Showing posts with label Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Show all posts

This article is going to give advice on how to make your website easier for it’s visitors to navigate and use. We will be covering the topics of:

• URLs
• Breadcrumb links
• Sitemaps
• Custom 404 pages
• Website Navigation
• Linking Out 
  

URLs

URLs will often contain a bunch of indecipherable codes and numbers. To make it easier for users to remember the URL to a particular page, make it so the URL is short, simple and uses words that relate to its page (eg. www.example.com/blog/2008/jan/how_to_mow_cat ).  It is also useful to make it so parts of the URL can be deleted and the URL will still work. For istance, if you deleted everything after the ‘2008’ in the example above, www.example.com/blog/2008 would lead to a page containing all the blog posts from 2008.  It is good practice to only have one URL leading to a particular page.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumb links are a really useful way to help people better navigate your website.  Breadcrumbs are usually located near the top of the page and look like this:

Home > Shoes > Kids > Sandals > Kosh Leather Sandals  

Visitors can use this to find their way back to pages they viewed previously.

Sitemaps

To help users find their way around, include an HTML sitemap with links to all the important pages.  If there are a lot of pages, they should be organised on the sitemap by subject. To make it easier for search engines to navigate pages on your website, create an XML sitemap file for your site using a sitemap generator.
 

 

Custom 404 Page

There will be times when visitors will try and open a page that doesn’t exist. This is often because of misspelling a URL. Setting up a custom 404 page that guides users back to a page that works (typically the home page) can make peoples visit to your site easier and more enjoyable. Google has a useful 404 widget you can embed in your 404 error page.
 

Website Navigation

Most sites have navigation links near or at the top of each page. These usually include the home page, about, contact and any other important pages such as products or a blog. These are good for helping visitors find their way around your site.

Linking Out

The last bit of advice is about linking to other pages or websites. It is better to use text links rather than pictures, because people don’t always know to click on a picture to go to another page. It is always good to make links words or phrases (known as 'anchor text') that describe the place you’re being linked to rather than just a URL. This is especially important in the case of websites like Youtube that have a bunch of seemingly random letters and numbers in their video URLs.  If you just provide a raw Youtube link, people might not know what is on the other side. That is why it is important to use words as links.
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This article is a guest post by Sam, a year 10 student at Heathfield High School who has been doing work experience with us at Wicked Cow Marketing recently. Sam and I discuss all of the tips given here in Episode 12 of the Web Marketing Adelaide Podcast.

I've created this infographic with 8 tips to help improve your search engine rankings in Adelaide. If you head to the page on my website; Adelaide SEO Tips, you'll find more information about each tip and a video explaining each tip as well. Enjoy!

As you know, I haven't been posting much here lately - there are several reasons, mostly because I've been really busy, but also because I've been writing articles for my Online Marketing business website: Wicked Cow Marketing. I've already built up a pretty good collection of resources, here are some of the most recent:

• On-Page Optimisation - A comprehensive guide to on-site SEO, that is search engine optimisation done on the page
• Page Title Optimisation - A follow up to the on-page optimisation article above that focuses on just the optimisation of your page's titles
• How to Get More Facebook Fans - A structured approach to getting more Facebook fans
• How to Get More Twitter Followers - A structured approach to getting more Twitter followers
• Ultimate SEO Checklist - A huge checklist of SEO techniques and ideas that you can use to improve your site
  

There are several different things you can do with an article to aid your SEO and online marketing, including:

• Posting it on your main website
• Posting it on another website you own with a link back to your main website
• Syndicating the article to a large number of relatively low quality article marketing networks
• Syndicating the article to fewer higher quality websites
• Using the article as a guest post (one location)

This post seeks to explore which use is the most effective way to leverage an article for maximum benefit.

Article Use	Pros	Cons
Main website	The article can rank and attract traffic to your website	There are no guaranteed links generated from the article
Another website you own	Guaranteed link back to your main website and the article can attract traffic to your other website	Have to divide your content over two websites
Low quality syndication	Potentially large number of links from low-medium quality websites and some exposure	Many links are low quality and will produce little traffic
High quality syndication	A small number of medium-high quality links, exposure to a new audience and likely to send some relevant traffic	Limited number of links generated
Guest post	Guaranteed link from a potentially high quality site, exposure to a new audience and likely to send some relevant traffic	Only one link generated

The traditional use would be to post the article straight onto your main website where it can rank in the search engines and attract visitors for years to come. The article can also be shared on social media and linked to from elsewhere to give your website traffic and an SEO boost to lead to better rankings overall. However, there is no guarantee that you will get links, unlike the other article uses mentioned. Earning links simply by writing good quality content is getting harder and harder so perhaps leveraging your article to obtain value exchange links is a better use of your content.

