CAT | Link Building
23
Free SEO Tips and Tricks Blog
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Articles, Blogging, FAQ, FAQ - Analytics, FAQ - PPC, FAQ - SEO, Internet News, Keyword Research, Landing Page Optimisation, Link Building, Local Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Resources, Search Engine Resources
Although we at Slipstream here in the UK, we recognise that some webmasters just love doing search engine optimisation themselves and, for that reason, we make a lot of SEO information freely available in our blog.
However, if you’re looking for free SEO tips on a regular basis, i.e. daily, then I recommend you take a look at the Daily SEO Tip blog.
This blog is dedicated to giving free SEO tips and was founded by SEO specialists, Loren Baker and Ann Smarty.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
What Tests Should I Try On My Landing Pages?
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Landing Page Optimisation, Link Building, Local Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Resources, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Landing page testing and optimisation has really started to pick up over the past six months and with more and more advertisers conducting tests, the more difficult it becomes for those of you who are not.
If three of your main competitors are frequently conducting tests, they will be collating extremely valuable data on how visitors react to their web page design.
Testing elements of landing pages is now playing a fundamental part of increasing a website’s conversion rate. There are a number of key elements on a page which warrant testing to find out what works for your customers and what doesn’t. How do you know unless you test?
The idea for this blog post came about when I was looking around the web for elements that I could test within a web page. There are lots of sources out there giving us ideas, so I thought a summary of my findings would benefit all.
Page Structure Tests
Page structure tests involve changing a key element on the page to differ completely from the original.
- Size and contents of the page header
- Size and contents of the page footer
- Horizontal vs. vertical navigation bar
- Trust symbols and accreditation logos
- Size and location of forms
- Swapping page sections from left to right
- Single vs. multiple columns
Main Headline Tests
People respond differently to the way a headline on a page is written, some respond to capitalisation, some respond to numerical statistics etc
- Asking a question
- Website not ranking for key terms?
- Is your website not ranking well for your key terms?
- Do you know how to get your website ranking for key terms?
- Business focus vs. customer focus
- We can help you increase your visibility in the search engines
- You can increase your websites visibility in the search engines
- Capitalisation vs. non capitalisation
- We Can Help You Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
- We can help you improve your search engine rankings
- Bold, capitalisation, underline, normal and italic
- We can help you improve your search engine rankings
- We can help you improve your search engine rankings
- We can help you improve your search engine rankings
- We can help you improve your SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
- We can help you improve your search engine rankings
- Statistics
- We have helped 100’s of websites achieve page one rankings on Google
- We have saved customers £100’s in AdWords spend
Content Tests
We all worry about what a page looks like. Would you be surprised that some of the more plain web pages convert better? Testing colours and font styles have been known to drive significant increases in a websites conversion rate.
- Long paragraphs of text vs. short paragraphs of text
- Bullet points
- Punctuation
- Font size
- Font style
- Call to action button colours
- Call to action wording
The BBC News website posted an article which really brings home how much first impressions count on the web.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
SEO is…SIMPLE
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Articles, Keyword Research, Landing Page Optimisation, Link Building, Local Search, PR, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Resources, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Resources
By following some straightforward Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) fundamentals, you can be sure that your site is ready to be indexed by the search engines and all set to meet your objectives.
S is for Searches
Keyword research will show you which search terms are most commonly used by searchers. It is important that you optimise your site for keywords and phrases which will be searched for; otherwise your site may be ranking high in the search engines for terms that very few people search for.
I is for Index
It is important that your site is indexed often by the different search engines. One way to ensure that the search engines keep coming back is to repeatedly add fresh content to your website. A blog or latest news section allows you to add new content to your site with affecting any current on-page body copy. A WordPress blog is free and you can then theme it to match your site – SIMPLE!
Remember it doesn’t have to be a 500 word post, (even though an occasional one this long is good) a short paragraph about some industry news will suffice. As long as it is related to your website or industry and is of interest then that should be more than sufficient.
M is for Money
Not really a SEO tip, but the reason you’re doing SEO in the first place is to meet your site’s objective, which in 90% of cases is to generate income. If your website is not appearing in the search engine results for terms that have commercial intent, then ultimately your site is not being run profitably.
P is for People
Don’t forget people when you are reviewing your SEO strategy. Even though your website should be search engine friendly, visitors to your site should not be put off; after all, they are the ones with pounds in their pocket ready to spend on your site and hopefully make you are profit.
