OK, so, you’re probably asking what’s search engine optimisation (SEO) training in Manchester, social media training, cormorants and good food got in common? Well, if the Search & Social Media Marketing course site hasn’t made it apparent yet … yes they can all be found at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester – cormorants and the food a little later!

SEO training Manchester – getting it right first time

The importance of getting the right search engine optimisation and social medial training for a small business owner cannot be underestimated. Most website designers will offer you great service in converting your sales literature into attractive on-line web pages. However, what do you do next if only a few people visit your web pages? One of the major sources of web page traffic are search engines and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook etc. Everyone who has a web page on a certain topic is competing for the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) positions – and only those whoa are on the first three pages have a higher chance to get a click from the prospective customers – no-one wants to be left behind! This means that two of our key customers have to be our visitors first then search engines and social media platforms which help our website visitors to find us.

The very first thing that I realised as part of this course is a thorough understanding of the customers or – prospects needs. What keywords do people use to find your products or services? What sites are they likely to visit for social media and how could we all engage them in a conversation which helps them to solve their need and us to keep a business going? These are some of the key questions which need to be determined and researched prior to commending a full website implementation. Yes, you might say a website is never set in stone you can always change it – right, yes, you can! But, it is an additional cost and drain on resources and for someone like me, who is already busy running a business – spinning the plates – the last thing you want to do is change your website hierarchy every six months! Therefore, getting it right first time – if you are on the quest of carving out a career and making a living in the world of SEM (search engine marketing) – then from my experience, it is essential that you start with strong solid foundations that will set you up in the long term, namely a good SEO and social media training course.

But, get it wrong at the beginning – as most of us do when venturing into a new area – and it can be a very frustrating experience costing you time and money. Personally, I feel learning from mistakes of others is a good way to keep you focus on important things, but I know I have done it myself sometimes you think there is a short-cut to things and you might just be able to do it yourself…

The nature of "the beast" (the Internet) can be overwhelming – there is too much information to digest out there in fact, you will find that the majority of us mere mortals will get sucked into an arena that generates a lot of noise which contains a lot of false & contradictory information that inevitably leads to confusion and frustration – speaking from experience here. So, learn from my personal experience:

“to succeed in search engine optimisation and social media you need to get the basic fundamental’s right first time ….”

SEO newbie’s approach to self taught SEO training

So, lets look at the typical SEO newbie’s approach to self taught SEO training, and yes I speak from experience (yes I’ve done most if not all!) and in no particular order, my list of common would be newbie mistakes is:

• Signing up to multiple internet marketing “gurus” lists
• Shifting through 100+ email (offers) a day
• Believing some of those offers – you know they are too good to be true but you still hope they will prove you wrong…
• Joining as many SEO forums as possible
• Read contradictory & false “advise” in said SEO forums
• Downloading ebooks with the latest “how total SEO newbie made 10k in 1st month”
• Downloading more ebooks on SEO and Social Media training
• Downloading even more ebooks on search secrets
• Following the video hype of SEO training product launches by yet another “guru”
• Executing your new found training strategies half heartedly
• Reading SEO blogs from SEO ninjas and SEO wizards
• …..expecting organic search ranking results improvements overnight – but they never do!!!
• The list goes on …

Information overload and the “noise” created on the internet is a massive DESTRACTION that will no doubt get you FRUSTRATED, blur your vision and shift your focus from becoming a competent search marketer.

Idealised process for strategic use of Search (SEO) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO)

One of the main things that I took away from the Search & Social Media Marketing course is that there is some method to this “SEO and SMO madness”! Each week we refer to the 11 steps of SSMM which start from clear business vision and strategic plan for the website (bearing in mind organic SEO can take months and in some cases years to come to fruition) so if you are looking for results fast Pay-Per-Click and Social Media campaigns – also discussed as part of this course can come handy! Ok, what are these stages of search engine optimisation and social media optimisation? At the core of the optimisation process are these seven steps:

1. Identification of organisational / business needs and how online media could help
2. Setting Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO) goals
3. Research the keywords that you prospects are likely to use to come to your site and benefit from your products and services
4. Strategically position keywords in your website structure and architecture
5. Tactical keyword placement on individual pages
6. Optimisation of your off site profile in social media, mobile and if needed PPC
7. Tracking and measuring of your results and learn from your actions in relation to the goals that you set in step 1 and 2

In order to succeed in search engine marketing you need to get the fundamental basics right first time, and University of Salford’s SEO and Social Media course – or to be more precise #SSMM (Search & Social Media Marketing) training course does just that and from my own personal experience – is the best starting place as it encompasses all the relevant mixes of search marketing in separate modules:

• SEO
• PPC
• Social Media
• Mobile Marketing

And just in case these do sound overwhelming still the sessions of the course are based on a method too – practical exercises during training and homework – like writing of this blog post and hence practising the use of SEO in social media! The course is packed with excellent industry guest speakers from the Manchester SEO community, SEMPO Institute online training material, online course support community on LinkedIn, Twitter hash tag – #SSMM and a Facebook page – just in case there are some cormorants about!

The mystery of Cormorants – are they interested in SEO training or Social Media training!

Right, have I mentioned cormorants already? well, cormorants are the full time overseas students taking part in the training too! Just in case you are wondering – these creatures did sit outside of the training room in the Maxwell building in Manchester. There are a couple of theories that explain their interest in SEO and Social Media training – a) interest in increasing their social media profile – tweeting in particular or b) the sight of good food or etc)?…

Have a look at the Search & Social Media Marketing course Facebook page for more evidence of these keen tweeterers!

An SEO training banquet fit for a king

… oh I nearly forgot to mention the spread at each session – a banquet fit for a king-fisher (or was it a cormorant!)!?

Why invest in SEO training?

Having been through the steep, frustrating, sometimes tedious learning curve in pursuit of my goal albeit in an unorthodox sporadic fashion, it’s a great relief to have found a well structured approach to learning the internet mix, that is SSMM.

If you wish to short-cut your path to success in the search marketing arena I would suggest that you seriously consider the training course in Greater Manchester’s University of Salford has to offer. If you don’t live in the Greater Manchester area it might be worth considering to move to Manchester for the 10 weeks time – it is a great place with a number of SEO and Social Media networking groups organised using LinkedIn and Meetup, MediaCity is also about to open its doors too – and as evidenced by the cormorants they did a bit of a commute too!

Now, although it looks like a blatant endorsement for the University of Salford’s commercial SEO training, well it is; part motive for writing this post is in the hope that individuals, business owners and professionals alike will see heed this message:

There is no substitute for good hands-on training that’s backed by a wealth of solid in-depth learning resources to maximize your online successes!

If you have any questions about the course – see when the next #SSMM open evening takes place or if you want to speak to me please get in touch:

• Nev Nelson LinkedIn
• Nev Nelson on Twitter

PS: Do you have any of your theories to explain the "The mystery of Cormorants"? please use the comments sections below!

