Above shows example of web spam

Google have often stated (Google SEO guidelines video) that they have no problem with SEO. The issue they have is with webmasters, site owners and SEOs who try to gain an unfair advantage using ‘black hat’ techniques, or what Google refer to as ‘webspam’.

A couple of weeks ago, Matt Cutts of Google published a post in which he outlines again some of the benefits a good SEO can bring as well as some of the webspam tactics Google are ramping up their efforts to try and combat against.

In terms of some benefits of using a professional SEO, these can include:

1. Help improve usability of site

2. Help create good content

3. Help improve site performance

4. Help with the marketing message of the site

Some of the webspam they are constantly trying to beat include:

1. Keyword stuffing
–> Overuse of the phrase someone is trying to rank for

2. Link schemes
–> Trying to gain an advantage with link trickery

Google are rolling out changes to their search results algorithms all the time but this announcement makes it clear that more major updates are coming. From some of the rumblings on the Internet, this may well be happening so expect search results to fluctuate.

They stress again that site owners need to concentrate their efforts on creating good quality websites with unique, valuable content.

You may decide that you can outsource every aspects of your site’s SEO but I believe that the days of simply handing the reigns over to someone else and expecting them to get fantastic results just on the back of some dodgy link tactics are, if not long gone, rapidly on the decline.

You, as the site owner, need to take responsibility. It may be that you need help with some technical aspects of your site and an SEO could be the ideal fit. Or it may be you just need some help with creating content for your site. Again, perhaps you’ll turn to outside help to get this but don’t think you can just take a back seat and wait for the magic to happen.

There are some good individuals and companies out there offering professional search engine optimisation. Not everyone involved in the SEO industry is egocentric with more interest in buying fake awards than helping you. Take the time to speak with them and see if they are a good fit for you and your business.

To re-cap:

• Use Google Webmaster tools to find out how your site is performing
• Improve its speed and overall performance
• Use analytics to understand how your visitors engage with your site
• Add valuable, unique content to your site
• Engage naturally with your community
• Help and assist
• Use experts to help with specific tasks
• Outsource where necessary
• If you see a short-term surge in links to your site the moment you commence with an SEO company, ask how these people have worked such miracles?
• Can they also turn water in to wine?
• Run away as fast as you can from any muppet* claiming to guarantee you top spot in Google

Read the full article from Google here: Another Step to Rewarding High Quality Sites

*Disclaimer for the American market: This post has not been endorsed by The Muppets nor is it in any way associated with them.

Adrian Bold is the owner of Bold Internet Ltd, a Hampshire company providing SEO and PPC services. A Google AdWords Certified Partner offering AdWords campaign management.

You may be thinking that keyword research is just for search engine optimisation purposes, but it should be used for far more than that. After all, when it comes to SEO, you are limited as to how many target keywords you can use on a web page, so there are bound to be keywords that you can’t use on the existing pages on your site, but which could be used for new content and information, based on what people are searching for! This is really important and shows you know what information your target market wants, what problems they want solving. It also means that some of your keyword research doesn’t go to waste and your website gets found for additional keywords.

So how do you go about researching these keywords and finding out what people are searching for?

Well there are a couple of methods I use which I have found to be quite effective judging from the rankings gained for some of our blog posts.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool
I’ve written about this tool several times before, and have also created a video on how to use it which you can view here.

I use the Google Adwords keyword tool for keyword research as about 90% of UK searches are performed on Google so the monthly search volumes will give me a good indication of how popular/unpopular certain search terms are. The tool should be used as a guide to show how popular a search term is relative to another rather than any exact number of searches.

Google Search
Once I’ve done some research into my keywords and selected some which could be used for new content, I then go to Google search to see how people may be searching on these keywords. When you type a query into Google, as you type, suggestions appear and this can be very useful in finding out how people are searching for information. You can use to target your keywords even more. The image below shows how this works.

