Posts Tagged ‘seo’

I am sure that in the last 12 months, you will have received many emails offering web design or SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) services.   I am sure that like me, you deleted the majority of them as soon as you spotted the term SEO in the header or text.  But did you ever see one or two that made you stop and think if you should be doing more on with your web site?

I don’t want to take about SEO companies today.  But I am using them as an example of companies that don’t eat their own cat food – a term given to companies that are ridiculously bad at the services they are trying to offer to you.

Take these SEO specialist companies.  If they are so great at getting web sites to the top of Google or Bing, why do they have to spam you?   If you Google “SEO companies” – why are they not on the number 1 spot of Google?

What about accountants?   Would you trust an accountant who has final demand letters on their door mat when you visit?   Or what about marketing companies that are trying and failing to gain customers?  What about cleaning companies which are based in the dirtiest office imaginable?

A copywriter to improve my own site
The reason I talk about this, is that I have started looking for copywriters to improve the content of my own company web site.   I was recommended and visited a couple of sites of copywriters, who talked a good talk.

But their web sites were shocking.   Some examples of problems I spotted when visiting including:

• Missing any calls to action on their site (where are the “call or email me” buttons?)
• Very basic Typos (and if I can spot them, they must be bad)
• Mixed quality of graphics all over their site (some photos, some graphics, some line art, some appear to be scanned)
• Examples of text inviting me that if I am “Interested? Sign up on the right.” – When there is nothing on the right.
• Spaces missing in their text, so words merge together (and become a jumble)
• Lots of uses of “We”, “Us” and “I” when they all say a web site should use “You” or “Your” (the very things I am trying to correct)

I could go on.   But the point is, they are advertising a service to improve web sites and web site copy (words), but their own sites are in a terrible state.

In most situations, web sites are the initial introduction to the world – if a copywriter can’t get that write, why would I even think about paying them to change mine?

So I ask again, are you eating your own cat food for the service you provide?

Normally, I enjoy posting tips on small business techniques and tools which have worked for me in the hope of helping others.  Generally, if something does not work, well I just let it go and move on, or don’t mention the resource.   But today, I thought I would share a project I outsourced recently which went very wrong, in a hope that other small companies and freelancers avoid the same mistake.

The failed project was all to do with a new web site I launched.  When you are looking to drive web traffic to a web site, it’s all about links.   The more inbound quality links you have, the more Google rates your web pages, and higher up you appear in search results, which then of course leads to more traffic.  Having done some research, I had seen that there was a lot of discussion about positive links which could be obtained through links in articles published in web based article repositories.

Having a full schedule, I decided to outsource the creation of the articles and the linkage to an SEO company.  So using Freelancer.com, I created a project for 50 high quality permanent links into my web site, and as you would expect, received a lot of interest and a wide range of bids.  Whilst I didn’t specifically mention link through articles in my project scope, all the responses I received indicated that this is the way that the freelancers would generate the links.

After careful consideration of the reviews the freelancers had received for previous projects, I made a selection – a mid price response with good feedback.  In fact, the selected freelancer promised more than my requested 50 links – they promised me 200 links.

The freelancer started work, and 1 month later, the work was complete.  I received a nice report of all the sites the articles were published on, and a promise that in 2-3 months Google would have finished the indexing and the links round be in place.  But 4 months after project completion, the number of links generated equalled…. just six.  Six, out of a promised 200.

After speaking to some SEO consultants, it now becomes clear that the problem is not down to lack of work by the selected freelancer, but by the technique used.  The concept of links through articles is being done to death, with new articles being published so frequently that by the time Google revisits the article directories, the new articles are on pages 10 and beyond, so Google does not reach them, hence they are not added.

I have learnt my lesson, and I am moving on ($200 lighter in pocket), and creating links to my project myself, using the best method that never fails – manual hard work.

Have you ever noticed that when it comes to mobile (cell) phone numbers, that there is no set rules on how you say the number?   With land lines numbers, everybody generally uses the format of 5-3-3 when saying a phone number – so “01256 123456” is said as “01256-123-456”.  Its short, punchy, and it works for everybody (for London, the leading 5 gets replaced with 3 or 4 leading).

But with mobiles, after the leading “07” bit, there is no rules for the grouping – it all depends on the number you have.  But if you group your number one way, and somebody repeats it with different groupings, it’s easy not to recognise your own number.   If my number is “07780123456”, I might say “077-80-12-34-56”.  Someone repeating it back to me might say my number is “07-780-123-456” – it sounds completely different and makes me double check and think about what is being said.

This mixed-format confusion can be used to great advantage when replaying requirements back to customers.  After they are done stating all of their requirements, by repeating their requirements back to them in a different order (either by voice or in an email), the changed and mixed context forces them to think about what they have said, what you have noted, and also if it is really what they want.   I also like to throw in the word “only” (or just) as well here and there, just for good measure.

A requirement of “We want a web application that allows UK students to enter their accommodation details on a form, and this gets saved onto a SQL Server database which we can produce ad-hoc reports from”, when mixed and repeated back, might become…

“So let me check I have this right.  You want to produce some ad-hoc reports from a SQL Server database.  This database will only be populated from a web-based data entry form that we would develop, and would be made available only to UK based students who would use the form to enter just the details of their accommodation”.

