How New Labour Party Leader voting is similar to the way Google counts links!

Anyone involved in SEO will be aware of link building, and the value it adds to their SEO campaign. Link building is all about assessing the value of a link source. It seems to me that Google have got this idea from New Labour! New Labour’s system for allocating and counting votes (for the upcoming leadership elections) seems to me to be strikingly similar to the way Google counts and assesses link value.

Many sources suggest that New Labour’s system for allocating and counting votes is unfair, insomuch as you could become a member of multiple unions and organisations in order to be eligible for several votes. Furthermore, a vote from an MP is worth 100 party member votes. This to me is remarkably similar to the way that Google looks at backlinks.

I actually think Google is right to assess links in the way that they do, a link from a good source is worth more simply because the weight of the linking site is stronger. A site that has gained authority because its users find the information and resources contained within its pages useful should be worth more than a site that has little or no authority. Simply put, some sites are better than others.

Looking back at the New Labour voting analogy I am using here, if an MP’s vote is worth 100 party member votes, then surely this is because they in turn have been voted in by the electorate. This is the same as a site with a large number of inlinks providing better ‘link juice’ or ‘link value’ than a site that has little incoming links of its own.

To conclude, a quality link is worth a lot more than hundreds of lower quality links. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: with link building quality over quantity wins out every time.

Keep ahead of your SEO with Google Intelligence

There is so much data that is generated from Google analytics to help you with your Internet marketing campaign that it can sometimes be overwhelming to most users. Google Analytics Intelligence will take the hard work out of monitoring your analytics and websites performance by checking for significant changes in certain variables that you set for your site.

You can set up intelligence alerts for different aspects of your analytics and have a list of alerts which are displayed in your intelligence report. The alerts for these significant changes can also be emailed to you to make life easier.
The way that the  intelligence reports work is that it assesses your websites analytics against its historical data for the  variables you set. An example of data it will generate is that it can show you if you have had a certain % increase or decrease in visits to your site or in a change in your bounce rate for example.

Google intelligence has two types of alerts, automatic alerts, which can be emailed to you or custom alerts which can be viewed in your analytics under the intelligence tab.

You can choose if your want to view daily, weekly or monthly alerts. The bar chart across the bottom shows you the alert quantity for each day and when clicked on a report, will  appear telling you details of the significant changes to the visitors behaviour on your site. With the data from these alerts  you can created actions  to ensure your business gets the best out of the website. For example a change in content on you home page may have caused a increase in bounce rate which tells you that you may have got things wrong. Alternatively you may have a sudden increase in revenue which may alert you to a current trend increase for a certain product you sell online. This could make you decide to promote that product further to increase sales even more.

A selection of what kinds of activity you can get alerts on are as follows: visitor type, city, keyword, Adword campaign data, source, medium, referal path, landing page,  exit pages,  Avg time on site, goal conversions, page views, % of new visitors, revenue, avg order quality.

The automatic alerts will track a selection of activities but additional important alerts that aren’t in the automatic selection can be tracked also by setting up a custom alert in google intelligence. To do this you click on set up a new custom alert and edit the form to make it represent the variables that you need the information on.  The example below shows the set up for an alert that will show if there is ever a 20% decrease in goal conversions for your visitors in the London Area. These can be tailor made to track certain new products, services and areas served etc.

Anychanges you make to you website may have effects on your website performance and how visitors interact with your site. Not only does Google intelligence keep track of this for you so you don’t have to but it will also keep you informed on trends. Being kept this up to date will ensure that you keep your website as current as possible maximising your performance and ultimately your web conversions.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they start out on their first SEO campaign is that they don’t work out exactly what it is they want to achieve from the campaign. Being page 1 on Google is all very well, but if you target the wrong keywords for your site you will actually damage your site in the ‘eyes’ of Google.

You must get to know your client. Make sure you are all ‘on the same page’ in terms of what they hope to achieve from the campaign. Ask them what outcome they hope to get from their SEO campaign. It may be increased sales, increased enquiries, signing up for a newsletter or simply brand reaffirming by placing them first for their company name.

If your client has an eCommerce site it is worthwhile asking them which products have the highest margin, as targeting these directly will make the client the best ROI (Return on Investment). This approach also works well for targeting service providers (e.g. plumbers, electricians etc) as there may be a particular service that brings in more money than other services. For example a new boiler installation for a plumber would be better than fixing leaking taps.

Another thing to consider is regional specific SEO, something that the team here at Creare are particularly expert in. I often ask my clients which area they want to target first, as there are often add-on costs involved for the client if they have to service areas further away. Alternatively, they may know that certain areas have more of their target audience in, and therefore are better to ‘go for’.

The next thing to make sure your client is well aware of is the timescales involved with SEO. SEO is a time consuming process, and the first three months are often fraught with dangers, the client can’t see results because the listing hasn’t yet reached its desired position, and you feel under pressure to get the site performing asap. This is not the time to dip into black hat techniques though! Make sure you are transparent with your client as to what can be achieved in the timescale they are willing to work with. It may be a case of working on ‘easier’ keywords that will get them an ROI first before tackling the ‘tougher’ keywords that take time.

Remember, SEO is all about marketing your client, albeit through a search engine rather than ‘traditional’ means. Therefore, you must make sure that you client makes money. This is your ultimate job. Page 1 listings are fantastic, of course they are, but money in the bank for your client is what really makes the difference.

Use all the tools at your disposal, Google Analytics for example can tell you a lot about which keywords perform well, whether the pages targeted for those keywords are effective and ultimately whether you are going for the right keywords. Watch out for Rebecca’s articles on Google Analytics, and how to get the best from this fabulous tool.

