This is the question that most website owners ask, “How do I get higher on Google” or “How do I get on page one of Google“. Ask any SEO expert worth his/ her salt and they will tell you the same thing, “Provide relevant and quality content”.

It simply isn’t enough to just launch a great website regardless of how optimised it is on launch day. You could have Matt Cutts himself (head of Google web spam and considered to be somewhat of an SEO Jedi) design your website but unless you then provide constant care and attention it’s not going to climb up the results pages simply because page one is a desirable bit of real estate that everybody wants to be on. Rest assured that 99% of search terms that exist in the world are being targeted by other website owners every day.

So how do you get your website to rank higher on Google?

Your circumstances and budget will affect if you hire a professional or do it yourself,  at the risk of repeating myself however these are the basic do’s and don’ts of ranking higher on Google. I’ve assumed at this point that you’ve already ensured that your existing content is optimised before starting, that you have submitted a sitemap to Google and have checked that your website has been indexed. See my article “Why isn’t my website showing on Google” for more information.

Create new, original and interesting content at regular intervals

This is perhaps the most important thing you can do. New content if created and published correctly should add more relevancy to your website, so for instance if your website is about red widgets then you could add a variety of content such as comparison of dark red widgets and bright red widgets, photos of interesting red widgets, video reviews, latest news about widgets and so on.

If you have a static website then you may struggle with adding content, if however you already have a CMS (Content Management System) such as WordPress then congratulate yourself on your choice as you can easily add many different types of content with no programming skills. To read more about what type of website you might need click here. If you don’t have a CMS website then consider starting a blog on an external platform. Click here to read more about blogging for business.

Optimise your content

It’s often not enough to just add content, If you’re going to go to the trouble of creating original content then you should ensure that you get the most from it by presenting it in such a way as to get as much benefit as possible. Not only will this give your readers a better experience but will also allow the search engines to fully understand what your website is about and in turn this will see you appear higher in the search results.

There has been much talk in the SEO world about writing for the reader and not for the search engines and whilst this is true it is still important to find a balance, Think of a sports personality, it’s important that they play to the crowd, their fans but also vital that they are competitive. It’s a balance and website maintenance or SEO is no different.

The phrase that you wish to rank for should appear in the Title of your content, it should ideally appear in the first paragraph on the page. Feel free to use synonyms as not only will this make your content easier to read but will also allow you to cover similar search phrases. so for instance if you were writing an article about repairing red widgets then you could use such synonyms as fixing, mending, broken, functional, repair, refurbish and so on. If you are a Web Designer in Liverpool then say so but find a few other synonyms to include throughout your text, maybe mention SEO in Liverpool and Internet Marketing in Merseyside. You get the picture?

One important point to consider is keyphrase research. For arguments sake, If you were looking for me what would you type into Google? If you were looking for your business what would you search Google for? Personally I’d think that you’d search for SEO St Helens or Web Designer St Helens. You’d be surprised at what people actually type. If you can find phrases relevant to your business that are commonly searched for but that your industry generally overlooks then you’ll be amazed at the enquiries that you generate once you incorporate them into your content and start to rank high in the search results. Often you’ll see me ask questions on Facebook amongst friends to find out what they’d search for if they were looking for a particular thing. Generally I then feed them into a piece of software and analyse the results. Take a look at the keyphrase software here, there’s a free trial available.

Optimise your images

Ensure any photographs are optimised in size so that they load quickly. Each image should have a relevant alt tag. When Google indexes your page it can read text and also knows that you have images on your page. It can’t however determine what the image depicts and so it relies on the alt tag. So be descriptive, if you have a photo of a broken red widget then make that your alt tag, If you have several images then mix them up a bit and cover all the bases.

Optimise your layout

Your content should be broken down into manageable and readable paragraphs. Not only is this easier to read but also allows you to effectively use headings. There are no hard and fast rules here (simply because nobody knows what the Google algorithm prefers) but it is generally accepted that each page should whenever practical contain at least one H1 tag and then if needed h2 and h3 tags. These tags together not only make for an easy to read page but also send further confirmation signals to the search engines about the subject matter of your content.

Optimise For Mobile Devices

What’s important in 2017 is to ensure that your website is mobile friendly. The percentage of people accessing the internet by a mobile device, such as a smart phone or tablet now exceeds those who are using a traditional computer or laptop, Google can detect if your site isn’t mobile friendly and will adjust your position in the search results if the search is being performed from a mobile device.

Some industries such as the beauty industry can see over 80% of its traffic coming from a mobile device, Can you imagine the business that you’d be missing if you were in this industry with a non mobile friendly website?

Be Diverse

Wherever possible you should mix it up a bit. Use diagrams, videos, photographs and charts. Link to other relevant topics both internally and externally if you think it will enhance your readers experience. If it helps your reader then use it. Google is far more advanced than we can imagine, if your readers find it useful then you can bet your bottom dollar that Google will figure out the relevance too.

Apply the finishing touch

Depending on how your website is structured you can choose in which category your post should appear. In addition you will also be able to apply tags to your post to further fine tune it’s relevancy and also aid your readers navigation. Complete all the meta tags ensuring that you aren’t keyword stuffing and then publish your content. Post to any relevant sources such as your Facebook page, your Google+ page, Twitter, Linked in etc.

From 2017, Google will be giving preference to websites that have an SSL certificate. You’ll have seen this on the internet. It’s the little padlock that you see on the address bar along with https instead of http. If you’re serious about ranking as high as possible, get an SSL certificate from your hosts.

What you shouldn’t do

If you forget to do any of the above then it wont be the end of the world, your content will still improve the overall relevance of your website for your chosen topic. Optimising just gives you that bit more bang for your buck, it’s the icing on the cake, the brandy butter on your mince pie, the chocolate sprinkle on your cappuccino.  If however you do any of the following then it can have a negative impact on your search performance.

• Never copy someone else’s content, Google can detect content that has been lifted from someone else’s website and it simply wont give you any credit for this, Worst still this is plagiarism.
• Never “spin” someone else’s content. If you don’t know what this means then that’s not a bad thing, move on.
• If you want to use someone else’s quote, image etc then give them the credit for it.
• Don’t keyword stuff, If you are talking about red widgets then fine, mention them freely throughout your content, use the phrase when appropriate in your titles and subtitles but read the article back to yourself before publishing it to check that it reads naturally. If you like you can highlight or bold the odd relevant phrase here and there. I’ve done it higher up this page.
• Never try to trick the search engines, if you can’t imagine how you would possibly do this then I’m not going to go into detail as you’re better off not knowing. Google is smart and is constantly tweaking it’s algorithm to catch out webmasters who try to game the system.

How about back links?

Back links are something that i’ve never subscribed to, let me explain further. I’ve never got hung up about them, I’ve not actively seeked them in volume and luckily for me my laziness has paid off. Early in 2012 Google started to release many updates to it’s algorithm that amongst other things aimed to target the websites that had abused the backlink system. If all this confuses you then just bear this in mind. Natural links are fine. If you want to register on the red widget association website then go ahead, If you are a member of the red widget forum then go ahead and use your website link in your signature. These are all natural links. Don’t however be tempted to  buy hundreds of dodgy links from an Ebay seller in darkest Peru, adverts like this should start to ring alarm bells immediately. Back links are still valuable but only from relevant and trusted sources. Allow your back links to grow naturally, it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality.

How To Rank Higher On Google

To summarise, hopefully you’ve seen that it isn’t rocket science to get higher on Google, that said, it isn’t easy, some search phrases have less competition than others, it’s about doing your keyword research, knowing your market and spending hours creating original and engaging content. You can learn to do it yourself and I have many clients who have taken the time to learn. As a result their websites rank well and their websites create a constant stream of new and returning visitors. I have clients who simply don’t have the time or inclination to update their website or blogs, they do however understand the value of this and so they pay me to do it on their behalf.

I also have clients who don’t fall into any of the above and it is these clients who simply aren’t getting any benefit from their website.  It’s a bit like buying a new dishwasher but refusing to buy dishwasher tablets. As the photo suggests – It ain’t gonna SEO itself!

How To Get Higher On Google 2017

A question that most business owners have asked themselves in the past is “does my business need a website?”. If you’d have asked yourself that question 15 years ago or even 5 years ago the answer would have been dependant on what type of business you were in. Today however, I genuinely cannot think of any business that can answer “no” to the question. Why is that? What has changed and why is it that every single business now needs a website in order to survive?

In the mid to late 1990s very few businesses had harnessed the internet. Only a small percentage of people were actually using the internet for personal use and I think that the business community watched it with interest wondering if it was just another fad. As applications took advantage of what the internet had to offer such as email, relay chat and other instant forms of communication, so the internet began to gain momentum. Websites and web design stood on it’s wobbly legs and we started to see web addresses appear at the foot of the TV screen during an advertisement. .com and .co.uk started to gain interest around the world and the UK. The rest was simply evolution.

