Ever wondered where to start with getting selling on Google?  A good place is to identify if your target market searches for you online.  The only way to do that is to find keywords that they might use, and then find out if there is enough searches per month to make the keyword worth going after.  Before we start, I just need to advise you that a keyword may sometimes actually represent a keyword search phrase so may sometimes actually be 2 or more words long!  I use the terms interchangeably but I mean the same thing.

The following tips are aimed at beginners and are a way to get started with Search Engine Optimisation.

• Open the Google Keyword Tool
• Research your keywords by starting off with something that describes you – such as “accountant Bristol”, “florist Clifton” etc.  Districts are easier than towns but will have a lot less traffic.  Enter the keyword in the box that is marked word or phrase, you don’t need to fill in any other fields at this stage, and click Search
• Look through the list and select 3 to 10 which are closely related.  If you wish you can download the list into Excel to work on by clicking Download then All.  You WILL need the reverse of the keyword phrase as well as plurals and singular.  This means “Bristol accountant” and “accountant Bristol” are NOT the same, as “Bristol accountant” and “Bristol accountants” are not the same either!

An example of a good, closely related keyword list is:

1. Accountant Bristol
2. Accountants Bristol
3. Accountants in Bristol
4. Bristol accountants
5. Chartered accountants Bristol
6. Bristol accountant

• Top tip – to start just plan to use your homepage as it’s easier and faster to get ranked, for the purposes of this blog we will presume you use only your homepage.  Later on you may wish to use other pages for other keyword phrases too

1. Look at the LOCAL monthly searches
2. Ignore the competition field as this is used to find AdWords competition
3. Search volumes of up to 500 are easier and faster to get on the front page for
4. Higher search volumes than 3,000 are competitive and mean it will take longer

Now you have your keyword list, you’re ready to move onto the next stage, competing the SEO Setup.  More on this will follow next week in this SEO tutorial series!

If you have any questions or if you’re struggling, please do comment below.  If you’d like to receive a quote for our SEO Services starting from £30 per month – please give us a call on 0800 3277327 or email us at sales@marketingbyweb.co.uk

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Search engines are constantly “crawling” the web through the millions of links that can be found within it. These crawlers are generally referred to as “spiders”.  Once the spiders have gone through a link and visited a page (web page, music, image etc) it will add it to the search engine’s massive database. This is known as indexing, and is the first step towards appear in the Search Engine Result’s Pages (SERPs). It is imperative to be added to this database because that is how you will end up appearing on the search engine’s results.  This could be as simple as sending out a tweet containing your website URL, as Google will follow the Tweet and examine the website.

Once you have grasped this concept, it becomes clear that in order to rank highly on the search engines, you will want your website and its various pages crawled by the spiders. In addition, the more links going to and from your website, the higher you will rank in the search engine.

However, it is actually a lot more complicated than just allowing the spiders to visit your website, and building links. Google and other search engines use a highly complex algorithm to calculate the relevancy and value of a website.  SEO companies try and understand this confusing algorithm in order to signal to the search engines the relevancy of a certain website matched to a search term. One of the things calculated by search engine algorithm would be the strength of the various links that go to the website. The strength of the link might be judged based on the volume of traffic that visits it (Alexa Rank) or the Page Rank of the page. Basically, if you gain a link your website from a link that is not very highly ranked, then the link would be nowhere near as powerful as if it was linked to a more popular, higher ranked website.

Search engines are constantly changing and adapting their algorithms in order to create more relevant and useful information to its users. That basically means; if you wish to ensure you are appearing on the front page for your website, you will need to change and adapt with it. – no excuses folks!

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Image by aussiegall via Flickr

Does your site measure up?

It’s unfortunate that sometimes we have to turn away SEO clients simply because their websites aren’t up to scratch. It’s hard to tell a client with money in his hand that the website he has paid out good money for just can’t be optimised.

