Owner: Search Engine Optimization in the UK URL:http://bounita.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:38:51 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This blog aims to chronicle the peculiarities of Search Engine Optimisation in the UK. Millions of the UKs businesses have websites that need optimizing but many of the tools and much of the advice available is specific to the US market. This blog will tr Site statistics:Click here
Building Words 2007-10-13 05:15:00 One simple way to ensure that your content covers as many search terms as possible without looking contrived and clunky is to use building words.Building
words are simply the words that you can use to build keywords that relate to your site. They come in 5 major flavours:Global keywords:These are the main categories that your site falls in to. Let's say we're optimizing the party supplies site. These main keywords could be: Party, anniversary, wedding, birthday.Stop words:These are words that search engines do not index because they are too common but that can make for a smooth writing style. If you ever research keywords on sites like Wordtracker and find results like 'balloons UK' and think "why would anyone search for that?", the chances are that they have searched for 'balloons in the UK' but the search engine has removed the stop words. Stop words include words like: a, about, all, me, the, as, is, but, to, for. This adds up to rather a large list of words which is worth rem Read more:Words
The Irrigation Approach 2007-10-12 21:28:00 An approach that I have used to help people understand the dynamic linking side of search engine optimization is 'The Irrigation Approach'. In order to raise your site up the rankings, especially the Google rankings, it is helpful to imagine your site like an arid field: Your job is to sluice as much water to it as possible to make it thrive.We want people to be able to get onto the site easily & so we need to make sure that the sluice gates to our site are open in order to let people and spiders through. In this case, getting as many well-qualified links to your site is good. Not all links will raise you up the rankings but if you take an holistic approach, each link allows people to flow through onto your site and so although a link might not have any worth to some search engines, you should always be open to the possibility that if it's allowing people in, it's broadening the market for and increasing the interest in your website.If you imagine that each link is a leak in yo
Wordtracker for the UK 2007-10-12 12:31:00 One tool that many SEOs consider to be essential is Wordtracker
, a website that enables you to see how popular certian keywords are by showing you how regularly people search for them and how many sites compete against that keyword.Wordtracker offers its services to UK as well as US users. The UK data is available within the Keyword Researcher which can be accessed from the members home page.On the options bar beneath the seed keywords box there is a dropdown box with the option to select the UK or the US database. The results from Wordtracker's UK data sources are held in a different database to that of the US. It is therefore easy to find keywords that are relevant to a UK audience as these may differ greatly (in spelling & taste) to those that a US audience would choose.The strange thing about the Wordtracker site, however, is that the projects button on the homepage will only take you to US data, something which I have asked the lovely people at Wordtracker to address.I'm goi
Pitfalls for Search Engine Spiders 2007-10-11 09:06:00 When putting together your site, you need to bear in mind a number of factors that will hinder or prevent search engine spiders from crawling over and indexing your site. The following cause massive problems for spiders and should be avoided at all costs:Deep Content: Any pages that cannot be reached within three clicks from the homepage.Session Pages: Pages requiring a Cookie to enable navigation may casue problems because of the way spiders navigate.Frames: Search
engines do not like sites built on frames.Pages Generated By a Database-Driven Site: URLs with ?, % & = signs are like red flags to search engines. It is easy for spiders to get lost in dynamic content & so much of it is not indexed.Pages with More Than 150 Links: Search engines do not crawl large numbers of links on a site.Pages Behind a rel="nofollow" Link: Google spiders will not follow these hyperlinks.Pages That Require a Button to be Clicked: Pages that are only accessible using a submit button, drop-down menu Read more:Engine
, Search Engine