I have used it a number of times where the customer has then commented with something like “well, it sounds like something is missing..” or “yes, but we also need…” after they have specified all their requirements.

Using this technique I have saved myself a lot of headaches during project delivery by making sure the customer has detailed everything that is required by double checking what they really want, which has led to more of the work being detailed up front (with a higher price tag) and saves the last minute “oh, I forgot I needed…” conversations on delivery day.

I am sure that you are familiar with the advice that Google likes fresh content.   The fresher, the better.   If your are not sure how much Google likes the new stuff, try any search phrase, and see what ranks at the top – most will be shown (via the date stamp) to have been updated in the last 24 hours.

But if you’re a small business and want to be found in Google searches, what else can you do other then SEO?    People advise to use blogs because by nature, new posts are new content so it gets ranked higher.  But blogs take a lot of time and effort, and I am sure we all have better things to be getting on with (like making money).

One of my techniques which seems to get me more traffic is automatic web site rotation.   On almost every page on my company web site, the content is updated automatically and uploaded, which means that Google bots are hitting my web site every day looking for the changes, and when it rotates, it jumps back up to the top of the stack.

Clearly, updating all the pages on a web site every day or even every week would become a boring and time consuming event.  Instead, my web site pages are designed so that for every sentence or paragraph, I have 3 or 4 ways of saying the same thing.

So imagine I have a sentence that says something like…

Touchstone Systems is the best company to pick when you need to migrate data from one format to another.

The text of this sentence actually looks as follows in my web site copy…..

~Touchstone Systems is the best company to pick when you need to migrate data from one format to another.|When needing a company to migrate data from one format to another, we are the best|In an independent survey of our customers, when asked, all of them agreed that Touchstone systems was the very best at migrating data from one format to another~

Imagine this for a few of your sentences and paragraphs in your web site (including the META headings and descriptions).

I then have a program running on my home server which weekly, picks versions of the sentences to use.  I use the tilda “~” to mark start and end of sections, and the pipe “|” to mark different versions of the same text.

It means that for a typical page, I have over 100 possible versions of a page, my content is updated (via FTP once the page content is rotated), Google sees the update, and I get bounced back up the rankings.

Typically, I am getting 4 to 5 times the amount of traffic with this system than before where I had static pages.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 5 years, I am sure you know what adWords is.  Of course, adwords now has lots of competition, including the Microsoft version (which runs on its own Bing search engine), facebook, yahoo and a host of others.

But does AdWords and its weaker counterparts work for freelancers?

A few years ago, I ran a marketing campaign for one of my software products – consisting of a new web site, sales material, cold calls and of course an Adwords campaign.   The adwords was set-up and defined by a professional marketing company, and a daily budget was agreed.  After a few days, I noticed the difference. I was getting a lot of web traffic, a handful of quality leads, and everything was good.

However, the problem I had (and still have) with adwords is the way that money evaporates when it’s in use.   You would think that if you select a target per day, filter the days of the week, the amount spent would be a certainty: days x day rate = cost per month.   Yet somehow, the bills that came in from Google were always way higher than expected.  As time went on, the bills went higher and higher, and Google are not the most communicate company in terms of answering questions.  So eventually, I stopped the campaign.

I am not apposed to adwords.  In fact, if you have a nice specialist offering then it can be a very, very effective method of advertising.   However, if you decide to go down the adwords direction, a few words of caution…

• Setup the campaign to be local to you – otherwise you will be advertising to the world
• Research your words and phrases carefully – nothing worse that advertising a phrase such as “Data Migration” to find that somebody clicks who wants to migrate their xbox game data
• Expect that your ‘competition’ will waste your clicks and there is very little you can do about this (I have seen horror stories of people employed to Google a search term, and repeatedly click on all competitor ads to use up their budget, so their own ads will be cheaper/successful).
• Don’t be pulled into the high cost game – when adwords suggests a click-figure, bid lower – you will still get impressions and clicks
• Run two ads at the same time and turn off the ‘use best’ option – when you have a week of stats, use the best and replace the worst with a new ad.  After the next week, repeat the cycle, so your ads get better and better
• Regardless of the budget you enter for a day or month, expect the bill to be a lot higher
• Monitor the results and costs on a daily basis – don’t let it get out of hand
• If its your first time using adwords, google “adword discount” – there are all kinds of 1^st time user deals on the web giving you credit to play with

I was watching the film Labyrinth the other day (with David Bowie playing the baddie) and in it there was the famous door riddle….

There are two doors. You have to pick one door. One door leads to great happiness, the other leads to great suffering. But you don’t know which door is which.  However, there are two people in the room. One of them always tells the truth, but one of them always lies. But, you don’t know which is which.  You can only ask one question. What question should you ask in order to determine which door leads to great happiness?

Now I have never really understood the way that this riddle (and the answer of asking one of the guards the question, ‘who will lie?’) works, but its very good analogy of the way that web sites work.