Google Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search is a neat tool which gives you trends for keywords over a period of time. You can also view the trends by geographic area and categories and different Google search properties. The resulting graph shows on a scale the popularity of the search terms.

How do you find new ideas for blog posts? Please share them here!

So we hope you’ve moved on from some of these very out of date methods

1. Keyword Stuffing
I still see sites where keywords have been stuffed in, in a number of ways. Long lists in the meta keywords tag, which search engines don’t use to rank sites, so not worth it. Keywords included in text at every opportunity, so the content on the page sounds stilted and unnatural. Even keywords in greyed out text at the bottom of pages. These out of date keyword stuffing techniques won’t get you anywhere in the rankings and make for a bad visitor experience.

2. Bad Site Design
As the design and architecture of a website is one of the most important parts of SEO, a badly designed site will hinder any hope of gaining good rankings. This is still a common sight with services all crammed into one web page with lengthy text, products so many clicks away from the home page you wonder if you’ll ever get there! Or just no thought as to where content should go. If your site hasn’t been redesigned for a number of years and content not updated, then now’s the time to tackle it!

3. Outdated Link Building
Having quality links pointing to your site is a very important part of SEO – and this isn’t going to change. However, the old fashioned way of going about link building doesn’t really work anymore. Gaining quality links is getting harder and harder, and should be done by a link building expert – someone who knows how to approach other websites in the right way. Submitting sites to random directories isn’t going to make much difference, nor is swapping links with whoever will agree to link back. There’s still a place for online directories, but generally getting listed in those within your industry sector will make more difference. Having decent, up to date content will attract readers, which in turn will help you to gain links naturally, whether it be from other websites or via link sharing on the social networks. Good PR can still go a long way towards quality links too.

We’ve written about all of the above before on Savvy Marketers, but we still see the same mistakes time and time again. If you’re still dabbling in these outdated techniques and wondering why you’re not getting the results you want from your website, then now’s the time to update your SEO!

There’s lots to do when it comes to running an online shop

A few small things can make all the difference and there are common mistakes owners of online shops make, which can even send visitors away! Here are 4 things to make sure you’re not doing on your website:

1. Complicated Navigation

Having pages too many clicks away from the home page can put visitors off from finding what they want. Making people click too many times is not only bad for usability, but can put the search engines off too! Try to make sure your products are no more than 3 clicks away from the home page to maximise visitor satisfaction and ensure efficient indexing by the search engines. Additionally ensure your products are categorised sensibly – the number of times I’ve clicked through to what I thought was a sensible category for a product on a website only to find it’s been put elsewhere! Also, if you have a site search facility make sure it works and brings back results from products relevant to the search (you’d be surprised how many site searches don’t work properly).

If you’re unsure about these things, get a few friends or contacts to complete a short usability test and give you feedback.

2. Delivery/Returns Info Buried Away

Some of the first things I look for when making a buying decision are delivery costs, returns policy, and how to contact the company if anything goes wrong. This makes me trust the business more so I’m more likely to place an order with them. But if this information is buried and hard to find, then it won’t inspire me to buy, and I imagine it’s the same for other people. The worst thing you can have on your site is only a contact form and/or mobile phone number. I like to see a physical address, email address and telephone number (landline) that’s easy to find on the site with all the information I need about buying a product from the company. Review your delivery and customer service pages to make sure you look like an honest, trustworthy business – not a fly by night site trying to make a quick buck! This leads us nicely onto customer service.

3. Shoddy Customer Service

Tip top customer service will ensure your customers stay happy and keep coming back, and this is an absolute must for any business, not just online shops. As mentioned above, your customer care information must be prominent on your site, but there are other ways you can keep your customers happy too. Twitter works well for businesses and they can respond to questions quickly and be seen to be doing so, which is really important. A blog can also act as a way of interacting with your customers and minimising anything that goes wrong – put up your hand and admit any mistakes you make rather than trying to hide them. We’re all human and as long as you keep customers informed, there’s no reason why they should go elsewhere. Above all though, don’t promise what you can’t deliver!

