SEO, Internet Marketing, and other things I don't know much about…
Posts tagged SEO tips
What is a Link Worth?
Feb 5th
After quite a long break, we’re going to get back into it!
Linkbuilding, whether we like it or not, is hugely important in SEO. Links are what set Google apart from the rest of the search engine crowd, and what makes them the multi-billion dollar company they are today. Back in September, 1998, two young men thought that websites should be judged by the number and type of external links a website had pointed at it, as opposed to solely focusing on on-site features.
One of the most difficult parts of linkbuilding is deciding what a given link is “worth”. Not so long ago, we relied solely on Google PageRank as it appeared in the toolbar. This is not a terrible way of deciding how much a link might be worth, as PR is in some representative of how influential a website is (as PR is based mostly on the amount and type of incoming links to a site). However, just getting a link from a PR 6 website might not be worth what you think it is. As toolbar PageRank is only updated approximately every 3 months (sometimes more like 4 or 5 months), it is impossible to say what a site’s PR is at any given moment. Matt Cutts’ has confirmed that PageRank is a dynamic quantity, and is actually changing day to day.
So can you use PR as a measurement for working out the value of a link? You can to a point. Check out the following table to work out how much a link from different levels of PR is worth…
As you can see, as a general rule PR is worth 5.5 times as much for every level you go up.
When Google crawls a page and analyses all the data and content on a page, it uses something called latent semantic indexing (LMS). LMS does something that I don’t understand, but I’ll give it a shot! LMS, while still being a Google “robot”, tries to analyse a page in an almost human-esque fashion. LMS allows Google to see if a link is placed around other links, in related content, in content that bares no relation at all, in a footer etc. LMS can be your best friend or worst enemy. LMS can often tell if your link is natural and genuine, or part of a reciprocal link exchange or a bought link.
In saying all of the above, valuing a link is mainly about using common sense. Follow some of these pointers:
- Make sure that any link you are getting is related to the page that it will be pointing to (if not, the link may be worth less than nothing at all!)
- Avoid link farms. You can spot these as they will be pages that just contain a number of links with no useful content.
- (Google can spot link farms a mile away now. Don’t risk it!)
- Avoid reciprocal link exchanges where possible.
- At worst, try 3-way link exchanges
As always, I would love some comments, so let me know what you think!
SEO for Small Business
Oct 22nd
A question I’ve had a few times is whether SEO is worth doing for small businesses. The short answer is yes, although the strategies you will employ will differ from an e-commerce, or advertising orientated website. Generally a small-business website should be easier to SEO, but the targeting becomes very important. Every website should be optimised for the search engines, as even if it drives minimal traffic, it can increase profile and credibility.
While traffic for certain small businesses from the SERP’s may be small, conversion rates tend to be quite a bit higher than for more highly traffic keywords. For example, people searching for “hair salon Lane Cove” more than likely are looking for a hair salon where then can get a haircut sooner rather than later.
Select Your Keywords Carefully
The keywords you choose to optimise for are very important for small business. Generally, the users searching for more niche search terms are searching for very specific sites, and even if you rank for the term you will more than likely be skipped as users search for the specific results.
Brainstorm what you would search for if you were a prospective client searching for your business. For Green’s on Blenheim some keywords might be:
- “Green’s on Blenheim”
- “pizza North Ryde”
- “pizza Ryde”
- “North Ryde takeaway”
Your list should be longer than this. Once you have completed your list have a look at what ranks at the moment. Do they obviously use SEO? What are their titles? Where do they get their links from? Don’t forget to use Google’s Keyword Tool to find some good keywords…
I would recommend trying to rank for industry and geographic location (i.e. “pizza North Ryde” or “plumber Dubbo”), as this would result in a high level of conversions.
Keep the On-Site SEO Simple and Targetted
Obviously, as a business website, your site’s content can’t be 100% customised for SEO purposes. This need not affect rankings, since Google rewards totally unique content (which yours should be!)
- Make sure you have the main keywords in your titles once
- Do this for each page of your website so they all rank
- Ensure your site is easy to navigate
- Have a simple HTML navigation structure that is easy to use for users and for search engine spiders
- Don’t be too fancy
- Google can’t read Flash (for now), so best to keep to HTML as that is the best for SEO
Customise Your Off-Site
I would never deny the importance of links in SEO, but for small business SEO it is a lot more efficient and effective to customise your link gathering. Generally, competition will be lower for the keywords you have selected, thus a wide-ranging and all-encompassing link building campaign, while it may have it’s benefits, will be superfluous. Here’s a few tips for good off-site small business optimisation:
- Submit to all the relevant directories
- Yahoo Local and Google Local are perfect examples. A submission to Google Local can often result in an appearance above the search results in Google.