Dear Business Developer,

Are you looking to get started as web marketing consultant within search and social media marketing? Then read on…

I’m sure you’ll agree that online marketing is huge! Everyday you hear about Google, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. These brand names – that have entered our lexicon – are like pesky mosquitoes buzzing around. They just won’t go away.

And you know it’s a fact the Internet has changed the way savvy businesses do business.  And even the dinosaur companies are starting to realise they’re going to die a horrible death unless they act now.

But Beware the Cowboy Search Marketing Companies

Just last week I bumped into a friend who told me he was working for this type of company. They have a big telesales operation and prey on the naivety of business owners. People who are desperate to increase their sales and profits. Telling someone you can give them 10,000 hits on their Facebook page is a little different to the reality – 10,000 impressions on Facebook. It’s a subtle but crucial difference.

Only get involved with an ethical company.

Do you need Selling Skills to be Successful?

Absolutely. Ideally you’ve got at least two years’ business development experience in the bag. Also, I’ll take it as red you understand to how to build rapport with strangers. And you can generate leads through cold calling (it’s easier than you think). In addition, you’re able to uncover sales opportunities at networking events or down at your local health club.

And it doesn’t just stop at talking. You need to be a competent business writer. Why? Because business developers should be able craft a professional proposal.

Lastly, you must possess good presentation and closing skills.

Search and Social Media Marketing Training will Pay Dividends

Okay, so you’ve got the selling ability of Brian Tracy or Zig Ziglar. If you haven’t then you’re working at it. What do you do next?

Well, if you want to shortcut the road to success then get yourself booked on a quality course. One that covers search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media marketing: the hot topics. You can pick up extra knowledge, such as email marketing, pay-per-click advertising and affiliate marketing once you’ve got a good handle on the SEO and social media stuff.

There are quite a few courses out there, but I’d highly recommend you first take a look at Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (SEMPO). It’s a not-for-profit trade organisation and they offer online certification courses via their commercial arm – SEMPOinstitute.com.

They’re a global organisation and all the top digital marketing agencies (your prospective employers) recognise SEMPOs qualifications.

Do you live near Greater Manchester. England?

If not, then don’t worry. But if you do then check out Salford University Business School because they offer SEMPO courses in a classroom environment. As well as certification, you get the added benefit of industry speakers who come along to offer advice on all aspects of search and social media.

Other Golden Nuggets to Help you Get a Business Development Job in Search Marketing

Below are a some of the things I’ve done over the last ten years to give me better understanding of web marketing.

• Buy and sell items on eBay
• Author an ebook and sell it online
• Dig into Google webmaster tools
• Start blogging or tweeting about your favourite topic
• Stay current by reading SEO/Social news websites
• Get social – set up profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Shoot a video and upload it to YouTube
• Put some holiday snaps on Flickr
• Read great books on Internet marketing (contact Para Web Marketing for a FREE list)
• Build a website, so you have an appreciation of the design, traffic building and conversion process
• Help a local company or charity to promote their business or cause online

7-Step Blueprint to Guaranteed Success

1. Keep honing your business development skills
2. Get a recognised qualification in search and social media e.g. SEMPO
3. Create a CV and covering letter that’s specific to the sales role
4. Try out a few of the golden nuggets (mentioned above)
5. Be proactive – fire off your CV to job boards, recruitment agencies, and web companies who are advertising sales positions
6. Pick up the phone – contact every search, web design and social media company within your commuting area. And ask if they need a good business developer (prepare thoroughly before calling)
7. If you’re anti-social become social – attend industry events, follow and interact with companies you’d like to work for

BIOGRAPHY – Simon Davies LLB

Simon is a freelance business developer and web marketing consultant based in Manchester, England. He has 20 years’ sales and marketing experience, including 10 years at former telecoms giant BT. His time is divided working on his own web projects and that of other small businesses. In addition, he freelances for digital marketing agencies helping them to generate leads and sales.

Internet and website marketing companies from all over the region have turned up en masse at the University of Salford as part of an initiative to combat recent cost cutting announcements.

Under the guise of an intensive training course in SEO and search engine marketing, the University of Salford is selling .ac.uk backlinks to companies for £2000 a pop!

Enduring several 4 hour gruelling sessions, companies specialising in SEO in Manchester and the surrounding areas are holding out until the bitter end to bag one of these highly prized links and, while complaining about the amount of homework, have been happy to part with their hard earned wonga in order to jump on the backlink bandwagon.

One Leeds SEO firm camped outside for three days to make sure of a place on this so called course and told me . . .

“We really need high quality inbound links to complete an internet marketing assignment for a company specialising in van hire Leeds and also a well known mens shoes brand so we’ll do whatever it takes”.

I have to say that I enthusiastically enrolled to ensure that I wasn’t left behind by my colleagues and competitors but very soon began to forget the prize which was waiting and became engrossed with the excellent content of the SEO course itself.

Top SEO training tips and techniques

From the ground rules for keyword research and selection through advanced link building techniques to the latest thinking in social media marketing, both the superb core team and their excellent keynote speakers really managed to get their ideas across and moved my understanding and my ability to apply my learning right across my client base immensely. High end benefits for my clients and a more effective approach by my team will really mean more business and a more enhanced reputation for my company in the dynamic and competitive world of internet and website marketing.

Not sure how ethical this backlink sale is, although I do think the Search and Social Media Marketing Course is actually extremely good and I would definitely recommend you enrol for the next sessions. Hats off though to the guys at the University of Salford, Search and Social Media Course for thinking outside the box with this innovate if somewhat extortionate way to plug the funding gap and keep themselves and their mates in a job.

As a post script I would urge you to register early for this university SEO training course as places are selling like hot cakes and there are only a limited number of .ac.uk backlinks available – Good Luck and Bon Voyage!

What is the Google Panda Update? How has it affected the SERPs? Which tactics might be taken to minimise the effects of the Google Panda Update?

The recent Panda, or ‘Farmer’, update to the Google search engine algorithm has had some interesting and unexpected results in the Search Engines Results Pages (SERPS). Working for the Search team at the Manchester digital media agency Fast Web Media, it is vital for me to understand the purpose, initial impact and long term implications of the Google Panda update and shape SEO strategy for our clients accordingly. Considering all that I’ve learnt on the SSMM course at Salford, I thought I’d tackle this Panda head-on.

The purpose of Panda?

The Panda first reared its head in February 2011 in the US, whilst the rest of the world watched and waited for Panda paw prints to appear in the rankings. Sites in the UK that received significant traffic from the US quickly saw if the Panda update would affect them once it was rolled out globally in March.

The Google Panda update had one principle aim:

Reduce SERP rankings for Low Quality Sites—i.e. sites with low value to users, generally containing unoriginal or shallow content.

