Archive for October, 2007
published by Dan in SEO
If you want to get the best SEO service from any SEO firm it is unrealistic to expect to best possible result if you do not give them the proper information they need. While it is true that a good SEO consultant should be able to ascertain their clients needs, they will only be able to do that as long as their client is cooperative and responds when asked with probing questions. If you want to make the most out of the SEO service you hired then you’d better follow the advice below.
- Give the SEO consultant lots of information - You want the SEO experts to be able to have a solid grasp of what your business/organisation (or whatever the website is about) is all about including the product/service offered, the aim/thrust, the philosophy, the branding, the audience, and all the other factors which will affect how they go about planning which keywords to choose and the kind of audience to target. They will also need to get statistics about how your current website is doing to be able to pinpoint areas of improvement and other important matters.
- Give the SEO consultant ample time - SEO takes time. Wanting quick results is unrealistic and SEO firms promising overnight results are probably those that either do not know what they are doing or those that use black hat methods, which might give you a spike in traffic but will in the end possibly do more harm than good to your site. Time is needed to launch a full blown campaign and see solid results. However, make sure that the SEO firm is clear with you in giving deadlines.
to be continued…
Popularity: 12% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Basics
If you are looking for an SEO copywriter to help you optimise your site’s text make sure you choose a good one. Here are some tips to remember.
- Ask for writing samples and the list of terms each sample targets - Remember that simply being a good writer does NOT cut it. Even if the text is well-written, if it does contain enough keywords or does not highlight the needed terms, then look for a better SEO copywriter. In the same way, do not settle for an SEO copywriter that is able to stuff enough keywords in the sample text but has a bland writing style. You want to hire an SEO copywriter that will not only help drive traffic to your site but one that will ensure that the visitors will actually enjoy what they read.
- Check their experience - Ask them about their experience. How long have they been doing SEO copywriting? What kind of related training have they received? If the writer is an experienced writer but has very little experience with SEO copywriting go back to number 1 and remember that simply being a good writer does NOT cut it. However, in my opinion, not just because someone is relatively new at SEO copywriting means that the service will be horrible. I put more weight on the samples.
- Ask for references - This is important not only because you want to get a good look at the websites they’ve done but because you want to know their level of professionalism. Find out how well they are at meeting deadlines and how quick they reply to emails.
Popularity: 12% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
Last time I pointed out specific circumstances wherein you won’t need an SEO copywriter. This time I’ll be citing specific examples of when it is you DO NEED to hire an SEO copywriter to help optimize the content of your site.
You will benefit from SEO copywriting services the most if…
- your website has a theme/topic wherein there aren’t too many search terms you need to target. The more search terms you are aiming to be optimised for the harder it is to optimise the content. This fact is pretty obvious since your content will look spammy if you load it with too much keywords and phrases. If you want all the keywords and phrases included then the text will definitely be longer, which as I previously said, doesn’t make for very good copy on the web. If your website has varied topics you will still benefit much from SEO copywriting if you have few targeted search terms per page/section.
- your desired search terms are not too highly competitive. Even if you do hire SEO copywriters to help you out with highly competitive terms (like casinos, insurance, etc..) you will find that even if they produce excellent content for you it will still be hard to get on the top of SERPs. The reason for this your competition most likely hired professional SEO copywriters too. This is does not mean that you shouldn’t hire SEO copywriters though but that you should couple this with other SEO and marketing efforts as well.
Popularity: 10% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
In my last post I mentioned how SEO copywriters come in handy when it comes to making sure that the text portion of your site is optimised for both your human readers and search engine spiders. Before you do hire someone to do SEO copywriting for your site though make sure that you actually do need SEO copywriting services. Afterall, you might not really need it and so will be wasting perfectly good money by hiring an SEO copywriter. So how do you know if you do need an SEO copywriter or not?
You DO NOT NEED an SEO copywriter if…
- your website does not have enough viewable text. If your site contains mostly images you do not really need the services of an SEO copywriter. However, do make sure that the few text there should contain keywords. Examples of sites like this are online art galleries and video sites. Do not forget to use Alt-tags!
- the viewable text in your website is in not readable by search engines. It is of course recommended that you make sure that the viewable text be readable by search engines but if for some reason this is not possible, then you do not need an SEO copywriter to optimise the text. An example of text not viewable by search engines are those in flash format.
- you have the knowledge and time to do the SEO copywriting yourself. The problem here is that usually you have either one of the two but not both.
to be continued…
Popularity: 12% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Basics
One of the basic things you should remember when writing optimised content is to keep it short and sweet. Most people looking for information in the internet do not have much patience to go through long articles and prefer to simply read or skim through shorter ones, deciding almost immediately whether the contents of a certain site are relevant to whatever it is they are looking for. The problem with providing concise text though is that it is harder to insert lots of keywords and yet not sacrifice the content’s readability. This is where SEO copywriters come in.
The job of an SEO copywriter is to be able to write the (viewable) textual content of your website in such a way as to target the specific keywords you require while maintaining a writing style that is suitable for human readers. Finding the balance between your need for your website to place well in search engine result pages (SERPs) as well as providing relevant content to your visitors/readers is what SEO copywriters are tasked to do. By hiring the services of an SEO copywriter you can be sure to have a short but meaty content.