The Darwinian Effect Of The Internet

Communications companies began to see the potential and started to offer faster and faster internet connection speeds, one development lead to another, more applications, more technology, more and more large companies began to take advantage as this was a great way to communicate with their customer base. Banks started to encourage us to bank online, pay online and this was another huge step for the internet revolution.

As entrepreneurs focused their attentions to the internet we started to see local directories emerge, this started to take a toll on familiar offline publications such as the Yellow Pages.  Ebay and Paypal offered a way for anyone to start an online business from home by providing a platform so large. that anybody could put their wares in front of an international market. It’s popularity would soon become it’s own downfall and the initial allure of ebay for small traders soon peaked as those who spotted the real long term opportunity went down the route of developing their own ecommerce website.

Google have played an enormous part in all this change. Providing not just a global search facility but also enabling any business to buy a place alongside the organic listings with Adwords. Google shared it’s success by offering a share of it’s profits to content providers and bloggers with the introduction of Adsense. Somewhere however, in between these large corporations and small independent traders, there was a sizeable collection of established, medium sized businesses that simply buried their head in the sand and hoped the internet would go away.

Natural Selection

At weekend I went to a neighbouring town, Warrington in Cheshire, the same sorry sight as I’ve seen in my home town greeted me as I wondered through it’s centre, I’d guess that 40% off the shops were closed and either for sale or to let, this wasn’t just on the high street, this was in the swanky indoor shopping centre and even in the market!  We’ve all watched in horror over the past few years as some famous businesses have buckled and closed their doors for good. Other than the obvious recession, what has caused this mass failure of our long established high street names?

At some point over the past ten years or so, most businesses have asked the question “Does my business need a website” and if we look at the businesses that have failed during the recession, a startling number of them have cited “online competition” as the main factor behind the collapse. What we have seen here is that these once successful and established high street names have simply failed to recognise the importance of the internet and how quickly it is developing. We’ve seen smarter, less encumbered, smaller, and leaner businesses grow during the recession simply because they’ve switched on to the technology around them. They’ve adapted to the changing environment, they’ve invested in web design and they’ve done business not on the high street but online where their clients hang out. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more have exploded in popularity and as a result people are online for many hours a day, Mobile devices capable of running apps have fuelled this explosion and now the buying public are connected to the internet at work, at home, on holiday, non stop.

Survival Of The Fittest

Gone are the benefits of having a great high street presence. Who wants to drive to town and pay for parking? In a recession people demand value, even when making a major purchase and the way to get value is by comparing suppliers on the internet. One major factor in the shift of power between major corporations and independent businesses has been the introduction of customer reviews.

It could be argued that Ebay played a key part in this development with their feedback system, buyers want to be informed of reputation, they want to know who they are dealing with, they care about reputation not about the size of the vendors retail premises. Everywhere that you look on the internet today you will see reviews, Google reviews, shopper reviews, they are everywhere. The smartest players out there realised this some time ago. They are out there right now earning money, at the top of their game, delivering great value and service and getting rewarded for it.

Local Businesses Need Websites Too

I’ve spoken so far about online retail business and it’s effect on the high street. Don’t for one minute think that because you don’t sell products that you’re somehow exempt. You’re a Plumber? or you’re a Dog Groomer maybe? a Chiropodist? Do a Google search now for your trade in your town, notice anything? On page one you’ve not just got local competition but also competition from neighbouring towns. They are taking your business away, bit by bit.

Who do you know who uses a Yellow Pages? Who do you know that still looks in a local paper? Sure there are a few people but it’s getting easier and easier to simply tap a query into your computer or phone or tablet and believe me, the large companies who are creating the environment such as Google aren’t going to stop developing this technology. Most phones will search based on your voice commands!

So you advertise in the local paper and you get enough business from there? who else advertises in the same paper? Do they print their web address too? Don’t you think that people tap that address into their iPad and take a look at their services and testimonials online? Local publications still have their place but their impact is getting less and less. People go online to research and compare, if you don’t have a website then you’re out of the running. It’s that simple.

Every Business Needs A Website

Hopefully you’ve now seen the bigger picture, you need to be where your clients are, on Facebook, on Twitter, Online. Even if you don’t sell a product you still offer a service, you’re surrounded by others all fighting for survival in an electronic equivalent of the Galapagos Islands. If you haven’t already got a website for your business then it’s time you gave it some serious thought. If you have a website already then you need to take a long hard look at it and ask yourself if you’ve given it enough attention, is it working for you, is it up to date, informative, connected to social networks and engaging enough to attract clients? Do you have the right kind of website?

We all dream of a time gone by, when the high streets were bustling. It has to be said that the internet has perhaps caused as much harm as it has good but, do we stand by pretending that it’s a passing fad or do we jump on the monsters back and ride it into battle?

Can you think of any business that doesn’t need a website?

Does My Business Need A Website?

What Makes A Good Website?

First of all as I’m sure you’ll agree, a website should make a good first impression. We’ve all seen websites that look less than amateur, tacky flashing images, terrible photographs, mismatched text, spelling or grammatical errors and a general look of chaos!

Not only do such websites scare potential clients away, they also don’t score so well with search engines that can spot shoddy code, poorly optimised pages and yes, they can even spot spelling errors and poor grammar!

A good web design should look clean, the content should be original, engaging and easy to read. The sections or pages should be easy to navigate. There should be clear contact information and effective calls to action, a call to action is something that asks or prompts the viewer to take action such as “pick up the phone”, “call us now” or  “book online today”. In addition to these basic things the website should be easy to edit and also have the ability to be added to and improved with more content, more function, such as social media integration (Facebook, Twitter, Linked in etc). There should be a blog, this really isn’t an option any longer, it’s a must. Regardless of what the purpose of the website is, be it an ecommerce website or a brochure type website it simply must have a blog in order that the website can evolve and create new, relevant and engaging content that attracts more and more traffic. Blogging is crucial to any website that wants to rank high in the search results. Find out more about blogging here.

Can I use web builder software?

In a word yes, let’s consider however your reasons for needing a website first.

Are you hoping that your website will attract new customers? If so then let’s consider something. I’ll assume that you have a local business, you only want enquiries from your local town, how hard can that be? Let’s look at a local Google search, if you were to search for “Web Designers St Helens” for instance, look what comes up in the search results.

As the screen shot below shows, there are over 1.4 million search results for that particular local search, not as easy to get on page one of Google for a local search as you may think then, let alone getting to the top of page one!

 Of course, you could use Google Adwords to get to the top of the page and into the paid results but have you any  idea how expensive that can be? Just a £10 per day budget soon runs into hundreds of pounds per month. My listing as you can see is at the top of the page and is usually in the top two and it doesn’t cost a penny to be there.

Why am I telling you all this? well what I’m getting at here is that in order to rank high you need a website with as much functionality as possible. You need to be able to edit every aspect of your website, your photographs, the description of the photos, the on page structure, the content, the link text, the code that both makes the website look good but also that communicates with the search engines so that they understand what your website is about. Very often, web builder software such as those advertised on TV simply don’t give you that functionality. They are budget websites that you build yourself (after much pulling out of hair, swearing and kicking things) and more often than not they are about as much use as a one legged man in an arse kicking competition.

Another thing to consider when you outgrow a DIY website is actually the trouble you will have upgrading to a better package. I’ve dealt with countless people who have used these simple web design packages only to find out just how poor they are, they then have tremendous trouble reclaiming their own domain name and getting out of the contract before they can have me design them a professional website.

There are countless companies offering these so called easy websites, some are better than others but none are ideal. Some really are appalling and have no morals or interest in their clients websites being successful. Everyone seems to be jumping onto the web design package bandwagon, 1&1, Vistaprint, 123reg, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mc Donalds offering them free with a happy meal soon.

What Is The Best Type Of Website?

This is perhaps a question that a lot of business owners will ask, I’ll try to keep to the facts and be totally unbiased. This article may be read by many business owners from around the world, businesses who no doubt will find a designer in their own area and wont ever have the need to contact me or use my services so you can rest assured that I am writing this from an unbiased and ethical viewpoint. It is quite a complex subject but I’ll work on the assumption that you are wanting enough information to enable you to make an informed choice so here goes.

You’ll see websites advertised from all different kinds of web designers, you’ll see very pretty websites that cost thousands, you’ll see the appalling websites that we spoke of earlier that should be illegal! Somewhere in between however you’ll find websites (usually at the top of search results) that look nice, work well and are uncluttered and informative. Chances are, these websites are built using a CMS (Content Management System). Now this sounds complex but it really isn’t. In simple terms, what a CMS does is create a website on the fly. Let me explain

A Content Management System is software that allows website content to be created by people with little or no web design knowledge. It stores this content in a database. The content is displayed in a number of ways usually by means of a template that is created by the web designer when the website is designed. So, for instance, Imagine the template is like one of those photo frames that displays 6 or so photographs of different sizes, a large one in the centre with smaller ones around it. Anyone can come along and change the photos or “content” if you like. This is similar to a CMS, The database stores content (pages, posts, videos, photos, etc) and the page template dictates how the content is displayed. Take this website for instance. The template knows that I want my logo at the top left. It knows that on the right I want some information about previous articles that have been written. At the top it knows to display a menu that will take people to articles that fall into various categories (that I can easily edit) and at the bottom of each article there are several buttons for sharing the page on Facebook or Twitter etc. Below that is a box that displays information about the author and then there’s a call out with my contact details.

