SEO Blog

It’s a bizarre nuance of Search Engine Optimisation that domain names continue to have such a major factor on how sites rank within Google et al. This happens as a consequence of many supporting elements, including a trend towards benefiting brands.

Whilst Matt Cutts has recently dispelled fears that domains were receiving unrealistic gains for exact keyword matches, few are entirely convinced. In many ways there is a certain logic behind boosting a domain name, particularly as, more often than not, they are orientated towards a brand name – rather than a keyword.

Anchor text is on slightly less stable ground though. Google is fully aware that spammers use it to gain a massive advantage and is often used in black hat techniques, including paid links of course.
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Many people who get involved in Search Engine Optimisation for the first time feel like they’ve sold their soul to the devil. There’s so much skulduggery afoot that there must be something wrong with it. However, if you’re doing SEO properly, there should be no need for any such apprehension.

Optimisation is all about strengthening your site in a beneficial fashion. You could choose to spam forums, blogs and anywhere else that might take a link without vetting it. But that doesn’t need to be the case. If you’re not comfortable with a recommendation, do something else.

When push comes to shove, this is your business that you’re looking to market. If you are producing content, sourcing links or signing up for anything that you aren’t comfortable with – it may be time to rethink your strategy.
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Publicity is great for visibility, locally, nationally and even internationally. Visibility though is great for SEO. It encourages more visits, further links and more reviews than you can shake a stick at.

There are two distinct sides to publicity – good and bad. In truth both are just as effective when it comes to SEO; however, if you’re looking to develop your brand reputation and want some kind of long-term future within your industry, then it’s probably best to stick with the good stuff.

If you’ve been caught off-guard by the revelation that bad publicity can be helpful when optimising, allow me to explain a little further. Imagine you kick up a stink and annoy a few influential people. Depending on the severity of your action, you can expect a fair few column inches both online and off.
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business blog attached to your site is a great way to build a regular feed of quality content, which in turn helps you to improve rankings and develop links naturally. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

However, what you might not know is how to take it to the next level once you’ve created your blog. Well, to help you on your way here are five quick tips on getting more from your business blog:

1) Keep creating quality content

Quality content is a bit of a flaky term, but essentially I am relating to posts that really add some level of value to your blog and company as a whole. A useful instructional article, an opinion piece on the latest industry news or major news from within your company are a great place to start.

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It could be argued that anything that anything that makes your site appear as though it isn’t functioning correctly or hasn’t been properly maintained can prove detrimental to rankings. Whilst the link between coding errors and SEO is often argued, few would question that broken links (both inbound and internal) can have a marked influence on a site’s ability to figure prominently within search engine results.

The reason for this is fairly simple. In the case of internal links, having some pages which are unable to be reached, either from links within the site or listings on Google, can cause significant issues for the search spiders as they crawl a site.
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There’s no inherent expense involved with SEO. To get the best results you might want to hire a professional, but there’s nothing stopping you from getting on with it yourself. So if money is difficult to come by and you want to get on with some quick optimisation here are a few tips.

Who do you know with a website?

If you have friends, clients, suppliers and even customers with a website, why not ask for a link? If they want a link back, or demand a pint in return, then so be it. These links will appear natural (because they are) and can go a long way to improving your site’s strength.
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As you will no doubt have noticed, local results in Google look a little different these days [as covered in: Why Google Places Update Puts Emphasis on Local Search]. The search engine giant decided it was high time that local results had a bit of a shakeup and as a result Google Places were integrated into the SERPs. This was great for anyone who already had a decent position within Business Maps (as these were effectively transported over) and were a bit rubbish in organic rankings; of course not everybody can benefit.

So what do you do if you find your organic ranking has been relegated by half a dozen Places listings? Well you could get all hot and bothered, moaning that Google are ruining the Internet, or you could start to make some changes that will make a real difference.
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You probably know somebody who has an irrational fear, or hatred of Search Engine Optimisation – indeed that person may be you. As with any phobia, it can be cured fairly simply.

First of all, expose the SEOphobe to the benefits. Don’t hide behind buzz words and industry jargon, this will only give further credence to their concerns. You have to use real tangibles.

Search Engine Optimisation has a lot of fluff surrounding it. There is a lot of nonsense spoken for and against the practice, all of which can easily cause misunderstandings that can form unfounded opinions.
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This recent clampdown on content farms has thrown up a lot of debate within the SEO industry. Some see is as a death knell for article marketing, others believe that scrapers will find it increasingly difficult to rank; however, the overriding issue for me is that Google has clearly highlight the fallibility the Google algorithm and its reliance on links and content.

What do links really indicate these days? So many people are buying and selling them, that telling a natural link from an ‘illegally’ sourced one is increasingly difficult. JC Penney get the boot for having a few dodgy ones, whilst thousands of others carry on regardless. There’s a disparity that rightly irks many SEOs and site owners.
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There’s a common misconception that SEO is simply a process for ruining search engine results and earning rankings for unscrupulous websites by spamming the world. Whilst I’m not here to say that this doesn’t happen at all, there’s certainly a much more positive angle that is all too often overlooked.

SEO can be simply defined as anything that optimises a website for the purposes of ranking within a search engine. You can do this deliberately or organically, both can certainly bring benefits. There are even ways in which you can encourage it, but subtly and without the need to draw attention to yourself in a negative light.
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