SEO, it’s benefits and what it is exactly,  I would urge you to spend a short amount of time on this post, for educational purposes it will most definitely be worth it!

Search Engine Optimization has a somewhat undercover image in the wider world  and this is quite possibly down to a number of things, which I will try to explain as briefly and easy to understand as possible.

First of all in this explanation, I would like to draw attention to the history of the online world. In a many ways the web has changed a great deal over the last twelve to thirteen years and it continues to change at a rapid rate.Much of this change is aimed towards ease of use,  real time interactivity and quicker access to relevant information. Due to this fact, what it takes to successfully work with the web changes fast.

In pursuit of offering users more value, search engines have become more efficient and indeed targeted and these improvements literally move on a daily basis. Because of this, SEO is constantly changing too, what worked last year or even six months ago may well not work today and part of the busy SEO’s day is indeed keeping up to date on new developments and techniques. This is perhaps the first reason why SEO receives the perception it does.

Secondly, many people would not have a clue where to begin with SEO, indeed  large numbers of web designers even do not know good SEO. It is no exaggeration to say that many web designers will come from a creative angle and promise the earth regarding a website however they will often say that they cannot promise any success regarding ranking on search engines such as Google. (Of course such an attitude is only an indicator of a persons lack of knowledge on the subject. The truth is that yes it is wrong to promise the earth by way of SEO however at the same time good SEO most definitely works. When good SEO is employed and lack of progress is apparent in the rankings this is more down to extreme competition in your niche or selected keywords and indeed good SEO among competitors.) So quite possibly this is another reason why SEO is considered as much of an art as a science or vice versa. SEO can indeed be learned however it seems that quite often the situation is at which point people enter the SEO learning curve or should I say at which point people enter the SEO educational timeline. There is much to learn and at the same time people could spend a lot of their time learning techniques which are out dated and no longer work without even knowing it for some considerable time.

Now that I have explained my opinion on why I consider SEO is perceived the way it is by many, I would now like to briefly point out some very key ways in which it can help you and possibly in ways you have not yet considered.

I do not want to start off by saying that with good SEO you need backlinks and tons of them all from different sources as you may read elsewhere. Although this is true to a very large extent, first and foremost before one goes rushing in off in that direction one should be aware that there are indeed many types of links and indeed some of them and some link building techniques can be highly detrimental to your rankings, so beware! The truth is, there are a number of techniques to help your sites ranking and indeed your sites traffic. However, first things first!

If there is one thing to take away from this article, remember this, SEO starts very much before the site is created. Indeed proper SEO consultancy should indeed explain to you what your targets should be prior to any site being constructed. If you are reading this and you already have a site, no problem, it is just a situation and you are far from unique. Such situations call for an appraisal of the site and in many cases elements will be added not taken away.

Targeting of the right keywords in your campaign is highly crucial. Some keywords may have high traffic and high competition, some may have low traffic but high commercial intent and indeed in many cases complete markets can be missed because the correct research has not been carried out. Indeed, sound keyword research from an skilled SEO perspective makes things laser guided in a way that one should be able to guage what to expect from a site by way of traffic, time to rank given the use use of certain strategies and depending on perceived conversion percentages how much turnover the site will bring.

So indeed, the above is very much stage one and it happens way before any backlinks are thought about! Stage two comes down to good web design with very sound coding. (It is true that search engines such as Google judge a site and very much rank it accordingly on a number of factors. One of these factors are links of course, but within the whole concept of links and for the whole idea of a successful linking strategy to work, again, links have to be used right.) So again, before links are considered or even relevant content is thought about, know that one key aspect Google will judge your site on is its structure and the quality of the coding. Some sites can be badly coded and even with all the links going they will struggle to reach their full potential. Indeed without the before mentioned keyword research and then the correct coding unless a site is super lucky, it is most likely headed nowhere before it starts. I am sure one can see how this makes sense.

As the site is created and continues to grow over time, of course, relevant content needs to be created, this too should originate from an SEO perspective. In short it should work with your sites inner pages and indeed what people are currently looking for. Pages with certain keyword titles are better off containing content pertaining to that keyword than random articles. This may seem like a no brainer but one would be astonished.

Of course, backlinks are super important, they are indeed votes for your site. Good links are great, bad links are like a brick in face and can indeed make you site vanish from the face of the earth or at least the major search engines, so watch out here!

Lastly, do not forget social media! Not only can it bring in a lot of extra traffic but again the links to these sites can help your site!  FB “Like” buttons can be placed on pages, so too can links to Twitter and LinkedIn. This all helps!

I hoped you got something from reading the above, it is meant to highlight the role of SEO from the ground up. I cannot mention how I go about each one because if I did I would be exposing what I charge for:) and as a result people would not need me! However the above is intended to show a basic aerial map of SEO, and it can indeed be used. For instance if you approach an SEO consultant and all they want to do is sell you backlinks then perhaps you should move on! This is the truth of the matter! I have seen sites that have two or three times the amount of links of their competitors and whilst the competitor is number one or two on page one their own site is page two. There is a reason for this, and it is not necessarily backlinks.

 

SEO + Social Media Management

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