All this information lives in the database and the template dictates where on the page it’s displayed. If I want a bigger logo but on the right I simply upload one and tell the template to display it on the right. If I want to add a little box in the right hand bar with a youtube video in it then I simply add a widget to the sidebar to contain a video and then upload the video. When I add more articles, the list in the sidebar automatically adds them to the list. If I want to let a customer do a “guest blog post” for me then I add them as a contributor and they can add an article without me even getting involved.

There is so much more that a content management system offers but I think you get the point that a content management system is by far the most flexible choice for a website. It is infinitely editable and can be finely tuned for SEO (search engine optimisation) purposes. Lets move on then.

What is the best CMS Website software?

This is like asking what is the best chocolate, Cadburys or Galaxy? There are a few main players and I’ll tell you in a moment why you should choose from these main players.

The main three CMS systems are Joomla, WordPress and Drupal. at this point any web designers reading this may be jumping up and down as there are a handful of other good CMS systems out there. The reason however that I’ve chosen these three is simply because:

1. They’re all free to use
2. As a result of that they are the most popular three in the world
3. As a result of being the most popular there are lots and lots of web designers using them (handy if you happen to have a disagreement with your current web designer)

I should at this point make something clear, WordPress as a company also offer a free blogging system, this isn’t what I’m talking about here, that system is ideal for anyone wanting a free blog (but without their own domain name) such as hobbyists or people who want to create a blog to keep as a personal diary etc. What I’m talking about here is installing the WordPress CMS onto your hosting space and using it as the software that powers your website.

Can I Build A WordPress Website Myself?

Yes of course! Building a website isn’t rocket science but it will take some degree of learning. Luckily WordPress has an excellent support forum. If you’ve never built a website before then it will be a steep learning curve but the results will be worth it. It may well take weeks if not months to design your own website but at least then you’ll be in the driving seat and you will fully understand how to update it in the future. Remember, with WordPress you can build a professional industry standard website and save yourself quite a bit of money!

If you want to incorporate an ecommerce section on your website, by that I mean if you want to sell goods directly from the website and receive payment automatically then WordPress can also accommodate that too. If your sole purpose is to sell goods however then I’d perhaps recommend looking at an alternative such as EKM Powershop. For now, let’s get back to WordPress.

You’ll need to find a host that offers linux hosting and a one click install for WordPress, this will save you a lot of time and potential headaches. The company that I can wholeheartedly recommend is Bluehost, they offer a package designed especially for people who want to build a WordPress website and they have a one click install facility. Their prices are the lowest around costing $5 (about £3.50) per month and they have excellent helpful customer support. To visit Bluehost and see their offers click here.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to design your own website then read on.

How do I choose a Web Designer?

How to spot a good web designer from a bad web designer? Ok, first off, you can discount the offers that you’ve seen on ebay that go something like “5 page website for £49 and free hosting for life” I’m sure, given that you’re in business you understand that nothing of any worth is free!

Do you remember earlier on I asked your reasons for needing a website? Well if you are a business then you’ll want your website to be found in the search results, you then want your website to represent your business and act as a silent 24 hour a day salesman on your behalf. Isn’t it worth then investing a little money into something that can achieve this for you?

I’d say that first of all you want to find a web designer that uses either WordPress or Joomla. The reasons for this are mainly that if your web designer falls under a bus in a years time then you can easily find someone else who can take over from him / her. Both these systems are widely supported worldwide. As I’ve already mentioned, for me, WordPress has the edge and is my weapon of choice but in the interests of being neutral I’d also recommend Joomla.

Secondly, I’d ensure that your chosen Web Designer is also well versed on SEO. By this I don’t mean that he offers dodgy ways of getting to the top of the search results but that instead he/ she understands the changes that have happened with Google over the past couple of years. You don’t want to hear him or her talking about building ridiculous amounts of links from dubious sources, this is poor and unethical.  You will however want to hear good advice on relevant content, page structure, keyword research, local search SEO, social network integration and so on. I know this may sound confusing and I really don’t want to appear too technical however a website should be one of your most important marketing tools and so I’m trying to give you as much information as possible to empower you to make the right choice.

A good measure is to actually question how you found the web designer in the first place. If you found him in the local paper then it may be worth jumping onto the computer and trying to find him on Google. When I say “find him” I don’t mean type the company name in, instead, type in a phrase that you’d expect him to rank on page one for (and not in the paid adverts at the top) for instance, if you want to find me, search for Web Design St Helens or SEO Merseyside and you’ll find me.

Be aware of anyone offering silly low prices and free hosting. Good hosting costs money, not a lot of money but certainly somewhere in the region of £5 per month ($7 for you crazy people reading this on the other side of the Atlantic) A good host is important to ranking high as Google pays some attention to how quickly a page loads amongst other things.

How Much Should A Good Website Cost?

This is very subjective and I’ll not attempt to create a war by suggesting a fair price. I can only for my part signpost you to my web design price guide page if you are interested in having me design your website for you. There are Web Designers who will charge slightly less, there are designers who will charge slightly more and only you will know what fits with your budget. A good web designer will be able to complete an average 5 page website including content, optimisation and submission to Google within around 2-3 days. Don’t get me wrong, I could “throw”  a five page website together in less than a day, It would perhaps never rank well on Google though. The F1 teams spend months if not years fine tuning their race cars so that they can be that split second faster than the competition, it’s that attention to detail that wins races, that puts them above the competition. That is how you should consider your website and your choice of web designer. Your website should be found in the search engines, once found it should present your business in such a way that people want to do business with you.

What Kind of Website Do I Need?

I hope that this article has been of interest and has helped you to gain an understanding of the options available to you when asking “What kind of website do I need?” Hopefully now you can avoid the pitfalls of just settling for a cheap website and instead can go out and find a WordPress Website Designer who will be able to create you a fully functional state of the art website that is within your budget.

What kind of website do I need?

I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve been asked to look at the SEO of a website only to find the same thing, A client who has worked with a web designer to create a lovely looking website only to be disappointed that it isn’t showing in the search results for any search term other than the domain name itself.

The client usually has done a bit of digging around before looking for a local SEO consultant and usually has a basic seo knowledge, grasp of meta tags and such like. At this stage the client often thinks that someone can simply perform SEO as if it’s a procedure and that the website will start to show in the search results. Those of you either in the SEO industry or with some deeper understanding of the complexities of search optimisation will know that it isn’t quite that easy.

Is Your Content Relevant?

Meta tags, page structure, correct use of H1, H2 titles are all parts of the puzzle but the biggest culprit that I see these days is simply lack of relevance and excessive use of trade bullshit. Allow me to explain further.

Relevance is something that i’ve already covered in a previous article so I wont go too much into detail on that here, What I see more and more however is a reluctance for businesses to use the search terms that their potential clients will use to find them.  Let me illustrate this for you and you’ll hopefully see what I mean.

You get the picture? It seems that a great number of businesses are intent on putting a top coat of gloss on everything in an attempt to add perceived value. In taking this approach they are actually reducing the relevance of their content and are failing to attract a large number of visitors to their website. There are ways to increase perceived value with good photography, listing features and benefits, using comparisons and displaying reviews.  Choosing to replace common search terms with glossy sales speak is suicidal, it goes against the most basic SEO principles.  See my article about honesty in marketing.

Keyword and Key Phrase Research Is Crucial To Basic SEO

One of the first things you should do when planning a new website or when embarking on an SEO campaign is to identify common search terms based on research. There are a number of ways I’d recommend to you, from looking at your competitors who are currently ranking, using the free Google keyword tool or if you’re serious then investing a few pounds in something like Market Samurai (click here for a free trial). I’ve tried a few and this is my weapon of choice. Not only will it identify search terms but will also allow you to see the competition for the search terms that are relevant to your particular business but will also allow you to filter out and target the phrases with little competition. Once you’ve established these relevant search terms you can then set about creating relevant and original content with these search terms woven in. In addition, you can plan your page Titles, menu items and your entire website structure with phrase targets in mind. This doesn’t mean you’ll stuff your pages full of the same keywords and phrases but instead will include them once or twice and if you write naturally you’ll also include as a matter of course, synonyms and associations that will both serve to engage your reader and send a clear signal to the search engines of what your website is about.  Use a blog to write additional articles and link internally whenever possible. Basic SEO isn’t that difficult, it’s 10% technical knowledge and 90% common sense.

