7 Simple Steps to Search Marketing Success
Posted by Stuart on February 26th, 2010 - Cornwall office  

Do you remember the game 'Othello', the one that had round pieces with white on one side and black on the other? That game had a tag line that said 'Minutes to learn - a lifetime to master'. Search marketing is a bit like that, although it takes a bit longer that a minute to learn, and hopefully a lot less than a lifetime to master, but you get the point!

So with that in mind I'm going to take you through the 7 simple steps of search marketing. Please bear in mind that while the principles are simple, the execution of them is not.

Step 1 - Choose your initial keywords

These initial keywords will be the ones on your wish list, the 1, 2 or 3 word phrases that you want to eventually rank highly for. You're unlikely to rank for these straight away (unless they're very obscure), but it's good to select them early on so that you've got something to aim for.

Step 2 - Set up optimized pages for those keywords

Create a page, or optimize an existing one, for each of the keywords on your list. Depending on the keyword you may be able to assign more than one keyword phrase per page. Once you do start ranking for those keywords, these are the pages that are going to get hit.

Step 3 - Mine for long tail keywords

The great thing about long tail key words and phrase is that they are easier to rank highly for, and they give the most targeted traffic as people are usually being very specific when they search using these phrases. You can use the Google keyword tool or the Wordtracker free keyword tool to find long tail phrase associated with your main keywords.

Step 4 - Create more content

Now we start adding content optimized for the long tail keywords. This content can be by way of an article, blog post, video or anything else you can think of. The important thing is to have the keywords in the title tag, and H1 tag, and in the main body of the page. Keep it natural though, no obvious keyword stuffing. You can add this over time.

Step 5 - Getting links

The final, most important, and probably most dreaded and difficult step is getting links to your pages. There are a number of ways this can be done, for example through web directories or link requests, but the best place to get links is in editorial content of other peoples blog or news posts. Firstly Google sees these types of links as more natural and more authoritative than site wide links in someones blog roll. Plus this type of content is often syndicated, meaning further links for the syndicating domains. The key to getting these sorts of links is content. If the content you create is something worthy of links, then the people who write the blog posts will link to it.

Step 6 - Publicize

Having the most wonderful, link worthy content in the world means nothing if nobody knows about or links to it. You can post your content to news aggregators like Digg or Reddit, you can post it on your Facebook status, on your twitter feed. You can email journalists directly, who may link to your content if it's interesting enough. The key is to get it out there, through as many mediums as possible.

Step 7 - Measure

If you haven't already done so, get an analytics package like Google Analytics. You need to measure your success, and use your stats to find new avenues of content creation and optimisation. As the links to your site begin to build, so will your own domain authority. Keep an eye on where you rank for those initial wish list keywords and phrases. Are you increasing your ranking?

Rinse and Repeat

The process is ongoing, and it can take time. Creating great linkable content isn't easy, but keep at it and you'll have a hit eventually.

Redirecting your content using 301 redirects
Posted by Stuart on February 12th, 2010 - Cornwall office  

There will often be times when you want to redirect users from one page to another page on a permanent basis. Especially when the original page shows up in search results. The last thing you want is for users to click onto your content, and be presented with an ugly 'Sorry, page not found'.

Using .htaccess

To redirect users to the new page from the old page, we can use 301 redirects in an .htaccess file. This file should be located at the root of your public website. If you want to redirect the user from /my_old_page to /my_new_page, put the following in your.htaccess file.

redirect 301 /my_old_page /my_new_page

Redirecting to other sites

This isn't just limited to redirecting within your own site. You can redirect to other sites too:

redirect 301 /my_old_page http://www.newdomain.com/my_new_page

A 301 redirect is the most search engine friendly way to redirect the page, as it means the page has moved permanently.

SEO Work for Scuba Dreams Website, Koh Chang, Thailand
Posted by Andy on January 23rd, 2010 - Leighton Buzzard office  

We are pleased to be working with Scuba Dreams dive shop in Koh Chang, Thailand.

We are working on optimising their current site to improve their search results in Google and other search engines, otherwise known as search engine optimisation, or SEO. We are ensuring the content is search engine friendly and keywords, meta tags and descriptions are improved. After initially going through the site, we have, in conjunction with Scuba Dreams, determined optimal search phrases that the website will be optimised for.

Their current site has it's own content management system (CMS) which presents its own challenges when conducting SEO work.

Scuba Dreams, located on the island of Koh Chang, is a member of the international PADI association. Koh Chang is positioned on the eastern side of the Gulf of Thailand and is the largest island in a chain of 52 islands.

older posts