Value Exchange Links
These are links that are gained by giving something of value in exchange for a link back to your website. Money is a common form of value that is exchanged for links but in this case, the 'value' is the right to use a piece of content on a website. The three uses in the diagram above are value exchange links where you grant another website owner the right to use your content on their website in exchange for a link pointing back to your website. These techniques produce guaranteed links which reduces risk and increases the efficiency of your SEO efforts.

The lower quality method at the bottom of the pyramid has the potential to deliver tens - hundreds of links from low-medium quality websites. The links are likely to have a lower life time value so this technique has less long term value but the sheer number of links, with desired anchor text can still have a good effect on your rankings in the short term.

The higher quality techniques will produce much fewer links but they will have a greater long term value, greater authority and link value and have other benefits such as increasing your reputation and gaining exposure from a relevant audience.

For more information about the SEO value of 'value exchange links' see my recent post discussing whether article syndication is white hat.

Article Marketing or Syndication is the process of trying to get your content republished on other websites for the purpose of getting exposure and building links.

I've been meaning to write this article ever since the article marketing product 'Article Samurai,' from the same company that makes Market Samurai, came out. More recently, I've been involved in an extensive discussion, in the comments of an article on SEO myths, about whether article syndication is a good way to build links.

There's a range of article marketing techniques that span from the very low quality to the higher quality. A point that was raised in the article and discussion mentioned above is that article syndication on quality sites is a good way to get your content distributed to targeted readers, which I don't dispute.

The focus of this article is with using article syndication as a link building technique for SEO.

There's actually two questions here;

1. Is article syndication/marketing white hat?
2. Is article syndication/marketing effective?

While the second question is certainly important, I'm actually more concerned with the first question as I'm looking for long term value and techniques that are not white hat will decrease in value over time as the Search Engines improve their algorithms.

Editorial Links
My main problem with article syndication is that it doesn't produce truly editorial links but rather value exchange links. Those re-publishing the articles are doing so, at least partly, because they benefit from having the content on their site, not because they think its great content.

However, it's not as straightforward as this. Some low quality sites will publish syndicated articles to their own sites with very little editorial scrutiny - these are certainly at the low quality/spammy end of the spectrum. But what about sites that only pick the very best articles to re-publish? It would seem that this is certainly an editorial process and therefore the links back should be given value by the search engines.

It seems like a difficult issue to make a decision on but I think that while the links produced are editorial to some degree, they are still value exchange links and therefore shouldn't be given as much link value as a true editorial link which makes the technique not entirely white hat. That's not to say that its black hat... I would categorise it as a grey hat technique.

In the following video, Matt Cutts talks about article marketing and syndication and he doesn't come right out and say that its a black hat technique. I think this is because he also recognises that if there's an editorial process and the articles are being published on good quality sites then the links do have some value as an indicator that the original content is authoritative.



He concludes the video by saying that the trend is that article syndication is a bad technique and that the resulting links should be devalued. There's also a great video by Rand from SEOmoz on this subject. Rand's video deals more with the lower quality end of the spectrum, but I think he agrees overall that no article syndication is entirely white hat and he then brings up the subject of opportunity cost.

Opportunity Cost
I think there's no doubt that article syndication can be an effective link building technique, especially if done in a higher quality way. But, if you're spending time on a technique that's not white hat then you know that the effectiveness of that technique is probably doing to decrease over time. You could be spending that time on white hat techniques which will have more of a long term value.

Many of the tools in the SEO's arsenal are not strictly white hat. The reason we use them is because they do have some value now so they'll produce positive results in the short term and because they're easier, quicker and cheaper to do than truly white hat techniques.

Do you do Article Syndication? Do you think its white hat?

James Whitrow is the director of Get Seen Online, a business providing SEO and corporate and creative videos. I was lucky enough to sit down with him to discuss his business, their services and a recent viral video that he produced called 'Herbert Wilkes, a Hungry Life.' If you haven't already, read the Herbert Wilkes article and watch the video, it's great stuff. I found James to by an interesting guy with lots of passion for his business and for getting results for their clients.

What is your role in the business? What is your background? How did you come to be doing what you do?

• I am the owner of Get Seen Online, we have three employees. I’m responsible for marketing & sales, some of the tech work, research and development, managing accounts, content writing and optimisation. The other two in the business are primarily tech and SEO consultants.
• I’ve always run my own business since the age of ten, in San Diego, when I folded papers for other kids in the street who were old enough to have their own paper route.
• I’ve been in the IT space for about 15 years. Previously I had a full service network management business and our clients started asking for websites and SEO. Initially we outsourced the work but were not happy with the results and we realised we could do better. We started offering SEO as a service and eventually it became a separate business, and that’s how Get Seen Online was born.