The golden rule is simple – If it isn’t on the page, You wont rank for it in the search results. Click the button below for a free 30 day trial of the search phrase tool that I use.

Basic SEO Guide – Keep It Simple

I’ve witnessed websites that have previously ranked well on Google simply fall out of the search results following a redesign. The business owner is left facing a huge drop in traffic whilst the web designer is left puzzled.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If the correct planning is done beforehand and a few simple steps are followed then the new website will retain, if not surpass the ranking positions that the old website had.

If you’re planning on redesigning your old site then follow the steps below. If you are hiring a web designer to do the redesign for you then ask them what steps he / she intends to take to preserve your Google rankings. If you don’t hear something very similar to what I’ve written here then I’d advise you to choose another designer as you’re likely to lose a lot of traffic.  Alternatively, contact me for a website redesign quote.

Let’s take a look at the steps that you, or your designer should take when redesigning a website.

Make A List Of Your Existing Website URLs

This is a simple albeit time consuming exercise, don’t skip this step though, this is one of the most important things you can do to preserve your existing search result rankings and here’s why. If you’re planning on changing the platform that your website runs on then chances are, even if you keep the same page names, your final urls will look different. For example, your current home page may currently look like this:

www.yourwebaddress.com/index.htm

After the redesign, you website home page may simply be:

www.yourwebaddress.com

Equally so, your ‘about us’ page may currently be:

www.yourwebaddress.com/index.jsp?categoryId=5569943

Whereas, you new ‘about us’ page may simply be

www.yourwebaddress.com/about

So, what we need to do, is to make a list of all our current URLS and then as we design the new website, we can then do what is called a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL. This ensures that any links that may point to your old webpages will automatically redirect to the new replacement pages once the redesign is done. In addition, it sends a signal to Google that says “Hey! that old ‘about me’ page that I had, you can now find it here!

Skip this step and Google will think you’ve closed your website and in no time you’ll find your existing ranks dropping from the index like lemmings.

There’s a few tools that can help you to find your existing URLs, ideally, your website will have an XML sitemap already. If so, then this can be opened by Excel or similar. If you have Google analytics installed, then you’ll be able to get a list of URLs visited within a predetermined timescale.

If you don’t have analytics or an XML site map then you can simply go Google and type your domain name proceeded by site: (site:yourwebaddress.com) into the search bar. Google will return a list of every URL that is in it’s index. By default Google shows ten results although you can increase this by clicking on the little cog icon in the top right hand of the screen, select search settings, and then increase the number of search results shown, (see image). Once you have your list of URLs, keep it safe in a text file. We’ll need it later on.

Research Your Search Phrases

There are several ways to do this, the most basic is to simply type your search phrases into Google and look at the websites that occupy the first few positions ( not the ads at the top, the organic listings below these).

If you spend some time looking at the page titles, the meta descriptions and the actual pages themselves, you’ll see a pattern, you’ll notice the amount of content, the page structures, the mentions of the search terms or synonyms that the search engines have picked up on.

Don’t just think about SEO whilst doing this, take note of how the content is delivered. The calls to action, is it easy to contact the company, if you were a potential client, does the website earn your trust, fire your desire etc?

It’s entirely possible that you’ve not even considered some search terms. I use a handy little piece of software for finding search terms with high traffic and low competition. You can get a free trial here.

Get To Know Your Typical Customer

Do you know the demographics of your typical customer? Are they male or female? What age group? What are their interests and hobbies? Where do they hang out online? What on average do they spend with you on each visit?

There is a wealth of information on Google Analytics that can help you build up a profile of a typical customer, chances are you may have two or three typical customers, maybe one is female, aged 35 -45, car owner, who like cooking and accesses your website on a tablet running Android software. Maybe another is male 55 – 65 retired who likes fishing and uses an Apple Mac.

Facebook page insights can also provide some valuable insights for this exercise. By taking the time to know who your customers are you can plan your website and it’s content better. If more people access your site on a mobile then put your time into making sure the website looks it’s best on mobile rather than desktop. Use big buttons etc so it’s easy to navigate on a small screen.

Plan A Logical Menu Structure

Now that we’ve got some ideas on on what our competition are doing we can start to think about our business and our search terms and from that we can create logical pages and titles. So for instance. If you are a beauty salon owner you may want a home page, a nails page, a lash page, a spray tan page and so on.

Draw it out as a flow chart either on paper, or a board, you could even use sticky notes, one for each page so you can get a visualisation of the website structure.

One thing to consider during this planning exercise is content. Ideally, once you start to add content to your pages, you’ll want a minimum of 300 words per page. So, using the salon example again, if you offer manicures, pedicures, acrylic enhancements, gel nails etc. then rather than have a page for each with just a paragraph of text, consider putting them all on one page called “Nails” and having a section for each within that page.

This achieves two things. First, it makes it easier for the client to navigate and read the information, secondly, it makes your nail page highly relevant in the eyes of the search engines. One page with 500 words is much better than 5 pages with 100 words each.

Create Meaningful URLs

As we create new pages we should give some thought to our URLs. If you’re a local salon and you’re creating a nails page like we’ve just spoke about then try to include your town name in the URL like this:

www.yourwebaddress.com/nails-yourtown

Makes sense right? This sends strong signals to the search engines to let them know where you are geographically.

Submit A New Sitemap To Google

Once you’ve completed the redesign and populated your pages with content then you need to get your list of old URLs and set up all your 301 redirects. This is a complex subject that could take another article up in itself. Depending on what system you’re using to design your new website, you may find the feature in the settings that allows you to simply enter the old URL and the corresponding URL. If like me, you use WordPress then you’ll find that there are some plugins available to make creating 301 redirects quite simple.

Once this is done, it’s then time to generate a new sitemap and submit this to Google via your search console (previously webmaster tools). This will alert Google to your new page structure. After a week or two you may want to check your account to see if Google has picked up any missing pages. It’ll show these as a 404 error which means it can’t find the page. Go through to check, you may have missed some out when your did your redirects. If so, make a note of them and redirect them to the relevant new page on your website.

The Basics Of Redesigning A Website

We’ve now covered the basics of redesigning a website and still preserving any existing rank that you may have. There are plenty more tips and tricks that go into a perfect website redesign but if you follow these basic steps then you’ll not go far wrong.

Spend twice the time planning the redesign than you do actually executing it and you’ll find that the effort will reward you many times over.

Looking For A Web Designer To Redesign Your Website?

If all this sounds a little too much then I’d be happy to help you bring your new website ideas to life. Redesigning a website every few years is a great idea. Technology moves along so quickly and it’s important, especially with the advances in mobile search to present your business in the best way possible. I spend a great deal of time redesigning websites for clients. Hopefully you’ve seen from this article that it’s important to do lots of behind the scenes work if it’s to be a successful transition.

For an informal chat, fill out my contact form and I’ll give you a call to discuss.

How To Redesign A Website And Not Lose Your Ranking

Why Do You Need SEO in Liverpool?

Liverpool is steeped in industrial history thanks to it’s favourable location, the famous docks played an important part in the industrial revolution and as such, Liverpool was always at the forefront of innovation. The city was the first to have an overhead electrically powered rail system and even to this day Liverpool continues to be at the cutting edge of commerce and also a leading contributor to the arts.

Competition in Liverpool is fierce, even for smaller businesses that serve the local area there is plenty of other businesses all looking for the same buck.

As time has moved on, businesses rely less on traditional methods of marketing such as newspapers and have embraced the internet as the primary source of lead generation. Having a website isn’t enough however unless you spend some time and effort ensuring that it’s optimised.

What Can SEO Do For my Business In Liverpool?

If you’ve already taken the first step of getting your business online and having a website then you may be a little disappointed at the response that you’ve had. We find this quite often so don’t be too alarmed. The first thing to check is if your designer has optimised your website when it was designed. Take a look at this article that I published entitled why isn’t website isn’t showing on Google. By making sure your website is optimised, you’ll find that the search engines, will be able to navigate your website properly when they are indexing it and if they find your content to be original, informative and relevant to Liverpool then you’ll stand a good chance of appearing in the search results.

Choosing an SEO Company In Liverpool

This is the easy bit really. The first rule here is that you should choose them rather than let them choose you! I have clients that receive countless telephone calls and emails from companies claiming that they can get them on page one of Google. This is nonsense. There are so many variables outside the control of any SEO expert in addition to the number of other websites all trying to achieve the same result that it’s impossible to offer such a guarantee.  The only surefire way to get onto page one of Google is by using Adwords, these are the small advertisements that can be seen above and to the right of the organic search results.

Don’t get me wrong, although I’ll stress to you that there is no guarantee of getting to page one, let alone to the top of page one, my experience shows that with the right approach and dedication, any website can make page one for any search term. Do your homework and look for a local SEO expert, one who knows Liverpool and who has a track record in the area. Ideally you want to find someone to work on your SEO that comes recommended.

