Where do you turn when your business slows down or reaches a point where it stops growing? Well that is the question I asked myself, working on an organic vineyard in the beautiful south west of France and a in a wine shop in Hale, a few months ago. Well grab a glass of wine, sit back and look no further guys, organic marketing and social media are the answer.

Nowadays, most social businesses don’t use their capacity to their advantage. It’s easy to employ a marketing company, spend a lot of money, and not see any results. A friend of mine has a successful optical instruments online business and decided to outsource his Google ads campaign to a marketing company. After 6 months of paying high management fees he decided to end it and he saw no difference in his sales or website visits. This is why I went out there and studied SEO at the University of Salford as you are never better served then by yourself.

Maybe now is the time to mention that this blog is written by a glamorous blonde, and so will not be full of complicated words and non-understandable long statements about how you can go in the back end of your website and change every small details and correct mistakes. Time to employ a descent IT professional. However, there are still many things you can do by yourself.

So, to get back to how you can make a massive difference in your business, social media is a great opportunity. You’re probably thinking that I’ve lost the plot, that everyone uses Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other social websites; but do you use them the appropriate way? Probably not or you wouldn’t be reading this post.

For a start, pay attention to what happens on the social media. Listen for what social media users are saying about your company, your competitors, and your products, why they love them, why they don’t. Don’t start guessing or thinking you know what people want, because honestly you never know what’s in anyone’s head. You can also find future trending topics, and maybe even spot new markets and products opportunities. Isn’t this great?

Now that you’ve done this, you can start populating your social media content. The great thing is by listening to others, you will now have a better idea of what to post, what will be shared, talked about and even referred to. Be the first to post an interesting and relevant news and gain more customers awareness.

To make your customers connected with your brand you need to engage with them, make them feel they matter to you. The hardest thing is that you might sometimes get negative feedback as you can’t always have happy customers, but the way you deal with them will be crucial for the rest of your social network. Breathe in, stay calm and never step out of place. The customer is –unfortunately- always king.

As you don’t get anything for free these days, social ads is a great way to spend your money. Social ads are those ads that are displayed to users who have friends that are fans of the advertised business; they aren’t excessively expensive and can draw more attention to your business and target a specific part of the population.

After you’ve made so much effort in putting yourself out there don’t forget to measure your success. By doing this every so often, you will be able to see what works and what doesn’t and with time it will become easier to use social media and you will always be the one knowing all the gossip – and hopefully spreading a few- in your industry.

I guess you are at least half way into your bottle of wine by now, so as a last note here are a few tips. Have a strategy, plan what you want to post every week or month so you don’t forget to do it. Social content needs to provide value and encourage action, your post isn’t just here to look good but also to be shared. By using social media wisely, your customers will sell your brand for you, and the best is that social media will help your business dominate the first page of Google.

If you ran out of wine by now, don’t hesitate to have a browse on here http://tour-de-belfort.com (free delivery all over the uk).

Melanie

Working on a business assistance project for small and medium enterprises we hear time and time again from businesses that they know they need to be using social media but “I’m too old for all that”, “there are so many different sites I don’t know which ones are right for me” or “I’ve given it a go but I can’t see any obvious gains”. As someone who before my current role, has only used social media in a personal capacity, studying on the Search and Social Media Marketing course has made me realise that getting social media right will take some effort but there are definite benefits.

Strategy! Strategy! Strategy! 

You wouldn’t embark on an advertising campaign without having first developed a strategy, the same applies to social media. Ask yourself some key questions. What do you want from it? Who are you trying to target? If you sell plumbing parts then taking hundreds of beautiful pictures of your products and putting them on Pinterest may not be the best use of your time…please feel free to prove me wrong though! CMO.com have published a guide to some of the main social media options. What resources do you have? If you only have limited resources then don’t overstretch yourself. Don’t forget to think long term, just as in traditional business, building up customer relationships is key and social media is a great tool for this. Keeping your followers engaged is essential which is when you need to think about…

Content! Content! Content!

Good quality content is just as important on social media as it is on your website. If you are putting out the same (dull) message over and over again your followers are going to lose interest pretty fast. Rebecca Rae, Head of Social Media at Photolink Creative Group, recommends focusing on three key points when planning your content 1. What they want. 2. What you want. 3. Something new. When all three overlap you will have the perfect piece of content! Creating a bank of content and using social media scheduling tools will definitely help you manage the time you dedicate to social media but don’t forget to be reactive too, use trends and news stories to your advantage but don’t miss the boat (Google Trends is just one of tools that can help you out with this). On the theme of being reactive your customers may use social media to contact you with queries or complaints so don’t lose sight of…

Customer Service! Customer Service! Customer Service!