What does Get Seen Online do?

• We do what it takes to get you on page one of Google using SEO, Online Video, Social Media and other methods.

What are your core services?

• SEO, Website development, Online Video

Where does video production fit into those services?

• Video adds a great extra element for users. We can show footage of clients’ work, how to's, what its like to experience doing business with them; anything information and story driven.
• The videos are mostly made for the client’s website then linked through Youtube and social networks.

How can videos be used for online marketing? What are the advantages of video over text?

• People are lazy. Some people don't like reading a screen, videos are much easier on the eyes.
• On the down side, written content gets more mileage for SEO than video, so it’s good to have a blend of both.

How does video marketing complement other online marketing techniques?

• Adding video to your content provides a more complete package, giving information in many formats for different people's preferences

What should the videos be about?

• Think about what people would want to watch
• Do research - use Google's keyword research tool, for example type in 'how to ,’ to see if people are searching for ‘how to’ guides on that subject
• Try and expose in an engaging way what is unique about your business

Is there a specific formula to make a video go viral? What are the biggest factors?

• There's definitely something to having an X factor
• Marketing is also important
• It has push boundaries and there’s got to be something that makes you want to share
• Short - around 1 to 3 minutes
• Video and audio quality are important, people need to see and hear clearly what’s going on. Sound extremely obvious, but overlooked by so many videos. For some videos the music can make or break the video.

Are there any Youtube specific tips your can share?

• Youtube wants people to be active. Logging into your account, friending, subscribing, commenting and voting are all things that Google/Youtbe likes, so do them.
• Getting involved in the community will also help get your videos featured. Featured videos go on the home page and get lots of views.

How do the costs and returns of online video marketing compare to TV advertising?

• The ratio of costs of TV ads to cost of online videos is anything up to 10 : 1 for production.
• You can use a basic video camera that only costs $300 and both Macs and PC’s come with free editing software (imovie and windows movie maker) or you up the quality and hire a local company to use professional gear and do something slick, either way, the main requirement is to have a good story to tell
• On the distribution side, for TV ads you need to pay for each showine
• Online videos stay up forever so there's no limit to their potential
• Many people, especially the younger generations, already watch more online video than TV.
  

Can business owners have success by creating videos themselves?

• Yes, simple videos can be really easy to create provided you have content that will engage the viewer.

What are five things that small business owners can do to leverage online video for marketing?

• The most important thing is to get good quality content. Think about what content might interest your customers, what do you see everyday that they might find interesting?
• Steer away from blatant self promotion
• Do research. See what kind of videos are popular on Youtube in your niche and use Google’s keyword tool to see what people are searching for
• If you don't have much editing skill or software, plan your shot carefully to try and shoot everything in sequence so there's not much editing required.
• Ask around, there’s plenty of people involved in film in some way who can help and advise.

How would you describe your SEO philosophy?

• Focus on providing great content with the belief that Google will appreciate informative, entertaining and useful website content.
• We do lots of research and monitoring of results.

How do you differentiate yourselves from other online marketing businesses?

• We work face to face with customers as well as through the net.
• We aim to find out what's unique about our clients and portray their uniqueness and reason for existence as a common thread throughout all the marketing material and content on their website

Why is website structure important for SEO?

• It enables search engines to easily crawl all the relevant content
• Coding is also important, for example you should use CSS for page layout rather than tables nested in tables
• Title tags, descriptions, headings (h1,h2,h3 tags) are all important places to put keywords- they should all be matching and consistent and accurately represent and summarise the content.

What are some common mistakes you see in small business website design?

• Keyword stuffing, by people who don’t understand keyword density
• Using lots of meta keywords- Google have stated they no longer use them in their algorithms
• Content that doesn’t relate to the page titles

Thanks again to James for giving his time for this interview. You can learn more about Get Seen Online and the services they offer at their company profile in our Internet Marketing Directory.

Market Samurai is the software I use for keyword research.

www.marketsamurai.com

Golden Rule Filters

Market Samurai comes with a preset filter called the 'Golden Rules.' These are the values they recommend when doing keyword research.

SEO Traffic > 50 / day
SEO Local Competition < 100,000 pages
PBR > 15%
SEO Value > $30/day

The most important factors for search engine rankings as determined by the world's top SEO Experts.

The search engines use hundreds of different factors to rank the different websites when someone conducts a search. Some factors are declared by the search engines themselves but most are unknown. The best resource we have for determining the most important ranking factors is SEOmoz's Biennial Ranking Factors survey. Basically they survey the world's top SEO experts and determine the consensus on which factors are most important for determining a website's search engine ranking.