- Submit to industry relevant directories
- Try to gather links from sites that would genuinely link to you. That might be clients, suppliers, or even competition!
- Create and submit a Google sitemap using Google’s Webmaster Tools.
- Would it be worth creating a Twitter or Facebook account for your business? Often the answer is ‘no’, but if you think you have something interesting and relevant to share of actual value then this is a great way of gathering links and increasing profile.
Tracking and Maintenance
As I said in earlier posts, the importance of using Google Analytics effectively cannot be stressed enough. By monitoring traffic flow daily, and finding where it came from will allow you to fine-tune your SEO over time.
Also monitor how your site goes in the SERP’s. Track the results weekly to see what you begin to rank for, and what is dragging the chain. This way you will learn what deserve attention and focus, and what can be left by the wayside.
Using Twitter for SEO
Oct 15th
As much of a computer nerd as I may be, I avoided using Twitter for quite a while, and only started using it properly about three months ago. At first I didn’t see much point to a “micro-blogging” service, but the more I use it the more I’m beginning to understand why it’s used, and in turn how it can be used for SEO purposes.
Admittedly, any link posted on Twitter appears as “nofollow” and thus isn’t much good for passing any link juice or PageRank. However, we do know that Google still crawls “nofollow” links (doesn’t make much sense, does it) and so your links will still get followed and thus any updates you make to your website will get cached quicker. The main benefit is not SEO though, it is to drive direct traffic and increase credibility.
It would also seem that Google has an infatuation with Twitter, and Tweets tend to show up reasonably quickly in the SERP’s. There are a few tips when using Twitter that may help you out if you are Tweeting for SEO purposes:
Pick a Good Username
Your username will also become your Twitter URL (i.e. www.Twitter.com/mjwtaylor) so try and make it either something to do with your name or your business name. This will help your rankings in Google and ensure people know exactly what they have found when they come across your account. It will also ensure your account is found easily when searched for through Twitter itself.
Write an Effective Bio
Ensure you put in any critical information, keywords or key phrases in your bio as this is the most important part of your Twitter account and will be the core content Google sees. It also tells the reader what you are about and what they can expect to find in your Tweets.
Tweet About Things That Interest You
This might seem obvious, but make sure you don’t just Tweet about your website. Otherwise people won’t see any value in your Tweets. Sure if you have something on your site you want to promote, then post about it, but make sure you post about other things as well.
Tweet Regularly, but Not Too Regularly
Don’t overdo your Tweets. People will lose interest if you are Tweeting dozens of times everyday. At the same time, people will forget about you if you only post once a month. I like posting once a day or so, but in saying that, if you have something interesting to share then by all means share it!
Begin Your Tweet with Keywords
Google tends to take into account approximately the first 40 characters from a Tweet for SEO purposes (as it also shows “Twitter” and your username before showing the tweet itself, so don’t have a stupidly long username!). Make sure in this 42 characters you have included the keyword or key phrase (but in a way that makes sense).
Include Your Keyword
Be sure to include your keyword at least once in your Tweet, preferably more but not in a spammy way. Try to include “buzz words” if possible, which should get you some traffic through people searching for the “buzz” terms.
Shorten Your URL!
Most links from Twitter tend to be deep links which have a huge amount of characters in them. You don’t have the characters to waste in Twitter, so try using one of the many URL shorteners out there. My preference is a new service called Twilitics. It’s simple, easy to use and provides you with a simple tracking mechanism showing how many times your link has been clicked. Bit.ly is also a useful service.
Spread the Word
Make sure people know about your Twitter account. You can do this by adding your Twitter URL to your email signature, adding it to your website, or spreading it on your forum signatures.
Give it Some Link Love
Twitter accounts need link love too! Where possible send a couple of links pointing to your Twitter account to ensure Google finds it. The same theory applies to Twitter accounts as it does to normal websites: the better the quality of links you get to it, the better it will rank…
As always, if you have any questions leave me a comment and the same goes for if you think I have left out something important.