We produce our pages advertising our products and services, and then people who hit it have two doors they can use.  Door one is any of the links, menus and subjects we put on our site to lead them through our details to eventually request more information.  The other is the dreaded ‘back’ button at the top of the browser which will return them back to the search results, and to another site.

Now I know nothing about web sites, SEO and what makes people stay on a web site.  Actually, that’s not true, I know a fair bit, but compared to those who work on site optimisation every day, I know next to nothing.   But, I have been instructed well in the art of testing different landing pages to see which people prefer (that’s the one to keep), testing different types of menus to see which have the most impact, and how to grab people’s attention.

If you want to get more from your web site, get more traffic, to sell more products or services, can I direct you to the Blog of GetElastic, (subscribe to the daily RSS feed) and prepare to take your web site into the fast lane.

Let me cut right to the point – I have goofed.  Technically, my current freelance company web site is illegal.  OK, there may not be anybody to police it, but it’s illegal all the same.

Just like many people out there, I used to get spammed to death, so to try and cut down on the amount of spam, I changed from providing a contact email address clickable and visible, into a contact us form with a hidden email address.   But technically, this is illegal.

Under the UK’s Electronic and Commerce Regulations Act 2002, any company that provides an online service including communication or a web site on the internet (that advertises, sells or provides information on goods or services) needs to comply with a number of rules.  These are:

• The web site must provide a geographic contact address
• It must provide a clear email contact address, which goes through to a monitored inbox
• The geographic address must be a real address, and cannot be a PO box or redirection address
• The above must be available, even if a contact us form is provided
• The above must be provided in a form and manner which is ‘easily, directly and permanently accessible’

I had a look around at the web sites of a few other freelancers (who are also friends), and yes, they are all breaking the law as well.

Here are some more free and easy to use web sites which can provide you more links in, and good Goggle PR traffic to your business web site:

Crunchbase

Crunchbase is an index of companies and senior staff within the companies.   Add yourself, your company, your blog and twitter feeds for more traffic.

RankArea

This is a web site ranking area.   To add your site, use the web site URL search prompt to search for your web site, it will then index and catalogue your web site

EuroPages

This web site lists companies across Europe.  Whilst it has a pay-by-click advertising option, the free page will allow you to receive calls, emails and web traffic.  A number of business directories take feeds from this directory.

UK Business Directory

Lists UK businesses based on services offered and geographic locations.   Its unclear how much traffic this will generate, but it cant hurt, and like all the other suggestions, its free.

Yellow Pages Online

As per the printed version, any company would be daft not to be listed in the on-line version.

Kelly Search

This is strictly Business to Business within the UK.  Your business will be listed under its location and service type, and allows other businesses to contact you with requirements.

The Free UK Business Directory

As with all the above, a directory of businesses, allowing your to be found by location, service type and keywords.

Most people who dabble in web site development have heard of Alexa. But in case you are one of the few who have never heard or used it, you are missing a trick. Alexa is generally referred to through its web site ranking system – the Alexa ranking. This ranking is very much like the Google PR (page rank) system in that it tells you how good your web site is in terms of inward links, use in discussions, content etc.

But in addition to the Alexa ranking system, tools are available for web site owners to boost the profile of their sites using a variety of FREE tools:

Site Claim – This allows you to claim your site, and enter details of your company. Not only does this provide a good PR link into your site, but it also gets your site listed in another set of search engines.

General Searches – Alexa provides a running index of the top sites, the top search terms, the top feeds by different countries, topics and uses. It’s always useful to see what people are searching for, and what sites the traffic is going towards.

Competitor Analysis – Whilst there is not actually a menu option for competition, Alexa allows you to use the site info to enter any URL and see its rankings, links in and out, traffic over a period of time, and the search terms people use to find the site. This is a very useful tool to use to boost your own traffic – simply enter the URL of a similar company or competitor, and it will give you an idea of web sites you should list your own site in, keywords you may want to target, and lots of other useful information.

Did I mention, Alexa is free?

Most people who dabble in web site development have heard of Alexa.  But in case you are one of the few who have never heard or used it, you are missing a trick.  Alexa is generally referred to through its web site ranking system – the Alexa ranking.  This ranking is very much like the Google PR (page rank) system in that it tells you how good your web site is in terms of inward links, use in discussions, content etc.

But in addition to the Alexa ranking system, tools are available for web site owners to boost the profile of their sites using a variety of FREE tools:

Site Claim – This allows you to claim your site, and enter details of your company.  Not only does this provide a good PR link into your site, but it also gets your site listed in another set of search engines.

General Searches – Alexa provides a running index of the top sites, the top search terms, the top feeds by different countries, topics and uses.  It’s always useful to see what people are searching for, and what sites the traffic is going towards.

Competitor Analysis – Whilst there is not actually a menu option for competition, Alexa allows you to use the site info to enter any URL and see its rankings, links in and out, traffic over a period of time, and the search terms people use to find the site.   This is a very useful tool to use to boost your own traffic – simply enter the URL of a similar company or competitor, and it will give you an idea of web sites you should list your own site in, keywords you may want to target, and lots of other useful information.

Did I mention, Alexa is free?