SEO relationships

SEO Agencies and evaluating your website:

Most agencies are secretive and a little elusive about how they will “optimise” your internet marketing/selling campaign. They don’t like to give too much away, which on one hand is understandable due to the competitive nature of the SEO industry and also due to how long knowledge and experience can take to accumulate but on the other hand is a nightmare scenario for anyone who has a business, knows they want to improve on their websites performance but would like to have a good grasp of what their money will be spent on.

Basically, all the main tips for SEO and SEM are out there for all to read and to learn about so we at IC247 believe that we should be as open as possible about our techniques. This not only helps to get a deeper relationship with a client so that their services/products that need marketing better online are clearer to us but also assists with striking up the kind of open partnership that we like to have with any relations, be them business, networking or social.

OK then, so what makes you want to use our SEO and SEM services rather than a competitor, if all of these tips are already out there? You ask:

Well, opinions differ as to what steps one should take to get a website ranked or to get traffic levels higher and a lot of results have come about from our own learning curves (good and bad) over a long period of time. Some of the tools freely available, like the Google tools for example, need fine tuning and take time to learn properly. We know about all these tools; the good ones, the bad ones, the ones that work well and quickly and the ones that don’t work at all.

From the outset of a client finding us via our site or through another of our online activities we tell it straight. We go through your site with a fine toothed comb and tell you what you’ve got that is cool, what you need to get, what needs tweaking and then on top of this we give you recommendations, that are easy to understand, with links so you can see actual results from similar campaigns and information about neutral tools you can look at to see what we mean.

The internet evolves constantly, business is getting more and more competitive and time is money – it stands to reason that you, as a running business need to market your products and services in a manner that gets results fast and also is structured so that potential issues, future plans and competition activity can be monitored and dealt with efficiently.

Here is an example website evaluation we did recently with a few pointers so that you can see as an example how our client relationships start:

Internet marketing “example website”

There are key elements code-wise that need to be integrated into the website so that it is optimised correctly for better search engine performance. Clean HTML should be used. Divs need to be incorporated (also good for mobile internet) and Header tags (page per page).

Meta tags are needed and need to be adjusted page per page. Please check this completely neutral tool and input each individual page URL, following the instructions, to get a detailed Meta tag breakdown and page analysis. Then use www.responsiva.biz (a site from our portfolio)as a comparison.

The site itself has a good keyword rich text content base and has a page rank of 3/10, which isn’t too bad at all. Search engines need information (as text content) in order to rank and place your site according to its relevance to the given search result listings. Look to add a news section or articles and also look to try to provide a regular stream of new content for the search engines to index every time they revisit your site. This can be changed via Webmaster tools.

I also recommend a contact page with Google maps integration, different calls to action (see below), videos, Podcasts/recordings of example talks and a helpful links page for reciprocal linking/back link campaigns.

Here is a good tool to analyse your competitions sites according to the pages that show up from them for searches you want to be found for. Use this tool to get ideas about keyword rich text copy-write for your site and your Blogs. Add the URL of the example website you found on Google to the website content tool and check out what they are being found for.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Links coming in from other highly ranked websites are of great importance to how a search engine will rank your site and this is lacking somewhat to pages within your website (not just to the home page – by this I mean ‘deep links’). SEM (Web 2.0) practises, including the use and integration of Google tools, exterior Blogs and other SEM would enhance traffic rates, achieve better ranking for your site and increase exposure in general for your branding.

There are currently only 2 registered back links to the homepage from video sharing sites and 9 in total overall. This needs to be improved dramatically. Below, in the other sections to your evaluation, are recommendations for getting back links.

You can look at your competitions sites and see which sites they have linking to theirs by simply typing the following into Google:

Link: www.thesitesnamedotcom (including the link: and also trying with a space after the colon and without a space).

You’ll be able to see then which sites they are registered with and have links from and add your website to the same places. Alternatively, you can utilise this tool for a bit of a breakdown of different aspects of your and your competitor’s sites performance:

http://diagnostics.googlerankings.com/website-diagnostics-panel.php

Calls to action/content:

· More keyword rich text content

· More pages overall, covering different aspects of your industry/training methods

· News section (perhaps use newsletters emailed monthly to your client database as content)

· Sitemap added (then submitted to Google Webmaster tools)

· Helpful links page with links to all your other SEM

· Social bookmarks as calls to action on each page

· Sign up for newsletter as call to action on each page

· A questionnaire of some description as a call to action

· Email this page to as a call to action

Google tools:

· Standard tools including; Analytics (traffic analysis) and Webmaster tools (Google’s indexing stats)

· Local Business Listing; Your business (including website) listed for Google Maps demographics search tool with links, in depth contact and business information

· Google Base; upload whole product or service portfolios from your site to Google’s specialised search engine. Add references, testimonials and other individual information

· Picasa; Google’s image sharing tool. Upload images with descriptions and links to main website. Create slideshows and improve indexing from Google Image Search

· Blogger; Google’s weblog tool. Personalises internet presence as well as providing back links to the main website

· Google Pages; Hosted free by Google – your own Google web space with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor

· Adwords; initiate PPC (pay per click) campaigns and/or manage said campaign with daily CPC (cost per click) budgets, landing page optimisation, keyword analysis (including competition websites) and calls to action

Back link campaigns:

An intrinsic part of website SEO is the importance (Page Rank) of other websites that link to yours. Individual campaigns can be initiated as well as strategic standard link campaigns. This creates a net within the net and also obtains shares of other highly ranked websites traffic.

