SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

If you’re running a blog, a website and a business, you’re not going to have much time on your hands. So, what happens when your SEO company tells you to spend time reading other blogs? You’ll want to make sure it’s worthwhile before you commit.

The short answer is, yes, commenting is worthwhile. Here’s why.

*The biggie: links. Not all blogs ‘nofollow’ their comments sections. If you manage to track down a high-ranking blog that allows link juice, your comment adds to your link building campaign, making the efforts of your link building company a little easier.

*Another SEO benefit: reputation. Reputation building is another action taken by any good SEO company, including us here at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk. Getting your name connected to pages for your keywords is important work.

*Direct traffic. This shouldn’t be discounted. Well-written blog comments that feature a link to a relevant page can get traffic. Better still, this traffic is perfect for your landing page, it involves people who have a demonstrated interest in what you’re talking about.

*Customer relations. This is another way of saying ‘reputation building’. Your reputation is important for more than SEO. Commenting on popular blogs in your industry gets customers thinking about your brand.

*Run-on effects. Something a lot of site owners overlook is the indirect benefits of their online activity. This applies as much to blog comments as anything else. Really good comments can draw indirect benefits, such as follow-up articles, reposts of the comment and general reputation building.

Are you trying to attract attention in mobile as well as traditional search engines? If you’re looking to tap into new markets, mobile SEO can be a great addition to SEO services and search engine marketing plans. Before you throw your current site into the mix, you need to stop and think what mobile searchers are looking for.

Mobile Internet browsing is a world away from the way we’ve always explored the Internet. Users simply don’t act in the way they do when sitting in front of a computer. The form itself pushes other behaviours:

* Smaller screens – make it harder to look at content, so web pages have to be minimised
* Lots of distractions – these not only make it harder for users to concentrate on content but cut short the time any site has to get a message through
* Interrupted use – most searches are performed while the user is waiting for something else to happen or killing time, such as a train or a friend to arrive

What the average site should take from each of these points is that mobile browsing involves less time and less space. This should be the starting point for mobile website optimisation and this is something you can discuss with us at Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk.

Many sites are trying to get into mobile search without fully committing to a mobile site. While a mobile site is an increased expense, if your target market is making use of mobile browsing, a new site is something you really need to consider.

There’s lots of talk in SEO circles about how valuable social media is but little advice on how to actually tap into its treasures. Simply belonging to these networks isn’t enough to benefit your website optimisation plan. You need to know the specific steps to take once you join.

Part of the difficulty for most site owners is that regular marketing tactics aren’t the most effective strategy for social media communities. While traditional marketing might market your business, it won’t help your website. A sideways approach is often needed.

* Blogs – Reading is the first step to take when wanting to promote your blog. The more familiar you are with other blogs, the more you’ll know about how to make connections and extract benefits. Once you’ve read, start talking with other bloggers

* Facebook – Facebook is a particularly difficult one, and you can discuss this with us at Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk. It takes time to make individual connections here so you need a broader plan. Games and competitions are your friends

*Others – For most other sites, your content is how to attract attention. Read up on what’s popular and plan well. More importantly, keep on posting new content and promoting what you post. This is your in-road

A final note: you can join up with a hundred different social media sites, but you’ll get nothing from them if you don’t know how to go about it. It’s better to know your way around one network. Invest time in one social media site that will work for you.

Want your blog to be a winner? If you’ve read anything about running an SEO blog, you’ll know that interacting with other bloggers is a good start. However, if you interact in the wrong way, everything can quickly go south.

Blogging etiquette isn’t that difficult to work out once you’re in the blogosphere. When you’re just dipping your toes in, though, it can be a trying time. If you’re like most site owners and in a rush to get your blog started, you won’t have the time to research as your SEO company says you should.

Before you dive in, here are three rules to help:

1. Inclusive communication. Another title for this point could be ‘no flaming’. The quickest way to lose any respect you’ve gained in the blogging community is to lose your temper. Intelligent comment, on the other hand, will draw people in.

2. Always credit properly. Plagiarism is considered the foulest of crimes in the blogging community and that includes idea theft. On the bright side, always crediting others means you build up your connections with other blogs. You can discuss how to use such connections with our experts at Searchengineoptimisation.co.uk.

3. Stop thinking like a linker. This is strange advice for a strategy that is heavily connected with link building strategies, but link building involves a certain selfish mindset that doesn’t work well with blogging. For blog links, you’ve got to give a little before you can get. It’s also a good way of connecting with others.

There has been a lot of concentration on content this year, led by Google. The changes the search engine has made to its algorithm have spooked many companies into building up their content. Boosting content is fine if you have a lot of resources to pour into your SEO marketing, but what if you are limited? What happens to the rest of your SEO plan?

*Links

Links are still a vital part of SEO. Without a decent link profile, sites have little hope of establishing a reputation with the search engines, and you can discuss this with us at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk. Very few sites can hope to attract enough attention from others on reputation alone, so link building should remain a priority.

*Content

On the other hand, link building for UK and internationally focussed companies goes a lot more smoothly when the site involved is packed full of quality content. Content needs to remain a priority, too.

There’s no getting around it: a good SEO plan needs to involve both link building and content building, on top of the technical work that must be done in the initial stages of optimisation.

If you’re running your SEO plan on a budget, it’s important to take the time to plan tactics that you can squeeze as much value out of as possible. For example, guest posting can get you high quality links and can get you some content in return. Investigate free avenues, such as user-generated content and free directories, and talk to your SEO agency about your options.