The intended targets in the Panda’s sights? Low-quality domains which had little user trust and contributed trivial levels of information or services, such as, affiliate sites containing a high volume of content scraped from legitimate sites. As expected, such sites lost significant visibility in the US Google-SERPs at the end of February.  But what else was hit? This would apparently affect the results of some 12% of search queries. An independent SEO software firm, Sistrix, collated a lot of data and published a list of some of the winners and losers from the update (although the recent article from State of Search questions these figures and their severity)

The main losers appear to be:

• Price comparison sites, such as travel sites
• review sites, like qype.co.uk
• voucher sites, myvouchercodes.co.uk

You can see a more recent list of those affected on Pete Young’s blog (of SSMM fame!) On first look, what is similar about these sites? Shallow content? Poor structure? Prolific use of ads? Poor content and aggressive ad placement generally results in poor user engagement – you are unlikely to stay on a site for long if it’s full of inane drivel and haranguing you with pop-ups.

Google’s algorithm has previously proven capable of identifying nonsensical spam (e.g keyword stuffing) but Panda’s mission is to identify shallow-content, low quality sites. A supposed by-product of the Panda update was that it would help Google to identify high quality sites and reward them in the SERPs accordingly. Sites such as those belonging to established brands, which have their own original content, and ones which promoted high value user experiences would win over the heavily optimised affiliate site that allowed for no quality user engagement. This very interesting interview by Wired with Google engineers Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal in March 2011 outlines the Google thought process behind the update.

Bamboo-zled by the Panda

[Image reproduced from batterymouth.com please contact a.heinze@salford.ac.uk if you object to this image being used on this site].

Some in the Search industry feel that the Panda update was a long time coming and that “wise” SEO practices will have protected against algorithmic changes that targeted low-quality content. The side effects of this ambitious update have been quite a lot of collateral damage. It has hit legitimate sites with a lot of user-generated content, such as Review Centre (see their concerned reaction to the Panda update in a blog post on the Review Centre website).

Mahalo, an information sharing site with a large and active community, suffered heavily from the Panda update and 10% of Mahalo staff were apparently fired the day after the new algorithm took effect. Mahalo is widely viewed as a content farm and is exactly the kind of site Panda should be targeting. This interesting article about Mahalo by SEOBook discusses it in more detail: SEOBook: Black Hat SEO Case Study Nevertheless, traffic being heavily cut through these changes is a grave issue for many sites and businesses, big and small. And more recently, questions have been raised as to the possibility of competitive targeting of certain Microsoft owned sites by the algorithm changes.

Saying all that, there are many ecommerce affiliates that are still holding strong positions and all their product descriptions are duplicated. I know at Fast Web Media, we can still see 2 or 3 voucher sites ranking within the top 10 for brand specific keyword searches for a particular client. Google have removed the ability for webmasters to ask for reconsiderations for those who’ve suffered from the affects of algorithm changes but you can tell them if you think you’ve been unfairly dismissed.

What can we learn from sites like Mahalo which hold some genuine value being penalised by the algorithm? Mahalo’s content base is vast and in topics so broad that it is suspiciously vague in its purpose. It’s certainly no Hitchers Guide to the Galaxy. And what of voucher sites? They often contain many broken links, timed out deals, etc. Is it this kind of sites Google is to rid the SERPs of? It is interesting to note what happened to the price comparison site, beatthatquote.com, which was also negatively affected by the Panda update. Google bought that site last month for £37million. Why would Googly punish its own acquisition, other than to appear fair in its execution of its algorithm? Is it that valuable for Google in terms of a business for price comparison or is it a knowledge/data gathering exercise? It is likely that Google are investing in comparison websites as a way of gathering information about how people interact and use such sites. Under the current Panda update, the way content is produced, structured and shared across such sites is too subtle for the algorithm to distinguish between those more low-quality sites. This first generation Panda, although quite unruly, may evolve to be something a bit more personable and sophisticated when recognising quality content in successive incarnations.

Paws for Thought

So, what do you do if have been backhanded (or “backpawed”) by the Panda? Combating Panda at a basic level boils down to examining the structure and content of your site and being sure to eliminate duplicate or shoddy content. You can start by looking at the impact on traffic and user behaviour using Google Analytics across the different pages of the site and go from there. SEO Mark Nunney clearly outlines some more detailed steps to analyse any potential impact and steps to rectify a SERP slashing in his Panda mauling survival guide. In summary, the main things to look out for are:

CONTENT:

• A high level of duplicate and unoriginal content – either internally or from content being very similar to other site. Example site: Tech blogs – gadget reviews, etc.
• Overzealous On-Site Optimisation – Poorly written content for the user – lacking semantics – continuous repetition of the same phrase or keyword.
• Many pages throughout the site with a low amount of original content.

SITE USE:

• Low CTR (click through rate) from SERPs
• High bounce rates and very low user times on the site
• Low percentage of returning traffic to the site

SITE STRUCTURE:

• Lots of sponsored ads – especially irrelevant ones – littering the page
• High number of paid links from sites owned by the same brand/company/site owner for self promotion
• None or an unconvincing Social Media presence, nor little mention from sites like as news, reviews, forums.

These are all classic SEO issues which should be addressed when implementing best practice and have been covered extensively on this SSMM course at Salford. And although we can outline what quantifies a quality user experience (high traffic, high returning traffic, low bounce rate, long amount of time spent on site, etc), just how does Google begin to identify what is “quality content”  algorithmically? How can the web crawlers scan the content on sites and obtain a substantive and accurate impression of the semantic value of that page? The easiest signals to look out for if content is quality is the amount that site is shared – linked to, tweeted, social bookmarked, etc. AKA The capital of social engagement!

The issue is that “quality of content” is a highly subjective matter. How does one define “low-quality content”? The Wired interview with Cutts and Singh mentions that they compared the Panda results using the Chrome Site Blocker (allowing users to specify sites they wanted blocked from their search results) as a case study for what qualified as “low quality content”. The intuition of the algorithm can only be so sophisticated.

“The Panda eats shoots and leaves; it doesn’t go on Masterchef!”.

Google try and collect enough information and data on user behaviour to create and apply an objective algorithm to subjective matter.

Keeping this in mind, this is where I wonder if the Panda update is a pre-emptive move before rolling out Google +1…

The Personable Panda

Google has also been trying to jump on the social bandwagon of late without much success. Sites such as Google Buzz, a social messaging and information sharing site, and Google Knol, similar to Quora, have failed to crack into the social media market with any noticeable effect. Back in 2009, Google introduced Google Social Search and it has updated and improved the service constantly since then. Matt Cutts not long ago revealed that Google would start taking into account social impact of URLs in the algorithm – i.e. the more a URL is tweeted and shared on Facebook, the more gravitas that link will be given in the eyes on Google. As a result, SEO now involved more than just on-site optimisation and PPC. Social media is now the dominant force in the way internet users share and consume content, and it is playing an increasingly significant role in determining where your site appears in SERPs.

This latest update is a significant shift in the way social affects a site’s position in the SERP. Whether users are posting videos to YouTube, publishing photographs on Flickr, writing content on their blogs or just talking to their friends on Facebook and Twitter, their activity now affects a site’s authority and how it is viewed by Google.

