Well this is just going to be a quick post since it is Friday and 6pm but I thought I would just write a quick bit about one of my new clients who is extremely interesting. In fact I didn't even think that we had any of these types of businesses in the UK but that's the great thing with SEO - you work with a lot of different businesses all the time.
The business I am talking about is a company called Upton Cheyney Chilli Farm who specialise in making their very own chilli sauces, chilli jam, hot chillies and they also hold their very own chilli festival at their farm every summer which to be honest I would love to attend.
At the moment we are ranking quite well for the terms chilli sauce and chilli jam however I have a few good ideas up my sleeve for next month which will put us hopefully on Page 1 Google UK for the two main key terms.
This is a very nice company to work with and to be honest it is a nice product to work with as well because it is so different from the other projects I have worked on over the years. Anyways it is time to leave it at that for this week!
Friday, 15 April 2011
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Guest Blogging Is Still A Good Link Building Method
I have been reading a few articles of people suggesting that link building via guest posts and guest blogging on other peoples blogs is not a good method of link building and I must say that I think this is totally incorrect.
What I have noticed is that nearly every method of link building comes under fire at some point which could lead a person to believe that all methods of link building don't work, which of course is nonsense. I guess this is the exciting thing about SEO in the fact that you can literally make your own mind up and then create a strategy that you think will work most effectively.
Anyway back to guest blogging, I have been doing quite a bit this month and I am very happy with the results. I know that I am writing a 100% original piece of content and so the blog owner will be happy. Also I am getting either myself or one of my clients a nice anchor text backlink to their website which is a always helpful. The good thing about this method of link building is it is totally organic and it allows you to get links from websites where you would not normally be able to get them from.
I do believe that guest blogging is going to be one of the few link building methods to never stop working unless Google seriously changes the way they rank sites which might happen in time but not in the near future.
On another note I have taken on a new client called 4 Pets Store which is really cool and one of the main keywords I am looking to rank for is dog beds uk, which should be on page 1 by the end of the month. Hopefully then we can start moving the site into some more competitive terms such as just dog beds as this is where the real traffic is.
What I have noticed is that nearly every method of link building comes under fire at some point which could lead a person to believe that all methods of link building don't work, which of course is nonsense. I guess this is the exciting thing about SEO in the fact that you can literally make your own mind up and then create a strategy that you think will work most effectively.
Anyway back to guest blogging, I have been doing quite a bit this month and I am very happy with the results. I know that I am writing a 100% original piece of content and so the blog owner will be happy. Also I am getting either myself or one of my clients a nice anchor text backlink to their website which is a always helpful. The good thing about this method of link building is it is totally organic and it allows you to get links from websites where you would not normally be able to get them from.
I do believe that guest blogging is going to be one of the few link building methods to never stop working unless Google seriously changes the way they rank sites which might happen in time but not in the near future.
On another note I have taken on a new client called 4 Pets Store which is really cool and one of the main keywords I am looking to rank for is dog beds uk, which should be on page 1 by the end of the month. Hopefully then we can start moving the site into some more competitive terms such as just dog beds as this is where the real traffic is.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Managing New Clients Expectations
It has been a while since I updated this blog but I thought I would write about how a few of my new enquiries have what can only be described as mis-guided expectations. This has been the case for many years and it is where many seo and web design companies can drop the ball.
The instinct when talking with a new client is to tell them what they want to hear in many respects to get the deal and get the new client on the books. Sometimes however what the client wants is not really easily achievable and so this is where some companies will push forward and just say they can do the work to close the deal. The problem with this is that it means the client in a month or two is not going to be happy and you then find yourself with an angry customer.
It is my opinion that it is a good thing to try to explain to them that you can do the work they are asking for but to advise the timescales are going to be several months. More often than not new clients want results straight away and unless they have a good domain with a Page Rank 2 or above then it can take some time to get them what they want. Managing customers expectations is essential to keeping clients happy and not over selling or over promising again is the way to generate long term client relationships.