Social media is in many cases a public forum and any negativity can spread fast! This course has taught me that it is vital to develop a response strategy and ensure that all employees that have access to social media channels are aware of it. Don’t be tempted to just delete negative posts, by responding effectively and in good time you have the opportunity to turn things around.

These are just a few of the things to consider when entering the world of social media marketing and for SMEs it can definitely seem like a daunting prospect but help is out there! Unite with Business is an European Regional Development Fund Project which offers free business support for Small to Medium sized companies within the North West of England. The University of Salford is one of a partnership of six universities who can provide funding for student and graduate internships in SMEs. The project has provided support in a wide range of areas, SEO, social media strategy and content production are particularly popular. For more information go to www.salford.ac.uk/business-school/business-services/unite-with-business. We are also always looking for students and graduates interested in participating, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @SalfordUniUnite.

Cones as you may have realised aren’t interesting, they’re not funny, sexy, or appealing in any way, how then do you market one to the general public?

As a manufacturer of traffic management products we’re not exactly on trend, or in high demand. Basically cones are boring, and as a business to business company we didn’t think social media would benefit us in any way. After starting the Search and Social Media Marketing course though I thought why not try setting up a twitter and see where it gets us.

Before I set up the account I looked into other social media campaigns for boring products. The most successful one I could think of was Will It Blend?If you haven’t seen the videos, they’re advertising blenders but instead of just blending food or showing you a picture of a blender, they blend tablets, phones, toys, marbles, and a big mac, almost anything you can think of to show the power of the blender.  The campaign really took off and the guy behind it all became somewhat of a minor celebrity in America. There’s also the Got Milk? campaign, Milk has got to be the most boring product imaginable but the campaign was so successful that it has been running for over 20 years, there’s been celebrity endorsements and even merchandise, who knew an advert for milk could be so successful!

Another really good social media campaign is that of Vitamin Water, they asked people to tweet them with what’s currently boring them, then Vitamin Water would come back with a response to make it brilliant. They even went to a town In Oregon called Boring and put on loads of events and gigs, the whole thing went viral and there followers on twitter went up 100%.

There was more of online presence in our field that originally thought, so we set up our twitter account, @MelbaSwintex, designed the page around our theme from the website, followed the relevant people and waited for a miracle, but as we quickly realised, planning needed to go into running a social media platform.

We currently have three people with access to our twitter, a designer, a sales rep and me, so a wide variety of people, luckily we all have our own personal twitter accounts, so we knew the basics, we just didn’t know what to tweet about! Firstly we laid down the rules of what can and can’t be tweeted, we decided to discuss tweets before we posted them so we didn’t get any repeat tweets and so that non of the tweets were offensive, spelt wrong, or incorrect.  For us humour seemed to be the best way to go with, nobody wants to follow someone on twitter who blurts out facts about the first road cone or how to properly lay your road cone on the road. After only a couple of tweets we had a council ring us up and want to start a 2 year contract with us, just because I’d followed them on twitter, which is very encouraging.

Currently we’re tweeting about new products that we have coming soon, innovative design ideas that we are pursuing, particular tools that people can use on our website, and re-tweeting local news. We’ve currently got 31 followers, which doesn’t seem like many but to be fair it is a twitter account about cones.  According to our Google analytic’s profile, the twitter account is already generating more views to our website. Hopefully this will generate more interest in us as a company!

Thanks for reading and if you need any cones Melba Swintex is the place you need to call!

Melba Swintex

TECHNIQUES ON GETTING FOUND LOCALLY FOR VARIOUS GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS

We’ve all heard the line ‘To Be or Not To Be’ from Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet.

The line outline’s the dilemma of Hamlet, as to whether to commit suicide or not. He had to decide whether to continue to live in a world that gave him pain and suffering or whether to end it all!!

I am facing a similar dilemma, all be it nowhere near as serious as Hamlet’s!

My dilemma is whether to continue to try and get my site found locally for various geographical locations throughout the UK & Scotland via organic SEO methods, or whether to go the dreaded PPC way.  Dreaded for me that is, as it costs money!!

I joined the Search & Social Media Marketing Course, as I was interested in learning how to write content which would help me get my individual geographical based pages found higher up on search engines, as well as any other techniques that would help, as I used to have brilliant rankings but then they all vanished!!

