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SEO & Online Marketing Published Articles
- A quick update for SEO in 2010 - Happy New Year!
There is that famous saying that "24 hours is a long time in politics". However, I think this can be applied to almost every industry or job that you work in. Especially in the world of SEO!
My last post was talking about the trends of 2009 and some of the changes/updates that were going to take place in 2010. Most notable of these was the appearance of Google Caffeine and the (possible) effect this was going to have on search industry. Well, here we are in 2010 and there is more debate as to whether the update has actually been put live. The update was designed to bring together more social and 'real time' results for keywords to make the user generated content more focused. Despite there being much testing done in the latter half of last year, there has not been a universal appearance of the Caffeine search results that everyone can see. One such article that explains the reasons why this is the case can be seen in this post.
As the above article puts it, some aspects of Caffeine can be seen in the search results. The social popularity might of Twitter can be see the most, as you can see in the example below:
Twitter is such a strong example of the influence of 'real time search'. However, as this is just a brief post into the happenings of 2010, I shall leave my musings on Twitter to a later post. - The Latest SEO News from around the Web - Despite my apparent slacking off in writing a few posts on all things online marketing recently, this does not mean that there has been nothing to write about. There have been numerous mutterings and musings around the web discussing the latest trends of viral marketing, search engine updates and good old fashioned SEO practices. Therefore, rather than pick one in particular, I decided to give a very brief run down of three of the important trends that have got me thinking.
Firstly, good old Google decided to release yet another beta test of their ubiquitous search algorithm this time in the form of the oddly titled 'Caffine'. With the web developing more and more towards UGC and social media, the latest offering from Google was an attempt to harness the more social, 'real time news' aspects of search and provide better search results. It caused quite a stir and has certainly got the online marketing community motivated around the way websites are promoted. Read more about Google Caffine here.
Following on from the Google Caffine update is the power of Twitter from a business perspective. Twitter has grown and grown in popularity recently and is now a far cry from being the playground of Online Marketing professionals that it used to be. It has developed from a concept of taking the basic feature of FaceShite (you know I hate using that word) and turning it into a world influencing power. With people ranging from the Prime Minister to the Gov'ner of California telling us what they had for breakfast, the most influential aspect of it is the speed of which breaking news can be transmitted all over the world. Take the Iran election demonstrations or the death of a celebrity being broadcast before it is seen on national news. Twitter is big business. One of the latest developments is how businesses can use Twitter in a more direct marketing way to really interact with their customers. Watch this latest video about Twitter's plunge into the Business Services world with its Business Product.
Finally, an article that I've taken great interest in is regarding the most basic but prevalent of SEO principles - links. Also following on from the above trends, Google Caffine pays a good deal of attention to links from media sites, especially news websites (BBC, The Guardian etc). Therefore more people have been looking to get links from articles written on certain topics. Thus causing a new medium of advertisers taking money on news sites to place links and paid advertising. This of course going against the principles of Google of paid links. Quite a conundrum for the industry and something I will be watching with great interest. Read more about SEO links here.
Enjoy this and more to follow soon... - Google and International Hosting -
As I have now become fully engrossed in international online marketing, I always pay close attention to the deatils of international websites. Some of the questions I ask myself are, how international does this company look - one country or several countries, how are they appealing to the different countries, do they have a separate website for the different countries, have the English pages been translated, are they using a Top Level Domain, Sub Domain or Sub Directory?
All of these questions are important for how the website appeals to a different country and culture. Design for example, can be subtly different for each country. Take the colour red for example, in some countries this is seen as danger or anger, but in China this would be a colour of prosperity. Similarly, some words cannot translate well into different languages. So in English 'GoKu Ltd' might sound fine but in Russian this might tranlate to 'toilet paper' for example. That might sound a bit far fetched but brands and product launches have been known to fail dramatically by failure to do this research.
Next are domain names. I have mentioned before about the importance of using the correct domain names for international websites in this post. If you want to have local presence in a given country, you need to have the right domain name that will prioritise your domain above other international domains. For example, your company GoKu Ltd is expanding into Germany so you have had your website translated into German. Thinking you need an international Domain, you set up www.goku.com. After searching for your company or keywords in Google.de you wonder why you are not appearing in the top search positions. If you notice they will more than likely all be .de domains, i.e. German companies. Therefore, by registering your company on a German top level domain, you can see your website being listed high on Google.de as www.goku.de.
The second part of this equation is equally, if not more, important. You must actually be local. How do you do this?