Increasing Blogging Traffic 2007-10-11 06:43:00 Part of the Search Engine Optimizer's job is marketing. One way of doing this is by creating a blog to draw traffic to a website. The problem is that it takes time to get people to know your blog exists, time to then get them to your blog, time to get it seen & time to have it trusted.A company called Blog Rush have got around this with a novel solution that aims to bring many more people to your site than you would otherwise get. I have included a video below to explain this idea. It might look like a pyramid scheme but it works & it doesn't cost anything so give it a go. Please take a look at the video:I've put the widget up in the top corner of this website & will report on the difference that it makes to this new blog. However, from reports of friends & colleagues, this can make a massive difference to blogs with high quality & can draw much needed attention to your blog and, by extention, to your site.Please click the bottom of my widget to sign up & joi Read more:Blogging
, Increasing
Mantra for all website owners 2007-10-10 05:37:00 I read an interesting passage in one of Dan Thies's books the other day which said:Search engines don’t care about you, they don’t care about your website
, but they do care about their customers. If I get what I’m looking for when I use a search engine, I’ll use it again. Search engines are trying to deliver the most relevant resultspossible for every search.It sounds harsh but it's excellent advice for anyone trying to create a website that needs to be plugged in to search engines. When thinking about your company's website, be sure to build it with your customers and with the search engines in mind. It is all very well wanting a snazzy or 'flashy' site as it makes you look good but if there is no content, users will not stay around ling & the search engines will not look favourably on your hard work.This is where some of the sites I have been asked to look at recently have come unstuck. If you look at the Ice Cricket website or the party supplies website, you will no Read more:Mantra
Selling Links - Not the way to go. 2007-10-16 12:21:00 With a lot of chatter, arguement and debate on the subject of paid links, the debates seemed to have reignited this week wen it came to light that Google have confirmed they are penalising sites that sell links.Paid links, those that are put on a site in return for a fee, have often been a way of raising a site's credibility, PageRank and exposure extremely quickly. The problem with this is that the democratic nature of search engines is usurped by those with the most money to splash around. If we imagine a Google search as a democratic system where the most popular sites appear at the top of the rankings, links become votes. The more links to a site, the more search engines perceive it as a destination, a place people want to go to. When money exchanges hands, extra votes can be bought and extra influence & greater standing in the search engine ranks can be gained.There is a case to be made for paid links. For one, Google uses paid links to conduct its Adwords campaign and links
Useful Browser Tool 2007-10-15 03:47:00 For those of you interested in dynamic linking, the 'Search Status' tool from quirk is extremely handy. You can choose to see rel="nofollow" links on any given website. This is interesting as you can see how other SEOs or even how Google oversee the links on and from their site.The toolbar has a number of other useful tricks up its sleeve. It'll enable you to quickly see the Meta information on a page, get an overview of the number of links of all different types to and from the page. This information opens in new tabs so that you don't lose any information on the page you are browsing. Furthermore, it shows the Google & Alexa Page Rank.The toolbar sits snugly wherever you want it to in your browser & doesn't take up much room.It's currently at v1.21, released on 22 August.I'm going to use 2 sites as SEO examples.
We will chart their progress through the blog.
www.constructionchemicals.co.uk
www.thepartycatalogue.co.uk
If you have bright ideas and want to dazzle me wi Read more:Useful
Goes Google Count Clicks Against a Search to Weight its Algorithm? 2007-10-22 05:11:00 One issue that has come to light recently is: "Does Google
count the number of clicks to different sites in a search and use it to weight its rankings?". The theory is that if your page is number 2 in the search but gets more clicks than the number one site, Google might rank your site more favourably.There are a number of reasons to suspect why this might be the case:Relevance: Search
engines thrive on producing relevant results. The more relevant the result to the search, the easier it is for someone to find what they are looking for using a particular search engine.Adwords: Googles Adwords will weight adverts that get a higher clickthrough ratio. If you have two adverts for a particular product and one gets twice the clickthrough rate, then Google will show this more often. Again, relevance is involved. If an advert is more relevant (it must be if more people click on it) then search engines need to show this more often to improve the user experience.The problem with this theory is Read more:Clicks
, Weight
Meta Keywords - Myths, Misspellings and Mysteries 2007-10-21 16:22:00 In earlier, more innocent times, the meta keywords tag was used by web-designers and website owners to indicate the content of their web pages. Keywords