Through various discussions with Alex, fellow students and guest speakers, I have compiled the following list of things (in no particular order) that will help with getting found locally, and interestingly, it isn’t just about content:

1. It’s good to have a physical address in the various locations that you are trying to target or at least some of them (if possible), as this will help get you on to Google Maps, which is basically the easiest way to get found locally. Don’t make an address up if you don’t have one.
2. Once set up on Google Maps, it’s imperative to link to your website.  Google maps is also great way of giving potential clients a quick overview of your company, if you complete your profile 100%.  Telephone numbers, opening times, review, logos, images, etc.
3. It’s good to get yourself listed on local directories that appear on the 1^st page of Google, as a lot of the time you will find these may be higher in the rankings than actual company websites.
4. Make sure your keyword research is spot on and try to target long tail keywords as opposed to just accountants in Manchester or accountants in Preston. For example, Chartered Accountants in Manchester or Tax Accountants in Manchester.
5. The content needs to be unique and different on each page, which seems very hard to begin with, but I will share some ideas on how this can be achieved later on.
6. It’s good to write compelling content that entices others to share what you have written in order to help you get some more natural back links.
7. Write for humans first and search engines second.
8. It’s good to have a presence on the main Social Media platforms, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., and is also good to get involved in discussions about the local areas that you are trying to target.  Social Media is about engaging in conversation and ‘chatting’ as opposed to just selling.
9. Have a blog, hosted on your site, and update it on a regular basis in order to keep the content fresh, once again, helping with content being shared by others and creating natural back links.
10. Join forums for the local areas you are trying to target and get involved in discussions, to try and show you know about the local area.
11. Try and get as many unique back links as possible, in a natural format. Make sure the links are ‘follow’ links (knows as ‘Dofollow’ links) instead of ‘Nofollow’ links, as ‘Dofollow’ links are the best to help with Search Engine Rankings.
12. Try and offer something unique on your site, e.g. some sort of calculator, app, widget, newsletter, voucher, etc., which will attract visitors to your site from all over the country and once there, they can make an enquiry, so although you haven’t been found locally, people from all over the country are still finding your site and making an enquiry.
13. If you can’t achieve better results by trying the above, then you may have to eventually give PPC a try.

Here are some ideas on how to make the content unique to help you in getting found locally, which is the hardest part for me and probably most of you:

1. Add images of the local area to the relevant page, giving them the correct ‘Alt Attribute’.
2. Try and get testimonials (both written & video) from people living in different geographical locations, who have used your service, and add them to the relevant page.
3. Talk about the different geographical locations, i.e. history, industry, famous people, how your service could help certain niche businesses within that area if possible.

I hope the above helps you to decide on whether to go the SEO route or PPC, and please do add your comments and suggestions.

Thanks for reading; and if you ever need to find an accountant, or need any type of service provider, please fill out this simple form to receive upto 5, FREE, NON-OBLIGATORY quotes from accountants or service providers in your desired geographical location, for you to consider.

Already being in the digital marketing industry, last year I attended Salford University to study on the SEO & Social Media Marketing course to brush up and improve on my digital marketing skills.

Responsive Websites & SEO

The Mobile Web

The online marketing landscape is rapidly changing and moving towards the mobile web, traditional methods of viewing websites on desktop and laptop computers  is on the decline.

In the last couple of years smartphone and tablet pc sales has exploded, people are ditching their desktops and laptops in favor of mobile devices. It`s now the era of smartphones, apps and tablet devices which brings yet another set of challenges to website owners and marketers alike.

Having a mobile device friendly website to meet the demand of this rising trend is now essential rather than a necessity, especially is you still want to remain buoyant and relevant in the search engines.

If you have been considering having a new website layout developed, the wiser choice would be a responsive website which is the industry best practice as delivering the best results for people searching and visiting your website across a wide range of devices. One thing is for sure, we will all be going mobile sometime in the near future! The question is, will your website?

Surprisingly over 70% of websites online still do not have a mobile optimised version. Responsive websites are only going to gain momentum, so why shouldn’t you and your business find out what the fuss is about?

Mobile SEO

Google has stated that websites with responsive designs or  mobile websites optimised for mobile devices may rank better in the organic search listings compared to traditional websites. Google wants to deliver the best results for users searching from smartphones meaning the SEO benefits are clear cut. In another 18 months time if your website is not mobile friendly you can be sure your traffic and rankings will almost certainly be on the decrease.

Good luck, and remember that any successful business must keep up with the times, Remember a mobile website will let your clients know that you’re reaching out to a modern audience.