Optimising your site goes hand in hand with making your site user friendly. It is important that the site is easy to navigate around and you should test your shopping cart to make sure that there are no barriers to checkout.
L is for Links
Inbound links to your domain from other websites will allow the search engines to frequently find your site and hopefully keep coming back to it by way of these links.
Don’t forget, it’s not the external links into your site that are important, ensuring your internal linking structure is optimised and functions effectively is essential too. You can replace ‘Click Here’ on the pages of your site with optimised anchor text, which will help to strengthen your internal link profile. Internal links will also help visitors to the site to navigate with greater ease, whilst also sending them straight to money pages.
E is for Engines
Please don’t forget that Google is not the only search engine. Of course it is the main search engine which the majority of searchers use, but there are other search engines out there to optimised for; these include Bing, Yahoo and Ask.
To improve your website within the search engine rankings you need to be patient; all changes you make will first have to be indexed by the search engines, which can take time. To see significant improvements you may need to wait anything from a couple of weeks to months.
A number one ranking in one of the other search engines may not deliver hundreds of visitors, but the quality of those visitors may still be good and could result in additional revenue, which previously you may have been missing out on.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
23
Using PR to Compliment your Website’s SEO
0 Comments | Posted by andy in Articles, Copywriting, Link Building, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Twitter
If you’ve got a website, or indeed have a client who has a website to be proud of then you want to show it off. SEO is the best way of getting the attention of the search engines, and those who use them, but there’s much more you can be doing besides.
Any PR specialist will tell you that anything can be promoted; it’s just about knowing where and how to do it. With PR fundamentally centred on generating buzz, the Internet is the perfect forum for getting the message out there loud and clear.
Online PR is by no means a detached process from your general search engine marketing processes. It can incorporate elements of SEO and link building, whilst of course spreading the word about your latest innovation, newest products or achievements. Any successful PR strategy just needs an angle; something that will make you stand out and unique from the competition.
Creating Buzz through a Unique Perspective
Finding that angle isn’t always straightforward though; how can you persuade someone who may only have a passing interest in what you’re offering to visit your site? Well, that’s the skill of PR.
Search engines are still the most consistent sources of traffic. There are very few sites that have succeeded in spite of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft; we use them to search for almost everything, which is why SEO still has to come first. But if you’re in a position to diversify and want to explore new channels, PR is the way forward.
Modern PR isn’t simply about creating press releases and sending them off to the local paper or releasing it through the newswire. Today, that same press release can be submitted to a site like PRWeb and within hours showing on journalists’ screens as well as search engine results pages across the world. It’s a far more dynamic system that provides opportunities for distribution that would not have been possible even in the last decade.
Of course, the modern digital press release has another major bonus, HTML coding. That’s right, most sites will allow you to include embedded links within the copy before distribution. Therefore, once it’s out there on the Internet your site is gaining SEO strength as well as providing an interesting news story that could well get picked up.
Promoting a site can take on many forms though. For example, once you’ve created a press release that links to your website, you can then go and promote the release itself. This can be done in many ways, but the most popular currently is social media. Sites like Twitter allow quickfire messages with short links, providing the perfect opportunity to talk up your own press release. Social bookmarking is another fantastic way to increase exposure; just get on Digg or your own site of choice and flag it up, you’d be surprised how many extra reads your press release can achieve.
It might sound a little complicated, promoting a promotional press release, but the truth is it can get results. PR today is about finding ways to utilise the resources available to their optimum. If you’ve spent a few hours writing a release, you want to make sure that it’s read, so why not spend the same amount of time promoting it? The same of course is true of most things, including blog posts and news stories within a site; by channelling visitors through intermediary content, you can get better results than providing a direct link.
An example of how to market a press release
Online users seek authority in the information that they read. For most, spam is still a major turn-off, so avoiding this online PR disaster – i.e. using inappropriate hashtags in Twitter promotions – is just as key to success. Provide people with something interesting, informative, eye-catching, captivating, intriguing – however you wish to term it – is a fantastic way of helping boost site traffic and profile.
Don’t let your hard on-site work go to waste. If you’ve got it, flaunt it; show the world what you’re all about through the search engines and innovative online PR.
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Published by SEO Prof Andy
