7 Sites to teach you SEO techniques

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:40:46 +0000

When we first started using online marketing many moons ago, our main focus was on paid search (Google AdWords et al) and our plans revolved around creating campaigns, bids, clicks, conversions etc.

Whether you are a complete beginner or you an SEO master, these sites have enough of a back catalogue and regular new information to keep you going for months!

http://www.seomoz.org/blog: Starting as an SEO agency they have used their blog to position themselves as a global resource for the industry
http://www.seobook.com/blog: A mix of practical advice, industry news and personal opinion
http://searchengineland.com/columns/: one of my favourite sites, the columns section covers all aspects of search marketing
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew_archive_experts&type=sew_experts/sem-101&issue=2009: Really good introductory articles to various aspects of online marketing
http://www.wolf-howl.com: This site has been around for years and it mixes advice with commentary and personal opinion
http://econsultancy.com/blog: The volume of posts each day can be a bit too much and some articles don’t go in to a lot of detail, but the percentage that do hit the money make it worth it.
http://www.toprankblog.com/: Good traditional ‘how to’ blog with some great advice for all levels of knowledge

Social Me!

Search Engine Tips – Protect your SERP

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:56:21 +0000

Whenever someone searches for your brand name using a search engine, they are also being shown 9 organic results on the search engine results page (SERP) that may not be your site and maybe even another 9 paid results for competitors bidding on your brand name, which means you could be competing with a total of 18 other results that aren’t your site!

To ensure the searcher a) comes directly to your website and b) doesn’t see any negative entries that can creep in to the top 10 results, it is important that you use as wide a range of branded content as possible for the search engines to spider and rank. Taking your position at number one in the SERP organic section as red, below are other methods to ensure you dominate your brand searches.

Paid search top result

It may seem strange to bid on your own brand name when you already have top organic position but with clicks likely to be as low as 5p to 20p per click you should view it as an investment in online real estate. Eye tracking research shows that people’s eyes start at the top of the SERP and as you go down the page fewer and fewer people look at that area (see the research here). By having two entries at the top you are increasing the likelihood of a click and forcing other results further below the fold. You are also blocking anyone else bidding for the top paid spot on your brand name.

Put your blog on a sub domain

Google views sub-domains as separate entities to the main site which gives you a great opportunity to get a 2nd entry in the organic results by naming your blog something along the lines of http://blog.domain.com

Create a Facebook page

A well populated and linked to (e.g. from your main website) Facebook company profile should see your Facebook profile be shown high in the rankings. To set up a business profile go here http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Wikipedia page

Although the terms state that you are not allowed to write an entry about an organisation you are associated with, let’s be honest, it happens all the time. There are too many corporate entries for it no to! Google loves Wikipedia and ranks it’s page in the top 5 for countless search terms. Set up your own page to benefit from this love! Go to the home page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and click on ‘create account’ in the top right to get started.

Google Universal Search

Google is always trying new ways at presenting the web’s information, and it is rare to be shown a SERP that doesn’t have either some results from Google News, Product search, blog search or all three! If you don’t have one, get a Google account and start using the submission and feed features to make sure Google is picking up your press releases, blog posts and displaying your products.

Twitter

As we touched on in a previous post about Twitter’s integration in to the fabric of search, Twitter accounts are only going to become more prominent in the SERP, not less. Make sure you have an account and link to it from your home page to show Google how important it is.

YouTube channel

Following the same theory as Facebook and Twitter, a profile on such a large and heavily linked website will be shown highly in searches for your brand name if combined with a respectable amount of content and a little linking from your own site to the channel’s home page. Create an account here http://www.youtube.com/create_account?next=None

What about page 2?

How often do you go beyond the first page of Google? Probably rarely if ever, and that’s the same for the majority of searchers. The truth is, if you’re in position 11 to 20, you’re going to get crumbs, if you’re not in the top 20, you’re nowhere!