How Long Does SEO Take?

SEO isn’t a one time hit, if anyone tries to tell you this then you should smell a rat. SEO is an ongoing process, it’s one of ensuring that your website conforms to the standards recommended by the major search engines, it’s about utilising all the tools at your disposal, Webmaster tools, submitting a site map, taking advantage of Google Local, it’s about ensuring that your content is engaging, original, informative and related to the search terms that you wish to rank for. It’s about social media, descriptive URLs, correct taxonomies and canonicalisation.

If any of the above has gone over your head then fear not. I meet web designers all the time that don’t understand half of this stuff. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

The Best SEO In Liverpool?

If you’re paying attention, you’ll see what I’ve just done there, if not, then don’t worry. as we’ve already mentioned, choosing someone to do your SEO is best if it’s a word of mouth recommendation. Trust someone who doesn’t know what they are doing and you could end up having a negative effect on your website search standing. Don’t for instance trust someone who places a great emphasis on link building. I’ve ranked websites before now with just one back link. Links should be naturally occurring and relevant. You’re much better to have one link from a quality source in Liverpool than a thousand links from poor quality websites.

Ideally, you want someone who has a portfolio of websites that they’ve designed or optimised in the Liverpool or Merseyside region. Most importantly, you want someone who you feel comfortable working with.

How Much Does SEO Cost?

Without sounding evasive, this is impossible to say and for good reason. It’s ok to give a price for performing an SEO health check, this will ensure that your website is structured correctly, that you’re making good use of your meta titles and descriptions and that all your images have relevant alt tags amongst many other things. As we’ve previously mentioned however, SEO is an ongoing process.

Adding content on a regular basis not only enriches your visitors experience whilst they browse your website but it also makes your website more relevant to the search terms that you’re trying to rank for. If you look through this website you’ll see plenty of articles that are to do with SEO Liverpool. This gives relevance to the whole website.

You’ll see other articles that I’ve written about getting ideas for adding content to not only improve your relevance, your reader experience but also improve your SEO organically.

Work With Me To Improve Your SEO

So, to summarise, SEO isn’t a one off hit, it’s an ongoing process designed with improving the experience that your website provides for your visitors, it’s a focus on relativity, customer conversion, and being found in the search results. If you’re serious about improving your SEO not only in Liverpool but anywhere within the UK then I’m more than happy to work with you. More and more I find that I work with clients who want to learn how to do this themselves or they want me to train their staff to implement these techniques. I’m more than happy to spend time each week or month working with such clients showing them not only how to SEO but how to blog, how to tie in social media and how to reach out and interact with clients in the ever changing digital world in which we now live.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me to discuss further.

SEO Liverpool

Google Adwords and Adsense

Google makes the majority of it’s income from advertising. It’s not always that obvious to see as the company offers lots of great free things such as Google the search engine, Youtube, Blogger, Gmail and so much more. When you stop to think about it, their business plan is nothing short of genius! Let’s take YouTube for example, This is a platform where ALL the content is user generated, Sure Google provides the servers on which all the videos live but it then allows the uploader to allow ads to be displayed via Adsense ( Adsense is an account whereby you earn a percentage of the ad spend from adverts shown on your videos or website) and the revenue from these adverts is split between the owner of the video and Google.

Google’s search engine works in the same way. Google indexes every website on the internet and then uses a very complex algorithm ( a process or set of rules) to decide in what order it displays the results when a search term is entered. Generally, there will be ten organic results on each page, this varies sometimes with page one especially on local searches as Google has now started to show local map listings too. Above the organic  listings and to the right are Adwords.

How Much Do Adwords Cost?

First of all let’s consider how Adwords pricing works. In a nutshell when you use Adwords you begin by designing a little advert that will display above and to the right of the organic search results. You then select phrases that will trigger your advert to be displayed. once this is done you’ll then set a bid price on each keyword or phrase that you’ve selected that you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your advert. If nobody clicks then you won’t be charged.

The amount that you pay depends amongst other factors on how popular the search term is, to give you an example, if you wanted to rank for the search phrase “Pink Frogs” then the cost per click will be very low, quite possibly pennies as I can’t imagine that there will be a lot of people bidding for that phrase. In comparison, if you wanted to bid on the search phrase “Pension advice” then you’ll pay considerably more, quite possibly in excess of £10 per click. It’s basically an auction and the more popular the search phrase, the more you’ll pay per click. The highest bidder gets to be the first advert and so on. ( assuming of course that you meet a minimum quality score, more on that later)

Adwords – The Basic 3 Points To Remember

I could write for days on Adwords as the system is very complex and in depth. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here however as I want to get onto the more important matter of DO YOU REALLY NEED TO USE Adwords. So if you’re completely new to the Adwords system then take a look at this PDF from Google to understand more about starting with Adwords

So Lets look at some do’s and don’ts of using Adwords.

DONT USE ONE WORD KEYWORDS

If you’re a nail tech in Southampton for instance and you were to simply bid on the word “nails” then can you imagine how many clicks you’d get? you’d get people from all over the UK ( you can set a geographical area on Google adwords but it rarely works, it depends on many things to detect a persons location including the region in which their broadband suppliers hub is based) plus you’d get people who are searching for nails that are used to hammer into wood. Instead use 3 or 4 word phrases such as “nail salon in Southampton” ” Acrylic nails Southampton”

DO USE THE NEGATIVE KEYWORD TOOL

In addition to setting your keywords, you can also choose keywords that don’t trigger your advert. So for instance, lets say you’re still a nail tech in Southampton and you’d bid on the phrase “one stroke nail art” then you’d set your negative keywords as photos, how to, lessons, tutorials etc. So if anyone was searching for “photos of one stroke nail art” then you can rest assured that your ad won’t be triggered.

DO MAKE SURE YOU POINT THE ADVERT AT THE MOST RELEVANT PAGE

Staying with our nail tech example, imagine your website has a page for acrylic extensions ( don’t be tempted to call these liquid and powder by the way, see my blog post about keeping it simple ) Then if you were running an ad on adwords targeting the phrase “nail extensions Southampton” etc then make sure that the destination URL (the page that the people see first when they click your ad) is set to point at your acrylic nails page. This is simply because Google has a quality score, it indexes the destination URL and checks how relevant the page is in relation to the text in your advert. The higher the quality score the less you have to bid for each click.

Should I Use Google Adwords?

We’re back to that question that has many answers! Ok, let’s look at why this can be answered in many ways. I have clients who spend circa £500 per week on Adwords, Why? Well simply because they operate in a highly competitive industry and they sell a product online and so target the entire UK market. Whilst I blog and write articles at an alarming rate for them so that they rank for certain long tail searches (a phrase containing many words, this is how most people search on Google in order to get the most relevant results) they still find it difficult to rank high enough on page one for other phrases. They work on the basis that every £10 in clicks will return £100 in sales. We spend a great deal of time analysing click patterns, conversion rates, bounce rates etc and finely tune the account ( currently running around 3000 search terms across 15 adverts).

To put things into perspective though, this same client spends a minimum of £1000 per month on an ongoing SEO program with me. The reason for this is simple. SEO is ongoing, once a blog post or article has been written and written well, then it will continue to rank for certain search terms for long into the future, generating countless amounts of sales and therefore it’s a worthwhile investment.

Adwords For Local Businesses

A lot of my clients have local businesses, they know their local market, they can give me a list of local townships and villages in which they wish to do business. It’s for this reason alone that I really can’t bring myself to condone the use of Adwords. Really I can’t. The only time I think a local business should EVER consider using Adwords is if they have just launched a website and are waiting for it to rank organically.

Ranking organically on a local level isn’t difficult. It really isn’t. If any business comes to me for a web design or SEO and they operate in a regional area then it’s very easy to get them to rank somewhere at the top of page one of the search results. There may be millions of other websites that turn up in the results but getting above them ethically isn’t difficult. Imagine how much money is wasted relying on Adwords when with a little planning and effort you can be at the top of the organic results permanently for FREE!

Take a look at this screenshot, you can see that the search phrase is popular as there are countless adverts appearing on the page but look who takes the top two search result places underneath the adverts! One of my clients.

Let me demonstrate further, type in the search terms below and see the results

“Shellac Course Chester” – divinebydesignbeauty.com – page 1 position 1

“Trade Beauty Supplies Dorset” – creativeacademy-plus.co.uk page 1 position 1

“Trade salon supplies north west” – creativeacademymanchester.co.uk page1 position1

“Nail Training Edinburgh” – thefingertipscentre.com page1 position 1

There’s lots more phrases that the above sites rank for and I could bore you with pages of other sites that I’ve helped to rank but you see the trend? It isn’t just a fluke, there’s no secret sauce, it’s just about quality content, quality optimisation and it’s something that can be applied to any website! Do it right and you REMOVE the need to use adwords.