So called “Google +1” is being trailed in American and you can beta test it on your own account at the moment in the UK. It is a way of competing with social networks, such as Facebook, but whilst also being able to glean from user behaviour what results far more relevant quickly and effectively. What is Google +1? Google will allow you to click on a +1 button next to a link as a seal of approval. And other users in your social network groups will be able to see that you’ve “+1” a link.

You can read more about Google +1 from Techcrunch and the speculations on its uses but the reason I’ve included it in this post is in the Panda update preceding Google +1. By currently being largely closed off from the social media world, Google lacks the ability to be able to analyse user behaviour on a highly social level. This is where Google +1 could act as a key to unlocking some of the data potential whilst apparently bettering the user experience of the search engine.

Allow me to elaborate: Panda has apparently hit the tech blogging community quite hard. Many of these sites are genuine hubs of collective interest. But as pointed out by Patrick Altoft in his blogstorm post, how many times do you need to hear about the same gadget review? For such forums and blogging communities, the significant drop in traffic could drastically reduce their site’s viability. Thinking long term, I wonder if such updates that negatively affect the visibility of said communities may further catalyse the way that people will interact online – less through many review sites and forums and more through social media.

Much like if someone dictated you what you could and couldn’t do at a party, you’ll probably just sit sulking in a corner or end up not even going. The Panda update is more evidence of a paradigm shift in the way that content is structured and angled more towards enabling social online. With this in mind, I was wondering if the Panda update may be pre-emptive strike that encourages websites to structure themselves favourable, ready for Google +1.

Conclusions

Google wants to be more than just a search engine – and its forays into all sorts of projects, most particularly with social projects such as “Buzz” and “Knol” are testament to that. Google talks about wanting to produce the best user experience possible. Why? So users continue using their services. Yet I am curious about the long term impact on social communities, such as legitimate tech forums, which have been hit by the Google algorithm by such changes. Many of the Panda victims appear to make sense, and with any algorithm change there are winners and losers. But why remove the visibility of sites that allow and foster genuine community engagement? At the end of the day, the algorithm is a scientific formula that is being applied to millions and millions of sites. It is inevitable that some genuine sites, in particular ones which do have a lot of the same content (even if it is user generated) will be hit by the update.

Under the new Panda regime, what do you do if you search for something and forums/review sites don’t show up in the top 10? You search again, you use other sites. Users navigate the SERPs more and giving Google more user behaviour data. Users may also be more inclined to use Google reviews, thus helping to promote Universal Search, etc. By hitting the review sites, I wonder if it’s not just Google trying to promote their services and in turn getting more information out of its customers. Is Panda preparing us to be more social (along with the advent of +1) by clearing the SERPs of site that had poor user engagement?

As we all well know, you cannot force online communities to be social – social sharing and communities and manifests themselves in a way that external forces can try to influence but it is often an internal catalyst which drives it and helps it take form. You can create a social space but cannot really dictate the way it is used – trying to do so often spells disaster. But social is well and truly here in the SERPs. And it will be interesting to see how the SEO community shifts and adapts strategy in the coming months post-Panda.

And speaking of being social, you can find with me on LinkedIn or @BrionyGunson

Starting the Facebook fan page Journey

Creating a Facebook fan page may seem like an intimidating and scary thought for companies just starting out on the social media highway, this blog post will offers you step-by-step instructions on how to set up that initial Facebook fan page learnt from my time on a Search & Social Media Marketing course at Salford University in order to set up my own social media strategy for my company NIBS Group. This blog post will also cover some of the reasons why you should set one up and why its interactive elements make it such a great tool for business promotion.

You may already use Facebook for personal reasons such as keeping up with your family & friends or sharing photos, but the idea of running a business page on the world’s largest social network might still seem intimidating. Businesses of all sizes can both obtain value from Facebook pages – "for free"! On the one hand, big corporations can display a more accessible and personal image by promptly answering customer inquiries and developing a community around their products and services by for example posting fun photos or videos.

On the other hand, small businesses and start-ups can expand their customer base by reaching out to their prospects and by doing what small businesses do best – be personable and knowing your customers in person. This could be around customer engagement which developed around specialist content that is of interest to your customers, thus lowering other marketing-related costs.

Simply put, Facebook business pages are easy to use, flexible and interactive – all great reasons to justify setting one up today. You are advised to watch the video below and explore more Facebook features on your own to take advantage of this free, effective tool!

It takes 5 minutes to create a Facebook fan page – but a lifetime to deliver it

Important: Knowing the waters before developing your social media presence is essential, this includes finding niche keywords used that relate to your business. Facebook Trends also helps facilitate ideas on common search terms pertaining to your business. As a business you also have to make a decision to allocate adequate time to maintaining of this new channel that you will offer to your customers – it takes a short time to create a Facebook fan page but potentially a lifetime to deliver it...it takes time, long term effort and patience.

Although Facebook pages set-up is free to you now, you will be committing time and effort in a platform which is hosted on a third party and although at the moment there are no charges to businesses Facebook long term have to make money too! However, assuming that you know that the demogaphics that you are looking for are on Facebook – go to Google Adplanner to get latest stats… there are few reasons why you should not try Facebook Page for your business! Remember – that you can delete your page within two mouse clicks so if you don’t like what you see you can always leave Facebook when you want (to do that go to Edit Page > Delete Page that simple)!!!

Advantages of Branding Your Business on Facebook

So, you are still reading this this! Good! This means you have the courage to see if Facebook works for you! Below are just some of the reasons why you others have joined Facebook and you should consider joining it too. Facebook…

• Acts as a contemporary reference resource for your site.
• Helps gain relevant traffic to your site; this means your referral traffic can be increased.
• Facilitates relevant link exposure for your site and services & products.
• Supports your search engine optimization campaign.
• Doubles your SERP listing chances, which means this will improve your visibility in search engine results.
• Can reduce off-line advertising costs by targeting your prospects more specifically with Facebook ads.
• Brands and helps you to engage with your customers and hence help in maintaining positive reputation online.

For companies wanting a more professional image for their Facebook fan page, companies such as NIBS Spectrum offer a social media set-up service which gives businesses the chance to get professionally created Facebook fan pages which are designed to compliment your overall company brand image as is shown in the example below:

To set up your account

Right, are you ready to give it a go? It should take you no longer than 5 minutes!

1. Go to www.facebook.com.

Create a profile. If you already have a personal profile on Facebook and don’t work your work profile to be associated with this it might be worth creating another "work" related identify for you.

Once signed in, Click on Ads and Pages:

Then click + Create Page. To create a page for a celebrity, band or business” Determine the appropriate category for your business by clicking the relevant category:

Now, enter the name of the business. Read the Facebook Pages Terms and then sign your authorisation by ticking the relevant box and click on Get Started.

2. Add main image and tag line.

Hover your mouse over the big question mark:

and then click on Change Picture. Upload your logo or a photo of your business or product here. {This will be your business’ Facebook image.} Under this image, click on “Write something about . . .” This is where you would put your tag line or a brief description of your business.