Hosting is important. If you have the international top level domain, then you should be hosted in that country. Google sees this as very important as it shows to the Googlebot that your goku.de belongs in the Google.de results as a German website. This is important for producing the important 'Local' search results and relevancy. So what about Google? Today I installed a new ad-on to Firefox that is very simple yet very useful. Called Flagfox it simply shows a flag of the country that the website is hosted in. So what? I loaded up Google.co.uk and here's what I found:
Google Germany:
Google France
Google Korea
Notice anything about the flag? Strange that all the 'local' versions are all hosted in the US and it would appear so are the servers. Not a very local position that Google preaches about being international. Something to follow...or not to follow?
- Reasons why your eCommerce site doesn't convert - A flash of brilliance came into my inbox the other day. I have spoken many times about conversions - so much so that I'm sure everyone is more than aware of its importance. Probably the most frustrating part of managing an eCommerce site can be finding that winning formulae. Quite often, just a simple change can make a difference of 100% improvement in turnover: a banner image, change the position of the checkout, amend the page header - any of which can make a difference. So where do you start?
A simple answer is just to test. You also need to become good friends with your web analytics and keep a sharp eye out for emerging trends. It is a constant process of change and testing to make sure people go where they (and you) want them to go - the checkout.
Now, back to my inbox. A really good video that was sent to me highlighted some of the things that people either miss completely or need to think about in the shopping process. Have a look at this video on making your eCommerce site convert.
The key area under discussion in the interview is improving the checkout process. There are some significant areas that can prove a barrier to conversions that can include:- forcing people to register or fill out forms before they buy
- not making the shopping cart clear enough
- the hidden costs that appear later in the process
- including more secruity seals.
- Can you overdo SEO? - As any SEO professional or website owner will know, getting results from SEO can be both a joy and a real frustrating nightmare...figuratively speaking of course. I prefer to see it as a challenge but that's just me.
Whilst working intensively on one of my client's websites, I did reach the stage of frustration where I found myself shouting at my screen "Why is this site not ranking!?" Might I add that this was after hours and days making sure that the details were in place. As most people who do a lot of SEO or subscribe to one of the numerous Mailshots will know, there are countless parts to check to make sure the engine is in tip top condition. I'm talking on and off site mechanics of content, code, links, meta info, sitemaps, robots txt, internal linking structure and of course the wider online strategy for the site. The latter being essential.
I've already stated my own formulae for success a successful website:
SEM (SEO + PPC) + SERPs = ROI seen in this post.
The more you read about what SEO strategy you should be employing, you'll find that the emphasis is always on carrying out procedure. Or that there is always something to work on. It was interesting to find from a professional point of view, to discuss SEO strategies with other people on forums. Why I like to do this is to gauge other people's opinions on what is important and what is not. I'd like to share my opinion on this matter here. Where we (SEO people) all work around the same ethics and techniques, there is always an open opinion as to what is more important and what is not.
Take asking for directions for example. In the UK, if you were in a pub and you asked for direction to somewhere you would quickly find that everyone has a different opinion as to the best way to get there..."no, you don't want the A452 at this hour, you need the B746 and then pick us the A1 south of etc etc etc". The same with SEO. Asking the question of why a site is not ranking I will guarantee you will receive about 50 plus posts on different techniques. What is also fun is that you just might see an argument brewing between two people who have replied.
I am not mocking nor claiming the importance of forums as there are always new ideas to be sought. The point I'm making is that when there are so many options available, which one should or could you take? For a novice this can overwhelming and not easy for a professional sometimes as well.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try a new approach. Quite simply do nothing. Not as radical as it might sound. Let me explain. Working on a client's website with some new page content that they wanted to be found for, I made sure everything was correct and the boxes were ticked. Not a great deal happened and the rankings didn't progress. This was for a site with an established online reputation and domain history. There was not a great deal of competition for the keywords and this didn't matter. So I tried a new tactic...I let it be for a while.
Confident that everything was in place I just let the Search Engines take their course and naturally progress the rankings. What actually happened was that it did actually work. I then try to experiment with other sites and halt work for a week or to. This also had a similar effect and didn't even produce any negative results.
My conclusion was that perhaps there is such a thing as too much SEO? If you are making too many changes perhaps the Google et al will struggle to make up its mind. If you had a site development where the client was constantly requesting changes on a weekly basis, will it ever go live? Taking time for things to settle down makes it easier for the site to be properly indexed. How much time to leave things is dependant on the market that you're site is in of course, as overly competitive market would require regular attention.
The overall point to be made here is that perhaps too much of something can be a bad thing. If you are confident that things have been done right, have a little patience. Therefore, I shall add that to my formulae for online success where P is for Patience:
SEM (SEO + P + PPC) + SERPs = ROI
Strategy + Content + Code + Links + Patience
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