The short of it… NO!

The 2 algorithms are separate and they the organic algorithm ignores the adwords algorithm.

I have come across the question a couple of times and one person that was certain that there was a direct correlation.

In this instance it was a mis-configuration of their analytics, which was not flagging their adwords traffic correctly so they presumed it was organic.

With all of this in mind and although there is no benefit on organic ranking (directly from the using adwords), I have seen an impact on organic rankings (when used correctly) as a result of paid ads.

This has happened when trying to increase the quality score on an ad for adwords, which indirectly impacted the keyword density of the page that was ranking organically.

The moral of the story here… Make sure you use landing pages in your campaign and keep your adwords and organic separate.

Also, if you use you adwords data (CTR and Bounce Rate) in correlation with your Organic struture, you can improve your overall traffic.

Sources, Sources, Sources…

You’ll notice I’m only grabbing sources that are direct from Google as these are monitored and audited by Google.

The people that have responded have earned a higher member level (which is earned from Google based on accuracy, number of posts and knowledge)

https://www.en.adwords-community.com/t5/Community-lounge/relationship-between-adword-and-organic-search/m-p/99556/highlight/true#M5287

https://www.en.adwords-community.com/t5/Community-lounge/ORGANIC-RANKING-DROPS-AFTER-INITIATING-ADWORDS-CAMPAIGN/m-p/19185/highlight/true#M1256

https://www.en.adwords-community.com/t5/Manage-ads/Does-Google-Dance-affect-its-adwords/m-p/61438/highlight/true#M5475

Also, this is a youtube video from Matt Cutts (from Google) where he states there is no correlation – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvdg17aS5iI

The post Does Google Adwords Impact Organic Rankings? appeared first on Online Specialists.

Fast forward to 2013 and while we still don’t have transporters, the whole idea or concept of a tricorders and communicators are old school as the worlds population use something far more advanced… A Smart Phone!

Although the text on their phones is way harder to read than the text on a regular PC, users feel the need to connect anytime, anywhere and is a major player driving technology right now.

They just NEED to update their Facebook status right away, tweet about the traffic, upload a picture of their fancy dinner, take a selfie to Instagram it, or check in on Foursquare at a fastfood chain. And while you used to do that on your desktop (just a few years ago), using your desktop in younger eyes is seen as and archaic thing of the past.

The Cold Hard Data On Smartphones

A recent survey (from BI Intellegence) supports this dramatic increase of smart phone users.

Although Ericsson were the first phone company to release what they called a ’Smart Phone’ in 1997, noticeable growth started in 2005 and then rapid growth in 2007 with the introduction of the first iPhone.

This started a massive upward spike to the end of 2011, where Smartphone sales outnumbered the sale of desktop computers. This trend is expected to continue as users shift away from desktops and laptops, toward Smart phones and tablets (as you can see by the sharp growth of laptops).

The rapid growth of smart phones can be accredited to the new sleek designs, new applications, better mobile OS, more affordable prices, Convenience and User Experience.

Even more recently, the heated competition between Apple and Android is making things better for consumers as they get better products and better choices as both companies try to out do each other.

What Do Users Do With Their Mobiles?

Many smartphone users have an ongoing relationship with their phone. Their phone is the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing they look at before they go to sleep. Whether on the toilet or out for a walk, people feel the need to stay ‘CONNECTED!’

So, what are the top activities people do on mobile devices?

Mostly, they play games, listen to music, share and look at pictures, engage social networks like Facebook and Twitter, browsing the Internet and watch movies.

It’s important to note that people are also shopping more using their phones. This is a combination of reference shopping (reviews, investigating, forums) designed to form an opinion of their final purchase or decision. For businesses, this still means huge opportunities to expand reach online as long as you’re developing a smart phone strategy as a part of your overall plan.

Designing and SEO for Mobile

When it comes to SEO and mobile, there are a few ‘house keeping’ rules to consider to ensure your online presence is optimised for a smaller device, but also to make it as easy as possible for the search engines to find.

Fortunately the search engines are pretty transparent when it comes to what they want and Google have released a whole bunch of literature around the subject.

A few points from their documentation:

• Google uses a different bot or spider for mobile sites. You may have a mobile version of your website, but are you sure it’s being crawled by Google? For mobile sites, Google is using Googlebot-Mobile for indexing pages.

If it’s a new mobile site, you can submit a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools just like you would in the case of a regular website.

Test against site:operator to check if your mobile site is being crawled. If the mobile site is not appearing, it could be that something is blocking Google’s mobile crawler. Make sure that you are allowing Googlebot-Mobile to access your site.

• No flash support. Some videos are not playing on some smartphones because the platform does not support flash. Furthermore flash is not as transparent to the search engines (and is old clunky technology). In order to offer a more universal experience (and make it easier for the search engines) you should consider other Search Engine compliant technologies (like HTML 5).

