Digital Tutorials Webmaster Help

• 02Jan

  So why Search engine optimisation?

  SEO SEM Tutorials No Comments

  So you want to become number ONE in Google and Yahoo? Search engine optimisation or SEO is the process in which we boost the position of a given website in the search engines. Simple right? Regrettably not! SEO is not for the faint hearted. It involves a high level of specialized expertise, the application of complex tools and then the analysis and implementation of the results those tools provide.
  The idea behind search engine optimisation is to bring a significant amount of website visitors coming to your website. It’s a well planned technique based on certain key words and search phrases with regards to the needs of your respective company.

  Regardless of whether your Website is brand spanking new or ten years old, managing how it appears to search engines is vital to its success. The standard Website gets 61 percent of their visitors from organic (nonpaid) search engine results and 41 percent of all traffic from Google alone. Making certain the company’s site ranks highly in search results is, for most businesses, a make-or-break proposition, which explains why search engine optimization (SEO) has become a multibillion-dollar market.

  80% of all internet users find what they’re searching for through the search engines like (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc). If someone is seeking a product or service which you offer on the web, they won’t find your internet site if it does not show up on at least one of the first 3 pages of the search engine. Almost all stop searching after page three (or Position 30) and begin a new search.

  The reality is there may be countless businesses online selling practically exactly the same services or products that you provide. Five to Seven of them currently occupy the first 10 positions of your favorite internet search engine. How in the world can you enter into the running, much less contest with other local businesses?

  Even sadder is the fact if you don’t do search engine optimisation your website will never rank anywhere significant in the search engines. Look at your own search habits. What number of pages will you take a look at when you’re searching for a service or product? It goes without saying that a majority of surfers tend not to go past page three if the results are presented in groups of ten! Therefore if you happen to be on page 70 who is going to find you? How about page 122034 from 77300000 websites. Do you see my point!

  Search Engine Optimizing is easy enough it just demands diligent composing of content rich with keywords and phrases that correspond with your business. If you have a local company dealing with mainly local customers make sure you include your location in the search phrase “Web Designers in Glasgow” rather than simply “Web Designers” as this will make your site more specific to your potential customers’ searches. You need to apply the same thinking to your business and site. Do the same thing for each page and you’ll soon have built up an optimised site. Be sure though not to make it to search term heavy (2-5 per 100 words) as it will soon become unreadable and turn away the very visitors you aspire to entice.

  Marketing online for your local company has never been more fantastic. The various tools, techniques and systems are there for you. Most companies do not have the time to keep up with all the ‘online stuff’.

  SEO is critical to getting your site discovered by search engines like google. You will never merely be discovered simply because you have a website.
• 21Dec

  Changing Trends in SEO what changed in 2011

  SEO SEM Tutorials No Comments
  Changes within Search Search engine optimizing 2011
  Freshness algorithm also provides priority to more current events and timely news. Blogs are responsible for a comeback as faster and deeper indexing with the new content get posted quickly on the internet. Original content articles are king replacing the earlier submissions are king rule.
  Quality Search enhancing the brings about Google SERPs. Named Google’s Panda algorithm it has changed the way in which many sites appear in ranking. Having a tremendous impact on Search engine optimization practices.

  SSL search the Secure Sockets Layer search encrypts the search queries. If a user is signed in this is the default value. The effect of this is that Google Analytics has not provided data showing up in the results instead of real values. Its blocking analytics users from seeing those all important keyword data. Keyword data in analytics is heavily relied upon by SEO professionals to properly monitor and analysis site performance.

  Social Media has made a big impact with real time search. With more listings impact plus much more realtime data showing up searching quickly sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin shall no longer be novelty but must haves for any serious web business.

  Mobile Search has changed the landscape of search in several ways.
  Rise of HTML5 taking on from flash. Flash isn’t supported on iPhone and iPads research this sort of large share of the mobile market HTML5 originates out the mobile video winner. A greater proportion of search has become done on mobile.
  Local search with the advent of Google Places turning up predominantly in search results. Mobile has shaped this part of search as well showing how important location is becoming for search results. Bing relies on Geo tagging in your metatags to determine location.
  Universal search changed the way we search including more variety of types of results including images, videos, and places.
  Mobile also changed the autocomplete functions, making field more user friendly with the suggesting of popular keyword terms and search fields. This has cut down on more really long tail keywords but they still make up a large portion of new search terms. More comprehensive indexing has stressed long tail as even more important.