In August 2013 I took over the SEO and Social Media Marketing for a letting agency which specialised in student accommodation in Liverpool – Liverpool Student Lets. They were somewhat unhappy with the company that had been providing their SEO.

The first thing to do was to perform a full audit of the on-site and off-site optimisation. What I found was not an entirely pretty picture. The website was visually engaging and very professional, although with a few tweaks needed to optimise it for Google, such as adding H1 and H2 tags.

The website was performing moderately for its targeted keywords. It had a domain authority of 21, which was perhaps a bit low, but the website had only been live for a year.

Things got interesting when I started to look at the link profile of the website. Unfortunately I found it to have a lot of very spammy links. For instance, links from blog comments on irrelevant blogs in the USA, and numerous links from low quality bookmarking sites. However, as the website’s rankings did not seem to be suffering I decided to prioritise other aspects of the site such as optimising the keyword usage across the site’s pages. My intention was to come back later and analyse each link individually, before deciding what to do about them.

Another surprise came when I examined the on-site blog. Approximately 50 posts had been made over the course of a year, however I was quite shocked to find that the blog was not indexed in Google. This meant that all the hard work that had gone into the blog had been for nothing. Looking further into the blog, I found that many posts were less than 300 words, and some were quite repetitive and badly written. Any images were not optimised. I wanted to index the blog, but first I had to remove some posts and optimise others. I used knowledge that I picked up on the SSMM course to optimise these posts, and on October 4^th 2013 at approx 5pm, I submitted the blog page to Google for indexing.

I was quite horrified to find that a few days later the site had dropped in the rankings, moving from page 1 to page 2 for the most important keywords! I decided that I had not optimised the blog posts well enough and started trying to improve them further. This had no effect on the rankings.

When Penguins attack…..

I later realised that at almost the exact same time that I indexed the blog, Google announced and rolled out the latest update to their Penguin algorithm – Penguin 2.1. For those who don’t know, Penguin is the part of Google’s algorithm that deals specifically with links – periodically Google roll out an update which is meant to spot bad linking practises and penalise sites accordingly.

The realisation that 2 things had happened at the same time (indexing of blog + rollout of Penguin 2.1) created a problem. Which was to blame for the reduction in rankings? There was no message about bad links in Webmaster Tools, although Google does not always advise penalised sites in this way.

Having looked at the blog I decided that the more likely culprit was Penguin 2.1. Therefore the bad links became the priority. I compiled a list of the links in Excel, recording the url, the domain authority, TrustFlow and CitationFlow (MajesticSEO’s own measurement systems of link value). I also made a note of how to contact the webmasters, where possible. It is important to keep good records of efforts made to remove links, because if you later wish to use Google’s disavow tool, then you must follow Google’s advice ie. that you must provide evidence of all efforts undertaken to remove links. So I began contacting the webmasters, of which only one has replied to me and removed the link. Many of the links had no contact details available. Once I have attempted contact three times to each webmaster, I can add them to my disavow list, either as a url or an entire domain. The use of the disavow tool itself is somewhat risky; Google clearly advises that using it could result in worse rankings for your site. I intend to use it soon, though, in the hope that it will put the site back on page one where it belongs.

Although we will hopefully see some improvement after this process is completed, there has still not been any confirmation regarding which of the 2 events on Oct 4^th caused the drop in rankings.

There are a few lessons to take away from all of this :-

1. Beware SEO practitioners who use bad linking practises! There are still plenty of them around it seems….

2. Stagger your SEO strategies. If you implement 2 changes at the same time, then you cannot easily separate the effects from each of them. It is worth keeping a note of when you implement strategies, so that you can see the effect on traffic they have on traffic.

3. Once Penguin hits your site, it is not simple to recover. Indeed some SEO practitioners state that any penalties will not be repealed until the next Penguin update (which is usually every 6 months), whilst others think that a proper link removal campaign, followed by use of Google’s disavow tool, and finally submitting reconsideration requests, can result in the removal of penalties sooner.

A Direct method of Compliance online

Comply Direct are a government approved compliance scheme for UK organisations obligated by the Packaging Waste Regulations and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations.

We are a trusted and expert business and compliance partner for over 800 companies in the UK so Comply Direct have made it our aim to develop an online presence to ensure that searchers get exactly what they are looking for when making compliance and guidance queries into search engines and on social media. Read more…..