• Serving different URLs. The mobile version of a site can be structured in many ways, but one of the more common methods is to place the mobile version under a different URL path, for example m.example.com. You could potentially end up creating 2 sites under the same URL.

The search engines are very specific here and would prefer the same content on the 2 sites. If you are optimising for a more compact experience on your mobile version, use the same content snippets to ensure Google don’t think you’re trying to fool them in some way.

One last point… If you are cross-referencing within your site, you have to make sure that your mobile version links to a desktop-enabled site. This will allow your end user to visit your desktop version, and will also allow Google to access (and cross reference the 2 versions easily.

Is Responsive Design the Answer?

Currently, there is no single standard for mobile friendly web page design. Google’s number 1 recommendation for mobile sites is the responsive design. Basically, responsive design adjusts the presentation of the webpage depending on the resolution of the device.

In responsive design, you are only using one HTML and serving one URL for the desktop and mobile version. This is made possible by some changes in the CSS (this is the code that defines the layout of the site). For example, instead of using the ‘width’ attribute, you use ‘max-width’, and instead of ‘height’, ‘min-height’ is used.

This makes it less complicated to deal with Google crawlers. Because there’s only one URL for both desktop and mobile versions, it’s also easier for users to interact with your website. There won’t be any need for complicated redirects.

If you want a quick illustration of how responsive design works, check out the redesigned About Google page or the Chromebooks page. You can even test this on your desktop. When you decrease the size of your browser (try making the browser narrower), the page will render as it would on a smaller screen like on a smartphone or a tablet.

You will still face issues with the responsive design because needless to say, web development, whether for desktop or mobile, is never easy. You will need all the help you can get to make the mobile site deployment a success.

The internet is going mobile. If your business has not adapted to the mobile revolution, you risk losing important audience and customers.

* special thanks to Business Insider for the data reference slides

The post The Growth of Mobile Users and Mobile SEO appeared first on Online Specialists.

Where it gets interesting is how I visualise that food may be very different to how you visualise that exact same meal. Components of that meal may appeal to me and at the same time you may totally disregard them in preference to another part that draws your attention.

So this raises the question… if I wanted you to focus on the key elements of an image and to link those images to the message I’m trying to get across, what other supporting methods could I use?

Furthermore, if you’re looking at achieving this online what steps do you need to take to capture your visitors.

A Picture Can Tell a Thousand Words

Let’s be honest… most people seem to have attention deficit when they’re surfing the web. There are simply too many distractions and in the online world it’s easy to get hit with information overload.

Using images can help catch the attention of visitors, but when it comes to a website it’s important to focus on the type and use of those images. Your website is your representation on the web. Everything that you put on there must be representative of you whilst ensuring you’re not confusing and befuddling your visitor.

To better understand this we first need to look at the concept of above and below the fold.

Above the Fold Design

Steve Thompson coined the term ‘Above The Fold’ (in 2000) for web development, to refer to that portion of the webpage that you see without scrolling down. This portion changes from one screen resolution to the next with 90% of screens with a resolution higher than 1024 x 768 (as of 2013).

In earlier days of the internet, it has been suggested as a standard to put everything above the fold to save people from scrolling down. This still holds true today, with the average internet user clicking making their decisions based on the information instantly presented too them above the fold.

As this is the first thing that a first-time visitor sees it’s important to consider how a visitor to your site would react when they first visit your site and whether you present the most important points ‘above the fold’ to make it easy as possible for them to navigate your site.

You Only Have One Chance To Make A First Impression

A common issue we come across (which is now improving – thank goodness) is the use of a massive image above the fold (this was very common in Real Estate). No explanation, just a dirty big image that shows a picture of local scenery. What does it mean? Who Knows?

Sure there are a few sites this idea works on (like photographers and clothing shopping carts) but on the whole it’s simply a waste of space and opportunity.

A Little Research

To gain a better understanding, I started doing a little of my own research by asking website owners their reason behind adding a big non-descriptive image that takes up most of their space above the fold.
I asked 27 business owners why they used big images with no real message attached to them and the most common response.

Not surprisingly, one of the most common answers I received is the ‘a picture tells a thousand words’.

It seems almost as if someone at the top passed this concept down and so many people not understanding how to fill the space effectively used the term ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ as they simply did not know how else to respond.

Let me share another example.

I recently spoke with a lawyer that had a massive stock image of a happy family on the homepage of his site. I always had a perception of a lawyer as someone professional, older, well-read, etc. Yet to the business owner this image represented freedom, a stress free environment, family, love and so on.

See how the gap could easily be formed?

What the business owner perceived or what they’re trying to project is not always what the user or the viewer will get.

Proper Use of Images

When designing a web page, it’s important to think about your user (the person that visits the site). Understand that you are dealing with different types of people, coming from different backgrounds and exposed to different experiences that are not the same as yours. It would be dangerous to assume that they think the same way you do.

