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Regular followers of web search will be familiar with the name Aaron Wall. Aaron literally wrote the book on SEO techniques. His highly sucessful SEO Book – a veritable SEO Bible was downloadable and constantly updated up until early this year.
Aaron has trained some of the best SEO operatives in the business, and regularly features at search marketing conferences and special training sessions.
Aaron has now superceeded this with a brand new training program and a private SEO forum where he freely answers questions relating to all things SEO and SEM.
If you would like to try it out follow the links below.
Here at SEO Clinic we can wholeheartedly give SEOBook a ***** Five Star rating.
website http://www.seobook.com/
bloggers only http://www.seobook.com/bloggers
He also provides a lot of excellent free and truly cutting edge tools that any professional SEO would be pleased to use. As part of the training plan he also provides a number of members-only tools that make the whole process of marketing your site easier.
keyword tool http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
We have been using Society Brides a designer wedding dress website as an SEO example for some time now on our main website, but this week it got a makeover. Trouble is when this happens, it’s easy to leave a few loose ends that affect ranking, so we are spending every bit of available time plugging the holes to stop it falling too far.
The other gamble is that we are using more flash than ever before. As most SEO operatives will tell you, Flash is a real no-no when trying to get good organic ranking in search.
The trouble is Google et al just can’t read it.
The problem that most design related sites have is that if they don’t use a fair amount of Flash then they can look rather bland when compared to those who do, thus losing a competitive edge. This is of course a chicken and egg scenario as without good ability to rank well, the site will not be seen much in the first place (unless a fortune is being spent on pay-per-click ads).
Hopefully by leaving plenty of HTML around the Flash slideshows, you give it a reasonable chance of still being seen by search engines, but there is no real guarantee.
So far the page has slipped form page 1 to page 2 in SERPS , so we will be keeping a careful eye on it.
Well, it’s official…Google are now the proud owners of Double Click.
This surely creates the largest conflict of interests the internet giant, and for that matter, the rest of the search marketing industry has ever faced.
Effectively Google is now in the Search Marketing business.
The call has been made by SEO supremo Danny Sullivan for Google to quickly drop the Performics arm of the DoubleCLick stable. In an open letter he makes a few very relevent points relating to why Google needs to drop Performics to maintain it’s own integrity. Amonst other things he points out the following:
“Performics is a long-time leader in the SEO and search marketing space. It provides paid search services (getting you listed on search engines like Google itself through ads), as well as “natural search” or search engine optimization work:
Using robust technology, the DoubleClick Performics’ team scientifically optimizes existing client sites to create new, dynamic, crawler-friendly sites highlighting brand, nonbrand and long-tail keywords. Our experts methodically optimize copy and content for each page to boost page rankings. DoubleClick Performics understands the importance of creating an NSO culture at your company, and one that is not necessarily dependent on the bandwidth of your IT department. Our customized solutions combat existing issues and leverage Web 2.0 technology to boost rankings:
There’s nothing wrong with SEO. Even Google tells you this. But on that same page, Google also says:
While Google doesn’t have relationships with any SEOs…
Now it does — it owns an SEO. And therein lies the problem. Even if Performics is kept completely separate from the Google search team, there’s the impression that Performics might have some special “in” with Google’s non-paid search results. After all, Google owns it! It’s also not hard to imagine that despite all the best intentions, some new sales rep might pitch that Performics has some type of in. That a bad thing. FYI, Performics already touts its relationship on the paid side, as do many other search marketing firms.”
This has to be detrimental to any trust that Google has built up with the search industry over the years.
We have to agree with Danny that Google needs to make a further statement to clarify it’s position and preferably consider phasing out the Performics arm of the Doubleclick aquisition.
Dave Keffen
Software giants Adobe have today moved the new answer to multimedia desktop fusion from the development stage into the mainstream.
‘Adobe Air‘ is designed to allow access to programs that previously would have only worked in an internet browser to work on the desktop. For instance, the BBC is working on a newsticker that will sit on the desktop rather than have any need for a browser window to be open.
To quote Adobe:
- ‘Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that lets developers combine HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash®, and Flex technologies to deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop. Adobe AIR allows developers to use familiar tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver® CS3, Flex® Builder™ 3, Flash CS3 Professional, or any text editor to build their applications and easily deliver a single application installer that works across operating systems.’
According to Adobe this makes the following possible:
With the Adobe® AIR™ runtime, you can deliver branded rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop that give you a closer connection to your customer.
Adobe AIR uses the same proven, cost-effective technologies used to build web applications, so development and deployment is rapid and low risk. You can use your existing web development resources to create engaging, branded applications that run on all major desktop operating systems.
The benefits are extensive. By using Adobe AIR as part of your RIA strategy, you can boost productivity, extend your market reach, enhance customer satisfaction, improve customer retention, lower costs, and increase profits.’
At the moment to application is free to download and is already being used by the likes of Ebay, The New York Times, Nikelodeon, Nasdaq and Yahoo.
This probably will not mark the end of the web browser as we know it just yet, but it will certainly increase the development of desktop widgets and alter the way users interact with the web.
As far as search goes, it is certainly worth keeping a very close eye on. This could be web 2.0 with a vengeance.
DAK
Spotted this today. Excellent video. Made me smile.