were in use form around 1996 onwards.By 1998, however, Search Engines had wised up to misuse and more cynical practices. The practice of "stuffing" tags with multiple copies of the same word or even with material unrelated to the contents of the web page was all too common and the keywords tag was rendered next to useless.Because, historically, there has been a lot of emphasis put on keywords by website designers, the myth about their importance has continued. A look at any search engine forum or a chat about web-design will quickly encompass the keywords topic. Nowadays, however, there is little emphasis placed on them. According to a test performed by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, Google and Microsoft do not use keywords when a search is made.Inasmuch as it is useful, the keywords tag can be used for misspellings. In the sear Read more:Mysteries
, Myths
Directory Submissions: Directories to Avoid Paying 2007-10-18 14:29:00 Below is a list of directoris that have recently been penalised by Google for underhand practices. Basically, these directories are far more interested in gaining revenues from submissions than in providing well-vetted and useful content for search engines.AvivaDirectory
.comAliveDirectory.comHaabaa.comDirectoryDump.comBigWebLinks.comElegantDirectory.comeWebPages.orgLinkBook.orgTrincas.orgCBravo.comCDHNow.comFreeWebIndex.comMingleon.comPremiumDir.comSubmission4u.comAerospect.comBakie.comLinkForever.netLinksArena.comLinksFactory.netLinksHolder.comWebVerve.comWezp.comBestInternetResource.infoDirSpace.comEonte.comFrogengine.comLinkLister.co.ukLinkVerve.comLivelyDirectory.comSubmitdotcom.comRegistering your site with a directory can give you a rankings boost. Registering with the Yahoo and Open Directory is a must for websites that want to be taken seriously. Some rigour (financial & intellectual) has to be gone through in order to get a listing here.This is not always the case, however Read more:Avoid
, Directories
Localise your website 2007-11-14 05:09:00 It is often very difficult to make your website
's local advantege count for anything. UK-based companies look to find advantages to having a UK-based website but don't want to be seen as UK-only enterprises nor do they like beign lost in the global results that many search engines can give. Last week, Google began to offer a solution. Business location can be registered through Google Webmaster Central. In the tools tab, thee is an option to set the geographic location. This is especially helpful if businesses trade over the web with a .com domain or if large companies have country-specific sites.I'm going to use 2 sites as SEO examples.
We will chart their progress through the blog.
www.constructionchemicals.co.uk
www.thepartycatalogue.co.uk
If you have bright ideas and want to dazzle me with your suggestions, please do.
Using Digg as part of your search engine marketing campaign 2007-11-29 03:10:00 Many optimizers try to find new traffic in a variety of ways. One more modern method is by trying to create a stir on a social networking or social bookmarking site. One of the bigest sites, as far as new, informative content is concerned is Digg
, a site that allows users to recommend (digg) or 'bury' a story according to their perception of its usefulness to the community. This can be a hit & miss affair, subject to whimsy and to the fact that you are promoting something rather than doing something for altruistic purposes. The results, though, can be more than worthwhile, with massive numbers of browsers being drawn to a site that has something which evokes zeitgeist.The frustration of trying to work out just what makes a good story or just how Digg works can be eased in knowing that Digg has an algorithm in order to assess which pages are the most popular at any given time & should be thrust into the limelight of the Digg homepage. The algorithm is used to ensure that commu
Planning your web presence 2007-11-28 03:25:00 These days, a website is a must for businesses. With over 8 in 10 businesses using broadband, the Internet has become as useful a resource as any to find information. Ask yourself how you find information about potential suppliers. Do you use the Yellow Pages, do you look in the newspaper or in trade magazines or do you finds search engines like Google are far quicker and can deliver informaiton that answers all your questions? The planning of a web presence should never be taken lightly. You are creating a shop window (or even a shop) that is acting as your online ambassador 24 hours a day. If you judge the people you do business by how they appear then people will judge you by your website. This can be truly liberating, however, as the Internet gives even the smallest business the chance to shine. This can only happen, though, if thought is given to the following aspects of your online arm: Domain Name - The first step in gaining a web presence comes with registering a domain name.
