SEO News Tip of the Day!

By James Anderson

Well it’s been a while since my last post. Its been incredibly busy at the office in the last week now that we have come to the end of the post Christmas slow down in sales and have started to pick up new business again. If you don’t already know I work for Podium Solutions IT Consultancy in Manchester, UK and Podium Network Solutions, a complimentary site that concentrates on the Network side of things and has also just secured distribution rights with one the biggest VoIP Business telephone systems manufacturers in the world. I’m really looking forward to this year, with new clients and market sectors to work with, IP telephone systems being just one them. I’m sure this year is going to be one of the most exciting ever in the realm of search with new innovations drastically changing the very fabric of the internet it self. I will be posting and commenting on this as and when anything happens.

Already this year we have had some pretty juicy news and probably one of the biggest events of the year has already happened, yep the new MSN search engine launch. The launch of MSN’s new search engine has already caused frantic searching, tracking and some head scratching which has lead to some quite nasty calluses in the office. I have to say that so far I am very impressed with their new search engine and it has been an absolute dream optimising pages for it, its just so nice to be concentrating on content rather then exploiting links. So it’s a big thank you to MSN for bringing on-page optimisation back to the forefront of SEO. How long this will last is another question as we have already seen several tweaks to the algo so more emphasis on link analysis could on the cards, I only hope that MSN stays away from that road and the other search engines follow suit. PLease let links return to the good old days, when links were used purely to link to sites that the webmaster thought were usefull and benifited their users and not just a tool that has to be exploited in order to acheive an online presence.

For the last month I have been searching for the UK search engine market share statistics but have been unable to find any I would consider reliable, please read this as a cry for help and answer by leaving a comment on this post (PLEASE). As per usual locating the US market share is no problem what so ever but that’s not really relevant for us UK subjects. This quest comes from seeing reports suggesting Google has finally started to lose its total domination and a very worrying news report on the ITV news, reporting on the MSN search release stating that the UK market share for search was currently Google around 50% followed by Ask Jeeves at 20% with Yahoo coming in at the third spot with only 7% of market share. Where ITV are getting their figures from I don’t know but it does not sound right to me, what are your thoughts? Also in the news report they stated that the MSN search was not producing relevant results and had a lot of ground to make up when comparing it with Google for the search term “How big is the Internet” and then went on to say although MSN’s relevance was an issue many websites had already started to advertise with them. Obviously ITV doesn’t have anyone working for them that actually understands how advertising works on the internet thinking that MSN’s adverts are independently driven like Google’s Adwords, Well if they need someone who knows the ins and outs of the web I would just like to say I’m available for hire and you can contact me by leaving your details using the comment button below. In all honesty the report sounded like it was sponsored by Google.

OK enough ranting and back to the actual theme of this blog. So what’s been happening on the SEO forums recently, well in a nutshell “nothing”, a very big NOTHING. So here is a thread I came across today. Using Plurals Or Singular Versions Of Keywords on the Highrankings SEO forum. Just one of usual threads on whether to use plural keywords or not.

So this brings me on to the actual point of this post, is the SEO Forum Watch working and to put it simply (in nutshell), the answer is a very big NO. I started the SEO Forum Watch in the hope that I could attract some users who would actively help to build the SEO Forum Watch by making their own posts and commenting on others. Well I know that your reading this and I know the SEO Forum Watch gets a fair amount of traffic, so what am I doing wrong? What do I have to do in order to get you all posting and contributing? Or was the SEO Forum Watch just another one of my really dumb ideas like the time I thought it would be a laugh to wear my armbands on my ankles in the middle of a swimming lesson back in primary school. Or the time I tried to get into a beach festival without paying by trying to climb down the 90 foot cliff that surrounded it after drinking a crate of super strength lager only to discover my climbing skills are lacking to say the least, although I eventually landed in the festival after bouncing, pirouetting and somersaulting, discovered it is quite difficult dance at a dance festival when you’ve nearly broken both legs.