  Yahoo Site explored got absorbed by Bing and is no longer available to get details on competitor sites. Microsoft and Yahoo technology sharing with search technologies. The collaboration will likely deliver faster and more relevant results in an attempt to out seat Google as the search champion.
  These changes are likely to become more refined as we enter 2012 making it another huge year of change for the SEO industry.

  Tags: Changes, Google, Panda, SEO, SERP

• 20Dec

  Search term Guidelines a place to commence your ebusiness

  SEO SEM Tutorials, web Development, Webmaster Tips No Comments

  Search Engine Ranking Optimization is a never ending progression. The process in truth is at the start just before you build your first section of code. In the main planning stages you must start with a concept. In order to find something you must understand the place where you want to go. Establishing a checklist will help direct you.
  What’s the purpose of your web page? What are you considering doing online, the reason for creating the site initially. Consider this first so that you can adjust your plan. The internet is centered on finding a certain area of interest and having a source for information about that area. You can’t be a professional in all area, begin small and be specific. You should have already got a effective idea of what you want to do online, the purpose of your internet site.
  The most critical item relating to the checklist is keywords, the ever so important portion of the SEO process. Keywords tend to be the core of what you will find yourself doing on the net. Take your time to determine who your customer is. Consider through the mindset of your web site visitor, what would are the initial thing they ask in terms of your website. What concerns would they have about your services or products. Make blueprint about your site on top of that imagine what relates to these details. Think which of the concerns really pulls you in.
  Analyze who your competitors are and pay attention to what they’re doing. Exploring at the terms they are using. Build a total listing of search terms. Think once more about your site how is it different, better than the competition. What is unique with regards to the service you offer what makes you stick out.
  You will have a great concept of what your key terms are, write them out always check them over. You are ready to employ a keyword tool like Adwords keyword tool. Enter your keyword list within the tool. Perfect your list with keywords which use the top search results return on results and possess the least competition. Select your polished list, should be around 20-40 keyword phrases.
  Utilizing this list now, and you’re theoretically in a position to process next steps of the web site setup and optimization. Keywords are crucial for a complete beginning with Website positioning.
  

  Tags: Adwords, Ebusiness, Guide webmasters, Keywords, Marketing, Online, PPC, SEM, SEO

• 20Dec

  Logical Marketing in the new world of Social Media and SEO

  SEO SEM Tutorials No Comments

  Marketing online has changed, a more logical analysis approach is necessary.

  Most online marketers who are at the top of the spectrum and leading the way for new trends have in fact an IT background.  A recent survey suggested that over 80% of online marketing experts come from information technology and were not from a communications background.

  That 80% means that there is a shift from people working within IT over to marketing online.  It makes sense because understanding the technology designing a website you know what works with the traffic.  IT professionals also understand the mechanics behind the web and know what is possible and how to do it efficiently.  The internet is all about efficiency and doing something better is what it is build upon.

  Why are web developers switching to SEO and leaving the development world.  Most are able to balance both, technology and communications.  They are the bridge between the two worlds bringing together what they understand and making it possible online.

  If you are  a webmaster and don’t understand SEO then chances are your sites won’t be optimized and create a lot of extra work for the SEO and hence yourself as you have to update the site.  When a tree fall in the forest and there is no one around to hear it did it make a noise, when a website looks great but no one visits it, is it a good site?

  The lesson is to learn both, understand web design methodologies, the technology behind the web and traffic navigation principals.  Then learn the communication part to connect with the users of your site and how to convert visitors.

  Tags: Communications, Marketing, SEO, Traffic

• 19Dec

  Understanding of technology for online marketing

  SEO SEM Tutorials No Comments

  Technology is the corner stone for what happens online, in order to understand future trends you need to understand what the technology that is driving those trends is capable of.

