SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

So, your search engine optimisation company wants you to start using Twitter as part of your social media campaign. But how do you grab attention?

Using Twitter for marketing isn’t easy. With so many businesses tweeting as part of their social media marketing campaign, competition for attention is fierce. You need some aces up your sleeve.

*Share your day. Had something strange happen on the way to work? Use that as your morning’s tweet. Not every Twitter post has to be about your marketing campaign. Quirky posts will keep your followers reading.

*Post opinions. Stir up conversation by posting your opinion on something.

*Call for opinions. Asking readers what they think is always a good way to get people interested. This works particularly well when you post a link or quote.

*Share what you’re reading. The things you read are likely to be of interest to followers, and give you an easy post.

*Retweet. Sharing is a great way to get ahead in social media, and you can discuss this with us at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk. Retweeting interesting posts helps you consolidate your position in the Twitter community.

*Post a pic. People forget that Twitter isn’t just for words. Pictures mix things up a little.

*Don’t always post. Regular activity can get boring quickly, particularly if you’re struggling to find things to write. Just as life has its interesting moments and its lulls, your Twitter activity should have some slow periods.

If you don’t have a good title, your article isn’t going to be read. It’s a fact. If your title doesn’t deliver something the Internet user is looking for, they will move on to find something that does. As your title is part of your listing in the SERPs, bad composition could lose you clicks and eventually, rankings.

So what are Internet users looking for when they scan the search results? They’re looking for something that makes them STOP:

* Specific – ‘How to build a weather-proof rabbit cage’. Often, Internet users search because they are looking for specific information. It’s best to get straight to the point. Your SEO agency will be happy with your concise use of keywords as well

* Timely – ‘Five essentials you need to know before buying a bunny this Easter’. One way to hook readers is to tell them how essential the information your page contains is. Refer to a holiday or just inject a sense of urgency

* Original – ‘What your bunny does to say “I love you”’. In a world full of information, quirky, interesting and original ideas catch attention

* Practical – ‘Three things to include in home-made rabbit food’. Practical articles cover something that isn’t specific but which the Internet user feels might be useful. These titles are a way to catch attention on the second perusal of the SERPs, after the user clicks away from the specific answer to their query

Use the above tactics to compose compelling titles, or talk to your SEO services company and us at Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk.

Search engine optimisation certainly does include taking great pains to keep human users happy and it does involve making use of social media campaigns, but scanning the horizon of the search world for relevant news about the search engines remains a very important activity. Knowing about fluctuations in market share and search engine responses to it is central to delivering a specific campaign in a flexible way. Any SEO agency profits from combining lessons learnt from research with those arrived at by practical activity.

At Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we work hard to deliver focused campaigns that blend pertinent information gathered from a plethora of disparate sources. Each campaign is based on the specific features of the site concerned and generates its own feedback, but without additional data it would not be possible to achieve sustainable improvements in site performance.

Statistics released in recent research performed by ComScore made interesting reading. Unsurprisingly, Google still had a hegemonic position with 66 per cent of the search engine market. However, its share had dipped by 1 per cent while that of Bing had increased by 2 per cent to 14 per cent. Nonetheless, Yahoo! was still very nearly 2 per cent ahead of Bing. Taken together, the figures underlined that Google cannot be complacent and emphasised that while Bing has made progress it will take time to mount a serious challenge to Google.

Google is currently very busy, determined to consolidate its position. In the long term, it is interested in innovations such as search based on voice recognition and so on. It is also looking at image-based search. Currently, Google is hoping that its Instant Pages concept will enable users to enjoy much swifter site loading times than they do now.

Google optimisation is not sufficient, but paying attention to all its moves is essential for all those seeking to meet the challenges of the future.

Inexperienced site owners can find the process of selecting a search engine optimisation company somewhat problematic. There are black hat organisations that should be avoided at all costs. In addition to this trap, it can be hard for site owners to decide how to pick between enterprises that do adhere to the guidelines set out and maintained by the search engines.