If you are going to use images on your site, you need to remember some important points:

• Don’t let the image take over the site. Whilst your site may look fancy and pretty, make sure that it’s also functional. Avoid using extremely large images that takes all the attention of the user. Can you use large images on your website? Yes, as long as it’s a supportive image that displays a clear message about your products and services (like a gallery).

• Overlay text on your images. There is nothing wrong with using images, but make sure that your message is clear. You can do this by overlaying text on the image. This will direct the thought of the viewer.

• If the page, particularly the homepage, is carrying a big image, it has to be clear and direct to the point. Avoid using images that can confusing or send varying messages to the user. Also ensure that big image isn’t negatively affecting the load times of your site as your visitor could leave your page due to their lack of patience.

• Whilst you can add images with text overlay avoid replacing paragraphs of text with text in images. Remember, we have to consider the Search Engines too and they need text to understand your sites theme.

• Every image ‘above the fold’ should be an opportunity to lead a person through your sales funnel or to re-enforce your product or service. Make sure you use that space wisely as it’s your chance to show people that your business is all about.

• Your banner should clearly display the main method you would like people to use to get in contact with you. If it’s your phone number it would mean anyone visiting any page on your site could pick up the phone and immediately give you a call. This makes it as easy as possible for people to deal with you.

Creating a successful website involves real science combined with testing and measuring. By following a few simple elements within your images you can dramatically increase conversions from your site (and lead people down a funnel to whatever goal you would like to achieve).

Consider the most successful websites (for example Ebay or Amazon). Notice their pages are not dominated by huge images and every image contains a description as opposed to leaving it up to the end user to figure it out.

A picture tells a thousand words. Why not invest a little time to narrow it down from those thousand words to offer a clear, concise message that explains exactly what those images are all about?

The post Why You Don’t Want a Picture That Tells a Thousand Words appeared first on Online Specialists.

This is a common term that is thrown around in the world of SEO.

It does lack one small element… Quality!

Although Google have always encouraged quality from the very beginning, due to Google’s more recent Algorithm updates (over the last 12 months) this focus is coming into the foreground as SEO’ers, and content creators alike are feeling the squeeze.

Basically; when it comes to content creation, there a few different mythologies that used to work in the past which are being fazed out with the intention of supplying the end user with the most relevant piece of information as quickly as possible.

What is this older school technique called? Keyword Stuffing

Let’s be honest… Keyword stuffing did work in the past. The issue though is when the end user was searching for content they were getting low quality information filled with keyword stuffed content. Google understood if they were to stay on top they would need to continue to develop their algorithm. Because of this, Google have invested a lot of time (and continue to) enhancing their algorithm to weed out the bad content from the good content.

What is Keyword Stuffing?

Keyword stuffing can be defined using several different methods. My take on it would be to say:

‘The excessive use of keywords and fluff in content designed to influence the search engines, rather than to provide compelling, interesting content that end users would like to read and share.’

Like any heavily saturated industry, there are a number of SEO’s who are not updated with the times and believe that a certain percentage of the content should be keyword stuffed.

The main problem with keyword stuffed content is in the creation. It is usually fluff with little or no meaning, where an end user would not a gain any real value.

Though the overall theme should flow through your content (in synonyms, etc.) content should be created with the main focus of your end user wanting to read and share it!

Want to see this in action? Take a look at any popular news site and you’ll see they create content for their visitors to share and discuss.

What are the Key Elements of Quality Content?

While quality content is important, it’s also important to understand the purpose and the use of that content.

A couple of important pointers:
– Make sure your content is ‘More Than’ a couple of words strung together and includes other elements to make it ENGAGING
– Create content your visitors would like to know about (you can understand this by looking at Google Analytics data)
– Create NEW content that is relevant to your end user
– Constantly keep your finger on the pulse, searching for new topics
– Use engagement to spread the word
– Create content with consistency

Let’s look at each of these in more detail:

Defining Content

Before generating content, it is best to know first what constitutes “content.” Content is not limited to written text as many people would think. Content can also be videos, images and sounds.

When delivering a message to your readers and target customers, it will be more interesting if you could include videos from your YouTube channel or share beautiful images of products you distribute.

Visuals can make a big difference. They can bring substantial traffic to your site. A lot of people look for videos and images online. In some cases videos and images are the first thing they want to see. Take for example, how-to’s and instruction content. Many people will prefer seeing a demo video to understand the instructions better.

Define Your Niche

Think of ways to distinguish yourself from the competition. Find a niche so that people will look for you when they think of that niche.

If you are an online store for dresses, for example, you may have to say you’re featuring a certain set of designers. What about if you are offering repair and maintenance services? You can focus on the repair of a certain type of vehicle, like Saab.

