Search Engine Optimisation – Page 3

My Cheese… Who Moved It?

Lots of enquires here at SEO Liverpool in recent weeks from SEO’s and businesses alike, about falling rankings. Every time we have a major Google Algorithm update the Liverpool based SEO company‘s are bombarded with questions and help requests.

Consider This

If you’re familiar with the story, “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Dr. Spencer Johnson, you already know that when change happens, you either adapt or perish. If your cheese supply dries up, you have to go looking for new cheese. The gist of the story is; change happens and the cheese keeps moving. And like the little mice in the story, you must change and adapt, if you want to be keep ahead of the pack. The search engines are a lot like the cheese. Google in particular – with over 85% of all search – have changed the algorithm in relation to social, and most noticeably links… this has significantly impacted certain sites.

The Panda and Penguin updates which have really got to grips with spam links in particular, are considered a real test in SEO. Particularly those that have used poor SEO techniques to try and gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Sometimes things change and they’re never the same again. According to Dr. Spencer Johnston, “If you do not change, you can become extinct. Get out of your comfort zone and adapt to change sooner. Take control, rather than let things happen to you.” According to Forrester Research, “Stop the denial. Get over it, get on with it, figure it out. Or end up in the dustbin of history.” Once upon a time, it would take up to three months to get properly spidered and indexed. Now that time has been reduced to just a few hours.

Over the past months I have achieved great SEO results. But the question everyone seems to be asking is… “Will it stick?” Will the marketing tactics that I’ve been using of late, lead to lasting search engine results? Maybe not, but it’s important to adapt and adopt new strategies and be innovative. If it’s a little spammy, then know that the next updates may devalue your work. Try new things and never stay static and test.

Links And Big Brands

In my mind, one of the most rewarding parts of being a search engine optimisation consultant here at SEO Liverpool, is the reverse engineering of websites. Any SEO consultantworth his or her salt analyses a site in an attempt to discover why they rank so well.

We’ve always found link building a little different!

The small businesses wonder how the bigger brands succeed with their link building efforts. In a big corporation, it would take jumping through a lot of hoops to get the correct managers to sign off on link building approval, especially as they may want to verify that every site that they link build upon is desirable.

Do big brands really do link building? I think not so much. They are already pretty well known and established so well within the sphere, that their links usually come naturally. However, if they really wanted to engage in building other links, it’s suggested that they participate in some viral marketing campaigns and linkbait.

Once you’re so a big company, you may not have to worry about “link building,” perse, but other strategies

I suppose you could say that past a certain point its more a matter of being aware of links, how they work & the value they do or do not bring. When opportunities come up, maximise them.

Google Sitemap

As a Liverpool based SEO company, sometimes you need to get a little bit of perspective in regards to tried and tested techniques.

This week I’ve been talking to my friends over at SEO Manchester about Google Sitemaps. Is there still a value in submitting a Sitemap to Google? In our opinion, if a site has very poor navigation and on-page SEO, submitting a Sitemap might be your only alternative. But for well optimised sites, is there a benefit in submitting a Sitemap file to Google?

Here are some important points

The Last modification date field in the sitemap file can aid Google in quickly locating the actual change in the page. John at Google explained that Google might not have time to crawl all the pages you said changed, so if you specify the actual change in the Sitemap file, it will be easier for Google to pick up on those changes.

The Priority, Change frequency is a lot like the last mod date. If you give Google data that “makes sense”, i.e. don’t list 100% of your pages as the most important page on your site, then it can be useful to Google.

Googles Advice States;

   * Yes, please send us Sitemap files, preferably sitemap.org XML files!
   * Work on good URLs & use them to double-check your site's navigation
   * Optional: Date or change frequency? depends on how you work.
   * Also optional: Priority

In conclusion, if you have good solid navigation, you may not need them. But why take the risk! Webmaster tools is an incredibly valuable tool that enables you to check any issues with each indexed page.

Old School SEO… The Sacrificial Website

At SEO Liverpool we try to look over old techniques for driving traffic to particular digital assets. Last week we started talking about the sacrificial site.

You’ve all seen full page adverts in magazines, at certain points it can be beneficial to move this offline advertising strategy to online. Internet marketing and leveraging websites can help replicate this strategy for your business. A lifestyle magazine will generate ad revenue for a client in an almost totally unrelated field, just through sheer value of people using that site.

So if you’re looking to generate sales, either via affiliate links or to a product, then create two sites. One for the product and one for ads.

Important Point – The first point is ad sites are penalised depending on the amount and position of the adverts. We’ve found this particularly with Ad Sense.

Important Point – The second point, it will be beneficial to host your domains on unique IPs, which can result in a big advantage for you in terms of search engine rankings and to help stop getting penalised.

How The Sacrificial Site Works

Let me explain… A good example would be a website in a competitive category, such as Travel . Advertise your digital camera site on it. The two are related as complimentary sites but one generates income for the other. You own both, and one site will advertise on the other.

E.g.

Jokes and funny t-shirts. The joke site itself, has very few jokes on it. It acts more like a directory leading to other joke sites. There are a total of 10 internal pages with different categories of jokes. On each category page, You would list 5-10 joke websites, with a quick two sentence review, taken from the headline of each destination site.

