by Francois Muscat | Apr 25, 2012 | SEO
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) for small and large business, content marketing plays a vital role to the success of your campaign. Do you need the best content? Some internet marketing professionals would say yes, however, coming up with the best content on a daily basis is not an easy task and if you do, you are likely to burn out within a couple of weeks. Getting the best content should not always be your focus point, and you can slide in good and great content between your best content.
So why the big emphasis on great content? It is simple; search engines are looking for the most relevant and best content to display on their search engine result pages (SERP’s) when people are looking for information. When writing your content the focus was always writing for two audiences – website visitors and the search engines. Now there is a third audience involved, and they are looking whether your content is good, great, or the best. That audience is made up of your own network and those with similar websites to yours.
Social media audience
The third audience explained above has the ability to rank your site by sharing it on various social media channels. If you can get your website visitors to leave a mention, review or sharing your content on Twitter or Facebook, that is excellent. The truth unfortunately is that many visitors will forget your content until they actually need it. Think of the websites that you visit often. Do you share and bookmark them to your friends or do you have them saved tucked away from human eyes in your browser bookmarks?
When writing the online content for your website, search engine optimization will always play a big role in getting targeted traffic. Give your visitors a way to share your content and make it travel. Search engine optimization will always start with your content, your selected keywords, and the way you are presenting it, but your visitors is going to read the content. If you present them with what they are looking for there is a very good chance that they will share it with their own network.
by Francois Muscat | Feb 2, 2012 | SEO
An internal linking strategy is often overlooked for on page SEO (search engine optimization). An internal linking strategy consists of the interlinking of internal website pages. This is usually done to control the link flow within your website. For good practice, all of your primary pages should only be one click away from the home page.
By optimizing your pages within your website and interlinking all of them, you will provide a focused link structure so that the search engines can easily browse your website.
Interlinking helps group topics together
If your website deals with a couple of related subjects, interlinking will be a necessity to group each topic together. Your home page will link to each of the primary subjects and then on them will be a more intensive interlinking strategy within the subject. This will help increase the relevancy of your links and improve the rankings of your website.
Internal links and links from external websites value passes like a waterfall from page to page within a website. Links also leave the website in the same way and the link flow can be random or directed. When it is directed with the nofollow attribute (rel=”nofollow”), you can direct the page rank flow to important pages and not to the pages with low importance.
What should you consider when you are planning your interlinking strategy? Your top level and home page links should always be structured to be text links and it should include the primary keywords you are targeting. Your links can be breadcrumb links, navigation links, page links and even category links. Use these link to strategically optimize your website and improve your search engine rankings.
Interlinking can help your website to be search engine friendly so that the search engine crawlers can index your website with ease.
If you have any SEO tips, share it with us and other readers in the comment box.
by Francois Muscat | Dec 15, 2011 | SEO
As an SEO expert, I know that agencies are largely reliant on efficient, quality software for monitoring, analysis and reporting of statistics and rankings and that choosing the most appropriate and budget savvy software for this can be quite a challenge. I have found the Advanced Web Ranking and Advanced Link Managerapplications from Caphyon Ltd to both be smart choices for any SEO manager.
In my mind, version 8.6 of Advanced Web Ranking is the seo software tool needed for that hands-on approach to managing SEO customer relationships. I feel that building a strong connection with clients is integral to business success and is based on the delivery of promised services that meet or exceed expectations. Advanced Web Ranking helps me to deliver on these expectations and promises.
Advanced Web Ranking can be used for any sized SEO operation, from a single user website to an international online marketing agency which handles multiple clients globally. Depending on what is required, there are a number of options available, namely the Professional, Standard, Enterprise and Server versions.
WSI uses a pre-defined set of keywords to check rankings across a range of search engines, which provides data on website performance in specified target areas, allowing us to tailor make a more precise marketing approach.
Our clients’ competitor websites can also be monitored, allowing for a more comprehensive analysis of a market sector and we can keep clients continually apprised of what others are doing.
Competitor Keyword Ranking Graph
I have noticed that this software is a popular choice with my colleagues when it comes to optimizing rankings and improving traffic to websites the world over.
Advanced Web Ranking offers interactive and easy to use, real time reports that can be viewed on a desktop or on the website. Whereas in the past, some clients found SEO reports were long and difficult to follow, my clients have advised that they find that Advanced Web Ranking delivers a complete, easily understandable overview of analytics, rankings and linking data. This information can also be manipulated to reveal website position, the visibility of targeted keywords, website traffic, keyword revenue generation and link building profiles.
