Keeping on top of your SEO

Keeping on top of your seo title image

Keeping on top of your seo title image

One idea we find is implanted with a lot of clients who come to us, is that SEO can be done once, get you high in search rankings and then left. But this is simply not the case. You have to keep on top of your SEO.

So we find ourselves saying over and over again that SEO is something you need to keep on top of. To ensure you keep your place in rankings ahead of your competitors. But how exactly do you keep on top of things?

 

Little and Often

As we have mentioned SEO is no one time thing, and you will never ‘complete’ SEO. So the best approach for your company (especially is the person dealing with your SEO has other roles too) is to perform check-ups little and often.

So where do you start with your check-ups? Use a tool like Moz. Where you have a number of free resources to get you used to the program, and getting started on SEO. Before moving on to a more robust paid option.

Their free resource kit allows you limited access to open site explorer and MozBar, as well as local and twitter analysis options.

Open Site Explorer allows you to see a whole host of factors that affect your rankings. Including your domain authority, page link metrics and inbound links to your site.

MozBar allows you metrics to analysis any web page. Which is useful for checking any missing elements on your own page. As well as what your competitors are up to.

Google Analytics also offer “page analytics” which offers in depth analysis on any webpage that contains analytics you have access to.

Put together your own toolbox that works for you to give you an idea of what needs changing. Then to assess how those changes are working.

 

Consider Both Front End and Back End

SEO works on a huge number of factors, which work both “back end” in the coding of your website, and “front end” in the content of your page. It can be really easy to stay focused on just one side, as both take a lot of time. However you need to remember to keep track of both.

This is where you may require help sometimes if you don’t have to chance to run this all yourself. Perhaps consider an SEO company, or web developer to look after your “backend” if you really don’t have time to learn these bits. Just remember to pick a company you will be happy to work with on a regular basis. Who will work together with you on the project. Though you should be weary of companies who promise you ‘guaranteed’ results.

And if you’re struggling with content creation that works then it may be time to seek out a copywriter, who writes for SEO purposes.

 

Keep Things Fresh

We do hear from a lot of our clients that, well they posted a blog 2 months ago, but they’re not ranking now. Or they have wondered why the content that has been static on their website for 2 years isn’t still drawing in the rankings it used to. And that’s because you have a lot of competition.

Almost everything ever written is now on the web. If you want your content to appear right at the top, you’re going to have to put in a little more work.

So whether it is creating new content for your blog or main web pages, or even updating old blogs with new information. You need to work a little harder on making sure your content is fresh. Any facts of figures are up to date, making sure the info is still relevant today, and linking where you can in your web page.

Do this a little at a time, using one day to write a blog, and the next to update a services page. You will gradually build, and improve your content, without being bogged down in pages and pages of content.

 

Create a Checklist

Being organised is essential when it comes to SEO. With so many elements to keep track of, staying organised means you know where you are in the process. As well as ensuring you complete each task to the same standard.

We would perhaps suggest a checklist. Where you have a list of the elements you want to update, alongside the pages you need to apply those updates for. You can then simply tick them off as you along. The task can be easily divided by a number of people, or passed on to a member of the team. And it also gives you an idea of what was updated recently, and what may need your attention sooner rather than later.

This is a great example from ClickMinded of a full checklist for you to use when you get started with your SEO.

However, you may also want to use one you come back to regularly. Where you can see what you updated, and when. So you know when to come back to it. We use a spreadsheet similar to the one below to refer back to.

seo checklist

 

Keep in the Know

The experts at Hubspot have a great article on keeping up to date with SEO trends, as the world of SEO changes quite often!

One of their suggestions is creating a stream on twitter. Looking at terms like ‘google algorithm’ so that any major changes that come up can be seen almost instantly. Make sure you choose a specific enough term though, as SEO may bring up a little too much to keep up with.

They also suggest following thought leaders such as Danny Sullivan or Rand Fishkin. Who are more likely to talk about any new updates, and what you can do to make the most of them.

Make sure you check out the rest of the article for more great tips.