So what’s the purpose of my jokes site? It’s to sell or generate traffic referrals to t-shirt sites. To the visitor, it looks like a directory of the top 50 joke sites, with ads strategically placed on it. It’s really just a way to leverage the entire jokes site to advertise another product. If you find a popular category, you will make sales due to the amount of traffic you can generate. You’ll also generate a varied link profile as you leverage one web property to advertise another.

Evaluation

It can be a lot of work. It will cost you to set up. It will be a disater if not implemented correctly. But… I do think in some situations it’s a valid strategy, and it is proven to generate income for certain businesses. Affiliate links will probably get the most value but those sites with affilate links to Amazon can generate serious revenues.

Quick Hits For SEO

SEO Liverpool always try to give advice based on questions we’ve received in the last few months. Here are a few subjects we’d like to briefly go over.

Alexa Rank

We’ve had a few clients and more than a few queries about Alexa Rank over the past 3 months. People want to know why they aren’t getting a high traffic rank on Alexa. Some have bench-marked themselves with other companies based on other continents. They can’t understand why they get less traffic when their analytical packages show a substantial volume of traffic.

It’s simple Alexa Rank depends on the volume of people who have the Alexa Rank installed as a browser extension, meaning that’s how their data is collected. This means depending on the nature of your business and geographical location the results don’t really mean anything.

Geo-Surf

I’ve a client who competes really well in this country, they identified a competing businesses that statistically generates more enquiries and therefore is a more valued by their partners. Our client has all the number one keywords we’ve worked for and still generates a lot of business, but wanted to know why their competitor does so well.

Another simple answer and solution, you’re keyword positions vary in different countries, so you may only be position 1 in your country. A competitor could be getting better results in other countries and therefore more traffic. Use this browser extension http://goo.gl/uSpbVand watch the video, it will tell you how to check your rank in other countries. To improve in those countries you’ve identified, use more targeted content and leverage local links from that country.

De-personalise Search

All search marketing consultants should know that you can de-personalise search. Try these 3 ways to find out what the real search engine results are without any bias.

&pws=0

If you’ve been in SEO for a while, you’re familiar with the “pws=0” de-personalisation parameter. By adding it to the end of a Google query URL (“&pws=0”), you can theoretically remove history-based personalisation. A simplified URL would look something like this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=seo+liverpool&pws=0

http//www.google.com = Google search
/search?q= = ready for a search query
highlited text is for your own keywords with the + to separate words =seo+liverpool
&pws=0 = personalise web search

Signing Out Of Google

This one’s pretty straightforward. Just sign out of your Google account. Although my research would suggest, Google still works a bit of its magic to bring you a personal result.

Incognito Browsing (Chrome)

Google’s Chrome browser has a built in “incognito” mode that supposedly removes any traces of your browsing activity, such as cookies or search history. Yet again, still uses some data.

The Best Way

Sign out of Google and then add a &pws=0 parameters, for the best results.

SEO It’s Not Voodoo

I’m up late writing this SEO Liverpool post, because the subject has been on my mind for a few days now. I’m going to dispel a myth. The myth that has helped less reputable SEO companys peddle their snake oil and simply rip businesses off.

“The notion that there are 1001 things to do in SEO is ridiculous”.

I’m not a member of some sort of magic circle, I won’t find a horses head in my bed but some SEO’s won’t appreciate me telling you this.

There are labour intensive tasks that need to be undertaken, but please understand, it’s not that complicated. You don’t need some Matrix style coder and some über geek in residence. There isn’t a 2000 point route map that needs to be addressed for each client.

I’ll say It again ‘It’s an art not a science” and in my opinion, creative marketers make the best SEO’s.

SEO requires a comprehensive understanding of the business in question. The SEO team must understand their goals, have detailed product and brand understanding. You’ll need buyer behaviour insight and a good understanding of different persona’s of searcher behaviour and interactions.

You’ll need buy in from all the other associated departments and managers (everyone needs to sing from the same hymn sheet). Most importantly being able to manage expectations and a lot of creativity are invaluable.

Your SEO must be a reader, the first part of my day will be spent catching up with 20 or so blogs, and then check over my data.

Just wanted to let you guys know.

How Many Links Would be Too Many?

When I’m reading over notes for SEO Liverpool and Summit Online Marketing, I feel it’s quite important to revisit important information, especially if I’m receiving questions around the subject.

I received an enquiry about a website that had lots of links and believe they’re getting penalised for it. The copy seemed succinct, keyword rich and the meta data looked good.

A few years ago I remember reading that over 100 links on a page can be considered a link farm.

My quick bit of advice revolved around PageRank sculpting to enhance search engine ranking. The classic way to negotiate lots of links is in changing them to no-follow links. This is a quick and easy way of not passing on your hard earned ‘juice’ to unnecessary third parties.

Although how much juice still gets through is debatable.

On closer inspection they had gone with the classic ‘ball’ linking structure (Every page links to every other page). It’s not very effective at conserving and spreading the link juice (PageRank, link reputation and link popularity).