3. Edit your Basic Information.

Click on the Basic Information tab:

and then Edit your company information. The amount and type of information that you are able to input here depends on the category you selected for your business. Once complete press the Save Changes button.

4. Upload photos.

Click on the Photos tab:

and upload photos of your business and/or your products. If you’d like, you can create multiple albums to group images together by category.

5. Edit default landing tab.

Within Manage Permissions, decide where you would like your fans and non-fans to land when they go to your Facebook profile:

6. Congratulations! You now have a Facebook business page!

When you are satisfied with the appearance of your new page you can invite others to like it! Once you create you page it will be immediately publicly available for all to see on the internet!

7. Become a fan.

You should become your first fan so that you can experiment with different posts and get a feel for the functionality of your new page.

8. Tell your customers or clients about your new Facebook page and encourage them to become a fan.

The more fans you have, and the more that your fans interact with your page, the more you will be able to take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook and its power for unlimited "free" advertising.

9. Get a Facebook Vanity URL

In order to get a Vanity URL (in other words the company name as your Facebook URL for example facebook.com/MyCompany) – your page needs at least 25 fans to have a user name, so this is your first challenge to get 25 people to like your page! Once you reach 25 people go to Basic Information and set your name.

Some Quick Facebook Tips and activities to engage your audience:

• Learn from your competition: Do research & learn how the emerging business patterns exist already.
• Keep natural: Facebook users are very alert and with it, let things flow naturally.
• Talk officially unofficial: Remember to update your readers with topical news but deliver it in language that is interesting and easily understandable.
• Keep the salesmanship down: Though networking and community building are the two prime jobs of social media, it is ok to pepper in some relevant service news. You can announce your offers discounts in a clear concise manner but be tactful in how you do it.
• Talk about topics related to your business: No point in talking about ‘X’ if you’re doing business in ‘Y’. Simply put – you won’t be speaking to the people listening to you and will add followers that may not care about the majority of your posts.
• "Follow" and "Become a Fan": It depends on what kind of people follow you or become your fans and what kind of information you release.

One Great Facebook Feature:

One great feature of Facebook – if you have a company blog is that you can upload your blog posts to your Facebook profile automatically:

• Once on your Facebook page, click on Edit Page.
• Under Apps, click on Notes > Edit Settings.
• On the Edit Settings pop up box click add and then Okay:

• Now click Go to Application next to notes. Click on the bottom left Edit import settings

• Now enter the URL of your blog feed and click Start Importing:

• Please note that there were recently (April 2011) some glitches with Facebook and the notes import feature does not always work…

Now, how did you find creating your fan page, did you find it easy or was it difficult?

I would love to hear from you, please contact me on Twitter

I am writing this based on experience from my company’s first foray into the world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising (using Google Adwords) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). I am the sole marketing person for an independent manufacturing business – Alker Fibre Optics – and when I joined I was made aware that we intended to commit a large slice of the marketing budget to PPC.  I explained I had little experience with this but was told not to worry:

The experience taught us a rather expensive lesson, but we also saw glimpses of how it could work and gain us a lot of business, but at the time we just did not have the skills in-house. So, what have we learned from this?

Adword for Dummies – it did actually work!

I should also mention that prior to hiring an agency to help with our account, our Director, armed only with an ‘Adword for Dummies’ book got stuck in and set up some Adword campaigns, and I have to say, it did actually work! There was a real pick-up in enquiries and business almost immediately. However, it quickly became clear that the campaigns were not the most economical, we were spending far more than necessary to achieve our targets not to mention the countless hours spent googling for keywords! At the time, outsourcing to someone with the know-how and time we lacked seemed a better option – and it might have been, had we ourselves been better informed before choosing our agency.

I do believe we have to take some responsibility for not having a clear understanding of what to expect, but I also think that there are agencies and consultants out there who are more than happy to take your monthly fee and then run and hide behind Skype and email once you start asking questions.

So if you are intending to outsource your Adwords campaign here are my top ten things to ask agencies before you commit – but with the caveat that you should also do some research and find out more about search engine marketing and what it means to your business before going ahead.

You can skip the intro and go straight to ‘Top ten questions…’ if you have already done some research on the power of Google, SEO and Adwords.

Why is ranking high on Google so important?

I have built on my experience at Alker by attending the excellent Search and Social Media Marketing (SSMM) course at Salford University, so below follows a little information on where to start your research.

A little on Search Engine Optimisation first.

How many times have you clicked past page one when searching with Google? Not many I bet. If you don’t go past page one why would your potential customers? This link from SEOBook.com illustrates the point beautifully:

• The reason so few people click past page one is because Google is very good at what it does. It simply wants the person searching to find exactly what they want in the shortest space of time. Google therefore rewards websites which are relevant to the search by placing them towards the top of page one. This is why ensuring that your website is optimised for search engines is so important.
• For Adwords or Pay Per Click, the same is true. Relevancy is king and Google will reward you by charging you less per click if the pages you direct your adverts to are highly relevant to the search term. They do this by allocating a score to each of your keywords used in your campaigns and your chosen agency should make sure your scores are relatively high (no lower than 5 out of 10).

This is a very basic overview and as I said before I highly recommend you familiarise yourself with the field further. A good starting point to find out more about Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing is as always Wikipedia – SEO / SEM, but I can also recommend Avinash Kaushik’s web analytics blog.

10 questions to ask before outsourcing SEO and Adwords

So, born from expensive experience, here is what I should have asked, and what I believe you should expect from a good Search Engine Marketing/Adwords company or consultant – but don’t forget to do some homework first!

1. How long do I need to do this ‘optimising’ for?

   The first thing to bear in mind is that Search Engine Marketing is not just for Christmas – it is for life. A long-term strategy is therefore important. If you are relatively certain that you want to outsource both the organic optimisation and the paid for search for the foreseeable future, then budget for it and agree a long-term strategy with tangible outcomes and regular updates.

2. Is there any training offered?

   If your longer-term strategy involves bringing the skills in-house or making sure your staff have some core skills around search marketing, ask your shortlisted companies if they offer training and on-going support (and if they have run any courses so far). If you want to train your staff independently of your chosen SEO company I can highly recommend the Search and Social Media course at Salford University.

3. Will you understand their reports or is it one big alphabet soup?

     Ask to see examples of client reports (without the client data of course) and if there is something you don’t understand – ask.  A good digital marketing company should be able to explain what all the terms mean and why they are important in such a way that you understand it. Most search engine optimisation is not about technical know-how. It is about ensuring you have good, relevant copy that is easy for the search engines to find and understand. It is about increasing your web-presence and authority with an all-round strategy.

4. How will they build you good, authoritative links?

   This is a key part of getting your website up the rankings and unfortunately also an area where less reputable companies will take shortcuts that can seriously damage your business (to the point where you no longer show up at all on Google searches). Instead of going for someone promising you 100 links a day, choose the company that will take the time to talk to you about who your customers are, or what the online trade journals and directories relevant to your business are and if you can gain links back to your website from these. As an example, my company, alker fibre optics, has a number of Universities as clients. Getting backlinks from these around work we have done with them was far more valuable to us than random links from irrelevant websites, and also unlikely to land us in trouble with Google!