 

Remember

  • Little and Often – take time to update and educate yourself when it comes to SEO
  • Focus on SEO as a whole, not just one end
  • Get yourself organised to remember where you got up to

 

If you are struggling to keep up with your SEO, why not see how we could help. Visit us at our offices in Burntwood, Staffordshire, and speak to our friendly team about what your company is trying to achieve and we’ll do our best to get you there.

SEO strategies for E-commerce sites

SEO Strategies for E-commerce sites

SEO Strategies for E-commerce sites

 

SEO is essential to modern business’s, in the on going battle to get to the top of the search results. But when it comes to an e-commerce site, many companies struggle. With having to make so much content, and so many products SEO friendly. This can mean loss of sales, which is easily preventable. 

So how can you optimise your site, to ensure you are attracting as many prospects as possible? Well in the world of rankings there are a huge amount of factors which count towards getting you to that number one spot. Here are just a few simple steps that could help you reach your SEO goal.

 

Let’s begin:

There are a few background steps you should take to begin with. These set you in a good starting position, and mean your strategy efforts have a good platform to start on.

What are your competitors doing?

It is one thing to have your page up and running. It is another to see if you are in the game, and your products will get the recognition they deserve. Spend time assessing your competitors: their products, their prices, and how usable their site is.

How easy is it to navigate your site?

Using your site as a customer, or sitting with an unbiased volunteer to use your site, is a completely different experience to using it as your companies. See how easy it really is to find your products. Does it take 2 clicks or 10? Is it a frustrating process? Look at optimising your site’s internal search function, so customers can get to what they want quicker and easier.

Good meta descriptions

Ensuring your pages have good, unique, meta descriptions is an essential before you start with on page SEO. Explaining to customers what they are about to view means that not only does Google up your ranking for providing relevant information for their users. But you also get more qualified prospects visiting your site.

 

 

Maintenance:

Once you’ve established your good platform, you now have to maintain a healthy site. By maintaining the following points, you help to maintain your results as a constant. Rather than all your efforts being focused at one point, when you have the time.

Keep your out of stock item pages up and running

Though you may not have it now, you may do in the future. Offer either an alternative option for your customers, or provide a date or when that product will be back in stock. If you have products that no longer exist, don’t just delete the page. Redirect to the later model, similar stock, or the main category page. This way you don’t lose customers to error messages when they can’t find the page.

Keyword Research

Keywords are something that have been around forever, but now need to be used smartly to achieve a result. You need to ensure your keywords are relevant to terms your customers actually use, rather than internal terminology. There are a number of tools through Google you can use to find new keywords, or see how yours are currently performing. You need to ensure you keyword is in the URL, the title and the text to ensure your SEO is optimised, but tread carefully! You don’t want to saturate your content with keywords. The text should still read well, so always make sure you have a fresh pair of eyes glance over everything to ensure you haven’t been keyword heavy.

Create unique product descriptions for every product

Make your product stand out with a unique description. If your product is being advertised by other sellers and maybe the manufacturers themselves, you have a lot of competition. By taking the time to create unique descriptions, you instantly make yourself stand out. As well as perhaps inspiring your target audience as to why they should buy your product.

Include Pictures or videos for every product

Not only does including pictures or videos or each product make it more appealing for customers. It also gives you another opportunity to improve your SEO. By creating great alt tags, you not only improve customer experience, meaning happier customers. But Google also takes this into account when they consider your ranking.

 

 

Updating:

Once you’ve got in to the rhythm of steady maintenance for your site, you may want to push yourself a little further with some updates, and see what results you can achieve.

Create seasonal categories to maximise seasonal attention

When (like now) the winter starts to roll in, most people will quickly realise they are not prepared. They will search winter coats, scarves, hats etc. You can make the most of this demand by ensuring your pages are ready with a seasonal category. One that is ready with related products for your customers to browse.

Google Ads

If you are really looking to boost your search results and to encourage sales, it may be worth considering Google ads. To get those clicks through to your product. Google Ads can be extremely complicated, so take the time to understand it before you begin. To ensure you get the best results. Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming post on simple steps to setting up AdWords.

Encourage user reviews

As part of your updating process, you need to actively encourage user reviews. Not only do reviews help to reassure buyers, or push them further down the sales funnel, they also help with your search results. If you’re not confident on how to gain reviews, why not take a look at our blog why customer reviews are important and how to get them.