Highlight what makes your business different in the content that you are producing so people will know the benefits of your products and services.

Contribute Something New

To be noticed on the big maze of the internet, you should stand out.

Bring something new to your audience and offer your opinion on that new piece of news. It could be a piece of existing information available on the web, but make sure you expand on that information with more detail.

If you sell smart phones and there’s a new model on the market then review it. Share the specs, but also let them know what you do and don’t like about it. You can even have that video transcribed and added to your site for people to read.

Delivering original content with your ‘take’ on that subject will help build your online reputation and increase your chance of getting referral links from other sites.

Finding Topics – Keeping Your Finger on the Pulse

Research what people are asking. If you’re only starting to develop content for your business website or blog, then you shouldn’t be having problems thinking up topics.

If you start to find it hard to come up with topics, check out other sources. A few that comes to mind are-
– Google News – Where you can see the latest trending news for your industry
– Search for people in your industry and follow them. You can do this with Google Reader (or other services like Feedly as Reader is going to be discontinued in July 2013)
– Google Trends – Google share trending subjects within a specific niche
– Surveys – Where you ask your existing clients their biggest ‘Problem’ within your industry

Discussing what’s actually going on in the industry through the data you gathered will show your customers and prospects that you are a market leader in your industry.

Understand What Really Drives Traffic

So you’ve written a really good quality post, but what’s driving people to your site? Work on gaining solid followers to build your reputation online using social media. Along with components of existing SEO techniques, the use of social media will assist with ‘User Engagement’.

If you stick to creating really good quality content for users, eventually your site will gain traction. Don’t depend on short-term successes. With certain techniques, you may get yourself at the top of search results, but if the content is lacking in quality, then it will lack CONVERSIONS.

Just Do It

There are many reasons that turn up when you focus on consistent quality content. It could be procrastination, you’re too busy, you don’t think your opinion matters, or a number of other reasons.

In reality, whatever you have to say counts but like any skill, it does take practice. The more you practice the more you improve and the more people will get to know you.

As my grade 3 piano teacher taught me: ‘the key to learning piano begins with the 3p’s. Practice, Practice, Practice’.

By investing the time, creating with consistency and ‘Just Doing It’ you’ll be on the path to creating quality content opposed to keyword stuffed fluff content. This will encourage your reader to share your content (which will increase distribution) and will position you as a leader in your industry.

The post Quality Content V’s Keyword Stuffing appeared first on Online Specialists.

Let’s be honest… Google employ some of the worlds leading minds to ensure they are not only constantly developing measures to rank sites, but also to ensure they are on the most popular kid in school.

BBC Gets Slapped By Google

One surprise recently was that BBC, a very well known brand backed by a solid global reputation was penalised for unnatural links.

Not only was it a little surprising that such a big company with what you’d expect to have a solid online strategy was penalised, it also showed that if anyone steps over the lines of Google quality guidelines, that they would pay the price.

The BBC website is not alone…

Another popular website, Digg, also got accidentally penalised while Google was scouring the site for spammy submitted links. Earlier, Interflora, a popular flower seller in the UK, was penalised for its use of advertorials to boost its ranking.

What is the message? There are no big brands or big companies when it comes to Google penalties and everyone has to follow the rules.

What does this mean for your company and how do you keep yourself protected and what are the rules?

Fair Playing Field

First things first… Here are the rules – http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

These are clearly laid out and do require a little technical know-how to ensure you are covering each step correctly.

A lot of the rules actually listed in this link relate to the sites structure, use of quality content and the type of links that come back to a specific site.

Google treats all sites as equal. Certain sites results in the search engines are different due to their reputation (and other earned measures), but Google will penalise all sites the same way irrespective of the size of the brand.

Matt Cutts, head of the Google webspam team, said that big brands are penalised quite often. They just don’t get into the news much because it’s not in the brand’s best interest.

In reality, if a big guy is doing something illegal, they will be punished. A smaller or medium-sized company can actually outdo a multinational company online just by following a number of basic principles.

This then makes you ask the question… If you’re a big or small brand, what basic steps should you follow to ensure you’re keeping the search engines happy?

Basic Methods To Protecting Yourself

If you are not doing any prohibited SEO techniques, then you have nothing to worry about. If you’ve hired an SEO company and that SEO is using techniques that go against Google’s policy, then you may have an issue.

Here are some sure ways you can avoid being penalised.

• Generate original, quality content. One good way of making sure your site do not get penalised by Google is to deliver only good quality content. This is Google’s primary rule. They want give the public the information they want and need.

Originality is also a big concern. You don’t want to be copying or rewriting content from another website. The best way to handle this is by providing content based on your field of expertise. Your site’s content should be helping prospective customers in a way.

In creating content for your site, think about the users first, not the search engines. Give advice, reviews or opinion on a topic related to your business.