Link Building - Starting Out 2007-11-24 17:08:00 The most important part of any optimization campaign is link-building. Getting relevant links from relevant sites to your content will improve your rankings like nothing else.In order to get you started, I've assembled a few pointers:Apply to the Open and Yahoo! directoriesSubmit to solid directories such as Joe Ant, Skaffe and GimpsyJoin your chamber of commerce, industry association, marketing organisaition, masonic lodge or anything to get your name out.Issue press releases on a regular basis. Printed media gets you know & media websites will include the printed text & links.Buy a list of high-profile journalists and contact directly for one-on-one interviewsBacklink your competitors and those ranking ahead of you for link and advertising leads.Announce your new site in targeted industry magazines. Buy advertising, if necessary.Comment on the sites of prominent bloggers in your industry to get your site known.Create a blog and update it regularly. If your site is seen as a Read more:Building
, Link Building
Finding Quality Directories 2007-11-24 04:11:00 There are a number of directories on the Internet. From the Yahoo Directory which started out as Jerry Yang's way of cataloguing interesting sites, to the Open Directory, Google's pet project, your entry in a directory can show your site's intentions as being serious. However, there are thousands of directories out there and, with last month's shake-up many have lost their value as they fail to provide useful or filtered information.Paying for an entry in a directory may appeal as it is a guaranteed way to get your site listed and linked on the Internet for free. The problem is that this can be unending. It is hard to know if you should pay for a listing and where you should draw the line. Matt Cutts, Google's mainstay on optimization issues, gives the following guidelines on the usefulness of a directory:I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at adirectory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:-Does the directory reject Read more:Directories
, Quality
Stuck for Content - How About an FAQ? 2007-12-05 04:06:00 One of the problems that small firms have is the size of their budget. Often a website budget has been based on that the design of a website costs and does not take into account the value of good copy. Well-written copy, in my research, increases the business done on e-commerce websites by 40% on average. Well-written copy gets browsers enganged & gives them the key facts & entices them without bambozzling them with science. Many firms do not want to pay for this service, however, and would rather write the content themselves. This can be fine but it's amazing how many people are dumbstruck when it comes to writing about their business, even if they go out and sell it all day every day. One way to get started is with an FAQ. By thinking about the questions you get asked the most, by polling your clients to see what most concerns them when they make a decision involving your industry and by formulating questions and answers for each of the aspects of your business you have don Read more:Content
, Stuck
Link Building - Tips for Emailing 2007-12-02 08:37:00 Part of any link building strategy involves contacting the webmaster of the sites you have identified as good targets. The most unobtrusive way of doing this is by email. It is not pushy & means that people can get back to you at their leisure. That said, because email is more leisurely & less pressured, you need compelling reasons why people should link to your content.Eric Ward at Search Engine Land has identified a typical email that might be sent:Greetings;My name is Ga+++++ +++++++++, and I'm in charge of getting links of web site. I have visited your site http://www.ericward.com/articles/index.html and I believe a link exchange could benefit us both.I'm offering you the following: If you place a link to my site in just one single page in your website, I'll place a link to your website in 3 different sites. I'll provide you the details. These are my sites info:Title: Web marketing GroupURL: http://www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk/Description: Online marketing solutions del Read more:Building
, Link Building
Tafiti - The future of search engines? 2007-12-10 04:17:00 I have recently been trying the beta version of a search engine called Tafiti, built by Microsoft. It seems to have some particularly useful features. The name 'Tafiti' is Swahili for 'do research': the search engine is more robust than most making it a very useful platform for researchers and for anyone who needs to do multiple searches to compile what they need.Whats makes Tafiti stand outout is its ability to 'stack' individual search results together. If you type in 'Charles Darwin' & you can see that of a result is of interest to you, you can drag it to a 'stack' and continue to search. You can drag pictures, rss feeds, maps and pretty much anything to the 'stack'. These collections of resources can then be named and the excerpts you have selected are put in an html page that can either be emailed to you or to your colleagues or it can be published to your webspace.Search results can be further filtered so that you can see items of specific interest within a broade Read more:engines
, search engines
Planning your office network 2008-02-12 12:16:00 When running an office
there are enough things to worry about without the perils of an IT infrastructure. IT is something we want to be as unobtrusive as possible. When there is a problem and the network
goes down, it seems that everything is wedded to computers and that there is nothing we can do. This is more the result of bad planning than the inexorable march of technology on our daily lives. With a bit of thought, with redundancy and backup procedures built into your system, you need not lose valuable time if there is a problem.In order to have a well-planned network organisations need to think about the following facets of IT:Network Layout - A periodic review of the changing layout of buildings and the changes in technology that might make for a more reliable network shoud be undert
Satisfaction 100% guaranteed 2008-02-12 12:14:00 In a move that makes St James Systems unique in the UK, a 100% money-back guarantee is now offered on all web services including design, optimization, copywriting and marketing.This means that if you are unhappy with our work. for any reason. we will not charge you for it.This decision was reached after research undertaken on 250 businesses in the Midlands which revealed that our confidence in our services could be better used. The moneyback guarantee means that we can stand behind our services and that there are no risks for our customers. This is a win-win situation.I'm going to use 2 sites as SEO examples.