 

SEO is an ever changing landscape, so for the best results, you need to be up to date with the latest news and changes. As well as implement those changes within your own strategy. By staying up to date, you stay ahead of your competitors, and enable your customers a great experience every time they visit your site. There are a number of sites that cover SEO news, including our own blogs.

If you need a helping hand, or some guidance on how to best utilise your website’s SEO, you can take a look at our SEO services, or call us for a no obligation chat on 01543 495752.

A dog’s view on SEO

a dogs view on seo

a dogs view on seo

I’ve heard the humans talk about the importance of SEO, but I’m not sure if we’re barking up the same tree! My whole life is SEO, sleeping, entertaining and ogling, but the humans seem to think it’s something to do with a search engine?

George the business dog

All I know is I have a really hard life. For example, every day the humans drag me to work, they make me walk all that way! That’s like at least 100 metres! As you can see I am a very busy business dog, and I do not need to be wasting valuable energy on something like walking!

 

Sleeping 1

 

So how does a successful dog like me run my day? Well the first thing I have to do, once I’ve said hello to everyone of course, is to have a little sleep. The humans say I snore, but really I’m just multitasking and protecting the humans from nasties by making my presence known.

 

George playing with bin

 

Then its play time, I love to be social and have to get everyone to give me a fuss and choose a toy. Sometimes its snake, sometimes it mouse, sometimes it’s even the bin. I thought it was brilliant I could even make the chore of emptying the bin fun! But instead the humans laugh at me and talk in weird baby voices, so at least I know I’m entertaining them.

 

George ogling cake

 

Then I have to ogle at the human’s food that they are mean enough to keep away from me. One day, I will ogle enough that they will give me their lunch! It hasn’t worked so far, mum never cuts me a slice of cake! But sometimes Laurie gives me a bit of ham … he might be coming round …

 

George the marketing dog giving tips

 

Then once I have given David my professional opinion on business things, I usually have another snooze. Funnily enough when I wake up to go home, he doesn’t seem to have used any of my ideas of an extra paw print here and there, adding my toys to exhibition stands or making the brochures sausage scented. So I will try again tomorrow …

I’d woof love to hear if you agree with my idea of SEO (Sleeping, entertaining and ogling) but I suppose if you want to see what the humans say about SEO, you could click here.

Six SEO myths debunked & what to do instead

six seo myths debunked and what to do instead

six seo myths debunked and what to do instead

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is constantly evolving and it can be hard to keep up with the latest best practices. Which leads to confusion about what businesses should be doing.

We’ve reviewed six of the biggest SEO myths and debunked them, telling you what you should be aiming to do instead.

 

SEO is dead

We saw so many articles last year claiming that SEO is dead. But unsurprisingly it’s still alive and kicking.

SEO has evolved plenty of times over the years and is now heavily involved with marketing. As long as search engines exist, SEO will exist.

 

SEO is spam

We understand where this idea comes from because being a spammer used to help your search rankings.

Unfortunately some people still use those outdated practices.

The best example of this is the unrelated and sometimes unreadable comments you may see on your blog or website which link back to irrelevant websites.

Using outdated spammy SEO tactics like that will probably result in search engines punishing your search rankings.

 

I need to rank number one

Out of all of the myths, this one is the one with the most truth to it. Ranking first isn’t the be all and end all but trying to rank as high as you can is important.

Studies have shown that the number one result gets 33% of search traffic. But you can still get visitors and gain customers by ranking sixth or seventh.

For some small businesses it may be impossible to rank number one because they are competing against internet giants such as Amazon.

If you find yourself in that situation it isn’t the end of the world because your website will still receive visits.

It isn’t solely your ranking that counts. If you’re ranking well but you aren’t giving visitors what they’re looking for then they will never convert.

 

I need to earn as many links as possible

Search engines are no longer just interested in the number of links you have. They’re also interested in the quality of these links.

If your website is linked to by hundreds of low quality websites, search engines will think that your website is poor quality. If your website receives links from high quality websites they will see your website as trustworthy.

It’s better to have 10 links from high quality trustworthy websites than 100 links from poor quality websites.