On another note I have also recently taken on a new customer which is very exciting called Veritas Consulting and they specialise in health and safety regulations. They also were on the Channel 4 show Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, so they are probably my most famous client to date!
The instinct when talking with a new client is to tell them what they want to hear in many respects to get the deal and get the new client on the books. Sometimes however what the client wants is not really easily achievable and so this is where some companies will push forward and just say they can do the work to close the deal. The problem with this is that it means the client in a month or two is not going to be happy and you then find yourself with an angry customer.
It is my opinion that it is a good thing to try to explain to them that you can do the work they are asking for but to advise the timescales are going to be several months. More often than not new clients want results straight away and unless they have a good domain with a Page Rank 2 or above then it can take some time to get them what they want. Managing customers expectations is essential to keeping clients happy and not over selling or over promising again is the way to generate long term client relationships.
On another note I have also recently taken on a new customer which is very exciting called Veritas Consulting and they specialise in health and safety regulations. They also were on the Channel 4 show Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, so they are probably my most famous client to date!
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Good Seo Is About Referrals and Not Just Rankings
I have recently been working on a new website that is very interesting and exciting. When I initially took over the website there were a lot of on page seo issues and also some of the link building seemed some what sketchy from a black hat point of view.
Either was since taking over I have achieved a 100% rise in nearly all the websites top 50 search words in terms of hits on Google which is a very impressive figure. Furthermore I have seen a rise in nearly all the other search engines which suggests that the website has improved across the board. To make things even better I have taken the website from page 13 to page 1 for the search term holdall which is a huge jump in a short space of time.
The concerning thing though is the hits for the website have still be decreasing. Now I could put this down to a bad time of year etc but that would not be fair. I have noticed that even though we have seen a great jump in the search engine traffic, I might have neglected looking at some referral sites such as getting on some decent classified websites.
In summary I think it is important to not just succeed on the search engines but also to drive traffic in general. There needs to be a good balance between targeted traffic via search engines and also via decent referrals as well.
Either was since taking over I have achieved a 100% rise in nearly all the websites top 50 search words in terms of hits on Google which is a very impressive figure. Furthermore I have seen a rise in nearly all the other search engines which suggests that the website has improved across the board. To make things even better I have taken the website from page 13 to page 1 for the search term holdall which is a huge jump in a short space of time.
The concerning thing though is the hits for the website have still be decreasing. Now I could put this down to a bad time of year etc but that would not be fair. I have noticed that even though we have seen a great jump in the search engine traffic, I might have neglected looking at some referral sites such as getting on some decent classified websites.
In summary I think it is important to not just succeed on the search engines but also to drive traffic in general. There needs to be a good balance between targeted traffic via search engines and also via decent referrals as well.
Monday, 15 November 2010
Google Base & Its Benefits
Today I am going to be having a good look at Google Base for one of my clients and this means formatting correct an excel document so that I can upload a big amount of their products onto Google Base so that we can hopefully see a big increase in visitors from that.
The good thing with Google Base that makes it such a cool thing is that it means for certain keywords you can essentially get a top position on Google for free. Formatting the document is not an issue as I have studied it in depth and done a few practice runs before I commit to a big amount of products. What I will say however is that optimising the Google Base document is something that I will have to look at and I think it is done through good descriptions and URLs - which we have both of.
Needless to say this is a big deal especially in the run up to Christmas and if done correctly it could have massive potential traffic increases for my client. I will try and get this done by Wednesday so that it is taken care of and so that we can hopefully start seeing some good results from it.
Google Base is something that can really turn around the seo results that we could get this client in the first month and hopefully make such a big impact that we can secure this client for the foreseeable future.
The good thing with Google Base that makes it such a cool thing is that it means for certain keywords you can essentially get a top position on Google for free. Formatting the document is not an issue as I have studied it in depth and done a few practice runs before I commit to a big amount of products. What I will say however is that optimising the Google Base document is something that I will have to look at and I think it is done through good descriptions and URLs - which we have both of.
