SEO explained in 160 words

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:31 am

SEO can be broken down into onsite and offsite.

There are three elements to consider for onsite SEO:

1. The design of the site; use the latest standards like CSS and XHTML and set the site up in such a way that Google can easily read it
2. Identify your keywords and put these in your page title, heading tags, image tags etc
3. Ensure the content is keyword rich and matches your keywords. The more pages your site has the better too – a blog is a good way to increase this.

There is then offsite SEO – this is primarily how many other websites link back to your website.

You should also consider the authority of that website. Within Google’s algorithm it gives every webpage a ‘PageRank’. This is how authorative that page is. PageRank ranges from 0 – 10. Lots of links back to your website are good, getting links from websites with a higher PageRank is better.

Tags: SEO

SEO vs PPC

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:48 am

When it comes to search engine marketing people always debate whether they should focus their attention on SEO or Pay Per Click (PPC) for example Google AdWords.

So what are the costs?

The first assumption is that SEO is free. If we say that time is money then SEO isn’t free.

SEO:

• Website needs to be optimised: Page titles, descriptions, meta tags, internal links, XML site maps, descriptive URLs etc (1 – 5 days)
• Content needs to be relevant and fresh. Copy needs to be keyword rich and tools like blogs are needed to keep content fresh (2 – 4 hours a week)
• Backlinks need to be built. Quality backlinks from sites which have a high Google PageRank are required. (30 backlinks a day can be built on average)

PPC

• Set up the account, create campaigns, determine AdGroups, write Advertisements and select keywords (1 day on average)
• PPC spend (Determined by you)
• Monitor and optimise the account (Hour a week)

As you can see you need to put more effort and time into SEO. SEO also takes a month to three months to start showing results where as PPC is instant. SEO is risky – you are constantly trying to outguess search engines who can change their rankings at any time. With PPC you can control the title, copy and delivery and determine who sees it.

People are more likely to click on the organic search (the fruits of your SEO labour) and if you stop your PPC no-one sees your site. With SEO if you stop doing it your website will still, at least initially, rank highly in search engines.

So what do you go for? In an ideal world both. Some sites will lend themselves well to the different strategies. Content rich sites would be better for SEO. Sites where there is limited content PPC may work better. How competitive are the keywords you want to rank highly for – is there more competition for SEO or PPC? Whatever you decide work out your objectives and budget up front as both are going to cost time and money.

Tags: PPC, Search Engine Marketing, SEO

Search Engine Optimisation – 6 simple things SMEs can do today

This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 11:06 am

Search Engine Optimisation is the buzzword for small business websites at the moment. Having your website ranked highly on search engines for your keywords is more important than ever. Here are 6 simple things you can do to your site today to start moving it up those search engines…

1. Page titles – Many people say this is the most important part of search engine optimisation at the moment. Write an accurate, keyword rich page title. don’t say ‘Xander Marketing – Home’. Say ‘Xander Marketing | Marketing Agency for SME | Berkshire’
2. Meta description – This is how your site is described in search engines. If you don’t have a description search engines will just pull the first bit of content off your page it can find. Again, make it keyword rich and try and keep it to 160 characters.
3. Descriptive URLS – don’t use URLs like XanderMarketing.com/1212lkl.php/12etc. Do use URLs like XanderMarketing.com/about.php.
4. Meta tags – Not as important as they used to be but still easy to implement and they do have some importance for search engines.    These are keywords that go in your code to inform search engines of your keywords.
5. Replace images with text – If your links or headings are images search engines can’t read these. Replace as many as you can with text links.
6. Create an XML sitemap for your website – This informs search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. To create a free sitemap for your website visit: www.xml-sitemaps.com.

For advice on how to implement any of these techniques, leave a comment or get in touch and we’ll be able to help you out.

Tags: Online Presence, SEO, SME