Engage Web April 2009 - Page 2 of 5 - Engage Web

Does SEO cover the cracks in your website?

Posted on April 25, 2009

SEO companies are usually hired by website owners because their website isn’t ranking well within Google. They want to rank higher for their chosen keywords in order to receive more traffic, win more business and earn more money.

It’s a simple numbers game, one where more visitors should equate to more profit.

However it’s not always that simple. Often, simply improving your rankings isn’t enough to turn your website into a roaring success. After all, Google is a very clever at what it does, and if it’s not ranking your website, the chances are it’s for a good reason.

When an SEO looks at a website and optimises it, is he just papering over the cracks of the website? Sometimes an SEO will just perform the (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

How getting into Google News is important for SEO

Posted on April 24, 2009

We’ve talked about Google News before; how you can submit your website to Google News and how if you’re accepted you can expect to receive lots more traffic and links as a result of the inclusion, but exactly how does this work?

Here’s a case study of a website that is updated daily with content. The website is called ‘Dream Dogs’ and features news and tips to do with dogs. The website recently featured a post about the US President Barack Obama, and his quest to find a new dog for the White House. The subject of Obama’s dog caused quite a stir with news agencies and websites, resulting in a lot of searches within Google for his dog, what breed the dog would be and what the dog’s name was.

As a consequence of this, any sites that write about the subject featured within Google News for these searches, and received a lot of traffic for the searches.

This screenshot (click to enlarge) shows the sort of coverage the story received, and our case study website ranking at the top of the listings, together with an image. This means that anyone searching Google News for this particular news item found the case study website.

What this meant for the website was:

Increased traffic as a result of the listing
Increased new visitors
Increased links as a result of other websites picking up the story, and linking back to the source: Dream Dogs

The level of content added to the website meant that Google saw it as an authority on the subject, and ranked it accordingly, at the top.

However, you may be thinking that (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

Why does content work for SEO?

Posted on April 24, 2009

Any people are adding more and more content to their websites these days; it’s the new ‘fad’ within SEO and Internet Marketing. Results show that it works too, as sites with high quality content added regularly tend to rank above static websites for competitive terms.

But why does it work? Why does adding content to websites work for SEO?

The answer lies with Google and what Google tries to do. Google is a search engine, first and foremost. It doesn’t try to be a portal like Yahoo and MSN. It offers results, results to people’s search queries. Therefore you know that when you ‘Google’ something, you’ll find it – ‘to Google’ has become a word.

You don’t ‘Yahoo’ anything do you?

Google has become this successful because it works. If it didn’t work, people would use another search engine. Google finds websites that are resources of information and presents them as results to a user’s query, as the information contained on the websites tends to answer the questions being asked.

Does your website have the answers to questions within your industry? Is it a resource of information? If not, how can you expect Google to rank your website over one that is?

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

Think longtail, not keywords

Posted on April 23, 2009

When you’re writing content for your website, you of course need to keep your keywords in mind. There’s no point writing about things unrelated to your site, irrelevant or never mentioning the keywords you wish to be found for within Google. However, you need to understand that your keywords don’t just end with your keywords. They’re much more than that.

You need to make sure that your website ranks for your keywords, but also for phrases relating to your keywords, phrases containing your keywords… phrases people will search for.

For example, if your keywords are words like: TV Stands, TV Brackets and TV Shelves – you wouldn’t just write content on your website with those words as titles. You need to use those key phrases within your content and your titles, phrased as though someone might want to read it. An example of a good post title would be: ‘Advice on fitting TV brackets’ or ‘Different types of TV shelves’.

If you concentrate on the longtail, the keywords will look after themselves. This will gain you better rankings for your main keywords, and it will gain you more traffic, which is after all what you’re writing content for.

Posted by Matt Jones

Basic reputation management mistakes

Posted on April 23, 2009

Reputation management is a hot topic online at the moment, as web based companies vie for every customer and every lead they can to see them through the recession. With this in mind, some bad publicity online and you can find your website’s earning potential severely hindered. You need to ensure that when a customer Google’s your brand they get nothing but positive listings and glowing reviews.

The advantage (and thus the disadvantage) with Google is its immediacy and its availability. Anyone can research anything quickly and easily, therefore you need to know how to manage your reputation online. With websites such as ciao.co.uk, blagger.com and various forums and blogs being favoured by Google because of their regular content, tackling the problem isn’t easy.

Indeed, reputation management is a difficult and complex process, and there are many mistakes you can make along the way. Here are a few basic mistakes in reputation management.

Replying to comments on blogs
Because of the way blogs are written, they are favoured by Google and rank exceptionally well. Furthermore, when comments are written on blogs, the blog post itself is kept fresh with content, which ensures that Google spiders it more frequently and ranks it higher. Therefore, if you have a negative blog post about your company or website, the worst thing you can do is (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

How to rank within country specific searches

Posted on April 22, 2009

This seems to be a cause for debate on many SEO forums and blogs lately. Just how can you ensure that your website ranks in a regional search?

Firstly, what does this mean? Say for example you have a website (which you probably have) and you want to rank in Google.co.uk for when someone searches for your keywords. It’s not an unreasonable request, you’re business is in the UK so you want people in the UK to find you, naturally.

Some websites however don’t rank in a UK search, and no matter what their SEO consultants try, they just can’t get the rankings. Some SEO experts have even suggested (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

Writing content: regularity or quality?

Posted on April 21, 2009

Many websites have started writing content on a daily basis, usually by using blogs as a platform, in a bid to help their SEO and subsequently their online success. But what’s the best way to write content on your website? Should you be writing every day, even if you don’t have anything in particular to write about?

Firstly, the more often you update your website, the better. This is obvious. If you can write every day, you should. If you update your website daily, Google will index your website just as often, and new content you write will appear within the SERPs almost immediately.

However, and we do mean a BIG however, don’t just write content for the sake of it. If you end up writing gibberish, poor quality content or content that’s irrelevant to your website you’ll (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

DIY SEO

Posted on April 20, 2009

There are many websites offering SEO advice, tips and tricks (including StuckOn.co.uk) so it’s not too difficult to find the sort of information you need online to perform your own SEO on your website.

All you need is a little HTML knowledge and access to your website’s source code, and you can learn HTML from a book, or again, online. So, with this in mind you why shouldn’t you do your own SEO, instead of paying someone else to do it for you?

The big problem isn’t finding SEO advice online, it’s finding SEO advice that you can trust. For example, if you visit an SEO forum you’ll find thousands of members, all swapping advice and information, but which of them really knows what they’re talking about? Many of the members of forums have actually learned their SEO ‘knowledge’ from other members on the forum, and are quick to (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

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