There are many reasons a website isn’t suitable – here are just a few:

IT’S ON A FREEBIE DOMAIN

Whether it’s a free wordpress blog or a free domain on your hosting company’s space, it’s really not worth optimising on a freebie domain. With domain names costing very little these days, take the time to buy either a .com or a .co.uk that suits your company – it’s worth it in the long run.

IT’S AN ALL FLASH SITE

Although there are ways around it, Google still doesn’t like all Flash sites, and we really advise against getting them designed. With web design standards so high now it’s possible to achieve a great looking site without having to hide everything in a Flash movie.

TITLE TAGS CAN’T BE CHANGED ON EACH PAGE

It’s a fact that you can’t optimise one page of a site for every phrase – in fact we recommend a handful of phrases per page. This means that if you want to optimise for 10 phrases, you’re going to need at least 5 pages that can have the title and META tags changed. Many CMSs don’t offer this option, and sadly we have to turn away these clients.

THE SITE IS DESIGNED ALL IN GRAPHICS

Yes, even in 2011 we still see sites designed in Microsoft Pulisher or other programs that render the site all in graphics. Google can’t read them, we can’t help you – sorry!

YOU’RE NOT WILLING TO CHANGE YOUR COPY

In some cases your copy will be fine, but in others we’ll ask you to change some of it, make it more keyword rich, add H1 tags etc – if you won’t or can’t do this then we can’t do our job properly and have to say no.

YOU WANT INSTANT RESULTS ON ULTRA COMPETITIVE KEYPHRASES

Although we have achieved great listings in good timeframes for our clients, we can’t guarantee that you’ll be at #1 in Google for the keyphrases of your choice within a week – no-one can. In fact Google themselves even say not to employ SEO consultants who say they can. We’re ethical and moral and won’t promise something we can’t achieve, so we’d have to turn down the job.

That all sounds a little negative doesn’t it? But rest assured that the majority of people who come to us are taken on board with a big smile – once we’ve checked the above points and made sure we can do the best job for them.

Not sure if your site meets our criteria? Drop us a line and ask

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Image by thms.nl via Flickr

Here at Marketing By Web we’re often asked: “Which is better? SEO or Google Adwords?” and the truthful answer is that it depends on your website.
But that’s a whole other blog post

For the majority of websites, SEO and Adwords working in tandem is a great strategy.

Why?

Well, let’s look at the pros and cons of SEO and Adwords separately first.

SEO (search engine optimisation)

Pros:

• can be low cost, whether you DIY or employ an SEO consultant
• some people use organic listings more than they click on Adwords
• most sites can be optimised with a little work
• once listings are achieved, a little work every month can keep those listings

Cons:

• it takes time to see your listings rise, especially if you’re in a competitive industry
• short tail keyphrases are usually very competitive
• there’s no real way to know if you’ve chosen the correct keyphrases until you get the listings you want

Adwords

Pros:

• listings are alive almost immediately
• you can use Adwords to test the efficacy of keywords before embarking on SEO
• you can control your budget
• Google will give you advice on landing pages
• you only pay for each visitor you get

Cons:

• for very competitive keyphrases it can be expensive
• if your ads aren’t written properly then your ‘quality’ score could be low
• if your site isn’t well designed, your ads may not show often

So, by combining SEO and Adwords, you can get the pros of each (quick listings, testing, organic listings, good results), and use each of them to negate the pros. Let’s see some examples:

• SEO takes time, but Adwords are almost instant – so you can use Adwords to get quick wins, and use SEO for the longer term
• With SEO you may not know if you’re choosing the correct phrases – Adwords helps you to refine this
• If you have a low quality score in Adwords, and you ads don’t show oftem the work you do on your site will benefit your SEO

We understand that in some cases it’s an either/or situation, but in our opinion, SEO and Adwords work hand in hand to provide all round search engine promotion for your site.

Are you using both SEO AND Adwords to promote your website?

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