SEO Blog

If you’re still not trying to tap into local search, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Global searches are all well and good, particularly if you have worldwide aspirations, but achieving visibility within your key target areas is becoming increasingly important.

With the personalisation of search results and localisation of certain queries, securing every niche is essential. One of the key niches that any business will have is their physical locality. Geography and competition dictates that there can only be so many companies within a certain radius of one another. Therefore you should be able to secure decent visibility for searches in that region and attract traffic that is more likely to convert too.
(more…)

We’ve all heard of e-commerce, a term related to buying and selling products and services via the Internet, but what about mobile commerce? Well, in effect, this is the same process as above, although it’s conducted via a mobile device or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

Today we find ourselves using our mobile phones to connect to the Internet and carry out a number of activities; the Blackberry and the iPhone are some of the more common types on the market. Whether it’s to purchase tickets, look for news, access emails, shop, search, bank, or access media files, the mobile has become a growing platform which shows a significant change in user habits and how we use the Internet on a daily basis.

(more…)

You don’t just want to make content for the sake of making content. Equally, if you are going to invest the time to make something that is going to benefit the wider world, it’s important that visitors are able to share it with friends. So what is the formula for shareable content?

First of all, make sure your content is up to scratch. Nobody in their right mind is going to share a gratuitously promotional video, or a keyword-stuffed blog post. It’s just not natural. However, if you offer up something unique and interesting, getting it out to the wider world should be easy.
(more…)

With any business, protecting your company, brand, and reputation is important on all accounts. Making sure people know who you are and what you offer is one aspect, but also it’s invaluable if you are regarded as a reputable company and people recommend your services. Obviously as a business you revolve around generating profit, although some may argue that your reputation is far more important, as this provides a flowing stream of customers which ultimately makes you money. Regardless of how you view the situation, it’s vital to always maintain professionalism within your specific area of work. So what steps would you take if you were on the receiving end of negative comments or your company came under attack for certain actions or behaviour?

(more…)

This is a subject that won’t go away. Every so often there is a change within the algorithm or the way in which results are presented on Google that gets SEOs all a-flutter. Currently, it’s Google+ Search that is getting tongues wagging and professionals worrying.

So, as we discussed last week, the value of organic rankings is likely to fall significantly. That isn’t to say that they will disappear or be rendered entirely useless, but if search results are going to be personalised based on activity and recommendations, organic rankings aren’t going to feature as much.
(more…)

Search engine giant Google have revealed another new change to their algorithm, this time in the form of a page layout update. The change has been brought in to help users find high-quality websites in the search results, with the aim of delivering a better user experience. Sites without much content above the fold of a webpage will be affected. This is because the update has been made to eradicate users  struggling to find the content once they have clicked on the link within the SERP.

(more…)

If you were looking to find out about a decent local business in your area, what would you do? You’ll most likely search on the Internet or ask a friend for recommendations, rather than looking through the Yellow Pages. That’s because new ways of finding out information have evolved and become more dominant, and the search engine is one of them.

So, let’s say you use search engines to find out the information you require, only for you to click through to a site, which may be what you want, but you don’t like the look of it as it isn’t engaging enough. Your likely response is to close down the page and look elsewhere. This is why it is essential that you create a decent website for your local business, otherwise you could potentially be losing out on customers.

(more…)

When the founder, or co-founder of any company leaves, it usually marks a pretty significant turning point. Either they have become out of touch with the company as a whole or new bosses are seeking a completely fresh start. In the case of Jerry Yang’s departure from Yahoo, it’s difficult to see which is the most likely scenario.

Let’s not forget that it was Yang who decided, catastrophically as it turned out, not to sell to Microsoft back in 2008, when they bid $31 per share – 62% above the market price at the time. That valued Yahoo at $44.6 billion. As things stand, the share price has spluttered and fallen to half of Microsoft’s valuation, leaving a lot of investors out of pocket.
(more…)

All change in the social quarters once again as Foursqaure has introduced an ‘Explore’ feature on its site. What this essential does is take data from the site’s previous ‘check-ins’ which are then shown as recommendations when you are searching for something in a particular location. Foursqaure say they have enabled this feature on their application and on their site to help people find interesting things nearby at the exact time they need it.

In essence, this new feature makes search more personalised for you, a current trend of the social world after Google also revealed Google Search Plus Your World. After a while, from using the service on a regular basis, it will be able to pick up your habits and base the search results on your previous recommendations and check ins.

(more…)

In the old days, people spent hours spinning content endlessly in order to produce hundreds of versions of the same original document. This worked well, or at least it did until Google clamped down on poor quality content and handed down penalties to its hosts (most article sites). Consequently the idea of spinning copy for the sake of links was put to bed in many people’s eyes. But is there still a need for it in any other capacity?

One of the classic signs of a poorly spun article was the fact that none of the sentences matched up and synonyms were employed that clearly had a very different meaning to the original intention. This would make anything read like a poorly translated article or something that a 10 year-old child would be ashamed of. Essentially, it wasn’t great copy.

(more…)