Well I think I have demonstrated some of my better ideas but is the SEO Forum Watch worth perusing in its current format. Several months after starting the SEO Forum Watch I discovered well established blog based on the very same theme of SEO Forum Watch, providing one place to keep up with the best threads from the best SEO forums, the only difference being Threadwatch.org seems to be successful rather than just a one man attempt at providing a blog that feels like a ghost town. I only heard of Threadwatch.org after a comment was made on one of my posts about a cloaking thread, saying that I should not be promoting the use cloaking to persons new to SEO. A fair and just comment if the SEO Forum Watch was specifically targeting webmasters new SEO, a little comment tennis was played where I was accused of being someone new to SEO who had no idea about cloaking and to tried and prove this by hiding the entire Threadwatch.org content with cloaking the site when I tried to visit (the things that people will do to try and win a debate lol). I’m not a confrontational person so I decided to let them have the last comment so they could revile over their little victory and in all honesty is was the first of only a couple comments made on SEO Forum Watch so I was just happy that someone had made a comment and hoped it was the start of a snowball. I guess I didn’t make any friends out of that which was a shame as Threadwatch.org is a big blog with loads of good content and has the same user base as I was trying to target. Threadwatch.org, you would have been a good friend but I guess you just couldn’t handle the competition from one of the best ghost towns the blogging community has ever seen. I came, I saw, I just couldn't conker.

For all of you who are still reading this post, please accept my apologies for my constant tangent bound rambling.

Back to the point (yes I’m going to finally spit it out), what I’m trying to say is that I do not think that continuing the SEO Forum Watch in its current format is worthy of my time and will be looking at changing the format completely. Please let me know your thoughts on this, you’re the people I’m writing for so its only fair if the SEO Forum Watch is going change and head in another direction that you should have your say on the destination.

I think I may start concentrating less on SEO forums and rather the topic of SEO in general. This would make it easier to start new posts as I would not be restricted by having to wait for a juicy new thread to be started on a forum and I would also personally enjoy posting a lot more.

Please let me know your thoughts? I’m at a crossroads, theirs a definite fork in the road and at present I can only see the road signs facing my way. Along time ago one of the signs said your entering a town called Ghost and I have still not seen the sign that says “you’re now leaving Ghost Town”. Please if you have map or just a good sense of direction, help someone out who is feeling slightly lost.

I must stop making posts when I have had a few drinks. Sorry for the spelling!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy - Navigating the Dark Waters of Website Promotion

Creating a well-designed website is the first step in your internet marketing strategy that must be backed up with techniques designed to drive traffic to the website for successful, long-term results. You wouldn't consider opening a retail store in a major shopping mall without signage and you shouldn't consider having a nice looking website designed without expanding your web presence in order to be found on the internet. The following strategy overview is designed to bring about these results:

• An attractive website that is complementary to your company image and provides your targeted audience with information about you, your company and your products and/or services
• A website that creates a call-to-action in the form of purchase, contact, subscription or other commitment from your viewer
• Create a successful marketing arm for your overall business promotion and marketing campaign to promote your business, products and/or services
• Become competitive in your industry and marketplace by meeting or exceeding the industry marketing standards and attracting a qualified audience for your products and/or services via the internet
• Generate and maintain or grow internet traffic to your website resulting in a conversion of traffic into sales of your products and/or services

This search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is composed of several processes in three stages.

Tier I

Website design is the foundation and beginning of a successful internet marketing strategy. It is true that several websites exist on the internet that are unattractive but seem to work. If there are aspects of these websites that work, imagine how well they could do if they simply followed basic design implementation tactics that resulted in a good image as well as simply pushed information out to the viewer. These basics are essential for Tier 1 success:

• Good web design that complements the company image and offline marketing campaign products
• Easy, logical navigation that leads the viewer deeper and deeper into the web of information provided by the website
• Attractive but quick-loading graphics that are pleasing to the eye and meaningful to the website.
  • Keyword usage that is search engine-friendly:
  • Utilization
  • Placement
  • Frequency
  • Relevance

• Coding that is lean, clean and without errors
• Relevance of content to the theme of the site
• Changing content that changes frequently
• Content is king -- it's all about content, content, content

Tier II

Once the website has been created and published, many new website owners think that the project is finished. But in reality, the real work is just beginning. In order to create a money-making site, traffic must be generated and driven to the website. There are several effective methods that can be implemented in Tier II for this to occur. While all methods may not be required to see successful traffic generation, some combination of most if not all will probably be needed to create traffic, maintain traffic and finally, grow traffic to our website with long-term results. Consider implementing these strategies:

• Dynamic content is necessary and by updating the website frequently the search engines see your website as active, not stagnant. How often should changes be made? At the very least, monthly. But the more frequent the changes, the better. There are some tried and true methods you may want to employ:
  • Monthly newsletter (or weekly)
  • Tip of the day that rotates to the page using a script from an existing database of information at your site
  • RSS feed to public news feeds that update hourly or daily at the least
  • Changes to contact information, staffing, clients, etc.
  • Checking the links frequently to make sure that they are active and valid
  • Simple modification of content from time to time should be done in between these regular maintenance tasks which will update the website

• Good links management results in a positive weight given by the search engines for search positioning. The algorithms used for weighting one page over another require link popularity assessment for successful traffic to your website. Link popularity is also one of the main contributions to Google and Alexa Page Rank. How do you achieve link popularity? It can be tedious and requires careful attention to the selection of the links, but there are several means that can be employed:
  • Reciprocal Links - Search for relevant and desired web pages with which to trade links
  • Purchase Page Rank-based links to boost your relevance and weight in the eyes of search engines
  • List with directories, paid or unpaid that will give your website additional exposure
  • Create the links with link text in mind, designed to utilize relevant keywords
  • Link only with websites that have decent PageRank (PR); i.e., PR of 3 at a minimum, PR of 4 would be the ideal minimum
  • Blogs - web logs linked to your site or posting to popular blogs with your links included to point traffic back to your site; a good strategy is to employ pinging with the blog posting

• Forums -- forum participation that allows you to leave your link with the intent of attracting traffic back to your site
• Listing with the few free search engines and directories is essential although you won't see any results for months
• Develop an email list subscription function on your site with the intent of sending e-newsletters and announcements on a regular basis. This subscription list can be used for several other campaigns, including the sale of advertising space on your newsletter.
• Purchase sponsorship on other email lists where you can promote your product and/or services as well as get your website promoted in the process.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with Google and Yahoo Search Marketing where you purchase advertising space for keywords that are popular for your industry if you are not in a saturated market. If your business operates in a saturated internet market, seek niche keywords for your PPC advertising. Determine your budget first and from there, you will know how much you can afford for the positioning your desire. It's all mathematical:
  • Price Per Click = monthly budget/number of clicks or
  • Number of clicks = monthly budget/price per click

  Some combination of price and number of clicks will result from a well-designed and constantly monitored campaign. The important result to watch is the conversion rate. How many paid clicks convert into the desired result; i.e., new contract, sale of product, sign up for e-newsletter, etc.

Tier III

Finally, after the hard-core efforts that are directly related to generating traffic to your website, you will want to create follow-on, additional traffic that is under your control. Several methods exist for this strategy:

• Taking the large list of ancillary keywords that relate directly or indirectly to your website, begin purchasing keyword related domain names that will be used to create traffic driving websites that point to your money site.
• Setup satellite pages using the keyword domain names that are heavily populated and geared toward keyword designed to develop niche market traffic. As you develop niche markets that create new customers, you are going to be able to capitalize on those customers for the other products and/or services that your company offers by focusing on information sites that link back to your money site while informing and attracting these new customers.
• Create links, backlinks and cross-links between the satellite pages and your money site, improving your link popularity for all websites, especially your money site.
• Display articles or e-books related to your industry and place these articles on your websites being aware of the best location based on keyword dominance.
• For long-term, viral marketing results, create articles or e-books that you will either sell on your website or offer to public domain websites where your link information must be retained for use by anyone else on the internet.

Monitoring

In order to determine if the SEO efforts are successful, you must monitor results of backlinks, PR and web trend statistics. There are many sources for generating this data as well as programs that will assist in these analyses. Whatever method you choose, whether it is using specific programs or setting up a spreadsheet for entry of data, be consistent in tracking the data. There will be fluctuations from day-to- day. You are looking for general, overall upward trends. Upward progress followed by maintenance of a strong position with slow, steady growth would indicate a successful SEO campaign.

Article written and copyrighted by Chesa Keane, TAO Consultants, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Website: http://www.computergoddess.com