How to Optimise Websites for Performance

In large B2B and public sector organisations, many managers face similar problems when running their websites.
They have a high level view about what a high performance website should be like. But the intricacies of SEO techniques are not for them. Give them detailed explanations plain English that will support their decision making. Then enjoy having a hand in building and maintaining a high performing website for your customer.

What is a high performing website?
Websites that perform well:
• Meet the needs of the people using them
• Achieve the business goals for which they were created.
The trick is to make sure that the website is optimised to meet both needs. Every page should provide a core message that people can find and understand.

SEO Checklist – the Basics

Below are some SEO basics to work on when domain and page authority need improving to meet your company’s standards.

Web Optimisation is For Your Users

First and foremost, focus on what people need rather than what the organisation needs. At the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust,  the website’s primary users are its patients, next of kin, family, close friends and medical professionals. These users seek information about:  symptoms, conditions, treatments, care, clinics, locations, facilities and consultants.  The website is being optimised by putting them first and focusing relentlessly on helping them to achieve their needs.

Website Performance Measures

When a CEO asks about website performance, what is the most useful information to give them? Forage through the masses of statistics on Google Analytics and come up with nuggets that tell managers what targets have been met. Check the all-important tracking code, set up goals on the pages where your primary users complete tasks and you’re good to go. Avinash Kaushik provides expert help directly through the Google Analytics help pages.

Keyword Research for Search Engine Optimisation

SEO revolves around keywords so do your research. Some keyword research sources are:
• Documents and files already published that focus on your key services
• Your customer service team (at the Royal Liverpool Hospitals this is the Patient and Liaison Service Team) for questions frequently asked
• Internal search engine statistics
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Google Analytics
• Introduce your manager to http://suite.searchmetrics.com and show them comparisons between the links and keywords competitors are using.

Writing Optimised Web Content

An optimised web page contains a title tag, meta description, navigation links, tagged <H1> <H2> <H3> and images, headings, subheadings, hyperlinks within text and compelling copy.
Title tag
The title tag position is real estate on a web page and the first word is given the most importance. Use 6 to 15 words, or up to 70 characters including spaces, and make it unique.
Meta Description Tag
Although not rated by search engines, this helps people find what’s relevant to them. Write a meta description of 150 (250 maximum) characters of informative copy, unique to that page. Including a benefit encourages click through.

Optimising images

Label images with descriptive alt text that makes it relevant for people using screenreader software. This will meet W3C accessibility standards too. For example: new-royal-phase1-floorplan. Not: DMC31002.
PDF and document files
Use primary keywords for PDF and DOC file titles. For example: medical-education-newsletter.pdf

URL and File Structure

Write unique URLs with primary keywords. For example: www.rlbuht.nhs.uk/vascular-surgery
Not: www.rlbuht.nhs.uk/vascular20/surgery/Pages/default.aspx

Compelling copy

Write one core message per page and cut anything superfluous.
Focus on the primary audience and the calls to action for each page.
Write the primary and secondary keywords in the first sentence of the first paragraph, two or three more times throughout the page and in the last sentence.
Page length should be between 200 and 400 words.
A good test: can your gran understand it?

Links

Links hold everything together and are essential for rankings.
Write hyperlinks like this: More information on pain medicine
Not:     Click here for more information on pain medicine.
Links within text are rated more highly than lists of links.
Are all links correct? Check broken ones using the W3C link checker tool.
Redirect – 301s – permanently moved pages to avoid ‘page not found’ (404) errors.

Page Loading Times
Pages should load in 2-3 seconds. Test using Pingdom to investigate slow loading times.

Clean code
Use a W3C validator to check quality and highlight errors.

More Site Optimisation Checks – Beyond SEO
Site structure and the technical development of a website affects search engine ratings. Fix the above SEO basics then try some off-site optimisation for best results.
For more information, connect with me on twitter @sue_lister, on LinkedIn and Google+.

Sue Lister

Being the Marketing Manager at www.webuybooks.co.uk social media is a big part of my marketing plan – Should it be a big part of yours?

Self-proclaimed social media gurus bill social media as the messiah of online marketing – where as I believe social media is an important weapon in your marketing arsenal but it won’t turn water into wine!

Social media is important for business and all businesses should have a social presence. Having social media pages and profiles will add new ways for your organization to be discovered and accessed by potential customers. It will also help your business dominate the first page of Google – if a potential customer types your organization into their search engine and your website is number one followed by your Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages it lowers the chance of them clicking through onto a competitor’s website.