  Online marketing is not the same as traditional media marketing where you place a message somewhere where your key demographic will see it and hope for the best.  Online you have more control and are able to target who is what and how much of your ad they see.  The control is complete and must be approached from a technical point of view.  You also have the ability to better track your stats, no more throwing it out there and hoping it will stick.  Real data is hundreds of times more valuable than opinions.

  Understand what is out there, what trends and ideas are coming.  Stay ahead of the crowd and work towards providing a better more focused service.

  Gather your data and analyze it inside and out.  This will give you key performance indicators that will help once again better target who sees your ad and how they follow your conversion funnel.

  The geography is changing and to stay on top of this ever changing field you must have the ability to adapt and think outside the box.

  Understanding of web design and the coding behind it helps to foresee what is possible.  Once you have build navigation tables for your website you will start to better understand how people travel through your site.  Make sure you are delivering the site navigation in a logical pattern, this will help traffic flow within your site.

  The goal is to keep traffic within your network until it converts, the conversion is an integral part of marketing the final goal is the conversion.

  Without that conversion the traffic and graphics and anything else fails.

  This is why working together with technology and communications is so important to be successful at online marketing.

  Tags: Blog, Communications, Technology and marketing

• 17Dec

  How to setup a basic Digital Strategy

  SEO SEM Tutorials, web Development, Webmaster Tips No Comments

  First steps are the proper initial setup of the strategy, determining what the goals are and how they will be measured.  Conversion goals are key in understanding what the path should be to achieve them.

  The next step is then determining what assets can be used and the constraints on the deliverables.

  In general look at key factors that may be influencing the conversion and see what is truly guiding the visitor through the website.  Focus more specifically at bounce rate, the traffic time on site and where they exit.  For more complex funnels and take into account the various steps and problems with those steps in achieving the end goal.

  Once data is gathered, and areas of improvement are identified,  setup split testing in order provide real data on what is observed.

  Example : Real world website example when looking at the data, the data showed good traffic to the services page but then a disproportionate drop-off rate after they visited the services page.  After looking over the page an immediate observation was the page length was long and the services were listed but each service had a long description giving the impressions that it may be the only one available.  The theory is that people may come to the services page only see the top service and then hit back or leave since they don’t see the lower services.  The suggestion is to update the top area of the page listing all the services and allowing the user to click using anchor or separate pages to the service they are looking for.  Revisit this the following month to see if there is a better visitor flow though ot the conversion area after the services.

   

  Tags: Digital Strategy, SEO, Web improvements, webmaster example of site improvement

• 16Dec

  Future trends for Social Media Strategy with mobile

  Mobile SEO, SEO SEM Tutorials, Social Media No Comments

  Social media has literally changed digital communication forever.  The trend has always been for quicker and more efficient relaying of information and now this is true more than ever before.

  Mobile search is up and expected to surpass desktop search in 2012.  Most sites are experiencing a 10-15% mobile traffic ratio already.  As data plans decrease in cost and bandwidth increases there is an inevitable growth in mobile browsing.

  The combination with social media and mobile together is a marriage made in heaven.  The flexibility and ease of content updates that mobile devices provide has given social media a huge boost.  Statistically most people already have a Facebook account, now with mobile it’s easy to interact with it.

  Efficiency and ease of use drive create the trend for technology.  Gone are the days when marketers could spend month planning to execute a strategy.  Everything is evolving at a faster pace and so is marketing online.  You need to be there at the right time, with the right information and connect to the right person.  Marketing online has had to evolve to be more efficient and agile in the approach.

  There is a merger between technology and communications, having to understand both fields to transcend the new environment.  Technology driven results from the past are still true today.  Content is king and will always be, but now there is a bigger focus on new content.  Communication online is a two way communication, building and establishing connections to market.

  Social media is going to be big in 2012 along with the combination of mobile device access to the social media platforms.  Geo Targeting of advertisement will give marketers even more control on which segment of their audience will see the ads.  Making even more relevant and targeting advertising the main focus.

