SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

It appears that listings with social signals attract more attention in the SERPs than those without them. The results of a recent eye-tracking study reveal that, at least for local listings, more attention is given to results with social additions. What’s more, it also seems that listings with these signals, things like reviews and +1 votes, are more likely to get clicks than those without them.

The study, by a Canadian online research company, looked at attention hotspots during specific searches in Google Maps. It showed that while the top spot is still the best place to be, listings lower down attracted attention when social activity was involved. Second-spot listings without any social signals got very little attention if a social listing was nearby.

Although the study concentrated on user behaviour during a local search, its results are indication of the importance of social activity in general. Social participation has become more and more important for businesses operating on the web, and it now seems that it has become a factor in optimising for the SERPs.

The results of this eye-tracking study [...] Continue Reading…

Building your online business can be a challenge and the first year is always hard work. When setting up a business from scratch you need to be able to invest huge amounts of effort, time and in some cases, money. The whole process of developing a winning online marketing strategy can be exhausting at times. It is therefore no surprise that many website owners feel that once the site and the initial SEO methods have been applied it is time to relax and wait for the returns to come flooding in. However if the push to take the business forward dries up at this point it’s likely that the success of the company will dry up also.

Online business requires you to constantly analyse your target audience until you develop a deep and rounded understanding of their needs, wants and buying patterns. If any area of their behaviour starts to change it can dramatically affect the success of the business. Taking time to actively monitor your audience will pay dividends in the long run. There are many ways you can [...] Continue Reading…

When you’re dealing with an important issue like keywords, it’s easy to make mistakes. It’s tempting to put them at the forefront, draw attention to them in the most obvious way – but at times this can push them into the background. One of those times is when you’re optimising your title tags.

As any SEO agency can tell you, optimising title tags is a basic tactic for professional SEO services. Putting keywords in the title tag boosts a page’s relevance. What is rarely talked about, however, is where those keywords need to be to catch the eye of target users.

Effective keywords don’t come first

This is one of the few areas in which the needs of search engines and the needs of users come into conflict. Search engines tend to give more weight to keywords that are given prominence. Eye-tracking studies have shown, however, that users don’t usually look at the start of title tags. Their eyes scan the middle area. For more clicks, then, you need to place keywords in the middle.

While pleasing search engines is important, it’s only [...] Continue Reading…

Search engine optimisation isn’t a short-term strategy. While some tactics can boost your rankings up fairly swiftly, there’s always more work to do if you want your pages to stay up there. For this reason, it’s important to have a look at the long term, as well as the short term, when you SEO.

Thinking about the short term

If you’re looking for a boost in the short term, your search engine optimisation agency is likely to tell you to concentrate on links and content. Fresh content attracts search engines, and links tell the search engines you’re running a reputable site. Concentrating on these two things, as well as tinkering with the on-page factors that affect SEO, makes sense.

However, companies can be a little short-sighted about these early SEO tactics, particularly when the results start coming in. Many make the mistake of slacking off on their SEO link building the first time they see their rankings rise. This can be detrimental in the long term.

The long term plan

Long-term SEO involves concentrating on building site quality. Investment in content and links must [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…

Press releases intended for social media can be tricky things. There’s been quite a lot of debate in internet marketing circles about their usefulness. Some query whether the adaptation of press releases to social media is merely a desperate attempt to keep an old marketing standby alive. Others defend these releases, often referred to as social media releases.

At a basic level, social media releases are a handy way to get your news out to your business’ social sphere, and you can discuss this with us at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk. The important thing to remember is that social media releases are not very much like a traditional media release. It’s important to be aware of the differences:

*Traditional media releases are written for the media. Social media releases are written for the public. A social media release needs to fit in with your social media management smoothly. If it is written in a way that’s unlikely to interest your main audience, then it’s probably not a good idea.

*Traditional media releases are about you. Social media releases are about the reader. It’s a slight [...] Continue Reading…

Online press releases are an old SEO link building tactic. Like many link building tactics, press releases are often expected to work miracles. Like all high quality link building, they require a bit of work before those miracles can happen. Here’s how.

*Don’t get trapped on paper. Traditionally, press releases were a single A4 page. Online, they are mini websites. Think about multimedia aspects to include as you write, and your press release will automatically become more dynamic. Talk to us at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk about this.

*Link back to relevant pages. It’s tempting to use your press release to promote your home page. Just as with article marketing, however, press releases should be used to promote your other main pages, or even more minor pages. A close link in relevance between the linked page and the press release will be more effective than generally attempting to promote your company.

*Think about social posting. Press release sites aren’t your only option for dispersing your news. Consider posting in social sites, making use of your press release on your Facebook page, and so on.

Are online [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…

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 [...] Continue Reading…

Black hat search engine optimisation outfits commonly make the claim that it is easy to get positive results from a campaign. In addition, they frequently contend that SEO can deliver the goods swiftly. If a site owner wishes to achieve sustainable success they would do well to ignore such misleading statements.

The truth is that website optimisation is far from simple. It is a complex and evolving set of practices. Even the easier elements of optimisation demand careful attention and intelligent persistence. For example, sites typically need to have high quality content delivered to them on a regular basis. Sustaining content production which is aimed at a target audience is more problematic than it might seem. Other aspects of the complicated processes necessitate tinkering and the deployment of specialist skills.

Black hat SEO individuals and organisations maintain that optimization is not difficult because they want to tempt site owners into making a rash investment. Their techniques will not help boost the performance of sites in the long term. Indeed, these techniques may lead to a site being temporarily banished from the [...] Continue Reading…