This video gives few reasons why your business should be using social media

Here are some important tips I’ve learned during the search and social media marketing CPD at Salford University:

Don’t just try to sell your product or service – be social, talk to your customers, create relationships and build a community that know and trust your brand and they will promote your company all over the world for free.

Something I found successful was to do a competition. When you have a decent number of competition entries and a bit of a buzz surrounding your page post a voucher code offering some money off – this will gently push people from your social media page to your website and give them an incentive to buy a product or use your service.

Have a strategy! Plan what you want to post in advance – this way you will be prepared for seasonal trends like Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas. You will be providing regular content to your audience and not spending hours flicking trough Google images looking for funny pictures of cats to post.

Provide quality content that your customers will want to engage with. I focused on getting people interacting with each other on my organizations social media pages. We achieved this by giving away a kindle every week until Christmas – every week we would ask a different question i.e. what was your favourite childhood book? Who is your favourite fictional character? Their answer would be their entry into the competition. This sparked interaction! Within minutes people were not only sharing their favourite books but reminiscing with each other about childhood memories and other books they enjoyed.

We Buy Books Kindle Giveaway

Don’t worry too much about bad feedback; even the most famous household names have unhappy customers who leave bad reviews. With social media everything is in public there is no hiding. Your priority should be to solve any problems a customer is having quickly. People will look at how you deal with problems and if you deal with them correctly people will recognize this and know if they have an issue with your organization it will be dealt with promptly and in the appropriate way.

• Create awareness
• Build a community
• Customer service
• Promote your latest offers
• Competitions

Remember people use social media in their leisure time and don’t want to be bombarded with sales pitches. Use social media wisely and your customers will sell your brand for you!

ABOUT BEN WADSWORTH
Ben is the the marketing manager for www.webuybooks.co.uk and is responsible for creating, managing and enhancing products and services so that they reflect well on the companies brand. Analyzing and investigating price, demand and competition, devising and presenting marketing plans and strategies, promotional activities, writing reports and monitoring performance.

Follow @benwadsworth_
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SEO Copywriting – Why Content is King (and what you can do about it)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Devious Webmasters, would-be marketers and sloppy content writers are blighting the World Wide Web with spammy content, underhand tactics and dubious links…

There was a time when the world of website content was a wild frontier, plagued with mean tricks that would get your site up the rankings quickly and easily, and while it might seem that online copy is leading a clean-cut existence nowadays, the dreaded Black Hatters and lazy content writers (think Darth Vader and Boba Fett) are still at it. So just how do you stay clear of the penalties handed out by the likes of algorithm update, Google Panda, and keep your site ranking well?

The web is made up of content – that’s what it is; a behemoth Smörgåsbord of files and folders full of documents, images, videos and so much more. So it stands to reason that in order to have a well-ranking website your content should be wholesome, good and honest (think Princess Leia and R2D2).

Google (and those other search engines we occasionally hear about) is becoming increasingly more attuned to the way in which content is written and, more importantly, how it is understood by the most technically advanced element of the internet, the humans. Content is still very much king (or, er, emperor?) and with the recent release of Google’s Hummingbird update ushering in the dawn of semantic search, that mantra isn’t looking like it will go away anytime soon. In fact it’s going to get increasingly harder for the bad guys to ‘outsmart’ the search engines as they dynamically learn the values and trademarks of well-written content.

Definitely Black Hat

A clean-living White Hatter

Images courtesy of LucasFilm and The Walt Disney Company

The Top 10 Steps to Better Content

Making significant gains in Google’s organic search listings needn’t be cloak and light-sabre (‘black hat’).  Follow these 10 steps to becoming a Content Jedi:

1. Write for people first and worry about ‘bots’ later.
2. Choose your keywords carefully and use them wisely.
3. Don’t get SPAM-tastic – No-one likes a thorough keyword stuffing and Google seriously hates it!
4. Mark up your page with a relevant structure (headings, sub-headings, bold text etc.)
5. Better Meta – Help search engines to understand what’s going on with good meta data.
6. Keep it interesting – Include some dynamic content such as images, videos, polls etc.
7. Keep it relevant – Writing about red widgets? Then don’t try and sell me casinos and ladies of the night.
8. Build some trust – Create links to and from relevant, genuine, trustworthy sites.
9. Share it – Don’t wait around for people to accidentally trip over your shiny new content, tell the world.
10. Tell Google – That’s right, you can let the boffins know too! Google Webmaster Tools is a great place to start.

For more tips or help with content writing, web design and online marketing please visit Outsrc Web Design and drop me a line.

Remember, the force is with you, mostly.