Directory listings:

· Listing of company details with website links, logos and contact information on highly ranked business directories

· Highlighted listing discounts possible

· Obtains client larger overall internet presence

· Obtains back links to main website

· Share directory website traffic

Classified advert campaigns:

• Blanket internet advert campaign
• Target geographical areas
• Place strategic adverts per product/service group and client area
• Gain back links from highly ranked classified advert sites

Web 2.0 SEO:

• Social bookmarking
• Video/Podcast sharing accounts
• Blog/news sharing
• Wiki/E-zine entries/posts
• Press releases
• Review sites for testimonials
• Forum participation/creation
• Group participation/creation
• Social/B2B networking accounts set up
• Shopping/service comparison site submission

So now you see an average breakdown of how we evaluate a website SEO and internet marketing enquiry to us. Of course there is a downside to giving out all this information straight away and we and also individuals close to us have had experiences of providing this and more in depth information for a client or another SEO agency they were working with freelance at the time, only for them to use the information provided themselves and cut out the information provider completely.

What do we think about this?

Half of the time people who do these things make a mess of stuff like packing header tags with spammy keywords or not coding the site correctly or not using the search engine tools available properly. Great results, over a longer and more sustained period can only be achieved with experience and good, solid SEO knowhow!

Contact us for an in depth chat about your internet marketing needs - we’d love to hear from you!

The last 2 months at IC247

It's been busy here at IC247 the last couple of months. We've had many new customers, lots of new internet experiences and, as always, have learned a hell of a lot of new and really helpful things. We are going to tell you all about these innovations in the next few Blogs but first let's have a look at two of the newest clients to have come into the fold:

Portfolio Bodykitsuk.com

After initial consultation, IC247 had the job of coming up with some designs for a website with a Paypal shop to sell a large range of car body styling products.

The website is a content management system (Webrender CMS) that has a special dynamic search function and is also easy for Bodykitsuk to add their own, new content, news and different products. Each page within the website is perfectly optimised with header tags, Meta tags, canonical URL’s and the customer is very happy with both the look and performance, as currently (and the website is very new) they are receiving around 2-300 hundred new visitors everyday and this is a growing number.

Google Analytics are installed so that Bodykitsuk can easily see where each visitor comes from, where they go and what marketing exercises they do on the internet and elsewhere work. The SEM has begun in earnest with the site currently linked from in excess of 100 websites, all within the auto industry genre, forum participation and regular updated Blog posts.

To come are Google products, where every single product in the shop is uploaded onto Google’s shopping search program and also an area on the website for reciprocal link directories.

Click here to view the website

Portfolio Aiecquest.com

One of our international customers from Turkey who organise English courses for Turkish and other foreign students in schools around the world wanted a re-design of their website and integration with our content management system (Webrender CMS). Our designers came up with the new look and we incorporated all the pages upon pages of lovely text content into the new website. The language is Turkish, which is just one of the many different language capabilities we have at IC247.

They have the news module, top search dynamic module and Google has really indexed the website well over the last few weeks, with currently over 16000 pages currently indexed. Aiecquest receive large numbers of visitors to their website due to the really informative text content that they have posted and this is updated on a regular basis – well worth remembering if you are looking to improve your own websites performance. New text content on a regular is king for the search engines!

Click here to view the website.

Search Engine wars

Search Engine Wars:

Microsoft + Yahoo versus Google - or are there yet more others out there?????

We’ve all heard the news and have seen how Microsoft have put in an offer to forge some sort of new partnership with Yahoo in a bid to bite into Google’s hold in the online marketing business world but what will it mean for all those whose businesses rely on the world wide web for some or all of their revenue?

Well, IC247 have always maintained that it’s important to try to get a presence on all of the search engines and this is an integral part of any form of internet marketing strategy that we initiate with any contact. It stands to reason that one should look to milk all opportunities to promote and gain more custom right across the board – no matter what your industry or your genre/needs!

As things stand Google is the ultimate leader in most aspects of internet search marketing; their range of tools is outstanding. Whether it’s pay per click with Adwords, advertising your shops products for free on Google Product Search or if you want to Blog and post videos or photos for the world to see, Google really have taken the reigns and led internet searching into a whole new dimension.

Microsoft/MSN have always been there and they always will because the guys there have the cash and the presence to really get it on. We all know about the need and then the arguments for and against Windows and this proves conclusively that one must never discount the power of Microsoft.

Yahoo were once the big boys: They ruled the world with regards to the internet and everyone had an account with them and everyone strived to climb their rankings but.... they let it go and why was this? Well, a new upstart came on the scene (Google) and started to kick butt with their innovative and economically sound ideas regarding our views and habits with internet searching, surfing and marketing.

