The seasoned SEO consultant is bound to know all the tricks of the trade, but those new to the search engine optimisation industry can improve their success rates by following a few simple SEO tips:

Know your Niche
Successful SEO marketing services always start with careful analysis of the client. Before you rush ahead and start reading up on SEO copywriting tips, do your homework thoroughly. Get to know and understand the client, as well as the product or service they are offering their target audience. Think about who your client will be competing with in the market and what sets them apart from their competitors.

Most sources offering SEO tips will also advise you to know the strengths and weaknesses of your client, as well as their level of establishment online, thereby helping you to strategically promote them in the appropriate niche.

I’ve always been a fan of the Joomla CMS system, well, for as long as it’s been around anyway. However, having more recently become more involved with SEO I’ve come across many individuals, Search marketing specialists and developers who claim that Joomla isn’t very search engine friendly and that other CMS systems, Wordpress in particular, are more effective. As usual when faced with this sort of conflict of opinion, I decided to do some research and have a look what others have to say. Here is what I found out…

The fact is, when a Joomla website is used correctly, it is just as effective SEO-wise as any other CMS or regular website. Yes, in its most simple state it is not very effective, but this can be overcome by simply installing the Joomla sh404sef which effectively deals with clean URL’s and URL re-writing. It is extremely important though that you correctly use the SEF module from day 1 as this Joomla module does not re-write existing links to a web page that has recently changed its URL.

Having an opportunity to thoroughly review some keyword data for one of my proposals while traveling on a train up to Sheffield, I came to realise that as much as we talk about regularly reviewing keyword data we just don’t actually do it enough! We all know that every month something like 20% of all searches are unique and have not been seen by Google in the last 90 days.  

Image by Danard Vincente via Flickr

Having been in the online marketing industry for a few years now, I’ve often come across people and businesses that are convinced that they can do better SEO optimization than professional SEO specialists, free of charge. One mistake that these business owners and admittedly, some (not-so-professional) professional SEO companies often make, is that of over-optimizing their sites. Let’s take a closer look…

Overdoing your keyword optimization:

The very first thing everyone learns in SEO is the implementation of keyword optimization for pages and websites as a whole. Newcomers to the search engine optimization (SEO) game will learn that having the correct keywords on a page will tell search engines that the article is relevant to a particular subject that users have searched for. So the first thing they do is completely saturate their pages with relevant keywords. The problem is however, that Google and other search engines are not stupid. They can EASILY detect someone who is overdoing their SEO optimization with keyword stuffing and quickly penalize the page with low rankings and a damaged reputation.

The SES in London is in full swing and SEO experts from around the world are strutting their stuff and sharing invaluable amounts of knowledge that promise to boost the state of the entire industry. Brian Eisenberg yesterday did an interesting talk on website conversion and our very own CEO blogged on www.stateofsearch.com about this informative presentation. Louis’ blog boasts 21 steps on how to improve website conversion. I’ve summarized the most important tips from these two experienced gentlemen, right here, for your own reading pleasure:

Here are a few top tips to ensure that your site achieves maximum ROI:

1. Effectively communicate your UNIQUE value to the client

Research shows that users take 7-8 seconds to analyze the landing page on your website. Ensure that EVERY landing page on your site effectively communicates your brand, your UNIQUE selling points and establishes instant creditability. Carry this brand identity throughout your site to ensure that your visitors do not lose faith at any stage of the checkout process, resulting in an increase in website conversion.

Whether you own an E-commerce site, an affiliate site or even a blog, it is important that you make the most of the numerous “selling seasons” that occur every year. In light of this, this blog post is aimed at optimizing your site for Valentines Day which is coming up in just a couple of weeks.

Now, I realize that you’ve only just removed the Christmas trees and snowflakes from your site as we move on from the Christmas selling season (if you haven’t taken your tree down by now, it’s bad luck), but that doesn’t mean that you can rest on your laurels for another 12 months until next Christmas. There are plenty selling seasons to focus on throughout the year – Valentine Day, Easter, Guy Fawkes, Independence day, Australia day, Thanksgiving and the list goes on depending on where in the world you are situated. It is massively important that you find a way to capitalize on these days and use them to your selling advantage.

I recently referred a colleague to an article written about duplicate content and why it is not good practice to regurgitate old content onto your website. My colleague read the article but struggled to make sense of it all as the article was just too technical for someone who is just getting started in SEO. So I had to go through the article with him and break it down into a more a more understandable format. This blog entry is a dummy version of what we discussed.

What is Duplicate Content?

In internet terms, duplicate content refers to blocks, pages or snippets of text that is identical or extremely similar to content on another page or website. Often this is an innocent mistake made by one of the parties involved, however webmasters do sometimes deliberately copy content from other sites in the hope of either getting the other site a duplicate content “penalty”, or simply regurgitating content to save time and money on acquiring well written copy. There is no exact formula or ratio to state what is and isn’t considered duplicate content, so be sure to just keep every page of content that you write as original as possible.

There have been a few announcements bouncing around lately that the love-to-hate Google Toolbar PageRank has gone to ranking heaven, but as we can see, this feature is still firmly in place and Google are adamant on the fact that the Toolbar PageRank is here to stay. The truth is that TBPR is not a favourite amongst many but it is a lot like a car crash – you don’t want to look at it but you just can’t help yourself. In normal Google character, instead of the constant denying of the death of their TBPR, they have decided to show their satisfaction with this little green bar and update their Toolbar PR application. What many individuals find surprising is that this new and improved update has come happily along only a month after the last one, whereas a few years ago the Toolbar was only being updated annually.

When I think of local search, I think of the old fashioned Yellow Pages Directory, but less turning of those thin pages that stick together and more of instant results. Many businesses feel that putting all of their marketing expenditure and effort into their website only will be enough to sell their products and services. They do know, however, that they are not the only Laundromat/butcher/toy store in the area, and this can prove problematic. Bigger brands that wish to sell their products and services to not only their own country but other continents will also face problems when approaching local listings of their business. Whether your business is big or small, local search will place you on the map, literally.

The key to local search is to stay competitive, think laterally and prioritise. Below are a few recourses on how to rank within local search in the countries you would like to target. These articles, written by industry experts, show how you can improve your local rankings.

I love to watch videos that I find in search results. Happy or sad, extremely funny or disturbing, I feel that watching these videos, whether they are circulating memes or rare clips, give you a short break from the world for a few minutes until you are rushed back to reality only to realise that you were probably doing something fairly constructive before you clicked on that particular link. I have heard that you can only concentrate on about 20 minutes of reading/studying/research until you need a break. On good days this number seems like a breeze but on bad days 20 minutes can feel like an eternity. Either way, videos can give one a visual break from endless pages of search content, but are people really using videos and using them properly in order to direct the public to their products and services?