5. How will they communicate with you?

   Decide if you want regular face-to-face meetings. It may seem a small point, but some companies will prefer to deal mainly on email and phone.  Personally, I prefer to know I have someone’s full attention when discussing my business and did find it frustrating when regular meetings were difficult to arrange, particularly for the first few months when there is a lot of new jargon to take in.

6. Who do you liaise with and vice versa?

   This goes both ways. Your chosen company should ensure you have key contact people you can easily get in touch with and, likewise, you should champion the SEO and Adwords work from the top of your own company. Make sure that it becomes part of someone’s job to manage the day-to-day work. If, for instance, you are implementing customer feedback on your website there is nothing worse for your business than to then ignore it because you haven’t got time. The same goes if your digital strategy involves using social media platforms (like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter). If you’re going to do it, make sure you do it consistently.

7. Who will have access to and work on my website?

   Does your shortlisted companies outsource the work or do they have the staff in-house? Outsourcing isn’t necessarily a negative, but I would find out if they regularly use the same consultants and that your work will be assigned to mainly one contractor to ensure a consistent approach.

8. Who else do they work with? 

   A good digital media agency should have current or previous clients that they are happy for you to get in touch with. 

9. Their website looks great, but…?

   Do all the basic checks you would do if you were making any substantial financial commitment. It is amazing how a great looking website can dazzle you into thinking everything is hunky-dory. Check their registration with companies house, ask them about staff turnover, how long they have been in business etc. NB: A lot of SEO/Adwords companies are relatively young – don’t immediately count this against them!

10. Manage your expectations.

    There are no magic widgets that you can buy that will propel you to the top of Google’s organic listing and no one can guarantee you this using SEO alone. If you are starting from scratch you should allow three months for the work to start making an impact. If you are also implementing Adwords, this will have more immediate results and you should expect to see your adverts appearing on Google in the first week of going live. How long the work takes leading up to this depends on the complexity of your business, but I would expect it to take at least 4-6 weeks.

I would be interested to hear feedback from the excellent agencies that have contributed to the SSMM course  about their experiences – are expectations from clients too high? Have I missed any obvious points in my list?

Find me on LinkedIn/AnneGrondahl or @annegrondahl.

My recent foray into the world of Search Engine Optimisation, PPC and Social Media with the Manchester digital agency Fast Web Media has been an intense and enlightening experience. 

And the Search and Social Media Marketing course at Salford has allowed me to refresh and expand my SSMM knowledge. So I thought I would use this opportunity to share a little about my experiences of starting out a career in SEO with regards to the Salford course for those who may be considering a similar path.

Getting a taste for SEO

Prior to my role with Fast Web Media, I had, like the majority, been an avid consumer of “the internet” for work, rest and play. A Wikipedia addict, a Facebook user, a mocker of Tweeters, a LiveJournal dabbler and a Geocities resident way back when, my online world previously revolved around university work, amusing memes, stalking friends on Facebook and Googling for cheap gig tickets.

I had relied heavily, if not solely, on Google over recent years to help me navigate the digital seas; although I had rather naively shown little regard as to how search engines manufactured their results pages (as a science graduate, I look back and find lack of curiosity really rather shameful!) However, my role at Fast Web Media threw me in the deep end, opening my eyes to a brave new world.

The ever expanding Google empire, the Social Revolution…

along with the maturation of mobile technology and the digitalisation of the almost everything seem to correlate with the evolution and expansion of SEO. There is so much to learn and so much to take in all the time. To bastardise a Douglas Adams’ quote (forgive me), my initial impression was that

“SEO is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.” 

The Foundation course at Salford allowed me to refresh the basics of what I had already learnt “on the job”, as well as gaining a general overview week on week. The course broke down all this information before my brain resembled something like a smashed bowl of petunias.

As SEO strategy is generally comprised of many smaller strategies and tactics, it is important to explore the different options and keep an eye on how existing methodologies are changing, lest you wish to fall behind the frontrunners. As any SEO will tell you, we are constantly learning all the time.

The Spice of Life

So, what do I like about working in digital media, in particular is SEO? One short-tail, high competition keyword can probably sum it up: Variety.

Variety with clients; variety in my day-to-day tasks; variety in my professional relationships. Fast Web Media has a great range of clients, big and small, which I’ve been allowed to sink my teeth into. Work can vary between Carling, Bravissimo and The Premier League (or “Beer, Boobs and Balls”, as I like to quip) in a single day. The benefit of doing the Salford course is that I have been allowed to explore the intricacies involved in the different theory and disciplines whilst then seeing and employing their practical applications on a wide variety of client work and the bespoke strategies we use.

Day to day in the office will always be different: from linkbuilding to pondering cunning new tactics for linkbaiting; from approaching new clients to constantly re-assessing existing clients and keeping them abreast of new developments in SEO. I might spend a morning getting lost in Google Analytics or stalking potential new leads on Twitter, or reading the countless brilliant blogs that make up the ever-expanding knowledge database for inspiration, advice and often educational amusement.

The main draw to the world of SEO, PPC and social media is that it allows me the chance to be analytical and creative in equal measures. And not being afraid of being wrong is pretty much the best advice I’ve had. It’s all about testing, learning, reviewing and creating.

A Bitter Taste

Being new to the industry, you cannot fail to notice the variety of attitudes towards the SEO as an industry. We certainly have a name for ourselves – the recent JCPenny fiasco has been the most recent case whereby the debates around the ethics of SEO have been fired up again. I personally find the whole Blackhat/Whitehat debate fascinating, amusing summarised in this video from SES London 2009:

I think it’s true to say that the forerunners of any industry or discipline are often the ones challenging its boundaries and pushing the limits as far as they can go. Although, please don’t take that as a commendation of such “immoral” practices – but it is the existence of such a spectrum and wide variety of methods and talent which so enamours me to the industry.

Google is a powerhouse of the internet world. It professes that it constantly amends its algorithm so as to “enhance the user experience”. It is that algorithm that SEOs are constantly puzzling over, trying to manipulate the results for various ends. Google says it has a responsibility to its users to have the most relevant content in its SERPs, and recent changes to the algorithm such as the Panda Update have seen the life of an SEO become that all a bit trickier.

However, in some ways, I see value in SEO reach beyond the financial. I think it is the responsibility of SEOs to constantly challenge Google’s algorithm since Google acts as an authority on knowledge and dictates what is relevant content. Any authority which has such power and financial, social and political influence should be questioned, challenged and held to account. Experimenting with Google’s algorithm and the SERPs is to exercise the right to question its results; Google promotes content which Google has attributed quantitative value to, and as mass consumers of this mass knowledge, we should question their methodologies and intentions. They say “content is king” – but I think it’s important to challenge the “natural order” if it is Google dictating who the monarch is.

What’s Your Flavour?