What is quality content? Content that informs and educates the visitor to your site on your niche/ industry. This can be words, sounds, videos and other methods to interact and engage your users. Avoid fluff and duplicate content.

• Stay away from spammy activities. Many SEO activities have been linked to spam and illegal activities which are really not meant for the best interest of the user. And that’s what makes them bad in the eyes of Google.

From Google Guildines… ‘Activities that you should avoid include buying or selling links, linking to web spammers and participating in excessive link exchanges – this is the old practice of ‘You link to me, I link to you.’

Gone are the days when spammy techniques helped sites get ahead in search results. If you do that now, you can get in trouble dealing with penalties. Worst case scenario: your entire site can be taken out of Google search results.

• Google Webmaster Tools is a MUST. Your site administrator should be checking Webmaster Tools regularly to check the health of the site. It is through the Webmaster Tools that you will get notified by Google if there are spammy activities going on in your site. This was how BBC found out about the penalty. Regularly check it to see if there are errors when search engines crawl your site or if there is malware present.

Side Note: this is one example of hundreds of ways you can use Webmaster Tools to enhance your online presence.

• Monitor and protect your site from hackers. Make sure you remove any hacked content that tries to get into your site. You should also protect your site from user-generated spam. Part of the responsibility of a web administrator is to monitor the site for spammy content. This unwanted content can do a lot of damage to your site. Installing good security will help a great deal in protecting your site from these attacks.

What Can You Do If You Get Penalised?

It’s not the end of the world if you get penalised by Google. There are solutions to every problem including this. Remember the prime rule in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Don’t Panic!

Here are some important things you can do if you get penalised.

• Reconsideration. Google is not unforgiving. All you need to do is look for the spammy links or content in your website. Have them removed – you might need to contact a website to remove the unnatural link to your site.

You then submit a reconsideration request to Google. The reconsideration request can be done through Google Webmaster Tools. Your SEO should have this as a minimum requirement. If not, it’s time to move on.

Here’s a direct link to a reconsideration request form – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reconsideration

• Get other venues to get traffic to your site. If your site’s been removed from Google search results, you can still get traffic while you fix the problem. This is why social engagement is very important.

If you have a good amount of followers on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, your site can still get the traffic you want. It’s a good backup plan and will go handy in times like this.

The trick to pleasing Google and search engines is simple. Think of your users, be honest and keep it clean. In other words – Keep It Real!

SEO is always an organic process that succeeds through honest efforts. Don’t be fooled by shortcuts and promises of instant results.

It can be a jungle out there if you don’t know where to look for help. Develop a trustworthy SEO strategy that’s good for users and eventually good for you. Google wants to help businesses and customers get the best from the search engines. This will ensure you’re getting the right message across and pleasing the Google Gods at the same time.

The post Beware: Google Penalties… Is Your Website Safe? appeared first on Online Specialists.

There’s a growing trend of ‘Smart Business Owners’ that seek the help of online experts to make their websites perform well on the web, ensuring they are actually able to compete with millions of other websites trying to catch the attention of potential customers and clients.

Reality Tip #1 – ‘In today’s business world, without any online solution, a website will simply end up lying around the Internet without anyone ever noticing it.’

Is Search Engine Optimisation the Golden Key?

One of the more common online solutions is seen in search engine optimisation (SEO), whose main goals include ranking a site and attracting more traffic. But any skilled SEO company realise that these are 2 small parts of a bigger puzzle and the main objective is to use other elements of SEO.

Search engine marketing (SEM), and recently, social media are two solutions that contribute to SEO and the success of a business website.

Different Thrusts, Same Purpose

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Marketing (SMM) are usually treated as separate entities, but in reality, all these three are part of a solid overall online strategy.

Effective online marketing happens when you make use of all avenues to reach out to customers and turn site visitors into paying customers. SEO, SEM and SMM are some of the key avenues to take.

The trick for the online marketer is to understand ‘how to’ integrate all three of these different strategies, adjusting and fine-tuning the marketing move based on the type of business.

SEM and SEO

Simply put, SEM is paying for your site to be listed on search engine and online directories. You can easily identify them with the small ‘Ads by Google’ or on the search engines you’ll notice they’re a different colour.

The idea behind SEM is quite a contrast with SEO as it’s usually based on a ‘Paid Per Click’ model. You would normally set a daily budget and once it runs out your online presence disappears till the next day.

SEO on the other hand is ‘Earned’ in the respect that it usually takes longer to get to the top, but once you’re there, you stay there (with ongoing maintenance).

SEM and SEO are not conflicting entities. In fact, they should really be used hand-in-hand, each helping the other to improve the site’s online presence.

For instance, if there are keywords that are generating a lot of leads through paid search only, you may have to put more effort into optimising them for your organic search. The same goes for SEM.

If you are finding some keywords generating leads from organic search results, you can intensify your marketing by using those keywords for SEM. This will help you make sure that you’re not missing out on any potential revenues from SEM.