Is Your Website Doing You Justice?

This is going to be self contradictory as my website is in desperate need of a makeover but my point here is this, Does your website offer anything to the visitor? My site needs a spruce up only in so far as it looks a little dated now, it’s got that Dame Edna feel to it. The content is fine as it’s packed with info, tips, tutorials etc so that it gets lots of visits. Consider this:-

One of the most critical things that Google judges a website on when deciding where to rank it is the content. It’s originality, it’s relevance to the search term and it’s overall quality INCLUDING grammar and spelling!

So, what is your content like? Have you copied it from elsewhere? Have you wrote a few lines half arsed? is your content original and fresh? is it informative? Is it relevant to the search terms that you’re trying to target? Would it make a client want to pick up the phone? If not then trust me, don’t even waste your money on Adwords as even if they click on your ad, what are they going to think when they land on your website?

Do You Want To Be At The Top Of Google Without Paying For Adwords?

I’m guessing the answer to that is yes. Well here’s the thing, the good news is “It’s not hard” I’ve put some links to other articles that i’ve wrote about the same subject just below this paragraph. Take a look through them. Email me if you have any questions. If you live in the UK then keep your eyes open for dates when I’ll be holding hands on workshops at various locations including Manchester and Bournemouth. During the workshops we’ll be looking at how to easily get on page one ( and probably dominate it) along with how to blog, how to optimise your website, how to create great articles that convert into sales, how to research keywords, how to beat the competition and how to cook the perfect carbonara! Just checking you were still awake!

http://www.google-wizard.co.uk/2013/05/basic-seo-guide-keep-it-simple/

http://www.google-wizard.co.uk/2012/12/how-to-get-higher-on-google/

http://www.google-wizard.co.uk/2012/06/web-design-honesty-as-a-marketing-tool/

http://www.google-wizard.co.uk/2012/07/why-is-my-website-not-showing-in-google/

Do you use Adwords for your business? Do you see now the reasons that you should start to put some effort into ranking organically instead?

Should I Use Google Adwords?

In a nutshell, Skeumorphic design is a term used to describe the period of web design / software design that represented real life objects as closely as possible, this included many 3D effects, lighting, shadows, textures and rendering. Flat design does away with all this fuss resulting in a clean crisp 2D effect. You will have already seen this shift over the past few months on your phone, laptop and tablets as the big players such as Google, Apple and Microsoft have set the trend.

You can see Apple have now changed to flat design on the iPhone

Back in 2011,  I wrote an article entitled Less Is More ( click the link to read) that predicted this change. I’d already started to educate web design clients to the benefits of a no bells and whistles approach for several reasons. It’s only now, 4 years after my article that flat design has become mainstream in software are we now seeing that mirrored in web design.

Why Flat Design?

Well first up it’s not as naff looking as skeuomorphic. Let’s be honest. At first we marvelled at the 3D effects on our phones and so we wanted the same effect on our websites. Spotty pencil twirling web geeks were in their element designing all manner of spinning, sliding, perfectly rendered 3D gadgets for websites and clients loved it just as much. Web design up until recently was all about flashy gimmicks.

The simple fact is however, gimmicky websites are difficult to navigate, they are resource hungry using lots of bandwidth and they rely on software technology that isn’t always stable.

Flat web design focuses on pure function, clean, easy to navigate pages that load quickly and are therefore bandwidth (and cost) friendly.

Flat design doesn’t necessarily mean boring, vibrant colours are often used against a white crisp background, animated transition effects albeit muted are still often employed and if anything it is this animation, and interaction that has perhaps taken the emphasis of design. An example of this is parallax scrolling. This isn’t a new technology, it’s been used for years in animation. Essentially, it’s the method of employing a background that scrolls at a different rate to the foreground thereby causing an illusion of depth. The parallax concept has been taken further in web design, being employed to increase user interaction. To see one of the best examples (not the best example of flat design) of parallax web design take a look at this website

What is Flat Web Design?

Consumers have perhaps benefitted even more so, from the comfort of their armchair they can access literally countless numbers of products filtered by price, colour, and numerous other variants.

Your Online Reputation

If you’re one of the business people who have taken advantage of the explosive growth of the internet then you’ll be aware that whilst picking the fruit of the internets bountiful bows you may occasionally come across the odd thorn. Just how you choose to deal with these thorns can make or break you and with the more recent updates to the Google algorithms, customer reviews are gaining more importance on just how well your business website ranks.

User Generated Content

Regardless of if you conduct all your business online or whether you use the internet to attract customers to your bricks and mortar premises, you can’t expect to drink from this font without being prepared to give something back.

Lets forget about your customers for a minute and look at your own online habits. Let’s say you’re looking for a new car, you’ll perhaps have an idea of what you want, A 4wd or a sporty saloon. You’ll no doubt narrow it down to a few models and then you’ll start to read reviews that are generated by actual owners. You’ll notice the repeat comments about fuel consumption or poor visibility. One by one you’ll narrow your choice down the the one car that suits your budget and requirements.

You’ll then perhaps use one of the many car classified advert websites and start to look for your ideal car. You can sort by price, location, etc. Once you’ve found a dealer then you can simply type the car dealer name into Google along with the word “review” and you’ll get an instant snapshot of how that company is treating it’s customers. And it’s this bit that can make or break you. This is how the internet can ruin your business.

Actually that last statement isn’t strictly true. The internet doesn’t ruin businesses. Shoddy customer services ruin businesses. Before the internet when we all bought our products from local shops, when our town centres were bustling and when our local papers were thick enough to make a paperboys arms ache, customer service wasn’t as crucial. Sure there was word of mouth but that is organic bad press. Let me explain further. Back in the early 1990s if you bought a dodgy car from your local car dealer and received a service lower than expected then you’d perhaps tell your mate in the pub, your wife might mention it to a friend a work and at best the story would reach perhaps a dozen people. After a month or so the story would be forgotten by all but those who had the bad experience.

With the popularity of the internet however, any misdemeanour by a business can find itself manifested as an angry and cutting review visible to anyone who searches for a relevant service in a certain area. If you’re a car dealer on the Wirral for instance then you’ll find anyone who you’ve chosen to upset over the years may well post an account of the incident for all eternity on one of the many popular review sites. Worst still, you’ll be hard pressed to get the comment removed as long as they haven’t used any profanity. And trust me, these reviews are damaging! Visible to not just a dozen people for a month but to hundreds of thousands of potential customers FOREVER!

Customer Complaints – Make Or Break Your Business

Google places great importance on user generated content as they believe that the internet should be self governing. A survival of the fittest if you like. Google is getting more local, you’ll see the local results on page one each time you do a search, beneath each listing you’ll see an invitation to submit a review.

The thing you have to remember though is this! The large majority of people who leave reviews are either people who feel like they’ve received outstanding service or those who feel cheated, let down or unvalued. Anyone in between will rarely take the time to submit a review.

Review Your Customer Service Policy

If you run your business with the intention of providing the minimal level of service or if you cut corners when giving your customers value for money then let’s face it. You don’t deserve to succeed. If you already have a website out there and are doing battle on a large stage with other online business owners then you need to up your game, you need to be the best of the best. This will pay dividends as people will willingly share your Facebook posts, leave glowing reviews and more importantly, return again and again to do business with you. It’s easy to gain fans, nice little touches can go an awful long way. This article isn’t about doing well, You no doubt have your own ideas on how little touches can go a long way. What happens however when YOU FAIL and your customer has a complaint? How do you handle it?

Turning A Complaint Into A Recommendation

How often have you received bad service only to raise a complaint and then be pleasantly surprised at just how professionally your concerns are addressed? On the flip side, how many times have you raised a concern only to be shouted down and almost insulted by the business owner? Both these outcomes will create a customer who is likely to leave an online review.

How many times have you read a review online that goes something like “There was a small problem but the staff were superb and sorted it with minimum fuss” That’s a good review! Much better in fact than one that reads “DO NOT BUY, this seller ripped me off and didn’t care about my issues”.

If you receive a complaint you should welcome it. Sit the customer down and first of all apologise for not meeting their expectations, listen carefully to their complaint. If the complaint is about an error that you or your business has made then don’t make excuses, that’s the worst possible thing you can do. Instead, admitting the fault will instantly neutralise the situation and will also diffuse any hostility that may exist. If you’re unsure how to proceed then ask them what you can do to make them a happy customer. More often than not, it’ll be less than you imagine.

Sure you might end up making less profit out of the deal but by putting right any wrong you’ll gain a happy customer, one that may well leave you a positive online review (especially if you request it) but more importantly you’ll avoid ever getting a poor review from a disgruntled customer. Each poor review WILL cost you money over the years. For the sake of losing a little profit on one sale you can prevent this happening and if you’re lucky, you’ll turn the complaint into a positive review that’ll attract new clients year after year.

