New Research Shows Key Ranking Factors for the UK
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: Search Metrics 2012 Ranking Factor Report
The volume of data and number crunching to form this guide is remarkable. It's based on analysis of 10,000 selected top-keywords, 300,000 websites and millions of links, shares and tweets from within the Searchmetrics database.
It has been condensed well for a quick summary on SEO in the UK. The guide looks at the 6 trends / changes the research highlighted which are summarised in the diagram below.
Marketing implications
While the report probably won't show anything that most people will not have heard already it may hopefully spur you into action or debunk some of the SEO myths. I have summarised the 3 I believe are most important below, but you can see the full…
"The first major update since 2007"
Well, that's what Google say, so it's an indication of how important this could be for digital marketers. It was 2007 when Google launched Universal Search, how time flies. 2012 sees the launch of a new upgrade called Knowledge Graph. In this alert we've summarised what it is and why it matters to marketers.
Value/Importance: [rating=5]
The feature is rolling out now for some users in the US, it's expected that other countries will get it in a matter of weeks. We'll update when it becomes live elsewhere. It could be a while since Google+ integration in Google.com is still a different experience for non US users since several months.
Recommended link: Google’s official introduction to the Knowledge Graph
What is Knowledge Graph?
Knowledge Graph is a set of semantic tools which aim to make your search results more relevant and informative - Google sees this as the first step…
Creating effective landing pages for SEO
If you have followed the first six steps in this series on SEO (plus added your own twist and freestyling) you should now be seeing increased coverage (pages & keywords) in search results for your target keywords. Now the real fun begins since...
Being visible and getting clicks doesn’t guarantee you success. Success depends on many factors, of which landing page quality is one. It’s almost impossible to create a landing page that caters for the needs of all natural search visitors. Your aim should be to improve your landing pages over time, using proven optimisation methods, so that the natural search traffic you get positively contributes to your website’s KPIs.
Please note that you don’t have to make immediate conversions and revenue the primary goals for all natural search traffic – there may be some research terms (head and mid tail keywords) for which your…
While researching for a presentation I was delivered for a client, I found these two videos from the Google Inside Search website which really made me sit back and realise how much the web, technology, marketing, and human interaction with technology has evolved, even in my relatively short career its has drastically moved forwards. We have all no-doubt seen the Social Media Revolution video from Socialnomics which is as equally as eye opening as these two videos (below) in terms of highlighting the potential of the internet as it stands in 2012 and looking forwards.
Evolution of Search
This short video from Google has highlighted to me just how much the web has changed, because we have adopted technology into our lives so heavily now it is easily forgotten that…
Google Shares 5 Common SEO Mistakes
This video was recently published on the Google Webmaster Tools blog. It's a great insight for small businesses or those new to SEO about some of the common strategic mistakes made by website owners.
The video concludes with 6 tips which I find most useful since they highlight Google's thinking behind their latest ranking approaches. The 6 tips are:
Do something cool
Include relevant keywords in copy
Be smart about site architecture
Sign up for email forwarding in webmaster tools
Attract buzz and natural links, +1s, follows
Stay fresh and relevant (social media sites, accessible on new devices)
Points 2, 3 & 4 are generally the easy part these days, they are well document across the web (including on SmartInsights) so easy to learn / follow and most popular content management systems will aid you in this area. Points 1, 5 & 6 however are not so easy…
Presented to the Internet Retailing Expo conference in Birmingham
The techniques I recommended in this talk are reviewed for a case study company with their permission. Although the recommendations use a retail example, they apply to other types of business also.
Here's a preview of the recommendations:
1. Identify Consumer search behaviours NOT just keyword lists
2. Use a gap analysis to drive performance
3. Improve your brand messages: Communicate your OVP for a smooth customer journey
4. Check the relevance of blended search – here Google Places
5. Don’t forget the second biggest search engine…
6. Evaluate paid search YouTube options
7. Obsess about links
8. Obsess more about content
9. Integrate “added value content”
10. You can always re-engineer your title tags more…
11. Even keyword density analysis can help…something you shouldn’t do?
12. Make the most of your home page and high-level utility pages
13. Get the balance right oncategory and sub-category pages
14. Review…
What is the objective of your SEO program? Actually you will have many but at the heart will be the desire to increase the amount of relevant traffic that hits your website(s) from natural search.
The total number of potential keyword searches that could drive traffic to your website is enormous. Some web owners get traffic from hundreds of thousands of different keywords. However, not every keyword delivers high quality traffic that adds value to the bottom line of the business.
One of the biggest challenges for SEO is to learn which keywords are contributing to ROI, focusing efforts where they can deliver the most reward. To achieve this you need to separate the wheat from the chaff and that means using the data available to discover what doesn’t work.
This article takes a look at some of the techniques you can use to identify and screen poor performing keywords, enabling you to…
Examples showing how building your network in Google+ gives you more visibility in the search results
This post highlights part of the importance of Google+ for SEO purposes. It does so by contrasting 2 screengrabs of Google search results pages, illustrating how H&M have managed to use Google+ to radically affect results for their network of followers, or circlers if you prefer.
About the Images
Both images are from Google.com, where the feature which makes this important to SEO, 'Search Plus Your World' have rolled out more fully than in other countries.
The first image shows search results for 'David Beckham' when not logged into Google+
The second image shows search results for 'David Beckham' when logged in. The important thing to note here is that H&M's business page is circled by the account I've used to take the screengrabs.
Image 1: Not Logged In to Google+
…
18 questions you must ask when selecting an SEO agency
If you have a good understanding of SEO, that will help you list requirements and the criteria that an agency must meet. If you don't, then whilst it makes it harder, you can still evaluate service providers if you focus on their understanding of the basics of SEO.
With regards to assessing potential SEO providers, areas you should look for:
Their own website
Question 1. How well optimised is their own website for relevant keywords searches?
Question 2. How effective are they in using social media to communicate with stakeholders?
Question 3. What is the quality of content on their website?
Why ask these questions? Because these 3 strands are crucial to SEO and if they can't be bothered to get their website in order, then you need to push them for reasons. Granted small agencies often let their websites suffer to focus on client delivery and priorities…
If you're thinking of hiring an SEO or are an SEO - this is a must browse
Earlier in January, you may have seen a useful piece of research completed by SEOmoz that looked into the costs and service structure of SEO agencies.
I've included that below, but the main reason for this post is to alert you to this excellent summary by Dan Barker (one of our Expert commentators) which features the UK and, in my opinion, is far clearer and so useful.
You can checkout the full post and research on SEOmoz here.
Turning to the UK data, from Dan, the most interesting for me, which prompts questions you should ask of your agency are...
What services do you provide? Surprisingly few do content creation or promotion - surely a core 2012 SEO technique. A surprising number don't provide link-building recommendations
What charging models do you use? Fixed price is offered by 51.9%, so…