In summary, when used together they can turn your site into a money making machine

Reality Tip #2 – ‘Avoid placing all of your eggs in one basket…’

Making Social Platforms Work for Your SEO

Social media is really the in thing right now.

Statistics show more and more people are engaging in social networks, and as a result social media has (and will increasingly) become an integral part of online marketing and SEO. Google have officially announced that they use ‘Social Signals’’ as a part of their algorithm.

In Google’s own words:

‘Yes, we do use [Twitter] as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.’

And Also:

‘We treat links shared on Facebook fan pages the same as we treat tweeted links.’

The Best Suited Social Strategy

The right social strategy will also ensure you are attracting visitors through social platforms, but it will also support your SEO activities.

Although Google are proving to pay special attention to Twitter and Google +, there is also no single winner in social media that you should be prioritising. Just because Facebook has the highest number of subscribers in the world, does not mean you should only be making your business social there or give in to the notion that Facebook is king.

Many online users prefer one social network for another. Some social networks are geared towards a certain group of people and for certain industries.

If you have very eye-candy products, decors, DIY related services and other picture-worthy products and services, you can be successful socialising on Pinterest and integrate that with Facebook and other social networks.

If your business is targeting professionals and businessmen, you can find them well-connected in LinkedIn. They could be on there looking for the exact services that you are offering.

Facebookers like checking in online, so your motel or hotel business could get extra leverage as users thumb up your services and product offerings.

Evaluate and plan your social media engagement first before you go invest time and money. 

Make sure that you are making the most of the social media platform and that they are positively contributing to your overall SEO strategy.

Holistic Makes All the Difference

When looking to improve your online presence, the most important criteria you will need to consider is if the expert you are hiring uses a holistic approach to SEO.

SEO is not only about making your website appear good on search engines. It also has to do with the overall performance of your site.

You could be doing well on search, but may be failing to translate that success into real revenues.

Is your site transforming visitors into customers? Does your site have the right prompt for potential customers to contact you? And does it have an aggressive and effective social presence to engage and encourage customers to talk about and avail of your products and services? All these can easily be regarded as separate thrusts, but in fact, they all should be conceptualised as parts of a whole.

Your SEO, SEM and SMM must be thought of as interactive parts of the plan.

It could well be that you are doing great on social platforms, but when visitors and customers go to your site, there are a lot of navigational hiccups that are discouraging users to continue doing business with you.

If you are putting all your money into SEM and ignoring your website, the paid search investments are useless.

 Reality Tip #3 – ‘Even your focus of your online presence to get the maximum return…’

Online strategies are also not the same for all businesses. They must be planned according to the business type, so there are no strict rules that you can follow.

Ensure your Online Strategy is measurable allowing you to eliminate ineffective methods and fill in the gaps when necessary.

If you take anything away from reading this understand a holistic approach is more important when getting the maximum return for your business online.

The post SEO, SEM and Social appeared first on Online Specialists.

If you have little idea about SEO, then it could be troublesome looking around. It’s like hiring someone but you don’t know the qualifications to look for. All you know is that the SEO company has to make you do well on Google and other search engines.

What You Need to Know

Many people think of SEO as “making a website rank high on search engines.” Whilst there is an element of ranking involved, in the last few years it has really evolved to become more about traffic and engagement. This is where it can start to become confusing especially with many SEO services varying in the services they offer. So how do you hire someone and what should you be looking for?

First, getting ranking in the search engines doesn’t simply happen as a result of waving a magic wand. You can’t say, “In a month or two, I want my website to be at the top of Google search result” and expect it to magically happen. SEO is a combination of specific consistent, continuous activities designed to show the search engines that your site is good enough to appear in their pages.

Think of hiring an SEO as consulting work. An SEO specialist is there to help you improve your sites overall image and to identify elements for improvement. When working with a consultant they should first of all identify potential improvements for your website.

These areas may include:

• The site’s design and structure
• The use of content on your site
• How the search engines see your website
• How visitors are engaged by your website

SEO is not about getting spikes in site visits; it has more to do with giving your readers, customers and potential customers the right web experience. The better your site improves in this aspect, the better you will do in search. And good SEO can help you achieve this.

Before searching for an SEO company, it would do you good to research a little about search engine optimisation so you will know what to look for.

As you can see by this video from Matt Cutts, Google actually wants to work with SEO companies.

Do You Need to Hire an SEO Expert, Really?

If you are not a technical guy, then yes, you’ll need to hire an SEO expert. You might not know if there are errors on your site, if your hosting is secure, if there are broken links or redirects, if the site is loading too slow or if it is being crawled by the search engines in the first place.

Another important element of SEO is how others connect (or link) to your website. With the growth of Google the number of people trying to find a ‘Quick Fix’ has also increased causing a lot of negative techniques that have caused many sites to be penalised.