You can see in the image on the left what percentage of people are influenced by online reviews when making buying decisions. Bear in mind, this report was in 2010. The importance of user reviews has grown exponentially since then.

How Can The Internet Ruin Your Business?

Like I said earlier in this article, The internet can’t ruin your business, your attitude towards the complaint can though, and trust me, in todays world, news travels FAST! Have a rethink about how you handle your complaints, welcome them, put them right and learn from them. Turn each negative into a positive and watch your negative reviews give way to positive reviews.

 
photo credit: dtietze1 via photopin cc

How The Internet Can Ruin Your Business

The Google Hummingbird Update

On September the 26th, the 15th Birthday of Google, employees were a little surprised to be loaded onto a bus and transported to the garage of a house in California that was rented to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they started in business. From there, the Vice President of Search made a small presentation announcing amongst other things the Google Hummingbird Algorithm. (Hummingbirds are fast and precise)

It seems that Google flicked the switch some weeks ago with very few people knowing, Hummingbird is believed to affect 90% of searches and is the biggest algorithm change since the caffeine update of 2010.

What is the Google Hummingbird Update About?

Naturally Google have been sketchy when discussing any technical details but it has been confirmed that the update focuses on entire search queries rather than individual words.

You may be thinking that this is nothing new? Like me, you may have already recognised the benefit of long tail searches for some time, well take that concept and then add the advances that we’ve seen in technology that allows us to interact with the internet and in particular Google, and you’re some way to understanding where all this is heading.

15 years ago when Google launched we all had a keyboard, in fact that is all we had. Google have been at the cutting edge of search technology ever since making it easier to search for information. Do you remember Google Goggles? You could take a photo of something, a product or landmark perhaps, and Google would search and return information relating to it? Then came voice search, Apple have heavily developed Siri and now Google, who incidentally now own Motorola are recognising that the number of searches made from handheld devices is on the up each year.

Natural Prose Searches

If you’ve ever used Google voice search or Siri you’ll perhaps agree with me that you interact with it in much the same way as you would with another person. You actually ask full and detailed questions. This is much easier to do when talking as opposed to typing on a phone keyboard. This is what the Hummingbird update is about. It will consider your full question, not just keywords, linked to the knowledge graph it will then be able to return a set of results that will accurately answer your query.

Google want to remain the best search engine in the world, returning the most relevant search results continually will ensure that they do. I addition, expect to see Google and Motorola come out fighting pretty soon against the main rival Apple. If they are able to perfect the art of understanding human speech then imagine how useful that would be in other areas? Imagine being able to simply say to your phone “remind me to buy toothpaste” and then when your phones gps system detects that you are in a supermarket it will sound an alert and remind you. It’ll no doubt be able to guide you to the correct aisle and even give you price comparisons ( linked to Google ads no doubt to generate revenue). Google will be your very own PA.

Hummingbird SEO

Google have indicated that the signals that were always important will remain so. So what can you do to further increase your rankings in Google? At the risk of repeating myself again and again, simply continue to provide original and relevant information. That is by far and away the single most important SEO advice I can give you.

I even bore myself these days when I say this, my clients know that I’m a a big advocate of blogging. If you don’t blog already then I strongly suggest that you do, on site or off site. It’s by far the best way, if done correctly, to become an authority on your chosen subject. If you blog selflessly, to your readers and not to Google, then the benefits to you will be huge. SEO is now almost Buddhist in it’s nature. It’s about giving useful information, instructional videos, handy infographics, useful charts and so on. You can read more about learning to blog here.

Will I Be Affected By Google Hummingbird?

Given that the update was rolled out weeks ago then you would have seen any effect by now, if you’ve dropped from your previous high rankings then go and sit on the naughty step and think long and hard about what you’ve done. If you’ve gained, well done, keep doing what you do!

I offer one to one training for anyone interested in blogging and adding new content to their website. I’ve used some really great methods for sometime now for my clients that are not only great for the end user but also happen to be a marriage made in heaven for the new update. Feel free to contact me for more information.

The Golden SEO Rules Haven’t Changed

• Be original, be thorough
• Write for your readers, not for Google
• There are no short cuts or tricks
• Link building is a fools game so don’t be tempted to sign up with that guy who keeps ringing you!

Google Hummingbird Update and What It Means To You

Who is Matt Cutts?

Matt is the head of webspam at Google, that doesn’t mean he produces spam, rather he fights it or attempts to with the overall goal of delivering relevant and therefore quality search results. I’m sure Matt will see the funny side of this as he has proven in the past that he does have a sense of humour. It’s a harmless prank and given the date that it’s taking place then I’m confident that it’ll raise a smile.

So if you do a search later this evening for Matt Cutts For A Day, you should see a page full of similar posts in the search results.

Fingers Crossed!

Matt Cutts For A Day

SEO Liverpool

If you intend to trade locally in Liverpool or if your market is more widespread then you need a web designer and SEO company in Liverpool who you can work with to identify your market, your competition and then plan your online marketing campaign around the results. It’s no use targeting a particular search phrase if it’s not one that is being used by your potential customers. In addition, designing a great looking website is of little use if the content that it contains isn’t optimised for both the reader and the search engines.

Keyword research is one of the most important steps of pre design planning. We can perform SEO on your existing website to improve it’s search performance or alternatively we can create a new website and content optimised to be easily navigated, relevant to the search terms that you are targeting and most importantly informative and relevant enough to generate the results that you need.

Web Design Liverpool

We offer an affordable website design service in Liverpool. We use a market leading CMS system with a proven track record for being search engine friendly. We’re happy to discuss your requirements and advise you on your existing web design or provide you with help, advice and a quote for a new website.

Based in St Helens, Merseyside we are easily able to visit you at your place of work before and during the design  process. We specialise in dealing with small to medium size businesses in Liverpool and across the north west.

For more information on web design or SEO services in Liverpool please contact us

Web Design & SEO in Liverpool

You may recall that I have wrote a few articles about ensuring that your website and your website SEO efforts don’t concentrate entirely on Google and that you don’t ignore Bing as it was on it’s way up. You can read the article here SEO for Bing.

The Facebook Search Engine

Essentially as I understand it the new search engine that is currently in beta test mode will huge the Facebook knowledge graph. What that means is that each person in the world will see different search results based on their circle of friends and their friends activities, likes and check ins.

A typical search query on the new facebook search engine may be “restaurants that my friends have been to” or “movies that my friends have watched”. In addition, you will be able to search geographically such as “Web Designers near Liverpool” or similar.

What essentially is happening is that the Facebook knowledge graph that is made up of every Facebook users tags, likes, check-ins etc is now searchable. In addition, Facebook pages belonging to local businesses are also becoming searchable. It’s like a less private version of the Google +1 system.

Where Does Bing Come In?

Bing will be providing search results for the search phrases that don’t pull data from the Facebook knowledge graph or when there isn’t enough data to show a full search result.

How Does This Affect Personal Privacy?

In a sense, only those things that you have made public will be seen by the public. That however may include things that you’ve commented on even if your privacy settings are quite strict. If however you have your privacy settings on your photos to friends only then only your friends will see your photos in the search results, at least in theory!

Facebook Graph Search SEO

If you are in business then you may be wondering how you can take advantage of this new search engine introduction? Well it’s two fold. Firstly, you can’t really SEO your website per se to take advantage of the graph search. What you can do however is to keep building likes, keep encouraging check-ins if you have a physical business address that people visit such as a pub or restaurant. This will then help you to appear in the results of the friends of people who have interacted with your Facebook page if one of their friends searches for something associated with your business, such as pub near …. or Beauty Salon in …. and so on.

In addition, check that you’ve completed all the info on your facebook page, check that you’ve included the phrases that you want to be found for in your description. If your current website doesn’t already have the facility that enables people to like content or to like your page then consider contacting me or your local web designer to discuss integrating your website with Facebook.

Secondly, Optimise for Bing, I predicted 12 months ago that Bing will start to take more market share not least because Bing is bundled with the new Microsoft tablets and Windows phones. Bing have an excellent set of Webmaster Tools. Read more about SEO for Bing here.

You can view some more information and even try some example Facebook Graph searches here

Facebook Graph Search – A New SEO Challenge

Why were the Google updates needed?