As such a colourful industry, involving so many different skillsets, I’ve been fascinated by the winding tales as to how people have ended up in the SEO/digital media world – including the wide spectrum of people on the SSMM course, from port to ponies!

After divulging a bit about mine (we can talk more here), I’d be very interested to hear more about you – so, what’s the story about you and SEO?

After completing the Search and Social Media Marketing course late last year I got involved in the Analysis Exchange – a free initiative to connect non-profit projects with SEO analyst experts and students.

Via the project I work on – Plings (about Places to Go and Things to Do for kids) – I was lucky enough to work with Tom Betts, Head of web analytics at FT.com.

Along with Stewart, our Analysis Exchange student, we really benefited from some great insight and compelling actions to implement. So, with this in mind, I asked Tom a few questions for the Search and Social Media Marketing course blog:

As head of the web analytics team at the Financial Times, what is your main role and task?

“I am responsible for the use of data to make decisions at FT.com. Unlike many businesses, online is our entire business at FT.com, meaning that we provide services to a wide internal client-base. My team and I get stuck in to analytics projects for:

• Editorial (identifying which content is popular with what audience and why)
• Marketing (figuring out how to sell online subscriptions to access our content, attract new audiences, how do we effectively spend marketing budgets etc)
• IT (determining site problems, capacity planning and the like)
• Advertising (to understand who our readers are, what interests them and how we can paint a better picture of our audience back to advertisers)
• Finance (to analyse the profitability of our products and services)

…and the list goes on.

It is an extremely diverse role which spans everything from just telling people what is happening on site, what is performing well / not so well, to developing analytical models to predict future behaviour (what topics of content interest people who go on to subscribe?) and measuring the ROI of search engine marketing spend. Our executive team are heavily reliant on our insights to make product changes.”

Why did you get involved in the Analysis Exchange?

“I already manage an analytics team but wanted to see how I could help a wider selection of students to move their analytics skills up a level. As an industry, web analytics is a little bit chicken-and-egg. There seem to be endless roles for analysts, but only for people with relevant experience. It’s tough to gain that experience and Analysis Exchange is the best way I know of to obtain experience with real data on real-life projects.

Additionally, I spend most of my day thinking of the best way to use analytics for profit and felt I wanted to help some non-profit making organisations.”

What helped you make a success of your first Analytics Exchange project?

“Being on top of student and organiser to ensure that we were sticking to time and scope. I tried to tie the scope down as much as possible from the outset since the single largest reason I see projects delivering late is due to scope creep.”

Crystal ball time – but what is your analytics thing-to-watch for 2011?!

“I have two for this:

1. Predictive web analytics – the area of ‘predictive analytics’ is already mature in many fields, but not yet in web analytics. Using web data to predict what a user might be interested in or what they might buy next is still quite pioneering in our industry. But not for much longer.
2. Multichannel analytics – we’re seeing a huge and rapid shift in consumption from desktop PCs to access content to a wide variety of mobile devices. The development of apps, where the user experience is far more native to the device, poses big challenges but exciting opportunities for web analytics. All of a sudden, you are measuring much more than just the web.”

Finally, what tips would you give those studying on the #SSMM course?

“Find some real data and get stuck in! The Analysis Exchange is a great place to start and some experience there would land you in good stead for any digital marketing, SEO or analytics role.

Read around, and definitely check out the work of Avinash Kaushik. Simply by reading and understanding his ‘An hour a day‘ book, you’ll be well ahead of many practitioners in our field!”

Tom will also be speaking at the forthcoming SAScon 2011 conference in Manchester.

As the co-owner of Smithfield Wine, a local wine merchant based in Manchester, I have had to deal with web developers and so called “SEO experts” to ensure that smithfieldwine.com is returned in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and that the online business grows. As we specialise in niche wine markets such as:

• Vegetarian wine
• Vegan wine
• Fairtade wine
• and Kosher wine

this should be possible.

www.smithfieldwine.com – SEO case study

Our web developer offered us 6 months of free SEO if we would go with them. Sounded like a good idea so we did.

Before we launched the reworked web site smithfieldwine.com had a page rank of 5 and we were on the first page of Google for the majority of our products and all of our niche categories. We now have a page rank of 3 and the restaurants and bars that we supply are ranking higher than us for our products merely by including their wine lists on their websites!

As our 6 months of free SEO was up our developer asked us to consider taking up an annual contract and offered this proposal:

This really got our interest! I started to look at what we had got in terms of SEO over the last 6 months:

• The online wine gift shop category did not have a page title
• None of our 16 categories had any content
• A number of pages had the same page title and description
• There were over 700 Google crawl errors generated by the “bespoke” software

I decide that we needed help. I googled “manchester seo courses” and after sifting through much dross found the Salford University Business School course on Search and Social Media Marketing (SSMM).

After attending the taster evening in January we decided that this course was an essential part of our future development as online marketeers.

Having completed the four day introduction course I know that, after completing the Professional course, if we are not capable of handling our own SEO and SMM we will be more than adequately equipped to find expert SEO companies, which we know are out there and specify what we need and be able to monitor the results of our investment.

My “SEO foundation” results:

Having completed the first four evenings of the SEO Foundation course, which looked at keyword research, basic on site optimisation and off page optimisation, here are some of the observations in relation to the smithfieldwine.com website:

Writing of clearly focused title pages

For example, “Vegan Wines” being the primary keyword on the Vegan Wines page, the title for this page should clearly show the reader and the search engine the content of the page. The reader will be better placed to make a decision when seeing the page title in the SERPS and the search engine will be better able to index the page in its index.

At the moment the Vegan Wines page has the title “Vegan Wine | Smithfield Wine Merchants UK | Buy Vegan Wine Online”. However, the content on the page lists Vegan Wines from around the world etc.

Using the SEOBook toolbar we can see here the Title and the Description tag of the page:

Importance of keyword research

Having done some keyword research we can see what it is that the buyers are searching for; using a tool such as Google Keyword Suggestion Tool, we can see that the term “Vegan Wines” – plural of  “Vegan Wine” seems to be more popular with search engine users. By simply adding an “s” to the “Wine”, the potential number of visitor is increased by nearly 800 per month globally and 120 locally.

The keyword “Buy vegan wines online” – which is prominently featured in the current title and the description tag – has little or no traffic logged according to Google. This is a problem which many businesses can face where SEO professionals suggest that they will optimise a page for certain keywords to make sure that we are on page number one of SERP, but if this term is not used by the customers none of them will find us!

The same applies to the “Smithfield Wine Merchants UK” keyword – which is also prominently featured on the page title. The brand name of the website should really be easy to optimise for and hence there is no reason to include it on every single title page. If anything, this dilutes the focus of the web page to any other visitor who is only interested in vegan wine in the first instance. This is not to say that there should be no pages that have the brand name in the title tag.

A word of warning to any customer of SEO services: – check that the keyword terms selected for optimisation are working for you – if you are number one but nobody is searching for that keyword – it is not going to be of much benefit to the business although some “so-called SEOs” will be happy to point out that they did their job well!