Even if you’re investing in link building services, it’s always good to have some organic linking strategies laid down within your site. Tactics employed within your site to attract links, such as link bait content, can keep the links coming in while you’re working on other things.

Content that attracts links has to be free and it has to be unusual. This might sound like a high aim for humble content, but there are three easy ways to give your content an extra edge. The best thing is, the packaging will be doing most of your work for you.

1. Video. Video is no longer the novelty it used to be on a website, but it’s still eye-catching. Grab a camera, set up a whiteboard, and get your best how-to face on. A series of videos is more likely to help your one way link building plan than a single video, as it establishes your site as a resource. Talk to us at www.SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk about content-related link building strategies.

2. Software. Building software may seem like a big task, but featuring small widgets on your page, such as a handy calculator or other planning software, can make a big impact.

3. E-books. The e-book phenomenon means good things for business, as e-reader users tend to favour books that they can download for free. Offering a free e-book draws links when others start to use you as a resource. For this to happen, though, the book has to offer something of solid value.

The link-seeking email is one of the most delicate pieces of correspondence an SEO has to craft. A good email can result in valuable links. A terrible email can cut off link sources. The difficulty is, there isn’t much distance between the two.

One of the biggest mistakes made by businesses in any type of marketing is in failing to look at marketing material from the recipient’s point of view. When writing up an email soliciting links, keep the following things in mind:

*Unsolicited approaches are annoying. This is the first thing to acknowledge, and you need to deal with this in the subject line of your email. The best way to get around this problem is to be brief and straightforward, as well as indicating that you have something to offer in return.

*You are taking up their valuable time. Lengthy emails don’t get read. An SEO company will advise that you keep your page content brief to keep the reader’s attention. Keep this advice in mind when composing link-seeking emails. You can discuss content and email approaches with our experts at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk.

*They are waiting for you to interest them. Finally, you need to be able to capture the other site owner’s interest. Very few site owners will be happy to just give links away. Make your approach tempting with an offer that is tailored to the target site.

Even if you’re using link building services, it’s likely you’ll one day have to approach a site for a link. Pay attention to your link building company’s approach.

Let’s face it, most link bait attempts are a disappointment. There is so much good content out there and site owners are so aware of the value of their links, that link building strategies involving content aren’t the magic solution a search engine optimisation agency might wish they were. There are, however, ways to make things easier when producing link bait.

These three elements are all equally important if you want your content to draw links like flies to honey.
1. Timing. It may come as a surprise to know that one of the most important elements of a successful piece of link bait is simply time. Send it out at the wrong hour and you doom it to ignominy.
2. Interest. It should, on the other hand, come as no surprise that an interesting piece of content is vital as a piece of link bait. A good amount of research should ensure your piece fits the bill.
3. Novelty. Simply being interesting isn’t enough. You also need something fresh. Talk to us at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk about this.

Finally, there is a hidden element that is behind link bait success. It’s luck. Any successful link bait is linked to not just because of the hard work that created the piece, but because of the confluence of all other required elements. For this reason, it’s worthwhile continuing to try out link bait ideas. Those that don’t catch on will still provide your site with some solid and sometimes evergreen content.

Blogging has been part of the search engine optimisation repertoire for a few years now. Like any ageing optimisation tactic, blogs have come under some fire as time has gone by. Some SEO experts argue that using a blog as a website optimisation tactic is a waste of time. Others stand behind the strategy. Which side is right?

Once upon a time, an SEO blog was highly effective for organic search engine optimization. If the competition was too high for the blog’s pages to appear at the top of the SERPs, there was a good likelihood that the blog could still help the site’s SEO through link building. One way or another, a blog would get the job done.

Now, just about everyone’s got a blog. Content has to be top-quality to get any attention and it needs to be updated constantly. It’s much, much harder to get pages to rank, and pretty hard to attract links.

Does this mean the blog’s dead? Not really. Blogging has always been just one way to get content onto pages. Content is still important for SEO, and you can discuss this with us at searchengineoptimisation.co.uk. In fact, with Google’s efforts this year to improve content quality within search results, content is more important than ever. Social media users are also developing high expectations in terms of content. No matter what, if you’re trying to achieve some search engine or marketing aims, you need something like a blog on side.

Blogging isn’t dead, it’s just harder. Luckily, hard work can still pay off.

Link building in the UK would be so much easier if you could just choose a link target, reel them in, and then wait for the link to come to you. But wait… it is that easy. Here are three ways to land some high quality links just by using content on your site.

1. Create a list. Naming bloggers in a ‘top blogs’ list is almost guaranteed to net you links. Talk to us at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk about this.

2. Promote. Another link booster for your organic search engine optimisation plan is to write a positive review of the target’s site or product. It will be irresistible.

3. Answer a question. This has always been a great way to create compelling content. Now, by using Twitter or the target’s blog as a starting point, you can draw in a link by answering the questions posed by specific link targets. Craft an article answering that question, and then contact the link target to let them know that you’ve got what they’re looking for.

Research before you leap

The important thing about all of these ideas, of course, is that you pick your target well. It’s well worth taking a little time to research the person behind the link, to see whether they will be open to linking to you. Targeting someone who is uninterested in publicity, or who never links to anyone else, will just be a waste of time. For the same reason, it’s a good idea to spend a bit of time planning how you’re going to approach them.