I wasn’t saying this was a bad thing, but with SEO, testing is key. I advised changing the structure to what is known as a ‘pyramid’ linking structure.

A pyramid linking structure

Typically all the links leaving the home page are no-followed, except the one leading to the sitemap. The sitemap has normal links to everything, except the home page. With internal pages, everything is no-follow except the link back to the home page. It creates a feedback loop, concentrating all the link love back to the home page. This could mean you’ll be getting a lot of traffic from your internal pages… depending on your content!

Food for thought.

Page Speed Loading Times

As I’ve mentioned many times here at SEO Liverpool I get lots of questions via email. A frequently asked question and something I’d like to talk about today, is the importance of web page loading speeds. Basically, page loading speeds can be important!

Just for clarity, we’re talking about when you click on a website and it takes longer than expected to bring all the elements to the page. This isn’t a broadband problem, you may end up with a page that has no real elements and lot’s of white space.

I’m going to tell you why it’s important from two important perspectives

Human point of view

0.1 load speed – this is instantaneous a 1 second load will also seem very smooth. If you take between 5-10 seconds then you’ll lose potential visitors who’ll click off. There is not a definitive number as some of us are ‘children of the dial up’ and may have more patience. Another person may have less patience or assume the webpage is broken.

Search Engine point of view

About 4 years ago online marketing consultants became aware that page load speed is a part of the Google algorithm. This is important, but I wouldn’t get to hung up on it.

If you use Google Adwords for your PPC then page load speed takes on a more important role. In fact a very important role! It will be part of the landing page (web page) quality score.

This means that you could reach the positions you want and conceivable pay less per keyword.

Factors that may be detrimental to page load speeds

Masses of Java, CSS or Flash
High resolution images
Hosting your own videos
Frames – if you’re still using frames then you need a website update

Next Steps

If you look at the Google webmaster central blog, it has a selection of tools that will help you determine problems and provide help.

Negative SEO Is It Possible?

SEO training has evolved over the past 4 years, the fundamentals are still the same, but with vastly different ancillary objectives. As Summit Online Marketing, we go into businesses offering our tailored SEO packages. Generally, we discuss actions, provide robust strategic marketing plans and discuss relevant activities. Sometimes, a sheepish employee will asked this question “can we affect our competitors SEO efforts”?

Let me explain, a few years ago, we looked at the impacts, if any, of negative SEO on websites, and a discussion arose from an article on search sabotage.

A year later, we’re still discussing the consequences and seeing if negative SEO is still possible. In various threads we’ve read, the SEO community have indicated there are still ways to sabotage websites and rankings, from hijacking competitor’s DNS to doing it to yourself by killing your URL structure.

Now, though, there’s potentially more with the impact of new technologies. New concerns about sabotage may take the form of cloaked sabotage or reputation sabotage. This isn’t to say the impact of traditional techniques such as parasite hosting and embedding hidden links has been diminished.

We’d recommend that you need to be the one who protects your site, because Google isn’t necessarily reliable in that regard. (After all, Google is tracking billions of pages.) However, not many people know how to protect their own websites.

We believe that a lot of SEO sabotage attempts involve trying to trick Google into thinking that a site should be penalised and does not meet guidelines. That can be by directly modifying the site (through legitimate mechanisms to do so, or by finding vulnerabilities and exploiting them) and by modifying or setting up external references to a site.

Food for thought

Google’s Penalties

It never fails to astound me how people constantly opt for the cheapest deal. Cheap search engine optimization is a misnomer, if you want the best SEO you have to pay for it. If it was cheap and simple, then for £50 or £100 per month everyone would be Page 1.

I’ve worked on many campaigns at SEO Liverpool but up until about 4 months ago I was only aware of two real Google penalties. The outright ban, where a site will be completely removed from the Google index and the minus 40-60 penalty.

About 9 months ago I started talking to a local company about helping them with their SEO efforts. As usual, we sounded each other out and it looked like we could move forward. Typically, we had no contact for a few months, then unexpectedly, my contact called me up and said that all of his Google rankings had disappeared. He explained that the only thing his site was ranking for was its name. The site came up no.1 for his two word company name and no.1 for the domain. However all of the other positions the site had with the homepage, albeit not good ones had disappeared. I had a little play around and even when I tried searching for some unique text off the homepage (in quotes) it didn’t come up.

So I asked this guy a couple of questions, you know – have you made any changes recently that could have caused this to happen? After about 5 minutes, he confessed to talking to a guy he knew, who’d gave him some help… he was cheap… etc. His sage advice was to place lots of area names at the bottom of the homepage, which he did… in tiny text so that nobody could see!

I told him in 5 seconds “The site has been penalised, you put hidden text in and attempted to deceive Google”. We got rid of the hidden text, I told him what to say to Google on the reinstatement request and his site was back to where it was previously within a week.

The point of this little story is that SEO evolves at an incredible rate. If you’ve missed ‘Panda 2.0′ and probably the most devastating ‘Search plus your world’, then you might as well not bother calling yourself an SEO. Remember, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. A search engine will penalise you! Use a respected SEO company, and understand that your nephew, his mate or the fella down the pub doesn’t have a clue.