In fact, Moz’s Rand Fishkin believes that co-citation will become more important, which doesn’t even involve a physical link.

What happens is Google may ‘see’ that a brand name is being mentioned alongside a keyword quite often. It will begin to improve that website’s ranking for that keyword. Despite it not being linked to much and in some cases the keyword doesn’t appear on the page that often.

To use one of Rand’s examples if you search for ‘backlink analysis’ you’ll see that Open Site Explorer is ranking really high despite the words ‘backlink analysis’ not being mentioned on the homepage.

In part of the snippet it uses for Open Site Explorer is text from an article on another website about Open Site Explorer.

 

The more times we use a keyword the better

Search engines are no longer influenced by the number of times a keyword appears on a website.

Using a keyword as many times as possible is known as ‘keyword stuffing’ and is something a search engine will punish your website for.

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘content is king’ used enough to last you a lifetime when it comes to SEO but that’s because it’s true.

If you focus on creating brilliant quality that will help people who visit your website. Make sure that you do add some instances of keywords you want to show up for, you will slowly begin to see your ranking for those words improve.

 

Directory listings are important

Like many of the other SEO myths, directory listings were once considered important because they sent a link to your website.

People abused this and as a result search engines aren’t heavily influenced by directory listings anymore.

That isn’t to say that directories are completely useless when used properly. There are hundreds and thousands of directories on the internet but not all of them are equal.

If your business is listed on a directory that people use and trust, such as Yell, Dmoz or Yahoo, it will benefit your business. As well as send traffic to your website and hopefully generate leads for you.

Being listed on a directory that people don’t visit won’t bring your website much traffic or generate many leads. And being linked to by lots of low quality directories could damage your rankings.

 

SEO can be daunting to begin with. But you’ll find it easier to understand when you think that the aim of a search engine is to provide users with the best, most trustworthy and relevant results they can.

Understanding this will help you to realise that SEO is more than keywords. It is about pretty much every aspect of your online presence.

 

If you’re based in Burntwood, Lichfield, Staffordshire or the West Midlands and need help with SEO, get in touch to find out how we can benefit your business, or you can check out more our SEO blogs here. 

Six Reasons Why Long Tail Search Terms Are Important Too

six reasons why long tail search terms are important

six reasons why long tail search terms are important

Ranking number one for a one or two word search phrase seems to be every website owners dream. However, sometimes it’s better to go for long tail search phrases which are more specific and have less competition.

When Ask.com was released it encouraged users to ‘talk’ to the search engine in a conversational manner. Which made it quite popular, especially with people who were new to the internet.

Years later when 65.8% of the UK population have smartphones and more and more people use voice search, long tail keyphrases are more important than ever.

 

What are long tailed search terms / key phrases?

Long tailed search terms are search terms which are made up of three or more words. For example, ‘dog treats’ would be a short tail search phrase. Whereas ‘how do I make homemade dog treats’ would be a long tail search phrase.

 

Long tailed search terms are easier to rank for

It’s much easier to rank for long tail search terms. As there is much less competition for a long search term.

How-do-I-make-homemade-dog-treats-search-results

For example for the search term ‘dog treats’ there are 112,000,000 results. But for ‘how do I make homemade dog treats’ there are 40,000,000 results. While 40 million is still a lot of results, it’s much less than 112 million results.

Generally, the longer the search term you want to rank for is the less competition there will be.

 

Long tail searches provide more accurate search results for users

Short tail keyphrases can be quite vague. Whereas long tail keyphrases are more specific. Meaning you get results which are more accurate and much closer to what you were searching for.

Keeping with the dog treat example. If you search for ‘dog treats’, you get a list of fairly big well known retailers selling dog treats. If you search for ‘how do I make homemade dog treats’ you get a list of articles which tell you how to make homemade dog treats.

This means the search results answer your problem or question much better than a vague short tailed search term.

Studies have also found that people using long tail search terms have higher conversion rates than those using short tail search terms, which makes sense because long tail phrases are more specific meaning that person knows what they’re looking and is closer to converting.