Once you have a good relationship with your client, and this takes time, you will be in a unique position to be able to advise them as to where their online marketing should go next. If you are anything like me, you will genuinely want to help make your client money! I get a massive buzz when my clients report increased sales or enquiries.

If I have done the initial work in ensuring I am targeting the best keywords for their business then I know I will be on the right track once the site starts to perform. This is the key to a successful SEO campaign.

You see meta tags every day but unless you work in web development, SEO or some other related industry, most regular users of the web if asked could not explain what they are or where to find them. Meta tags are not viewable directly on a website without looking at the page source, but they are read and cached by search engines to interpret the content of a web page as well as provide descriptions of the site in their listings.

Meta tags provide various information about the site including the page title, page description, page keywords as well as copyright, rating, author and distribution information. Meta tags may not be considered as important as they used to be for SEO purposes but they still provide valuable information to the search engines and are often the first pieces of information users see regarding the content/purpose of the site. Of all the meta information that is provided the most important is the meta title, meta description and meta keywords.

The meta title tag is important both for SEO and click through purposes because the search engines place a small value on a well written title, which helps with ranking as well as showing the title in the results (this will generally be the actual link you click on in the search results to go to the page).

A title tag should be a short (less than 70 characters), clear description of your website. The title should include keywords the page is being optimised for and if there is space your company name.

There are many different combinations of keywords and areas you can use to construct the meta title. For example an effective way the title could be structured is:

Keyword Area, Keyword 2, Keyword 3, Area 2 – Company name(if space in 70 characters)

So if a Pet Shop optimised for ‘Pet Shop’, ‘Pet Food’ and ‘Pet Toys’ in Liverpool and Birkenhead the title should read:

Pet Shop Liverpool, Pet Food, Pet Toys, Birkenhead – Pet Shop Name

It is possible to simply put ‘Pet Shop Liverpool – Pet Shop Name’ but not only is this less enticing you’ve missed out on an opportunity to let the search engine know what keywords are optimised on this page.

The meta description appears under the page title link in search engine results and is used to provide a short blurb about a website. The meta description is as important to a website as a headline is to a newspaper; a short, enticing sentence or two that makes the reader want to keep reading.

In essence, the meta description is an advertisement for your site. While inclusion of keywords in the description is also important it’s valuable to remember not to go over the top as it’s also very much about what the meta description says and above all conversion rate. Although space here is limited to two lines of text (no more than 150 characters), what is written here has a huge impact on whether someone decides to visit your site or not. Therefore, its well worth taking some care over what you write here to gain the optimum combination of advertising draw and useful information.

The meta keyword tag is the main area of meta data that can be abused by webmasters stuffing keywords. It’s not uncommon for webmasters to put hundreds of potentially relevant keywords in this tag in hope of appearing for more searches. As a reaction to this search engine algorithms have in recent times adjusted not to pay as much attention to this tag, but it can still be used to reinforce the relevancy of the pages content matter and not all search engines have reduced its value.

Therefore it is worth constructing a well chosen list of 5 – 12 keywords to incorporate into the meta keyword tag as it is simply another way to increase the probability your site will turn up in search engine results.

As mentioned before the meta tags are not as proficient as they used to be in SEO terms because they became notorious for keyword stuffing which search engines became aware of so reduced the sway these tags have over ranking protocol. However, it is simply good practice to construct well considered meta tags because what they have lost in ranking ability they make up for in ability to convert traffic to your site. Stick to the basic rules, don’t keyword stuff and make each page’s meta tags original and different from your site’s other pages and you cannot go far wrong.

For more information on meta tags please watch our meta tags video.

Geolocation for social media or geosocial as its now becoming known as, is the utilisation of GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates to associate and engage users positions with their activities. User submitted location data can be coordinated by social media sites to provide useful information and offers about businesses and events in the users direct vicinity to enrich the social networking experience.

This allows brands to interact and play a part in users daily lives, not through interruption or broadcast means – but through engaging with users within the course of their everyday lives. Geolocation now allows the ‘how’ and ‘where’, to go along with the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the marketing communications mix.

The idea of Geolocation has been around for a while with marketers long dreaming of a way to connect with people based on location. The recent growth in development of geosocial platforms and uptake of these by consumers is due to
maturing social media populations – comfortable posting, sharing commenting within digital based channels
Improved 3G networks and GPS enabled smart phones

Two platforms currently dominate in this sector, Foursquare and Gowalla. Both have become synonymous with the current geolocation social media trend. So far more than 6 million people have signed up for both these services with more to come with sites like Facebook and Twitter adding location-based features, and Google, Yahoo, and other search engineers gearing up to serve ads based on a user’s location.

From an SEO point of view the benefits of such platforms are the same as social media itself, to allow a organisation to connect with customers with the aim of directing more traffic to there site.

The real benefits of Geosocial will be more apparent to organisations with street presence for example; if you operate a retail outlet, or a service centre for the public, you have the opportunity to learn more about your regulars from an unobtrusive distance, learning their habits, their frequency of visits, likes and dislikes. Who they are friends with and what they like about your business. You will gain the ability to reward them directly for their efforts.

What happens if your company does not have a street presence though? How can geosocial help your business? Imagine if you knew everything about your customers, what they were eating, where they were visiting, what they were saying about various topics when they aren’t in your presence. Your employees would be able to have a more personalised dialogue with your clients and the people within it and this in itself would be worth a small time investment.

The big plus from this new type of social media marketing is that the possibilities are endless and as more and more features and uses are developed there must be at least one avenue any given company could explore and benefit from.