More than ever, it’s critical to ensure any SEO company is focussed on a ‘Clean Online Footprint’. A good SEO company will have specific strategies that will target this.

It is possible to learn these things, just like anyone can learn plumbing, but it would take a lot of work, experimentation which may not end well, especially if you are inexperienced.

Beware of the Bad Guys

The trouble with finding an SEO expert is that the industry is filled with guys that cut corners promising amazing results. Beware of amazing promises of amazing results done in lightning speed that are too cheap. Treat it just like a financial investment. The adage “If the promise is too good to be true, then it probably is” applies here. If you are promised #1 ranking in Google search, that you be a warning sign to you.

As time goes on and the search engines get smarter, old school techniques do not work as effectively as they used to. If you use an SEO company that is using the same ‘short cut’ methodology as 2 years ago then there’s a good chance you’ll get your site penalised and might even be taken out of Google’s index.

SEO old trick – keyword stuffing doesn’t work anymore

Google Makes the Rules

One thing that makes Google successful online is the ethics they try to inject into the industry, making them more trustworthy. For quite some time, it has been a battle between Google and the corner cutting SEO’s, with Google policing the SEOs and the SEOs always seeking to trick the search engine.

A good SEO for your website will abide by search engine’s rules and not go around them for the easy win. Google is constantly improving its algorithm to improve search results so your SEO company of choice should always be updated with such changes.

Where to Look

Google an SEO company and see how they rank. If they are any good then they should appear in good positions within their own serviceable area. For example, you may want a company within your area so you can easily contact them.

You want a business that you can call or email and expect a timely response during your business hours.

Another good way to look is through your network. Find good recommendations from people who have hired an SEO in the past. If you are in business-oriented social networks like LinkedIn, you can ask for recommendations from your contacts. Make a shortlist of the SEO companies you’re interested in and start investigating.

Questions to Ask

It would be good if you can do a bit of research on SEO before hiring someone. That way, you will have a background about the kind of service you wish to hire.

Here are some of the important things you can ask your shortlisted SEO candidates:

• What are their strategies for SEO?
• What is their experience with businesses like the one you are running? Ask which companies they have worked with.
• How will they be reporting to you for you to know how your site is doing?
• What are their marketing techniques that can help your business grow?
• Ask for a timeline of tasks

Ask Their Clients

One good way to assess how good the SEO Company is by asking their clients and looking for real video testimonials. Are their clients happy with their service?

What is the average time frame they have worked with their clients?

What sort of results have they achieved? It should be about more then simply getting a site ranked. What other areas have they helped clients with?

In reality they may not be able to make everyone happy, but they should have a good list of happy clients.

Choose Wisely

Don’t go with an SEO specialist simply because of their low price.

In many instances a cheap SEO company should wave in front of your face like a red flag! There are many scammers around and you could become a victim if you are not careful.

It’s easier to get a site ranked the right way than it is to fix a site that has been heavily penalised due to corner cutting SEO.

Make sure you do your research and ask the questions listed above. This will be the difference between establishing a solid long term online presence and potentially getting banned.

The post Finding a Good SEO Company for Your Website appeared first on Online Specialists.

As a teaser to the report, they have also released an excerpt, highlighting several key SEO findings within over 1500 organisations.

Main reasons people Engage in SEO

The top reason people are investing in SEO is to increase traffic, which in a way is what you would consider to be the most important element of a website. In reality the most important reason to engage an SEO firm is to increase the leads and conversions through your website.

Even if your site is only attracting a few 100 visitors per month, if your campaign is highly targeted within your industry and you’re getting business through your website, then I would call that a success.

We recently started SEO’ing a site that attracts over 50,000 visitors a month, but the conversion to lead or customer was very low. By implementing a few on-page conversion strategies, we are slowly converting their traffic to leads to customers.

SEO Tactics to Rank

If you are new to SEO or you are considering DIY SEO this will give you an insight and may help you to understand why you should outsource this service. The graph below indicates the SEO methods in use and the level of difficulty through the use of each technique.

Keyword research is the second most commonly used tactic and rightfully so. Your keyword research will determine the success of your overall strategy.

A point of interest is that content creation is the most commonly used strategy and considered to be the most difficult strategy. This really does hit home that ‘content is king’, especially in light of the recent Google Panda updates.

SEO growth over the next 12 months

The following graph is broken down into 3 different sections; Trial, Transition and Strategic. It shows the level of investment expected in SEO over the next 12 months. Businesses within the Trial phase using SEO are generally run in-house, spending money on wages and staff salaries, with Transition and Strategic outsourcing either all or components of their SEO.

Further more, Transition and Strategic companies are continuing to increase their SEO budget, understanding the solid Return On Investment (ROI) in relation to dollars spent.