AWR Overview Report
Designed to mimic the easy to use look and feel of a web based application, Advanced Web Ranking allows SEO companies like WSI to efficiently manage their customers’ campaigns and develop ongoing targeted online marketing strategies. I have found that the program can be used as a simple monitoring tool, integrating with Google analytics but it is really designed for more sophisticated reporting and analysis, with online trend analysis through anchor texts and keyword finders. Notes can also be added to reports, explaining information in detail for clients to see.
Advanced Web Ranking also includes an on-page and off-page optimization tool, which allows me to fill in the SEO content gaps on my clients’ websites and to structure a website that appeals to both viewers and search engine spiders. The Keyword Analysis tool provides information on keyword density and dilution, so I can structure content and correct it for better ranking results. Google’s search queries have recently changed so that they are included in analytics, which in my mind doubly reinforces ranking’s role in SEO. Off-page optimization is achieved through link building and backlinks, done via the Submitter tool which interacts with multiple search engine and website directories.
Another great tool for any serious SEO arsenal is the Advanced Link Manager. This link building solution is designed to intensely analyze the information of links on various domains and produce a report showing the quality and page rank of website linkages. I can work on optimizing a website with targeted keywords and advanced link building, whilst watching what my clients’ market competitors are doing at the same time. Reports can be uploaded for client perusal through an FTP and I am happy to know that data integrity is maintained through strong privacy and security measures.
I useAdvanced Link Manager to track website backlinks, link popularity, link text and indexed pages. I especially enjoy the functionality of a reporting feature that allows for rankings from different geographical locations via proxy servers. This is useful when planning search engine ranking strategies for diverse target markets. I can also integrate multiple users into the software so that collaboration can be achieved across both PC and Mac platforms.
Advanced Link Manager’srobust reports can be exported into a variety of client friendly formats, including PDF, CSV, text, Excel and HTML. These can then be automatically sent using email or an FTP through the software, saving me valuable time. One other useful feature that I have found is site indexation, with the ability to add on domains, sub-domains and search engines and the advanced tools menu includes great features such as a Website Crawler, Google Maps Webpage Importer, a webpage analyzer and a domain quality analyzer.
The Website Crawler is a Xenu alternative which works across platforms and it has the ability to integrate Yahoo and Google site maps into a handy CSV file. I find the Webpage Analyzer to be one of the more popular tools that I use in Advanced Link Manager – problems with websites can be identified and corrected and additional matrixes such as page rankings and URL insertions can be tracked through this functionality.
Advanced Link Manager may not have as much advanced functionality when compared with Advanced Web Ranking but in my opinion, both programs are superb in terms of customer support services, feature requests and continuous version updates. Caphyon Ltd also offers special license deals for blog postings such as this one and bulk buying discounts for larger firms.
Visit www.advancedwebranking.com to find out more about the above two software applications, as well as others that the company offers, such as Advanced Installer and Advanced Web Stats.
by Francois Muscat | Jul 14, 2011 | SEO
This post is written by our colleague Patrick Hogan in Florida, USA and is applicable to Search Engine Optimisation in any country. Here is his take on SEO.
In some ways search engine optimisation (SEO) in South Africa used to be pretty simple. First, you created a great looking site full of quality content that people would like to read and find informative. Then you would find other sites across the web that are relevant to that site and would agree your content complements their site in one way or another and agree to create a link to you. Eventually, Google see all this activity and rewards you with a number one ranking and you begin to generate search traffic and then new customers.
To some extent, that is still a very good basic strategy, but in the case of SEO for local contractors, the numbers of factors that affect your ranking have exploded over the last few years. We recently worked with a roofing contractor in Tampa, FL where we really explored all the avenues you need to optimize to get the most for your online marketing investment.
Google Places
Google Places is the newest variable that greatly affects the ranking of a local business search result. It is Google’s free directory listing for every company in the world. It used to (and still does sometimes) appear with an assortment of other companies for a certain area for which the search was relevant.
Back in October of 2010, Google introduced a “blended” search result for most searches they deem to have local business intent. The use of a blended search is intermittent, depending on the industry and the geography, but is slowly becoming more and more prevalent, most likely until it is universal.