Ethical companies are not all equally appropriate choices. However, the decision is made complicated by the fact that there are various criteria to reflect on. For instance, the size of the firm, its location and its client testimonials all bear thinking about closely. Even the content which is featured on the sites of the companies being considered warrants scrutiny. Evaluating the choices available is not simple, but the potential rewards of getting it right are highly significant.

Any online enterprise has to perceive that it is important to be more visible online. Expertise is needed in terms of conventional optimization and social media marketing. However, it is vital for its site to make the most of the visitors which it receives. Conversion rate optimisation can be a delicate business but an experienced consultant should be able to ensure traffic is not wasted.

There are sometimes advantages associated with using an agile company which is not too large. The largest enterprises may be prone to rest on their previous achievements somewhat. It is pivotal to establish good quality communication with an optimization consultancy. Being located in close proximity to the consultancy can pay off for a diversity of reasons.

At Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we work hard and our client testimonials and site content reflect our suitability as a potential partner.

Search engine optimisation is a complicated set of processes these days. It is important for consultants to keep pace with change. Understanding the reasons why the sphere of search is in perpetual motion has to be matched with an appreciation of the direction of travel. Some of this knowledge can be gathered by having a grasp of relevant theories, but there is no substitute for practical experience. Without this, it is tricky to combine traditional optimisation with social media optimisation effectively.

At Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we pursue campaigns that tick all the necessary boxes. Despite being site-specific, they often combine similar approaches. The key thing is that the techniques are always tailored to fit with the particular features of the site. Our collective experience enables us to do this successfully.

It is possible to use the likes of Twitter to find out more about online marketing. Visiting forums can also be of considerable value in learning terms. Whether it is conventional optimisation or exploiting ‘the social’ there is a lot of knowledge on the net which can be tapped into. Competing sites also need looking at. A site will have to outperform its rivals if it is to get ahead so appreciating their tactics makes sense.

However, it is practical technical and creative experience that differentiates between some of the consultancies out there. It is absolutely vital to recognise what works and why. In the absence of a lot of learning by doing, new campaigns are bound to disappoint in terms of their outcomes.

“I don’t like the people that invented the Internet. I think if you look at them they are geeks and they love it. They want us all to be Trekkies (Star Trek fans), and I think the Trekkie mentality is just abhorrent and it encourages children to sit in a room, not move, look at a screen and get fat, and that’s exactly what’s happening and nobody cares.

I do. I’ve got a daughter, so I don’t want that. I don’t want her to be looking at an iPad, I want her to go to the library, get a book, order it, take it home, read it, cherish it, take it back. And that’s tradition. (It’s the) same with music. I want real records, real people. Plug in and play it.”

Adam Ant’s not happy, as you can probably tell from the above rant! The reason behind it? He’s releasing his first album in 16 years but refuses to make it available for digital distribution. He doesn’t believe in it – in fact, he’s dead against it! Which, of course, is his prerogative as a businessman, but in the digital age, we can’t help but feel it’s a decision which will massively impact on his revenue.

Adam Ant’s views, which he gave to Music-News.com, are noble. Let’s get this straight, we’re massive fans of Adam Ant, but we feel we have to point out how totally wrong his views are about the internet. It’s such an archaic view, and doesn’t give any acknowledgment to the huge positive influences that the internet has brought to people’s lives over the decades.

Many small businesses with the use of SEO and other advertising methods, have able to earn young entrepreneurs a real living and provide an outlet. Social media has connected more people than ever before. Young musicians have reached worldwide stardom thanks to the internet. Amateur film-makers have carved impressive portfolios through sharing their content – the internet has helped fulfil so many dreams since Adam Ant’s peak in the 80s.

Sorry Adam, but the internet is our little Goody Two Shoes.

