Anthony Shapley

1. On-site
2. The way SEO used to be
3. How SEO is changing
4. What should I do?
5. Do we still need an SEO?

On-Site SEO

This is the first thing most websites should do and I don’t see any massive change happening here. Every website still needs “unique”, “interesting” and “well written” content which is rich in the right “keywords”. Of course your site should also have a relative “Title” and “Meta Description”. Other things like Domain name, filenames etc are also still important. I won’t go on, my point is I don’t see any massive change in this.

The way SEO used to be

To date SEO use to be a very easy thing to conquer by either link baiting or link buying, depending on whether your Black or White Hat. This would massively manipulate the Search Results providing it was done well and with the correct anchor text. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this doesn’t work anymore. I’m just saying I see it becoming less and less important in the future.

How SEO is Changing

So now your wondering why? Well the reason its changing is of course to provide more relative results and reduce web spam. The importants of backlinks is being reduced and of course other things are picking up the slack. These are:

• RSS Subscriptions: Google recently purchased the website Feedburner, which holds the largest market share in RSS Syndication/Subscription tracking etc. Google also placed a patent on the idea of ranking websites in Search Engine Result Pages based on the amount of RSS Subscribers. This was their first very clever move.
• Digg & other content voting sites are also being used to rank content. A site with more Diggs or the equivalent will get a boost in the Search Results Pages.
• The nofollow is still being counted as links to your site. Specifing the relationship in your Hyperlinks is what Google wants you to do, so do it! Your only helping yourself.
• Data is being taken from Analytics and the Google Toolbar.

This really is just a few of many changes that are being made.

What should I do?

Go with the flow! Sign up with feedburner, that using the rel=”" tag, start digging. Providing your site is good, you’ll stay at the top of the SERP’s.

Do we still need an SEO?

Of course! There is potential to manipulate absolutely everything I’ve written above and link are still very* important. Whilst the importance of inbound links is gradually being reduced they are still vital and will remain to be for the foreseeable future.

Here are the 10 most important things I consider when doing SEO:

• A good strategy in place, highlighting key phrases. Without this no one knows what they’re doing
   
• Links - I’m not suggesting you buy them, but they are the key to any successful relationship with the Search Engines. Its even written in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
   
• Meta Description and Meta Keywords, they may not count towards delivery but I’m fairly certain they’re used in an overall page Quality Score.
   
• Unique and Interesting Content
   
• Well laid out website which is easy to navigate, for your users and the spiders!
   
• Established Domain Name, the longer your domain name has been around the better it will perform.
   
• In bound links should be from different Class C IP Blocks and not from bad neighborhoods.  
   
• Good Web Hosting with high up time and maybe even a dedicated IP Address if its your main website.
   
• Use Headings like H1, H2, H3 etc. These should be structured in the same way as any written document. So the top of the page is a H1, then multiple h2’s and h3’s you get my drift
   
• Page Titles seem to be extremely important at the moment! Make sure yours are not too long but very relevant.

Think I’ve got one wrong? Let me know!

Some basic (common sense) stuff you should know when creating landing pages for your Products or Affiliate schemes. 

It’s important to make it clear what actions you want your visitor to take right from the start.  You can get your visitors attention using graphics, grabbing titles and by portraying multiple benefits. Four seconds is all you have to prove the site is a value to them.

After you have got the visitors attention its important to create desire and build a sense of urgency. This can be done by offering an incentive for them to act now such as:

• Free Delivery
• Sale Price
• Limited Membership

Don’t forget that a website is not like a book and therefore you should not expect your visitors to read from top to bottom. They will most probably skip all around your site trying to find the section that is most appealing to them. To help your visitor do this you should make clear and readable headings.

I have successfuly just reached the first page for the Search Terms “seo exeter” and “seo devon” (Only checked Google). Now whos the daddy?

The secret is backlinks and I can most certainly help any legitimate organisation within the UK build relevant links which will lead the way to them getting the ranks/results you want.

Lots of love,

So a while back on the v7n SEO Blog it was revealed that Google is now looking at over 200 signs when sorting its organic search results which is somewhat concerning. What are they.. (The orginal article: Here ) so we all know the basics like backlinks, good HTML and all that Bull Shit.

But.. and I do mean BUT it appears that Matt Cutts has let one of these slip recently after listening to webmasterradio.fm. It would appear that now Google is querying domain ownership and if you own a load of domains across mulitiple subjects you may be penalized or labeled a spammer, so this theoretically would cut some of the shit out of the Search Engines, it is in terms of Quality Control possibly a good idea on a Blackhat level, as these guys register a boat load of domain names.

It might hurt a few people who just buy domains or hold them for future projects, who knows anyway now you know that, I wouldn’t recommend registering domains in false names or infact trying to hide your details, as Google is a Registrar and can still see them, you can run but you can’t hide.

If you’re a small business with a website, but no SEO plan, you’re missing an excellent opportunity to
promote your products or services. Plus, SEO is not very expensive – with a moderate amount of time
and money, you can start getting traffic from the major search engines.
Assuming you’re ready to start optimizing your website for top rankings on Google, Google UK,
Yahoo UK, Yahoo, MSN, etc, there are three basic steps you should follow in your SEO plan.

Step 1 – Choose your keywords
You first need to choose the keywords that you want to rank well for. I’d suggest that you start with 3-5
main keywords.
Keep in mind that bigger, more completive keywords are much harder to rank well on. You want to
choose keywords that quite a few people search for, but that the competition is low to moderate on.
You can check the search volume and competition for a keyword with overture. Use Overture’s
keyword suggestion tool to check the monthly search volume, and the bid prices tool to check on the
competition. (Generally, the higher the top bids for a keyword are, the more competitive the keyword
is.)

Step 2 – Optimize your site
The easiest way to optimize the pages on your site is to use a free tool like WebCEO. This tool will
check and analyze your pages according to the search engine algorithms, to ensure that you have the
correct keyword density, etc, for your selected keywords. WebCEO comes with plenty of
documentation, so I won’t include instructions in this article.

Step 3 – Build links to your site
Building inbound links to your site is actually the most important part of SEO. There are many ways to
build links to your site. A few of the best methods are link exchanges, directory submissions, and
article submissions. One could write an entire book (in fact, many have been written), on building
links, so I won’t go further into the details in this article.

If you are SEOing for a particular country, like the UK, be sure that you either have your site hosted in
that country and / or your domain uses that country’s extension.

The principles in this article should give you a good start in getting the knowledge you need to SEO
your site for top search engine rankings.

Well as you know I’ve been online for sometime, I have recently been reading up on this “Google Sandbox Theory”. I will try to explain this as shortly as possible, no one enjoys long drawn out posts. Anyway enough waffle (which I’m so good at!).

Two Theories

All new sites Submitted to Google are now placed in a theoretical “Sandbox” away from the real world really. This period of time used to determine Spammy sites from the ones with unique content. Thus preventing Spammy sites getting good SERPS.

The second idea is that this actually has absolutely nothing to do with the physical site, rather the backlinks are only given partial credit for a probation period. Preventing sites shooting up the SERPS.

Conclusion is that Google are making an attempt to filter out spammy websites and are also as an affect preventing new websites establishing well in there SERPS for a certain amount of time. This may even be linked to a level of backlinks reached. Any thoughts/comments would be good!