We will chart their progress through the blog.
www.constructionchemicals.co.uk
www.thepartycatalogue.co.uk
If you have bright ideas and want to dazzle me with your suggestions, ple Read more:Satisfaction
Planning Your Web Presence 2008-02-12 12:11:00 These days, a website is a must for businesses. With over 8 in 10 businesses using broadband, the Internet has become as useful a resource as any to find information.Ask yourself how you find information about potential suppliers. Do you use the Yellow Pages, do you look in the newspaper or in trade magazines or do you finds search engines like Google are far quicker and can deliver informaiton that answers all your questions?The planning of a web presence should never be taken lightly. You are creating a shop window (or even a shop) that is acting as your online ambassador 24 hours a day. If you judge the people you do business by how they appear then people will judge you by your website. This can be truly liberating, however, as the Internet gives even the smallest business the chance t Read more:Presence
Data cabling & New Electrical Regulations 2008-02-12 12:07:00 From July 1 2008, all commercial, domestic and industrial wiring installations must be designed, constructed, inspected, tested and certificated to meet the requirements of BS 7671: 2008 the new IEE wiring regulations.This new set of regulations offers the first new edition of electrical standards since 1991 when the 16th Edition was first printed and enables the combination of new products & technologies into a safe electrical framework & it allows for continues harmonization with European standards. St James Systems have undertaken a number of data installations since 2003. With wireless speeds being up to 20 times less than the speed of wired data cabling and with wireless networks being far more susceptible to environmental factors, a wired network is always preferable to a wir Read more:Regulations
No title 2008-02-12 12:07:00 From July 1 2008, all commercial, domestic and industrial wiring installations must be designed, constructed, inspected, tested and certificated to meet the requirements of BS 7671: 2008 the new IEE wiring regulations.This new set of regulations offers the first new edition of electrical standards since 1991 when the 16th Edition was first printed and enables the combination of new products & technologies into a safe electrical framework & it allows for continues harmonization with European standards. St James Systems have undertaken a number of data installations since 2003. With wireless speeds being up to 20 times less than the speed of wired data cabling and with wireless networks being far more susceptible to environmental factors, a wired network is always preferable to a wir
Maximizing your returns in a difficult economic climate with IT 2008-02-12 08:08:00 For many people, computers and technology are the bane of their lives, a necessary evil in the world of work. Not only can computer systems be unreliable but every so often there is another program to learn or the ‘Save’ button of an existing program which seemed to work quite well is hidden in a completely different place. We end up becoming slaves to IT rather than masters of it.In an economic slowdown, however, businesses can maximize their return on investment by taking control of their IT system. There is still business to be had and companies can get it by maximizing their exposure to clients and potential clients. This article talks about four relatively new facets of IT, their benefits and utility.Search Engine Optimisation Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is unique. There is n
Cuil - the fallout 2008-08-01 09:24:00 As with every young pretender that promises much, obscurity is an ever-present threat. The naysayers and detractors are waiting in the wings.Part of the reason for the failure of a new search engine is the symbiotic relationship that many companies and search engine optimisers have with Google. Google gets 60% of the searches and so those who want to get the best from their websites will focus on
Cuil - the future of search...again 2008-07-30 13:47:00 With search eninges being the gateway to knowledge and power on the Internet and with the massive amounts of money that can be generated through controlling this, it is not surprising that there are young pretenders jockeying for positioning.Search engines live or die by the information they can provide. If you search for something and don't get what you want you will go somewhere else. If you sea
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