4. Shopping Cart Problems

Is your shopping cart making visitors jump through hoops to buy? This is another major sticking point for online shops, so if you’ve not reviewed your shopping cart process in a while, then it’s worth doing so. You should be able to find out your shopping trolley abandonment rate and make sure it’s not too high. You could also send a polite email to shoppers who didn’t complete transactions and ask them why. Whatever you do, ensure you don’t lose valuable sales during the final part of the process!

These are all mistakes that can be fixed but are still common across the web. In these uncertain times, fixing these issues can make all the difference between you retaining customers and keeping them happy, or losing them to your competitors!

Last week saw another major change in Google search

In my opinion, this recent move seems to be a double edged sword, which I’ll explain.

Until now, we’ve not set up a Google Places page, so to show you how easy it is to set one up, I recorded a short video when setting up our Savvy Marketers Places page.

Have you set up a Google Places page? Does it bring visitors and customers to your business website or premises?

Website showing lots of ads before any useful content

Many businesses take ads on their site as a way of generating revenue, so does this mean that businesses who do this are going to lose their rankings?

Not necessarily! It all depends on how the site is set up and on the content that goes alongside the ads. Google’s aim is to filter out low quality sites with little useful content for visitors. The type of sites which will be affected by this update are generally those which have been set up with the sole purpose of having lots of ads to maximise revenue from them. Essentially, sites which are full of ads with little or no content along side them. There are plenty of websites around like this and I’m sure you’ve come across them while surfing the net.

If you’ve created a site where you regularly create useful content, but carry ads alongside this content, then you shouldn’t need to worry as long as the content takes priority over the ads. So, for example, having a blog with ads in the sidebar, or perhaps between posts as well, shouldn’t lead to any loss of rankings.

If you’re not sure whether or not your site will get hit in these updates, then take a good look through it from a visitor’s perspective. Will visitors have to sift through the ads to find the content when they arrive on your site? If so, you need to make changes to make sure the content takes priority.

Do you take ads on your site? Are you generating much revenue from them? Please share your experiences with us in the comments! 

Small online retailers need as much help as they can get at the moment

1. No 404 Error Page
I come across websites that don’t have a 404 error page, time and time again. A 404 page will retain a visitor on your website even if they click on a broken link or arrive via an old web page. Since e-commerce sites are generally dynamic and products change regularly, old stock gets removed with new stock added. However those pages of old products can remain in a search engines’ database for some time. This means they may still get listed in the search results. If a visitor clicks on one of these pages, and there’s no 404 error page, the visitor will go to a browser error page. All they can do from there is click the back button, go back to the search results and click on one of your competitors listings instead!

Ask your webmaster if there’s a 404 page in place, if not, make sure you get one done asap and explain that the product is no longer available with suggestions for new ones, or help navigating to other products. Here are a couple of examples:
M&S – http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/errors/404
River Cottage – http://www.rivercottage.net/not-found/

An alternative is to redirect old product pages to relevant new product pages via a 301 redirect.

2. Too much choice!
These days we’re faced with more and more choices for the same thing, and I have to say, too much choice generally puts me off from making a decision! If your site is cluttered and you’ve tried to cram too many products on your home page, then you may find you’re inadvertently putting people off from buying. It’s tempting to try and put as much as possible on your home page as you want visitors to see what you’ve got in stock, but going overboard will confuse your visitors! It’s a good idea to feature products rather than cram them on the home page, or change the products on your home page each month. Try different variations and see what works, but keeping it simple really can make all the difference.

3. Delivery/returns info buried away
One of the first things I look for when making a buying a decision is delivery costs, returns policy, where to contact the company if anything goes wrong. This makes me trust the business more so I’m more likely to place an order with them. If this information is buried and hard to find, then it won’t inspire me to buy, and I imagine it’s the same for other people. The worst thing you can have on your site is only a contact form and mobile phone number. I like to see a physical address, email address and telephone number (landline) that’s easy to find on the site with all the information I need about buying a product from the company. Review your delivery and customer service pages to make sure you look like an honest, trustworthy business.