 

Long tail searches are more conversational and natural

Being able to use a search term which is quite conversational is easy and natural for us to do. It also means search engines are much easier to use for people who don’t use the internet all that often or are new to it.

More conversational search terms are even more important since Google has released Voice Search which means people will ‘talk’ to Google in a conversational manner and ask things like ‘how do I made homemade dog treats’ rather than ‘homemade dog treats recipes’.

 

Long tail search terms with well with content marketing

Long tail search phrases work well with content marketing, especially if you’re creating titles which are quite conversation or are a question themselves.

For example, we know that for us our most popular blog post are how tos and people search for things like ‘how business use hashtags in Facebook’ which we know links to our blog post we recently posted about how businesses can use Facebook hashtags.

 

Long tail search terms help you

Up until recently you could figure out what your most popular type of content was and what people were searching for to reach your website by looking at the organic search terms in Google Analytics. Google have recently put a stop to this to protect users, which means all search terms will now show up as ‘not provided’.

To find out what your most popular content or pages are look at how many visits each page gets.

For example, if your website sells gardening gifts and one of your most visited pages is a pink gardening set, you know that your visitors are interested in gardening gifts which appeal to women and may be buying for their wife, girlfriend, mother or sister.

 

Long tail search terms will help you rank well for short tail search terms

Search engines, Google especially, are doing their very best to provide users with the best answers to their searches and are doing so by encouraging them to be more specific, conversational and use long tail search terms. If you aim to rank well for long tail search terms it will also help you rank well for short tail search terms.

Sticking with the dog treat example, imagine you create content such as;

  • How do I make homemade dog treats
  • Why are organic dog treats are better for your dog
  • How many dog treats should I give my dog a day
  • Dog treats for dogs with food allergies
  • Dog treats for dogs on a diet

As you can see all of the above points have ‘dog treats’ in the title which is a short tail search term in itself, so it will benefit your short tail rankings.

 

You don’t need to focus on just long tail or just short tail; it’s possible to do both, especially if your long tail phrases contain a short tail phrase. It’s important not to rule long tail phrases out because they get less searches; yes, they do get less searches but people using long tail searches know what they’re looking for and are more likely to convert.

 

Contact Us

If you’re a business based in Burntwood, Lichfield, Cannock, Staffordshire or the West Midlandsand need help creating opportunities to sell by improving your websites SEO and search rankings, get in touch to find out how we can help you. Call us on 01543 387 047 or email us at contact@themarketingpeople.com. In the meantime, why not check out more of our SEO blogs here. 

How to Write SEO Friendly Title Tags

How to write SEO friendly title tags

How to write SEO friendly title tags

Title tags tell both search engines and people what a page is about. It’s vital to get your title tags right and make sure they’re SEO friendly. As they show up in search results and need to encourage people to click through to your website.

 

 

What is a Title Tag?

As we mentioned above, the title tag tells people and search engines what a page is about. You can find a list of SEO terms in our SEO Jargon Buster if you want to expand your knowledge.

 

Where does a Title Tag Appear? 

Title tags in Google search results

Title tags appear in search results (as shown above) and in people’s browsers (as shown below) at the top of the window and as the title of any tabs open in the browser.

Title tag in browser

 

Can I use my Company Name?

Yes, you should definitely use your company name!

 

If a user already knows the name of your company, they may choose to click through to your website based on your name alone. Especially if they’ve had a positive experience or know someone who has. If a user doesn’t know you, using your name may help to build up brand recognition.

 

How long should a Title Tag be?

It’s recommended that your title tag is no longer than 70 characters. Since that is the total amount of characters a search engine can display in search results.

 

A title longer than 70 characters will not damage your search rankings. It will just mean the entire title won’t be seen. Similarly, a title much shorter than 70 characters won’t harm your SEO. It will mean that you’re missing out on opportunities to use keywords.

 

Tips for creating interesting SEO friendly title pages

Now we’ve answered a couple of burning questions you might have, here are three really simply tips to help you write interesting and SEO friendly title tags.

 

What’s it about?

The first and most obvious tip is to ensure the title tells people what the page is about using important keywords. Don’t be tempted to fill your title tag full of keywords as keyword stuffing may harm your SEO.