This also rings true with a number of our clients either previously performing the SEO tasks themselves or assigning the task to one of the members of their staff. Due to the nature of SEO, many of these tasks can be performed on a larger scale and with more consistency at a lower dollar investment.

ROI for SEO – Do the Maths

Really think about this last point and do the maths. Consider assigning an admin person with 10 hours a week of consistently performing SEO tasks (article writing, link building etc). If you are paying this person $45,000 per annum based on a  40 hour week, then you’re essentially investing just under $12,000 a year on SEO.

For a similar (or lower in many cases) level of investment you’re able to outsource this service, and have a dedicated team of people working on the strategic direction of your site working close to double that amount. They are also specialised in the art of SEO and have their finger on the pulse of all current and future trends. Hmmm… A No brainer?

As you would expect, a large number of our long term clients sit within the Strategic section and are constantly looking at increasing their ROI through other mediums like email marketing campaigns and social media.

SEO and the Wild West

This report shows that SEO is still in it’s infancy, with a lot of opportunity and growth available for many small to large business. It’s still the ‘wild west’ online and this report shows SEO’ers are taking positive steps towards standardisation.

The investment for the report is $397 for the .pdf version and is a good read for anyone that has an interest in SEO trends.

To download the report for a $100 discount, download the excerpt and fill out the form on the last page. You can download the excerpt from here – https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31953#

The post SEO Techniques and Trends appeared first on Online Specialists.

It shows the strength of social media, especially when comments are re-tweeted and in certain circumstances, shown in the Search Engine Results Pages.

Sounds like a good idea for a person searching on a certain topic? If a particular subject is trending at any given time and the social world is interested then Google will tell you about it in their results. This is great!

On the 3rd of July they decided to stop using Twitter as a factor in social media trends with no real explanation. As you can read in this post by Cyrus Shepard in SEO Moz the theoretical intention is to start using Google+ as the social medium to replace twitter. Here’s the article here – http://mz.cm/owXtfx

In Cyrus’ article it shows a few examples of social media and its direct influence to the Search Engine Results Pages. The image below from this article demonstrates an example of pre 3rd July.

Will this impact my SEO and should I panic?

While this certainly demonstrates the importance of social media in any online campaign it doesn’t mean you should go out and set up a million campaigns and get a tonne of Google +1’s to your homepage. Aside from the fact that this is ‘black hat’ you’ll eventually get caught.

What it does demonstrate in some instances the importance of a solid social media profile and that it can potentially influence your position in the search engines. If you are serious in your online presence should you ensure you have a solid social platform? Maybe… in reality it could be overkill and you could end up spending a lot of time and money with your BDM or team member performing tasks that won’t actually give you any real measurable results.

Truth told, we are certainly recommending to certain clients that they look at their social media presence, especially if their SEO competition does the same and is doing it well.

Take a look at your competitors and see what they are doing. Like most Search Engines, in order to rank you don’t have to ‘do it all’; you simply have to do it a little better than your competition. By ensuring you’re keeping an eye on your competition (using social monitors) you’ll understand if now is the time to react, or if you should invest your time in other activities that offer a better return on investment.

The post SEO and Social Media – Is this the Missing Link appeared first on Online Specialists.

One of the main points of the book I recall was discussing the structure of a
Google employee’s week and how they are encouraged to develop their own projects
one day a week.

Over time if you project was interesting enough it would be integrated into
Google’s overall offerings.

I have no doubt Google Maps, Froogle (now Google product search) and a multitude
of other offerings from Google were as a result of this method of encouragement
and development.

One of the latest projects just released is ‘What Do You Love’ (can be found at
www.wdyl.com), which is a cool way of showing many different online mediums in
one summarised area on a particular topic.

You can see the full story on their blog here –

http://bit.ly/nLJUIl

They explain it to say ‘A while back, a few of us wanted to make a little tool
that we could use to show just about anybody more of what Google makes. That led
to some simple ideas, and then a few more ideas and ultimately, to a challenge:
how we could connect people to products they might not know about and may find
useful, but make the discovery relevant to them and keep it fun.

Playing about with that challenge produced a website—What Do You Love?—that we
hope meets at least some of the challenge by demonstrating how different Google
products can show you different things about any particular search query.’

This tool reminds me of iGoogle, which is the tool that you can customise to
bring back specific information when you are signed into your Google account.

The difference with this site though is it’s offering of other interesting
snippets of information including Blogs, Patents, Images, 3D, Books, latest
news, and many other cool features.

A useful add-on? From an SEO perspective, visit the site and type in your
business name. This will give you a nice cross section of what’s out there in
relation to your business. Even better, type in your product or service and see
what comes up.

Could you could use this as a cool tool to track your competitors. Hmmm

Resource – Official Google Blog – http://bit.ly/nLJUIl

The post A nice Niche for Search Engines – Google’s, What Do you Love? appeared first on Online Specialists.