Needless to say this is a big deal especially in the run up to Christmas and if done correctly it could have massive potential traffic increases for my client. I will try and get this done by Wednesday so that it is taken care of and so that we can hopefully start seeing some good results from it.
Google Base is something that can really turn around the seo results that we could get this client in the first month and hopefully make such a big impact that we can secure this client for the foreseeable future.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Guest Blogging Effectively
Hello everyone, today I just want to run over how i think guest blogging should be done so that it is effective and worthwhile for your business. Many people allow you to guest blog in random website all over the Internet however while they are sometimes worth doing so you can get a good anchor text link from them, I feel that you should try and focus on a few well known blogs that are directly related to your market, so that you can get a good following on there and earn some good link juice to.
For example being in the affordable seo services market I have found that I know a good few web companies that all have bogs on their website and for me to request to guest blog for them once a month would be more than welcome. This is a really good relationship to develop as it allow them to get some good content on their website but also I will get a good link back to my own website. So if you can build up a good amount of blogs to be able to get these guest blog slots on then you can definitely get some good links and traffic from them.
Also do not be afraid to let someone guest blog for your won website either because the same thing goes here again. Firstly it allows you to do something else with your time instead of blogging which can be a nice change of pace and also having someone else write a blog post can add a new twist to a topic and make your blog more diverse.
For example being in the affordable seo services market I have found that I know a good few web companies that all have bogs on their website and for me to request to guest blog for them once a month would be more than welcome. This is a really good relationship to develop as it allow them to get some good content on their website but also I will get a good link back to my own website. So if you can build up a good amount of blogs to be able to get these guest blog slots on then you can definitely get some good links and traffic from them.
Also do not be afraid to let someone guest blog for your won website either because the same thing goes here again. Firstly it allows you to do something else with your time instead of blogging which can be a nice change of pace and also having someone else write a blog post can add a new twist to a topic and make your blog more diverse.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Yahoo Site Explorer Suggests Google Un-indexing Pages
Well I have been keeping a close eye on my website as it is relatively new and so I want to see how Google treats it. I have found it to be quite strange because on one hand Google has allowed me to get some great results on the competitive term 'affordable seo' which I am now on Page 2 for and trying to close a Page 1 top5 5 rank as soon as possible. I am also doing quite well with the term 'seo wiltshire' which I am trying to close to a top 5 page 1 position as well.
Also I have been increasing the number of pages on my website from 5 up to 12 and over the weeks I saw Google begin to index them one by one. However the other day I noticed it go down from 12 to 11 and now 10 indexed pages on Google using the yahoo site explorer tool. I think that I will not take too much notice of this as I can still find the pages on a Google search which suggests that I might just be seeing a slight variation in my statistics and also as my web site is new it is not uncommon for Google to start applying stricter measures to it.
I will be no doubt keeping a close eye and hopefully will not see the amount of pages decreasing as it is quite worrying. I do feel however that I am keeping to close an eye on it all and as a result micro managing data that is more of an estimate than a definite answer.
Work is going well and I am looking at taking my first ecommerce project on which I feel will greatly help the websites seo rankings especially if it is all done correctly.
Also I have been increasing the number of pages on my website from 5 up to 12 and over the weeks I saw Google begin to index them one by one. However the other day I noticed it go down from 12 to 11 and now 10 indexed pages on Google using the yahoo site explorer tool. I think that I will not take too much notice of this as I can still find the pages on a Google search which suggests that I might just be seeing a slight variation in my statistics and also as my web site is new it is not uncommon for Google to start applying stricter measures to it.
I will be no doubt keeping a close eye and hopefully will not see the amount of pages decreasing as it is quite worrying. I do feel however that I am keeping to close an eye on it all and as a result micro managing data that is more of an estimate than a definite answer.
Work is going well and I am looking at taking my first ecommerce project on which I feel will greatly help the websites seo rankings especially if it is all done correctly.
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