It’s important to get the right mix of informative and attention grabbing so that people read the title and want to go to your page because it sounds interesting and/or sounds like it will answer their question.

Sometimes it can be really difficult to try and fit everything into 70 characters, so make sure you aren’t using words such as ‘and’ or ‘if’ and are only using words which are absolutely necessary.

 

Make sure titles are unique

It’s really important to make sure your titles are unique.

You shouldn’t have two pages the same or with the same content on your website, therefore your titles should all be unique.

Don’t be tempted to use the same title across all of your pages, because although it may save you time it may reduce the number of visits you get from search engines because people are confused about what’s actually on the page.

 

Most important keywords first

Make sure you put your most important keyword right at the start of your title tag.

SEOmoz carried out some testing and found that the closer to the beginning of a title the keyword is the more impact it will have on search rankings.

If you want to learn more about SEO, why not check out our post on what is SEO and why is it important?

If you’re a small business based in the Burntwood, Lichfield, Cannock, Staffordshire or West Midlands area and need help improving your websites title tags, SEO or search rankings, get in touch with us to find out how we can help you. Call us on 01543 387 047 or go to our SEO service page for more information. You can find more of our SEO blogs here

Eight SEO Techniques to Avoid & What To Do Instead.

8 SEO techniques to avoid and what to do instead

8 SEO techniques to avoid and what to do instead

It’s natural for a business to want their website to rank first in search engines and black hat SEO techniques can be tempting. However they can do more harm than good.

Black hat SEO techniques are techniques which break search engine rules and basically trick a search engine into giving a website a higher search ranking than it deserves.

Search engines ‘frown’ upon black hat techniques and are smart enough to know if you’re using them and will punish a websites search rankings if you are caught. In some extreme causes they may even remove a website from its listings altogether.

SEO is a long and ongoing process, so using black hat techniques to try and get a quick win will do you more damage in the long run.

Not only can these techniques damage your search rankings, but by choosing to use these techniques you won’t be giving any readers any kind of benefit or useful information, so it really is better to put some time and effort into creating useful content.

Search engine algorithms are incredibly smart, and there are a number of things they will take into account when deciding which order to display search results, here are just a few;

–          Relevance to keywords searched for

–          Is the content high quality and helpful?

–          High quality inbound links

–          Traffic to the website

Below is a list of eight black hat SEO techniques you should be avoiding and what you can do instead to naturally improve your websites search ranking.

 

Keyword Stuffing

This is probably the most common black hat technique as it’s fairly easy to do. It involves ramming your content with keywords and keyphrases to the point it probably makes little sense to anyone trying to read it.

The idea behind this technique is that the more instances of keywords you want to rank for there are in your copy, the higher you’ll rank in a search engine.

Thankfully search engines are smart and can distinguish between high quality content that is naturally keyword rich and content which is just crammed full of keywords.

What to do instead

Carry out some research into keywords you want to rank for, look at keywords your target audience may use to reach your website and carry out a Keyword Research Report (KRR).

Once you have done this you can begin creating helpful and useful copy which is keyword rich and makes complete sense to the reader and which will help you improve your search rankings.

 

Hidden Text

Hidden text means creating text which is the same colour of the background.

A user will be unable to read this hidden text, however search engines can read it no problem.

Since search engines can read hidden text and users can’t, hidden text is used for keyword stuffing.

What to do instead

As we mentioned above; carrying out keyword research and writing high quality, useful content will benefit you, your website, your users and your business far more than hiding a massive list of hidden keywords.

 

Buying Links

Parting with £9.99 and receiving 5000 links sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? No.

Inbound and outbound links can benefit your SEO, especially if you’ve got incoming links from authoritative websites, such as the BBC or .gov websites.

However if you’re spending £9.99 and receiving 5000 links in return, the chances are they’re all going to be incredibly poor quality and will actually damage your search rankings.

If search engines see that thousands of poor quality websites are linking to yours, they will assume that your website is low quality itself and won’t provide a reader with useful information, and they will therefore decrease your search rankings.

What to do instead

Work hard to create great, useful and shareable content that people will want to link to. You could also write guest blog posts for similar and relevant websites which would provide you with a link to your website.