These are the top five ranking factors determined in the last survey (2009):

1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
2. External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)
4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

Four of the top five factors are related to incoming links. That's why link building is such an important part of Search Engine Optimisation. If we focus on the other half of SEO, Onsite SEO, the most important ranking factors are:

1. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
2. Existence of Substantive, Unique Content on the Page
3. Keyword Use as the First Word(s) of the Title Tag
4. Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name (e.g. keyword.com)
5. Site Architecture of the Domain (whether intelligent, useful hierarchies are employed)

The survey is due to be redone this year, around August. Which factors do you think will have changed? Will there be any new factors that we haven't seen before?

The online paid directory sharks are beginning to circle closer and closer. Here are some questions to keep in mind if you are contacted. Are paid directory listings useful for SEO?

I have received calls recently, 2 in the last week, from three different online directories offering advertising and listing packages for a client of mine. All of them were throwing in buzzwords like 'SEO' and 'rankings' to entice people to sign up for their services. In each case I pressed them for info but they all use different types of statistics (perhaps on purpose?) so it makes it hard to compare. Still I have compiled a table below which I will add to over time and below that a list of questions to ask if you get called by one of these, or similar, companies.

Directory	Cost/month	Minimum	Related Searches (per month)	Expected Listing Views (per month)	Expected Leads (per month)
Yellow Pages	$80	12 months	n/a	20 (views & leads combined)	<---
Womow	$59	1 month	227	54-108	18-36
Kidspot	$147	12 months	8500	n/a	n/a

Conclusions from this data? Its hard to say with the numbers being incomplete. I like Womow so far.

Questions to ask paid directories

These questioned are centred around numbers of expected leads. They will want to tell you all about what you get in your listing, how many pictures, the 'keywords' you can include etc etc, but all this stuff doesn't mean anything if its not going to deliver leads and sales.

1. How much does it cost? Over what time period? Whats the minimum contract?
2. How many members do you have in Adelaide?
3. How many searches related to my business do you have in Adelaide each month? (ask them to look at a comparable business listing)
4. How many views could I expect my listing to receive each month? (ask them to look at a comparable business listing)
5. How many leads (website click throughs, phone number requests, email requests) could I expect my listing to generate each month? (ask them to look at a comparable business listing)
6. How many competitors are there in my category/s?
7. What does a listing include?
8. Do you have a free listing option? How does it differ to the paid listing?

SEO Buzz Words

If the directory has good search engine rankings for keywords that you want to rank for then this might be relevant. You will have to investigate this yourself for your industry. In most cases, I wouldn't expect a paid directory listing to rank well compared to you website for instance so you should focus more on the number of leads it can deliver from within the directory.

Maybe some of the SEO readers can add their comments on this?

Inbound link building by sponsorship is a link buying technique not yet discounted by Google.

Sponsored Links in Google's Eyes

Link Buying is generally frowned upon by Google and other search engines as a 'black hat' SEO technique. Google considers inbound links as 'votes' for the quality of the website being linked to. However, if someone is able to buy these links then its really only an indication of the size of their bank account rather than the quality of their website and content.

Google often penalises websites that buy or sell links that pass PageRank but sponsorship link building seems to have remained largely untouched. Many of the websites that have sponsors are for non profit events, clubs and community groups so it would be pretty bad PR for Google if they were to penalise these websites or their sponsors. If they were to take action they would probably just discount the links so they carry less or no weight.

Sponsored Links to Help Your Business

There are many organisations and groups out there looking for sponsors. The websites of these groups usually have a page thanking their sponsors. These are the pages you can try and get links from. Buying links this way is relatively low risk, can have great benefits for your website and can make you feel good about supporting those who need the money. Here are some guidelines for who to sponsor:

• Local or Topical- The most beneficial links are those from webpages that are related to your subject, your location or both. If you are targeting the local market then links from other local websites are important. Websites related to your subject (topic or industry) are also very important.
• Keywords- Related to the point above, ideally the 'sponsors' page will have keywords relating to your topic or location so the search engines know that the page is relevant to you which makes the links more beneficial.
  
• Followed Links- You want links that are 'followed' meaning the website is telling the search engines that we trust, endorse and 'vote' for this website.
• Anchor Text- The link will be more beneficial if the link text is one of your keywords rather than just your company name or your logo.
• PageRank- This is a measure of how valuable the page is. You want links from pages that have a higher PageRank.
• Number of links on the page- The fewer outgoing links on the page, the better.
  

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.- Wikipedia 

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Recommended SEO Providers in Adelaide:

• The Search Guys
• SEO Maverick

See all recommended of Adelaide's recommended Internet Marketers in our directory.

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Search Engines rank pages for a given search term using two things... the relevancy of the page to the search term and the importance of the page overall.