Aside from writing the main body or main content of your website/blog SEO copywriters should also take care of the other important on-page elements like article title/header, description, and tags.
Popularity: 10% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
The use of meta data is essential when doing search engine optimisation for podcasts. However, making use of meta data isn’t the only thing you can do to optimise your podcasts. Aside from making sure that you input all the necessary information as part of the meta data some of the things you can do to optimise your podcasts include:
- Optimising the file name - When saving your podcast make sure that the name you use is short, unique, and contains that date of release and/or episode number. The last part is especially important for user as well as for directories to be able to determine which episode of a show they are watching.
- Optimising the audio file - Although the ideal thing to happen would be for all your audience to watch the entire show many opt to simply LISTEN to podcasts whether this be on their computers or using mp3 players. Do not neglect your listeners and make sure that the audio file is optimised.
- Optimising the landing pages - You should have landing pages for each podshow you have. The landing page should contain links to each episode of the specific podshow (the latest episode ought to be showcased), information about the show, show schedules, subscription information, and an online player for those who automatically want to listen.
- Optimising your feeds - Make sure you promote only one feed for all podcasts and that your feeds are problem free. I like using Feedburner when building feeds since it is very easy to use and makes podcast optimisation really easy. The SmartCast feature ensures that your feeds are compatible even for iTunes and other media. Make sure that you always validate your feeds too.
Popularity: 10% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
Meta data is something that we already know is important in any SEO campaign. If you want your podcasts to be optimised one of the things you need to remember is to provide the meta data needed to help search engines determine exactly just what your podcasts contain. Here’s a quick list of the information you should ALWAYS remember to input:
- Title - the name of your show and/or the name of the specific episode
- Album - the name of your podcast
- Artist - your name or the name of the host (if your are not the host)
- Year - the year the podcast is released (2007)
- Track - Episode number (put one even if you originally planned it to be just one episode…who knows you might release another one)
- Genre - type in Podcast
- Comments - You can input a variety of things here to give additional information. Some of the usual stuff included in the comments section of the meta data include:
- Podcast Summary/Synopsis/Description - best for long podcasts
- Transcript - possible for shorter podcasts
- Information regarding the next episode - When it will be released, what it will be about, etc.
Popularity: 10% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
Podcasting is really hot right now. It’s so hot I wouldn’t be surprised if you have already jumped in the bandwagon and regular upload podcasts in your website. This is, of course, great. Now you have one more means to reach out to your target audience. However, the question is not whether your podcasts are great (which I assume at this point that it is) but whether or not they even reach the intended audience.
Just like any ordinary website that do not offer podcasts each element must be optimized to be searchable by search engines and to rank well in their results pages. Podcast SEO a comparatively new field of search engine optimisation though so that a lot of SEO firms do not have much experience optimising them. This means that if you do plan of hiring an SEO consultant’s service and podcasts are a part of your website, make sure that you find out just how much that SEO firm knows about podcast optimisation.
Note though that even if an SEO consultant might not have had optimised podcasts for a client it doesn’t mean that they do not have experience optimising podcasts. After all a company that offers good SEO service would be keeping up with the latest developments in SEO, internet marketing, and anything else relevant. Not only that but a good SEO firm would have had tweaked with podcasting and practiced optimising podcasts on their own time.
Popularity: 10% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Strategy
Aside from Full RSS Feeds and Tag-specific Feeds for your RSS feeds to be part of an effective SEO promotion you should also make sure that your feeds have:
More than 10 items - The common practice is to have around 15 items in each feed. However, if your feed is really active then by all means include 20 or even more items in your feed. 10 items or less is only applicable to sites that do not provide new content frequently. And since we know how important fresh content is then it is a given that your site should always have fresh content, meaning you need more items in your feed. If you limit your items to just 10 the still new but not the latest items will disappear too quickly giving it less exposure than it deserves.
Item Titles with keywords - A cool, witty title is exaclty that - cool and witty, but it won’t do much for you in terms of SEO if it doesn’t contain important keywords. By all means be as cool and as witty as you want to be when trying to come up with a title but make sure that you do not forget to make it keyword-rich as well. Your best SEO marketing strategy in this case is of course being able to play the keywords in a way to make it sound really appealing.
Popularity: 10% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Strategy
Everyone knows the importance of RSS feeds when it comes to promoting ones website. This is why rarely do you see any site nowadays that do not have any kind of feed at all. However, what many do not realize is that their feeds are often NOT optimised. This of course means that you don’t get the full benefit that the presence of your feeds could have given you. For your website’s RSS feeds to be fully optimised you should offer:
Full RSS Feeds - Ok. So there are several reasons for offering summary feeds (like we do) instead of full feeds. However, if you do not have any real reservations and offer summary feeds just because it’s what you are exposed to then you should know that it is a good SEO strategy to offer full feeds.
Category/Tag-Specific Feeds - If you do not know how to do this simply as your SEO consultant or webmaster to take care of this for you. If your site has only one RSS feed then you are not offering this feature. Offering feeds per category or per tag is very useful to your readers since they can subscribe only to those they are really interested in. This is very important for websites with varied topics/categories since readers are sometimes discouraged from subscribing since they don’t want to get a lot of incoming stories from one site when they are only really interested in a small percentage of the stuff sent their way.
to be continued…
Popularity: 10% [?]
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