 

Comment Spamming

Commenting on blog posts or news stories which allow you to link back to your website is one of the quickest and easiest ways to gain backlinks.

Some website owners abuse this and leave poor comments on any and every blog post or news story which will allow them to link back to their website.

This is called ‘comment spamming’, and the chances are that if you have a website or a blog with a comment section you’ve been a victim of this. You know those really vague comments with a link back to a completely unrelated website? Yeah that’s the stuff.

What to do instead

Leave useful and helpful comments on blog posts or news stories which are related to your area. It really is that simple.

 

Directory Listings

There are very few directories which are high quality and are worth listing your website in nowadays. Search engines really don’t award much to being listing in directories, however being listed in some can be useful.

There is no punishment to being listed in directories, unless perhaps you pay to submit your website to thousands of low quality directories in one go. As we mentioned above, having thousands of low quality incoming links can harm your SEO.

What to do instead

Go for human edited listings which are often much harder to get into and require more information, for example, Yahoo Directories or DMoz.

 

Mass Article Submissions

If you write a brilliant piece of content it make sense that you’d want as many people as possible to see it. However submitting it to as many article directories as possible isn’t the right way to do it.

You’ll be creating duplicate content which will all be linking back to your website. Search engines don’t like duplicate content, as it could infringe copyrights and is a poor way to try and improve your search rankings.

What to do instead

Get your content in front of as many eyes as possible by promoting your content through social media or email marketing.

If you really want to submit your content to directories, submit it to a couple of the highest quality ones that give you the most traffic, instead of the low quality ones which probably don’t send any traffic your way.

 

Content Scraping

For an honest website owner abiding by white hat SEO techniques, this has to be the most frustrating black hat SEO technique. It involves copying content from one website and posting it on another website without attributing anything to the original creator of the content.

Sometimes scraping websites may link back to the website where the content came from, which could actually have a negative affect on the original websites search rankings as they are a poor quality website.

Not only is content scraping a black hat SEO technique, it’s also illegal as it infringes copyright laws.

If you find that your website has become a victim of content scraping, Google allows you to report scraper pages.

What to do instead

Nothing good will come of content scraping, at all. Research what kind of content your target audience want and create useful, high quality content which people will want to share.

 

Cloaking

Cloaking involves displaying different content to the website users and search engines. If your website is found to be using cloaking you be removed from a search engines index altogether as they are unable to do their job properly if you are showing them one thing and users another.

What to do instead

Instead, focus on building a great website which offers users a great user experience and contains useful and informative information that will help you to generate leads and hopefully sales.

 

Are you a business based in the Burntwood, Lichfield, Cannock, Staffordshire or the Midlands? Is your website not performing as well as you’d like in search engines? If so get in touch with us to find out more about our SEO services and how we can help improve your websites search rankings. Or you can check out more from our SEO blogs here

10 Tips To Help You Create High Quality, SEO Friendly Content.

10 tips to help you create high quality content

10 tips to help you create high quality content

Creating high quality content is vital to keep attracting readers and bringing them back, which in turn will help your SEO efforts.

Last week we wrote a blog post about why high quality content is so important to SEO, this week we’re going to help you create that high quality content by sharing 10 must remember tips with you.

 

 

Attention grabbing title.

Convince people to read your blog post with an intriguing or interesting title which they can’t say no to, such as “How to create a great email marketing campaign”.
Help your blog post rank higher by including keywords in the title

 

Keywords;

Use keywords throughout your blog post and title, the most important ones should be used in your title and opening paragraph.

Don’t over use keywords as it won’t read right and search engines may pick up on it and punish you for ‘keyword stuffing’, which is the art of ramming so many keywords into a sentence it doesn’t make sense.

 

Interesting and relevant;

People are reading your blog post to gain some knowledge or information, something useful that they can take away and apply, so make sure you provide them with that.

Writing content for the sake of putting a blog post out is no good; ensure that you have a great topic which people will want to read about.

 

Call to action;

If you’re trying to encourage people to download your latest ebook or take advantage of your hat sale, just say it! Include a strong call to action and a link to where you want them to go and tell them what you want them to do.