If you’re unsure about any of these things, then ask some friends or contacts to perform a short usability test on your site. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but finding where customers have problems or can’t find items means you can fix your site, keeping shoppers happy. Small businesses may not have Amazon budgets for fancy websites, but can often surpass big retailers with a much better customer service! Checking a few basic things on your site makes sure it doesn’t let you down!

What tips do you have to help small online retailers make it easier for visitors to buy from them? Please share in the comments below.

Guest post from Adrian Bold of Bold Internet

Google announced last week a major change to the way signed-in users, i.e. those logged in with a Google account, will search within Google. The short version is that “many” signed-in users will be redirected to the secure (SSL) version of Google, i.e. https. Google have offered privacy and security concerns as the driver behind this.

One of the consequences from this is that these search queries will no longer be available to those of us who use services such as Google Analytics in order to see what keywords are driving traffic to a site.

As with most things to do with Google, this already appears to have stirred up a hornet’s nest with lots of those involved in the SEO industry appearing to be ‘up in arms’ over this. See this summary in Search Engine Land as an example: Reactions From SEOs Come Loud, Fast and Often Angry to Google’s Switch to Encrypted Search.

For my part, I’d rather wait and see ‘how bad’ the outcome is before tearing Google apart. One aspect that caught my eye in Google’s announcement was the reference to “…default search experience…”. I wouldn’t pretend for one moment that most users will turn off the default but I’d rather keep my powder to dry to see how this develops in practice.

Of course, Google have said that those search queries resulting from a click on a paid ad (AdWords) will still be seen. To me, this seems perfectly fair. If you are paying for advertising in AdWords, you should have complete visibility over where your money is going.

With the rest, I always try to remind myself who the service belongs to and the fact that these services are free to use (Search, Analytics, Webmaster Tools etc.). We are very fortunate that so much data is provided for free. I’m never going to be Google’s biggest fan but I do know whose toys I’m playing with!

Google’s announcement in full: Making search more secure.

Adrian Bold is the owner of Bold Internet Ltd, a Hampshire company providing SEO and PPC services. A Google AdWords Certified Partner offering AdWords campaign management.

When you log into your Webmaster Tools account, go to the dashboard and you’ll see a list of sites which link to yours (under ‘links to your site’). Click on the ‘more’ link and you’ll be taken to further information about your links. This information shows which sites link to you the most, which content is linked to the most and the text of the links pointing to your site. To download your list of links, go to ‘who links the most’ and click on ‘more’. From there you can view a full list of links to your site and you can download the list at the bottom of the page. The images below show this:

webmaster tools dashboard

links overview

website backlinks

Another way of finding out which sites link to your site is to use a tool such as SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer. A free account will give you limited information, so it’s not as good as using Google Webmaster Tools, which I would recommend using to track your own backlinks. However, if you want to do some research into which sites link to your competitors websites, then this tool is worth using for this. I previously used to use Yahoo’s Site Explorer, but it is about to be taken down. I’ve therefore had to research other backlink tools to replace the Yahoo tool and SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer is the best one I’ve come across.

The screenshot below shows the links it has recorded which point to forty-first.co.uk, but if you want to you can see some of the links to your competitors’s sites by just typing in their domain instead of your own. You won’t get a list of all their links unless you pay, but it can be useful as a guide as to what online marketing they may be doing and help you to research sites which may be worth approaching for a link to your own website. When you get a few moments, have a play around with the tool and see how it could be useful for back link research for your website.

SEOmoz Open Site Explorer

Backlinks play a very important part in how the search engines rank websites, so the more information you have about your own backlinks and your competitors, the better decisions you can make as to how you can improve your link popularity.

If you’ve had some recent success in generating new links to your site, please share how you achieved this in the comments below!