We can also see related keywords to the primary keyword “Vegan Wines”, which are in relation to the web page that lists a number of different wines, these are:

“Vegan wine list”, and “Vegan friendly wine”. Bearing in mind that these are complementary terms, the optimised title which would target the primary keyword – “Vegan wines” – and two secondary terms – “Vegan wine list”, and “Vegan friendly wine” – could be combined into the following title text:

“Vegan wines – vegan wine list for vegan friendly wine lovers”

With this title we are still within the 62 characters that are the recommend length for a title tag.

Now, using the same keyword the META description tag for the page could be optimised from the existing text of:

“META description: Smithfield vegan wine. A stunning selction of great value fine vegan wines from around the world. Buy vegan wine online for home wine delivery.”

To something that provides a better summary of the individual page:

“META description: Choose from a selection of specially selected vegan wines a vegan wine list for vegan friendly wine lovers. From Argentinian to Uruguayan we have tasted and hand picked vegan red, white and sparkling wines for you!”

The new title includes the use of keywords that we researched and summarises the content of the page with more focus on vegan wines and also removes the typing mistake of “selction” in the original description text. Although the keyword tag is no longer used by search engines, there is still some merit if only for the benefit of future SEO page maintenance to remind the editors of what the keywords were that were used to focus this work.

Use of heading on the vegan wines page

The current web page has a heading “Vegan Wines” – which is the new keyword that we found to be more popular with the search results and was selected as the primary keyword for this page. The good news is that it is clearly labelled for the visitor using heading 1 formatting.

The headings hierarchy should show to the search engine and the reader what is important on the page. Therefore, heading 1 should be used for the primary keyword only. But, in our case we can see that the website design template also uses heading 1 for “Search Our Wines” and “Wine Departments” sections of the web page. This sends a conflicting message to Google or any other robot that tries to index this page. It has to understand which text is more important and therefore the two additional heading one selections as highlighted in the following screenshot on the left hand side of the web page do not help in providing focus:

Moreover, heading 2 – which is the second most significant heading of the page is showing the text of “Your Shopping Cart Contains” – this confuses Google indexing bots even further, since this text sends a signal to the bot that the second most important bit of information on the page is something related to a shopping cart! Only at heading 3 level do we see the important keyword for the results of the Vegan Wines – these are the selections of wines classified by their regions. So, to improve this page from an SEO perspective and to focus on Vegan Wines it is important to re-design the website infrastructure which would de-grade the less relevant heading to a lower level and upgrade the headings that provide content to a higher level: For example in this case:

• Vegan Wines – keep at heading 1
• Argentinian vegan wines – could be heading 2
• Australian vegan wines – could be also heading 2 ….
• Search Our Wines – could be heading 3
• Wine Departments  – could be heading 3
• Your Shopping Card Contains – could be heading 4

The incorrect use of headings shows a fundamental flaw in the current bespoke e-commerce web page.

Another lesson learned – if you get a bespoke website it must deliver what is needed for your SEO and not only for the site graphic design!

Thematic breakdown of the website sections

The page file names are also important for SEO and the structure that is developed to help Google and other search engines to show the structure of a site give a meaning of what is important.

For example, now if you click on Argentinian wines the following web page name is used:

www.smithfieldwine.com/Argentinian-Vegan-Wines-C-99

However, a better like naming convention, which helps to show that this one is one of many other “vegan wines”, is:

www.smithfieldwine.com/vegan-wines/Argentinian/

This structure would follow the category of the individual bottle of wine further down the hierarchy of the different wines, for example instead of having this page for Santa Luisa Malbec 2007:

www.smithfieldwine.com/Santa-Luisa-Malbec-2007-PID-1

A better file name convention would be:

www.smithfieldwine.com/vegan-wines/Argentinian/Santa-Luisa-Malbec-2007

This file shows the search engine very clearly that this wine is part of vegan wines from Argentina and is called Santa Luisa Malbec 2007. This naming convention could also be replicated in the page title, page description and page heading 1.

Social media optimisation

Currently at Smithfield wines we use Twitter and Facebook for communication with our customers. However, in order to talk to us on Twitter or Facebook the visitors have to leave smithfieldwines.com. This means that PageRank is being lost to the external websites from every page. To prevent the PageRank leakage the attribute in the link Meta tag rel=”nofollow” should be used.

Moreover, the use of social media is only maximised on the blog and not on the main sales focused website. For example, here we can see that a page can be liked by Facebook users and once they like something it automatically shows their friends that they found something interesting providing an opportunity for “viral” marketing. In the same way, the more people like a particular wine dedicated web page, the more they are passing on a recommendation to others which then helps to increase their trust and so they are more likely to purchase it. The image below shows the Tweet and Like plugin installed on the http://www.smithfieldwine.co.uk blog:

The link to the Facebook page is currently linking to my personal page and the web designers didn’t recommend changing the personal page to the company page – which is very simple to do and creates another opportunity to offer more interaction with customers.

Hmmm, what could be the strategy for the Facebook page?

Please share your recommendations below!

What is the importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to the University of Salford and specifically to Salford Business School? The University has approximately 250 websites and the main websites receive hundreds and thousands of visits every year. So why should we worry about SEO and what is the point in Social Media and Social Media Marketing? They can never be monetized. Time is a precious commodity, Social Media Marketing eats time and we need to use our time where it will most benefit the University of Salford and Salford Business School. Right?

Right if you are only interested in website traffic but if you are interested in meeting the needs of your customers, students, stakeholders and research partners, then SEO and Social Media Marketing are fundamental:

• SEO, when used properly, and in the context of meeting the needs of stakeholders and business school students is powerful.
• SEO enables the correct visitor to find the most relevant content quickly.
• The use of appropriate header tags, title tags, alt tags, keyword density and linking strategy not only improve the ranking of the University of Salford’s content but also better meets the needs of the Business Schools student or research partner.
• This is the start of a productive online relationship.

Social Media is the means through which relationships are developed and enhanced. The Business School at the University of Salford has a number of Facebook pages run by the School or by students to enable shared experience, tips, services and commentary. Whilst SEO helps to raise awareness, the Social Media platforms when used as part of a multichannel and integrated engagement solution create the engagement, the conversation, the loyalty and the advocacy.

And what about those 250 websites? We are currently working to reduce the number and increase the quality of websites across the University of Salford. Promoting 250 websites, not only spreads effort but it also results in the cannibalisation of web traffic and dilutes the impact of the SEO and the engagement.

So choose the content most needed and wanted by your audience, map the channels most likely to reach your target audience and focus your SEO and Social Media efforts in those areas. This is a win win for the Business School, the University, the students and other interested parties. Best practice in SEO and Social Media is taught at the Business School in a pragmatic and relevant manner. As Head of Digital at the University, I am keen to ensure my skills are current in this rapidly evolving field and experts in user journey, SEO, Analytics and conversion are hard to find. That is why I am taking the course.