“We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines.” That’s the firm-but-fair stance Google is taking with webmasters who try and cheat the system with unethical black-hat SEO. “We’ve detected that some or all of your pages are using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines. Look for possibly artificial or unnatural links on your site pointing to other sites that could be intended to manipulate PageRank.”

Google are emailing webmasters with the above if they feel they are trying to manipulate natural rankings through cheating and other practices. They are dropping the sites from the SERPs and advising webmasters that, until changes have been made, that they won’t be considered for re-indexing.

Quite ferocious, but then again, quite right. Why should people who have worked hard on their search campaigns lose out because someone else gets greedy and wants to ruin the search experience for everyone else? It’s great to see Google cracking down and trying to create as level a playing field as possible when it comes to online marketing.

But, of course, there’s still a long way to go. The internet is expanding by the day, and it’ll take an enormous amount of time and patience to regulate every site on a consistent basis. The best way to stop this happening to you is to be ethical at all times, and only indulge in an organic campaign that utilises tried-and-trusted on-page and off-page techniques.

Black-hat SEO services, as Google are showing here, aren’t everlasting and, if anything, will be detrimental to your business – especially if you drop off the SERPs because of them. It may take a while longer to get where you want through organic measures, but if you stick with it, the rewards you can reap when done properly can be immense.

It might be thought by a novice that the important part of SEO is what is done to and for a site rather than what is measured. If a SEO agency could get by via performing formulaic techniques then the measuring aspect of SEO might not be as crucial as what it is. Accurate measurement of progress is actually a central part of what optimization has to involve. The adept use of SEO tools thus becomes an essential weapon in a consultant’s armoury. Obviously, a consultant has to measure site progress to liaise effectively with a site owner. It is perhaps instructive to consider the other ways in which charting progress can help in the delivery of high quality SEO.

At Searchengineoptimisation.com we pursue multifaceted campaigns which address the specific requirements of individual sites. Periodic measurements of a site’s relative progress are central to the way in which we deliver positive outcomes for the disparate sites we work away on. The following list of reasons why progress matters is arguably of help to some site owners:

• Site progress has to be measured with due care because campaigns have to be flexible if they are to yield sustainable success. Measuring relevant statistics like traffic levels and conversion rates is not something which can be done swiftly by busy individuals. This means that site owners are rarely able to assess their own sites and act independently in accordance with their findings. Adjustments to campaigns are often necessary, but the tweaks will be made in erroneous directions if they are not firmly based on detailed empirical data.
• The same SEO technique can have divergent effects across diverse sites. One of the basic principles of SEO is that ‘one size does not fit all.’ This means that it is crucial to assess how each blend of tactics is working in a specific context. It is this context-dependency which in part militates against the evolution of standardised SEO solutions.
• Sites are fundamentally locked in competition with sites in the same sector. This means that sites are usually competing aggressively for visibility, traffic and sales. Checking up on the performance of competitors is thus an obligatory thing to do. However, unless the performance of the actual site is checked up on then it is all but impossible to incorporate sensible changes arrived at by learning into the mix.
• With almost every site, part of its strategy will be working better than other elements of it. Certain pages of a site will be doing their jobs better than others. This means that users are likely to linger on some pages than others. Measuring which pages are performing their roles properly is a good idea when it comes to pursuing progressive SEO.
• It is often necessary to alter course with regard to SEO because of the demands imposed by technological innovation. However, once a site has been altered in response to an innovation it is then imperative to judge how well the adjusted site is doing. Hence if a site is adapted because of the evolution of mobile search early assessment is required.

There is a multitude of persuasive reasons why an average site owner is not usually in a good position to conduct their own SEO campaign. They may not have the practical means to achieve sustainable success in a complex and evolving area. It is thus almost always a shrewd move to consider outsourcing. Even what might seem to be relatively simple activities, such as following SEO news, are in reality much more difficult to accomplish than might initially be envisaged.

At Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we focus on delivering multifaceted and tailored campaigns on behalf of our diverse clients. Only by using and adapting the latest techniques are we able to advance the interests of the sites we work on. Outmoded tactics cannot help sites move up the search engine results pages and nor can they get more sales for a site.

There are several reasons why keeping up with industry news in the SEO sector can be problematic for novices. These reasons militate against newcomers to the field understanding technicalities, but they can also prevent them from finding out about more basic things properly. The following list may explain some of the issues:

• The sources of information are of varied quality. Inexperienced individuals may not have the ability to differentiate between reliable and dubious sources of data. Some sites which seem to offer SEO tips are little more than advertisements for the firms concerned. Their ‘advice’ is so simplistic that it is of limited practical assistance.
• Some information sources are composed by black hat firms. Such enterprises provide data which is unreliable and likely to lead to catastrophe if taken at face value. At best, they recommend tips which lost their usefulness several years ago and can now lead to serious trouble down the track. At worst, they claim to have access to secret formulas which make instant success inevitable.
• It can be tricky for newcomers to SEO to discover where relevant information is. It could be located on social media networking sites, it might be contained in newsletters or it might be on authority sites within the SEO sector. It could even be released by Google or other major search engines. Either way, the problem can sometimes be tracking down where details of emerging trends are being reported on.
• Crosschecking information is obviously a useful skill, but a site owner may lack the background and the time to do it properly. They might fail to observe the date on which something was published, they might overlook an anomalous finding or they could miss a contradiction which requires further investigation. A site owner does not always have the right ideas of how to analyse the data and separate the trivial from the essential.
• The key thing which SEO firms have is the ability to combine theory and practice on a regular basis. The experience of doing this puts them in another place from the average site owner. Practical SEO experience enables people to assess news in an informed way. It helps them look beyond headlines and to evaluate when a piece is of importance.

Unethical or black hat SEO receives a lot of attention in the content which is put on the net in relation to optimisation. There is a plethora of reasons why much of this content makes useful reading for site owners. However, it must be said that the division between ethical and unethical SEO is sometimes a little blurred. This is not always reflected in some of the content because the purpose of that content is more about reassurance than illumination.

At Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we recognise that unethical SEO needs commenting on. As a reputable SEO agency, it is important for us to highlight practices which are likely to lead to trouble. This is because site owners do need protection from unscrupulous SEO consultants. Nevertheless, it is still the case that the ethical boundaries outlined by Google and the other major search engines are not always clearly set out.

The fuzziness of some of the ethical framework is not always a vital concern. It is always best to err on the side of caution. Furthermore, it is users who ultimately make purchases of goods and/or services from sites. Thus it is always best for site owners and SEO specialists to heed the advice from Google which stipulates that intervention should be about addressing the needs of users rather than focused on manipulating search engines.

Despite this important point, it is simply incorrect to see SEO as either ethical or unethical, white hat or black hat. Grey hat search engine optimisation exists and it is useful to understand why this is. In addition, its existence has implications which may be relevant at some stage of an evolving campaign. On the other hand, it may be prudent to avoid grey hat methods but lack of awareness of the activities of competitors may be a foolish position.

An example of where the grey hat territory exists relates to the practice of keyword stuffing. It used to be the case that site content was sometimes filled with numerous keywords to the extent that users found the text arduous to read. The search engines perceived that users desired to read content which flowed properly and thus decided that content with an excessive density of keywords would be subject to penalties. However, the precise density of keywords which is permissible has not been revealed by Google and the like.

The search engines are in competition with one another and this means that they are always looking for ways in which to improve things for users. Hence they are often a bit vague in what information they provide to site owners and the like. If they were too precise many sites would be optimised right up to the limits. The search engines are getting better at detecting unethical practice and are prepared to be quite punitive where they discover it. Thus avoiding black hat activities is prudent.

There will always be some firms who push the ethical boundaries. This is obviously because temptation gets the better of them. It is always best to remain within the constraints established by the search engines. There is still plenty which can be done.