It can all be a bit daunting when we first realize the importance of optimizing our site for search engines.
After all by this stage we probably have just finished designing our first website and were feeling quite proud of our new baby.
The truth is, designing a site is just trhe first step on a long and often tricky road to dominating search results (SERPS : search engine result pages).
First of all we need to make our site easy to read, not just by humans but also by search engine robots or ’spiders’.
If you are not sure how to do this, visit the W3c Validator Service and enter your site’s web address.
Unless you are a design genius, the chances are there will be a number of errors showing, depending upon the DOCTYPE you are using.
Try to reduce these as far as possible. Clean code is always best.
Next you will need to make sure that your page title is relevant to the type of search terms you would like your page to show up for in Google and other major search engines.
Your page will benefit from a few well placed META tags, although these are not as critical as they once were. A ‘keywords’ tage and more importantly a well written’description’ tag are probably still worthwhile. There is plenty of information available on the web if you are struggling with these. We do intend to have more articles later on that will describe META syntax in more detail.
Next take a long careful look at the text on your page that can be viewed by those reading it. Make sure that you have a few well-chosen keywords that fit in with you title within the body of the text. Earlier on in the page content is best of all.
If you do not have much text on your page consider adding a few paragraphs at least. Sites with very little content on their front page often are not given as much weight in SERPS as those that do.
If you have a few images on the page then within the coding of the page give them ‘alt’ tags. These are descrition tags that tell a search engine what the picture is about. You may have seen this in action when browsing other pages. When you hover your mouse over an image on a page a little text box appears with a description of the image.
When you are happy that all the above has been achieved, then submit your site two the big three search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN, To do this in Google just open Google and in the search box type ‘addurl google’. You will soon find googles page for submitting your webpage. Don’t forget to add the ‘http://’ before the www.yourwebpage.com.
To submit to Yahoo you will need to open a free account first, log in, then follow the same proceedure as above, except with ‘addurl yahoo’.
MSN are at time of writing offering a free submission service as well. Just follow the same proceedure as before.
So far, so good.
Next you will need to publicize your site and make it look more desirable to Google et al.
The way to do this is by obtaining a fair number of one-way good quality back links to youe site.
How to approach this will be covered in Part 2.
What’s All the Fuss About?
Search Engine Optimisation / optimization (SEO) is one of those terms that most people who run a large company website will have heard about at some time or another.
What does SEO do for us? Search engine optimization ensures that the website that we have spent thousands of pounds on is visible to all the major search engines. Secondly and perhaps more importantly SEO allows our potential clients to find us more easily when surfing the web.
How Does Your Website Grow? – Organic vs. Pay Per Click
When browsing a major search engine such as Google we might sometimes glance to the right of the screen to see the heading ‘Sponsored Results’. These are paid for entries (charged per click). Many companies spend enormous amounts of money on these sponsored listings.
On the other hand in the main results section of the search engine we see what are known as the ‘organic’ results. These pages appear without the need to pay the likes of Google, Yahoo or MSN each time a click is made. The difference between the two is huge in terms of the traffic that can be achieved through the results.
For one thing, the majority of people prefer to click on organic results, most reasoning that the site must be an important one if it is near the top of the results pages.
Secondly, and of great significance, the organic result is always visible, whereas the sponsored result will only be visible for as long as you are able to pay for it. A large multi-national company in a highly competitive sector may well be able to afford hefty amounts of money (e.g. £40,000 per month) to ensure that their site is always visible. For the majority however, far smaller amounts are generally all that is available.
So organic is always preferable. The big question is – How do we achieve good organic results?
It’s Black and White – Isn’t It?
SEO is a constantly evolving business and has often been described as a bit of an art form due to itscomplexity. A good SEO company needs to keep abreast of the ever-changing nature and inherent subtleties of the internet.
There are many ploys that are used by SEO operatives that are classed by the search engines as ‘Black Hat’.
At SEO clinic we always endeavour to use ‘White Hat’ protocols as some of the more questionable techniques are likely to get your site penalised in terms of ranking, and in some cases even banned altogether from search engine results.
Be very wary of any company who promises instant or seemingly amazing results. You know the sort of thing: “Get your site listed on the front page of all the major search engines” or “We will submit your website to 50,000 search engines”.
Such claims are a sure sign that this company are [A] Happy to lie to you, and [B] Probably Black Hat.
How Long Should It Take to See Results?
The old proverb “All good things come to he who waits” is highly appropriate in the world of SEO. Measured gradual ranking improvement over a course of a few months will be far better long term than a quick-fix spamdexing approach.
Oh yes, you might be able to get quick results by using the Black Hat methods, but it is highly unlikely that the result will last for long, whereas a gradual rise through the ranks often leads to good long-term results.
So in conclusion, it is hard to say exactly how long it will take to get massive improvements. This depends upon the level SEO work a company chooses. Gradual improvement in page rankings should start to be seen after a week or two, but big results will take a few months, so patience is required.
In the mean time, many companies choose to use pay per click campaigns in order to keep some traffic moving towards their site.
How do you measure any level of success? Progress in organic ranking and tracking of PPC campigns can be measured accurately using web page statistic packages such as the excellent ‘Google Analytics’.
DAK