  Proper data collection of these new sources of advertising will be essential for future budgeting and gaining and understanding on ROI.  Shifting budgets to social media platforms will be an excellent direction to explore more targeted well timed advertising venues.  Mobile site SEO will become a bigger focus with geo targeted sites and integration with social media.

  Lars Svekis – SEO Expert

  Tags: Mobile SEO, SEO, SMM

• 14Dec

  Top listing on SERPs brings the most traffic

  SEO SEM Tutorials, web Development No Comments

  Organic listing online are vital to any website.  You need to have good search engine optimization to rank high in search engines.

  Just to illustrate the importance of being in the top 3 results on Google.  The top 3 results get 63% of the clicks on Google.  That means a lot of free traffic to your site if you can get in the top listings.

  Spots 4 and 5 make up 11% of the clicks which is still good.  Interestingly its the same amount of clicks that all listings after 10 get combined.  In fact if you have a top 1st result for a keyword you can expect 4 times the traffic that all the other sites under spot 10 get combined from that keywords.  This could be millions of other sites that rank for the keyword, ALL the Millions of Site combined are getting only a quarter of the traffic that spot 1 gets.

  Yes spot 1 is really really important to get traffic.  Rounding up the top ten spots the remaining 6-10 get about 16% traffic together which is just above spot 2 on its own and still a third of the traffic from just spot one alone.

  Heres the breakdown on google traffic according to rank in the search engine results.

  1 – 42%

  2 – 12%

  3 – 9%

  4 – 6%

  5 – 5%

  6 – 4%

  7 – 3.5%

  8 -3%

  9 – 2.5%

  10 – 3%

  Everyone else below is getting as a combined number only about 10% of the traffic.

  There are ways to improve your results, if you rank in the top 5 you can improve by having a good title tag and an enticing meta description on your page.  This gets listed in the search results page and may swing more clicks to your site if you make it appealing enough for searchers.  But remember to deliver what you descibe or your bounce rates will be high.

  Lars Svekis – SEO Specialist

   

  Tags: Search, SEM, SEO, SERP

• 13Dec

  Information technology the future and beyond

  SEO SEM Tutorials, web Development, Webmaster Tips No Comments

  To understand where information technology is going we have to look and understand where it came from.

  Information technology is the ease at which we can spread information. The more efficient you are at spreading information using the technology the more successful a technology becomes.  Its more like information efficiency.  Find a more efficient way to do something, do it better and you will reap the rewards.

  People want information quickly and want to get answers to what they seek quickly.  The better the conduit for delivering the information is the more successful it becomes.  Take search for instance, people use search engines to quickly connect them to what information they are looking for.  This is why search is become so successful.

  Micro blogging is successful because its easy to use and delivers information that people can quickly digest.

  Speed and efficeny are always going to be at the forefront of technology.  When you design applications focus on ease of use, speed of delivery and make it efficient at delivering what the user needs.  Keeping it simple and not overwhelming the user is important.

  Lars Svekis
  Digital Developer

   

  Tags: Future SEO, SEM, Social Media, Trends

• 13Dec

  Marketing or Technology what is SEO

  Make Web Page, SEO SEM Tutorials, web Development, Webmaster Tips 1 Comment

  Where does Search Engine Optimization fall, is it marketing or technology?

  Technology you need to understand how to enter code and create your website.  For on page optimization you need to have a strong understanding of technology.  understanding of proper tagging and even hot htaccess works helps with creating a well working optimized website.  Structure of your site as well as the navigation breadcrumbs and overall site design is essential for good search engine ranking.

  Marketing is important as well, having an understanding of creating call to actions, leading people into the site and converting into a sale.  Its  complete process once someone first accesses your site and understanding marketing techniques is important in the site design as well.  Keep visitors once they arrive is the job of marketing.  Turn them into clients.

  Both are required skills to be successful online, both onsite and offsite skills.  A true SEO should have a good balance of both.  Most SEO guru’s I know have come from a development background and have transcended into this mixed type of role.  You need to be creative and technical.  Think outside the box and get results.

  Lars Svekis
  Web 2.0 Digital Expert

  Tags: Ecommerce, Marketing, Online, SEO, Webmaster

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