 

Personality and engagement;

No one wants to read a boring blog post, so allow your personality to shine through; make it interesting and engage readers by relating to everyday situations, make a joke or two and get readers thinking.

This will make your post much more interesting to read and might make your information easier to remember.

 

Don’t beat around the bush;

You’re readers are just as busy as you are so be concise; straight to the point and fill your blog post full of helpful and interesting content.

 

Break it up;

If your blog post is going to be lengthy, bullet points and sub headers are your best friends. Break the post up into easy to manage chunks for your readers so they aren’t too overwhelmed by a huge wall of text.

 

Links;

If you’ve written about the same or a similar topic before, include a link back to it. This will benefit your reader and you as search engines will look more favourably upon on a blog post which has links that are relevant.

 

Tags;

Most blogging platforms will allow you to apply tags to your post, which enable it to get found easier. Your tags can be keywords or key phrases you’ve used in your article.

 

Get it checked;

Before your post goes live ask a friend or a co-worker to check it over first to ensure it makes sense and there are no spelling or grammatical errors.

After your blog post has gone live, remember to share it with friends and followers on social media or via email.

 

You can find more useful advice on how to maintain the best SEO in our blogs. Or if you need a helping hand to get you started, or run it for you, we can help. Call us today on 01543 495752 to see what we could do for your SEO.

Why High Quality Content is King of SEO

why high quality content is king of seo

why high quality content is king of seo

There is no magic formula when it comes to SEO but one of the best ways to improve your rankings and attract readers and inbound links is creating high quality content.

It’s important to keep in mind that you are writing for people and not the search engines. Search engines are just the way people will discover your content.

Thankfully for anyone who wants to find anything useful on the internet, search engines are incredibly intelligent. And are aware of what is natural content and what is spam content rammed with keywords and sentences that barely make sense.

 

Why people love great content.

Its common sense really. People love reading helpful and interesting content. So if your content answers a question for them or provides them with useful and usable information, they’ll be willing to share it with their friends or like minded people.

This in turn sends more visitors to your website and could create inbound links.

 

Why search engines love great content.

Search engines love content that’s written for people and not for search engines. They’ll know if you’re writing content solely for them.

For example, if you own a pet grooming salon and write a blog post about the importance of regularly grooming pets. But you try to fit the keyword ‘pet grooming’ into each sentence five times it won’t make sense to a person. Search engines will pick up on this and see that you are ‘keyword stuffing’ and will punish your website’s ranking in search results.

If you sit down and write your blog post without thinking too much about keywords, the chances are you will add all the keywords you wanted to anyway. Then it won’t look unnatural. Any keywords you missed out can then be added in after your original draft.

If your content attracts inbound links search engines will pick up on this and see your blog post as useful. As worth reading and worth sharing which will have a positive effect on SEO.

On a side note, search engines like website’s which are updated regularly. So if your blog is part of your website each time you post a new blog post, search engines will think the website is being updated.

 

Why content is better than link building.

It’s helpful to have your website or blog listed in big directories. Such as Dmoz and Yell as they will help you get found. Getting an inbound link from a guest blog post you wrote or from someone praising your work will also help you out.

If you’re spending hours creating listings on barely used directories on the tenth page of Google’s search results. It’s going to have very little affect, if any at all.

A great piece of content which gets shared a handful of times is better than a link on an unknown directory. Which may never send anyone back to your website.

 

How often should I blog?

HubSpot carried out some research where they found that businesses which blogged 16-20 times a month received over two times more traffic that those who blogged four times or less during the same time period.

While it would be nice to have the time to blog five times a week, it’s not always possible.

Here at The Marketing People we recommend blogging once or twice a week. Then if you have the time and the stories, then blog more.

Having the stories is vital. There’s no point in putting out one really high quality blog post and then four rubbish ones just because you were trying to blog five times during the week.

 

 

Writing copy can be hard at the best of times, so feel free to browse the rest of our blogging category for inspiration on what to write about, and how to write about it.

If you’re struggling for the time or resources to blog but know it’s something you and your business should be doing, get in touch with us to find out how we could manage your blog for you. Call us on 01543 387 047 and have a chat with us about what we can do or email us at contact@themarketingpeople.com.