The outsider was Ask (or Ask Jeeves, as they once were known) and they slid in on the peripheral boundaries of search engine marketing providing us all with results that were....hmm, OK. They have themselves embarked on a recent promotional campaign featuring their version of a new and enhanced search experience and it’s a nice idea but is it enough to carve a slice into the search engine industry? Maybe it is but hell, they sure must have spent some money making all those UK TV adverts for someone to search online... Enough said!

OK, let’s not forget about our beautiful friend Wikipedia; the provider of factual information for you, me, our kids with their homework and also another powerful internet big boy flexing their muscles recently with their Wikia search. Google’s Matt Cutts recently wished them well with their foray into the internet search engine industry and this, we feel, is where the buck stops – the reason for so much volcanic movement amongst the big players.

It’s widely known that Wikipedia are the encyclopaedic Bible for factual information with their better than 98% truth rate on factual information. If those guys want to start a search engine then it makes us happy here at IC247 as they are one of the forerunners in the future of the internet. Call it Web 2.0, call it us using the machine or call it what you want – factual information rules.

With the emergence of the Mobile internet industry there is a new battlefield for all of these search engines but it’s all about the content shown on any website, on any search engine, which brings me to my most important point:

ANY search engine will always look for relevant information, topical, well presented and text that is in tandem with your genre and as long as you can provide this then you have a fantastic starting point. If you couple this together with a well compiled web page that has its coding optimised so that all these different search engines can access it and index it properly then you will be winning before you know it!

Once you have got to grips with the above then IC247 recommend looking at all the different tools available from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Wikia to help you to further promote your well written content and increase visitors and clicks on your informative web pages – no matter what happens with search engines coming together, fighting or starting new ideas!

Contact IC247 for an informal chat about how we can help you improve your internet commerce.

Internet Promotion January Newsletter

IC247
IC247 Inter Communication – One World, more information to share with one another
IC247’s services include



Free website evaluation with a concise breakdown of what your website needs for better presence on organic search engine results

SEM (search engine marketing) including:


* Back link sourcing campaigns
* Internet advert campaigns
* Directory listing
* Web 2.0 social networking campaigns (Youtube, Picasa, Wordpress, Blogger etc)
* Press release, E-zine and online articles
* Google tools (Base, Product Search, Local Business etc)


Keyword rich text copy-write including:


* Blogs
* Internet articles
* Website content
* Adverts and PR

Website design and build including:


* E-commerce websites
* Informative websites
* Database driven websites
* XML based CMS (content management system) websites


PPC (pay per click) campaign management:

* Complete pay per click management
* Optimised and efficient campaigns with streamlined budgets and keyword analysis


Hosting, Network and server management:

* Small Business Server installation
* Windows Server 2003
* ISA Server
* Gigabit Network installation and management
* Website hosting with sharepoint and SQL databases

Direct marketing including:

* Data supply (company information targeted for geographic area and industry)
* Telesales and telemarketing (national or international multi-lingual)
* Newsletter emails and “snail mail” outs


Why not take advantage of our New Year special offer:

* 50 internet directory listings (website URL, contact information and company description where applicable)
* 50 internet adverts on highly ranked classified advert sites (website URL, description of product or service, contact details and logo where applicable)

ALL for the introductory offer of £150.00
A great way to kick-start your internet promotion for 2008!

Feel free to contact one of the IC247 team here for an informal discussion about how we can assist you in increasing your internet presence, generate potential clients and improve your search engine positioning.

SEO simple tips

Here are a few simple and helpful tips to get you on your way to having a perfect website, with some information about standard steps from IC247

• Meta tags need to change to suit individual pages. Meta tags provide information for search engine spiders and robots re indexing and the crawl of your website. See http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html and input each of your individual website URL’s as per the instructions to see performance and recommendations.

• H tags (title, sub-titles etc) are missing completely from all pages. Google spiders follow information presented within H tags, therefore enabling easier indexing. Recommendation to add H tags for highlighted, bold and as paragraph explanations text within your website. It's good to use the Firefox add on Firebug to help you inspect your website.
  

• Back links: After keyword rich text content and coding, back links are an intrinsically important part of page ranking from Google and other search engines. add your site to relevent highly ranked directories and begin a link sourcing campaign

• Keyword rich text content: Your website looks great, with lovely photos and it gives a potential client a good idea of what they get for their money . You do have SOME text but ideally you should look to add more text where possible. Blogs are indexed brilliantly within search engines because of the new text content that is posted on a regular basis and also forums will always be found high in Google search results, per genre, because you have a large number of people posting different articles and questions. Obviously, a smaller website won’t be able to have this degree of text content BUT our recommendations are that you look to write more descriptive text about the your area in general and post it on your website and try to add more descriptive text on each page (coded correctly). Also look to try to post regular Blogs and helpful information associated with your industry/genre and add a “revisit” Meta tag to this work so that the spiders can crawl and index all the new information.

Contact us for more advice about how you can optimise your website!