To be fair, I’ve perhaps painted a much darker picture than is necessary here but I can’t resist making references to Star Wars so forgive me. The truth of the matter is that Google have never given much away. What they do however is drop heavy hints. Matt Cutts of Google is a master at being vague, he has to be as SEO disciples the world over hang on his every word and dissect his announcements looking for hidden meanings and clues. Matt may suggest that links are good and the next day the SEO geeks around the world are tapping away on their Macbooks writing guest posts and seeking bookmarks. Some take this to the extreme and dream up elaborate schemes and automated systems to build not only links but highly sophisticated networks of terribly poor quality link wheels and blog networks whose sole purpose of existing is to feed link juice back to one website. Articles are wrote badly and then spun (spinning involves replacing words and phrases automatically based on synonyms so to fool Google into believing that they are original) several times until they are non sensical and after each spin are submitted to another low quality article directory.  The end result of this is an internet full of dross, content that exists purely for SEO purposes, purely to game the algorithm and to get the website at the top of this sordid pyramid to rank well in the search results. Google has to deliver quality content, it does this for free, it doesn’t charge a single penny for providing a search facility to anyone who uses their service. Because Google provides relevant results it has risen quickly to be the worlds most popular search engine. This enables it to charge for sponsored listings, 3 at the top of the results and a sidebar full on the right of the results. When someone clicks onto one of these listings Google charges them anything from a few pence to over £50 just for one click! This is just one of the ways in which Google makes money. It is pure genius and love them or hate them you can’t help but admire their business model. So the spammy results really pose a threat to Google as if the quality of the search results were to decline, so would their users and in turn their revenue. And it is here where the problem becomes self fuelling.

SEO After Panda and Penguin

Google couldn’t really give a rats arse if your website has been affected by the changes. Seriously they couldn’t. If you were peddling poor content then they are glad they caught you out. If you on the other hand are a dolphin caught up in the tuna net then you can contact them and they will in their own time take a look at your website. The time delay isn’t a result of Google not caring, it’s simply a numbers thing with every webmaster in the world crying wolf they can only go as fast as their staffing levels allow. So with each update we have thousands of website owners suddenly facing a drop in traffic and in turn a reduction in revenue. Some of these website owners will take a Hollywood fairy tale approach, clean up their site and wait patiently with some cucumber sandwiches until Google decides to reindex their website (some months or years down the line) Others however will take the Chuck Norris approach and turn to the Dark Side again in an attempt to save their business. There are always “specialists” and I use the word lightly who will offer a solution, a quick fix, a get out of jail free card. And so begins another different albeit spammy scheme to game the search engine. Eventually these futile attempts to beat the system will either see Sid the Spammer paying for Adwords in which case he’ll be penalised for poor content yet again (yes even advertisers on Google need to provide quality content) or he’ll give it all up and go and sell solar panels for a living door to door.

What is the Future Of SEO in 2013?

It’s hard to give a definitive answer to this question although it’s easy to give a logical one. Google has always above everything else encouraged us all to provide quality content. There will always be many various ranking factors but they will become increasingly difficult to decipher. In future it’s going to take much more than a weekend a Bletchley Park to crack the code. Even Jonathan Creek won’t be able to solve the future algorithms. It is safe to say though that content really is king and will be for the foreseeable future. Don’t however think that this means that you can stuff your website full of dross, The future of SEO will depend on content being original, varied  and engaging. Write for your readers not for Google. Build a relationship with your traffic, build trust. More importantly add value to the world wide web.

Don’t go searching for links for links sake. Publish your articles on your own blog, let people link to you because your articles merit a link. Google have recently been granted a Patent regarding the frequency and the relationship of phrases and synonyms within sentences, in paragraphs and in relation to page structure. Trying to make sense of the Patent application paper will make your eyes bleed. It’s obvious that Google are trying to encourage any content provider and copywriter to write as naturally as possible. SEO is now less about trying to figure out the system and more about conforming to the system which let’s face it provides a better internet experience for everyone.

We’re in the eye of the storm at the moment. There’s a dead calm. We know this because all of us who are left standing can see that there are still a number of rogue websites ranking too high in the results. There will be another wave, more cutting and more ruthless than the last. Stick to the path and don’t be tempted by the dark side and you’ll be fine young Skywalker, the force is strong in you and the future of SEO is in your hands!

The Future Of SEO

These changes however are not the headline news, the bombshell is that Facebook is now removing the ability for you to hide your profile from public search.

Removing The Ability To Hide Your Facebook Profile

What does this mean to you the end user? You may or may not currently use the function to limit your appearance in the search engines. If however you do currently limit how people can find you, i.e. friends of friends then it may alarm you to know that by the end of the year anyone will be able to find you on Facebook, Employers, ex wives or husbands, debt collectors, stalkers, weirdos, and a whole host of other undesirables.

Why are Facebook making these changes? Simple! Facebook have rolled out big changes over the past few months, you may have noticed that you aren’t getting as many updates from the pages that you have liked, instead you may have seen “sponsored stories” from pages that your friends like, these are paid statuses and advertising. You are seeing these “sponsored stories” because Facebook mines your data, and allows advertisers to target you directly. An advertiser can target all manner of demographics based on the data that Facebook hold about you and also based on your past “likes”.  You have become a “product” and Facebook are selling you to advertisers. The more people connect the larger the product base becomes, hiding yourself from search and limiting your visibility is not good for business.

All this comes at a time when there is a lot of controversy regarding Facebook and its current love affair with advertising.

Dead People Still Liking Things On Facebook?

Bernard Meisler on readwrite.com recently posted a really interesting article “Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook?” the article certainly does raise some questions about the integrity of the data used by the website not just for users but also for advertisers and investors. It’s certainly worth a read.

How Can I Preserve My Privacy On Facebook?

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg admitted to saying (about Facebook users freely giving their data) “They trust me – dumb fucks”  Admittedly the CEO is now older and more mature, that said, you can read into the statement how you like. Facebook was always about the long term revenue generation and to be fair you can’t blame any business owner for thinking along those lines. What is a hard pill to swallow however is the bait and switch that Facebook has pulled with this latest privacy change.

If you are keen not to be found on Facebook by anyone other than your friends then I’d recommend that you remove any personal information such as your school, place of work and town then replace your photograph with this black square. Unless you have a totally unique name then chances are there are lots of results that show up if someone where to search for you. A black square as your profile photo removes the ability for you to be found by people who you’d rather didn’t find you. If you have a totally unique name then I’d recommend that you change that too.

What will this mean for Facebook? Well it will mean that the people who buy Facebook advertising (that included me and some clients up until today) will have less accurate data to mine when placing adverts.

I’m sure that nobody begrudges Facebook from a few million advertising dollars here and there, It’s the lack of privacy that’s the stinger!

So Is Facebook Good For Business Still?

I’d be lying if I said no, Facebook does still have a value albeit considerably reduced. I think what Facebook may have overlooked is that in order to sell advertising to businesses they have to provide a quality product. By eroding the trust of it’s users Facebook is reducing the quality of the product that it sells to paying advertisers.

If you run a Facebook page for your business then it does still have a certain value, the fact that post visibility has been reduced recently does limit its usefulness. Almost overnight Facebook has gone from a highly valued tool to just another string in your bow. By all means have a Facebook presence but don’t think of it as being any more useful than your phonebook entry.

Facebook Privacy Changes

Experian Hitwise have just announced that the Google UK Market Share fell below 90% last month for the first time in 5 years. This represents a fall of almost 1.41% which sounds tiny as a percentage but in real terms it is an enormous shift. The total losses this year are almost 1.7% so we can see that October was a big month in terms of people jumping ship. Why is this?

Whilst the other search engines namely Yahoo, Ask etc have all made small gains the figures indicate that it is the Microsoft search engine ‘Bing’ that has made the most gains. Windows 8 was released last month and naturally has the Bing search as standard bundled with it. This is why we have perhaps seen the big percentage change. Bear in mind however, We are only in November, What will the results look like after Christmas? Microsoft have just released their answer to the iPad, The Microsoft Surface, this product will also be packaged with Bing as standard. This means that come New Year there will be millions of new computers, laptops and tablets all running the latest Windows operating system that is bundled with Bing.

SEO for Bing

I predicted in January that this would happen and it is doing. Microsoft, once the darling of the IT world had fallen from grace but had the massive capital needed to plan a comeback. The gameplan has moved from expensive operating systems to free software and services that are popular and that incorporate an effective search engine. This is how Google make money, they provide a free search facility and allow advertisers to buy placements at the side of the listings, its a multi billion dollar industry and one that Microsoft wants or rather needs to be part of.

So what does this mean to you, the Webmaster? Well for a start it means a headache! If you thought you’d got to grips with pleasing the Googlebot then prepare to meet the Bingbot, an altogether different creature. The good news is, the chappies at Microsoft have been extremely busy creating some rather useful tools to rival the Google  Webmaster tools. They have also been busy asking the opinions of Webmasters around the world for their input. I have completed two surveys from Bing in the past month alone one of which was really in depth. If you haven’t already done so then I recommend that you set aside some time to visit the Bing Webmaster pages.

Microsoft mean business, don’t sell your shares in Google just yet, I’m sure that there is room enough for two big players in the search industry and I predict that is exactly what will happen over the next few years, Bing will continue to make gains and Google will continue to lose. This will hopefully make for better search engines, less expensive PPC costs for advertisers and a much more fair and balanced environment for Webmasters.

SEO For Bing