Here is an image of current search results for the Google search “roofing contractor tampa”. As you can see, most of the top results contain the red Google Places page marker along with the traditional Title Tag and Description. A few sites are powerful enough to outrank everything even without connection to a place page listing, but those are becoming more and more of an exception.
New Factors That Affect Local Search Results
So it is now established that your Google Places rank greatly affects Organic (those that aren’t pay-per-click) search results. We have to look at all those factors that affect “Places” rank with equal importance as the website size and number of links that, prior to the blended results, solely determined results. Here are the factors most commonly recognized to determine your ranking on Google Places:
- Location – Since the rank of a business’ place page was largely determined by it’s proximity to the IP address of the person searching or the geographic term they used, a business’s location (most importantly, the city in the address) is a big determining factor. For instance, we have seen very few businesses able to rank in a city not contained in their address. One of our customer’s offices, a Ft. Pierce, Florida roofer, will have a difficult time ranking in a very close city because it is not part of their address.
- Citations – Google keeps track of how many times a business is mentioned across the entire internet. Any time the name of a business along with its address or phone number is mentioned, Google takes note and applies a certain value to each one depending on the credibility of the site the citation is located. Each one strengthens the company’s Google Places result and raises their ranking.
- Reviews – Google wants to see reviews for a business by their customers on a variety of directory type websites. Positive reviews by real people greatly enhance the credibility of a company’s reputation. A few of the sites relevant for a local contractor business are:
- Insider Pages
- Google Places
- Citysearch
- Yahoo Local
- Bing
These are just a few of the major factors determining the “new age” local search results and there is constantly more emerging. With all these changes affecting the search results and online reputation of companies, businesses would have to dedicate a great deal of time learning the dynamic landscape changes and taking new actions based upon them to optimize their company. WSI has a team of people that will do it for you, resulting in the greatest return for your marketing value.
by Francois Muscat | Jun 8, 2011 | SEO
SEO (Search engine optimization) involves many technical aspects and many people get too caught up in the detail. With search engine optimization there are basically only two things that you should always focus on – backlinks and keywords. Everything else can be a distraction.
It really doesn’t matter at all if you are an expert or a beginner at SEO. It also doesn’t matter if you are tuning up your existing website or just starting from scratch. Always keep your attention on backlinks and keywords and then measure your results. It is really this easy.
Keywords:
Select and research keywords that are relevant to what you do. Many people starting out with SEO select keyword phrases with high search volumes first and then relevancy second. Make sure that relevancy is your first priority. If you attract a visitor to your site, they won’t stay and take action if you don’t provide them what they are looking for. Use the keywords you have selected visibly and prominently on your website. Don’t just use them in the META tags – this is a topic for another blog post!
Backlinks
Getting incoming backlinks from other websites are very important in any search engine optimization effort. Quality backlinks from relevant websites signals the search engines that your website is very important and it should be looked at. Using the keywords you have selected in the anchor text of links tell the search engines what the website page is about.
Measure
Track and measure your major metrics at least once a month. Check for the number of pages that are indexed, the number of valid backlinks, your domain and homepage authority with Open Site Explorer. Also look at various other metrics such as your actual rankings on the search engines. By measuring your website on the web, you will be able to see areas of improvement.
by Francois Muscat | Jun 3, 2011 | SEO
Before you begin with the SEO (search engine optimization) of your website, you will need to establish clear ways to measure your success and goals. Goals could be to get more targeted visitor traffic to your site, build up branding for your business, increase your rankings on the search engines and even sales conversions.
Once you have established your goals for SEO, you can then select the best measurement metrics that will show you and report the progress towards your goals. Use one primary measurement and then a couple of secondary metrics that you can track on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Here’s a couple of metrics that you can use to measure the progress of your SEO.
Visitors
Is your SEO campaign attracting targeted visitors? Does your website interact with visitors? Measure these by tracking the bounce rate, number of page views per visitors and the time that they spend on the website. Setup conversion goals and measure which of your keywords and keyword phrases convert the best.
Content
Search engine optimization should always include a content growth plan. Track and measure the number of pages that are indexed of your website on the major search engines. This will also help you discover structural issues that might exist on your website.
Link building
Getting income links from high authority websites is very important for SEO. Use SEOMoz’s Open Site Explorer to track the number of links, number of linking domains and the anchor text that are used for the links you are receiving.
Rankings
Check the rankings of your keywords and keyword phrases. Check your keywords on Google and other major search engines for improvements in ranking.
If you need help with your website’s SEO contact WSI for expert advice or support.
