Scotland SEO Blog

Putting together an e-mail marketing campaign can be a complicated task. One area that many businesses fail to plan for is the post campaign support. What are you going to do during, and more importantly, after the campaign?

If your e-mail marketing campaign is successful, you may find yourself with hundreds of visitors to your website. If your website includes a checkout facility, is your server able to cope with the demand and are your payment links able to cope? Sometimes a little planning such as mirroring or cache your site could prevent embarrassing and costly problems.

The bigger issue often is the post campaign support. If you are looking for newsletter subscribers, are your data files able to handle hundreds or more requests simultaneously? Are you able to deliver an newsletter to 1000 subscribers? These are all questions that need to be asked.

Finally, once the smoke has cleared, what are you going to do with the data? Do you know how to read any analytics, how to interpret and then how to transfer those results to future campaigns? E-mail marketing should not stop once the last email has been sent. You need to plan for all outcomes and monitor the processes.

E-mail marketing campaigns have proven to be very fruitful over the years. However many businesses have not been prepared enough to capitalise on the results. Do you have an e-mail marketing post campaign support plan?

Search engines and PageRank - here we go again. Another day another toolbar release of PageRanks. I read many articles where the webmaster is either jumping for joy or having a good gripe complaining that Google have got it all wrong - again.

Given the option of having a good page rank or appearing in the top three of SERP’s, I would much rather take the later. PageRank is an out of date number that on a day-to-day basis means very little. If you want to know how well you are doing then spend a couple of minutes each day on the search engines doing a search on your keywords.

If they appear on the front page, you know you are doing your SEO job reasonable well. If they don’t appear on the front page, you know you have more work to do. That is the bottom line. I see web pages with PageRanks of 4,5 or 6, however they don’t always score that prime page one result.

If your PageRank has dropped, check why. Check your SEO strategies and see whether or not others have out gunned you in the optimization race. Better yet, check that your pages can all be read by Google’s spiders and that what they are reading fits within all the white hat options.

Your PageRank has gone up? Congratulations, now get back to working on your search engine results - that is what matters, that is where your organic traffic will come from. After all, the search engines don’t look at your PageRank, it’s too old. They have already recalculated your score.

Web design has been utilizing image, video and audio to a far greater extent in recent years and now search engines are indexing these media files as separate entities. As such they represent a valuable addition to your search engine optimization program.

Having an image file is not enough. The image must be optimized correctly in your web design if you want to receive the maximum benefit in the SERP’s. These four areas should be addressed for each image in both your web design and your blog posts.

• Size: yes, size does matter particularly if it is too small. If your web design calls for thumbnails or very small images then link them to larger images.
• Name: make your image’s filename search engine friendly. If possible use a keyword within the image’s filename.
• Tags: use the alt and title tags to effect by including the keyword or keyphrase. This makes the tags search engine friendly as well as providing a neat description for browsers that have images turned off.
• Text: if your image has text associated with it then use the appropriately keywords or keyphrases in close proximity to the image. If the image is not associated with any text then include a caption below the image that includes your keywords or keyphrase

By optimizing your images within your web design you are making it much easier for any search engine to find, categorise and index. Search engines are quite slow at indexing images at present. They are even slower at updating them so wherever possible, optimize them at the time of publication, not at a later date.

Images have become a powerful inclusion to all web pages and blogs. These tips will help maximize their inclusion in your web design.

As Google toys with pay-per-action ad units, it may be time to seriously reconsider your advertising strategies. Pay-per-action will certainly reduce any click fraud that most advertisers experience but will it prove value for money?

Considering the amount of either click fraud or click throughs that don’t generate desired actions, perhaps the pay-per-action form advertising will prove popular with advertisers. I don’t think the publishers will share that enthusiasm somehow. I can see their monetary returns going diminishing very quickly.

For you the advertiser, the real benefit is that you are only paying when you get your desired outcome. You will find that cost per keyword may increase, but over the long term your actual advertising costs may fall. If you are getting a 4 or 5% conversion on a keyword costing 2.00 then you need to be clearing at least 5 times the ad cost to stay profitable (10.00 cost per conversion). If you can buy a pay-per-action campaign at 5.00 per action, the actual cost will halved.

The advertising industry may well look to pay-per-action as the future of online advertising. Publishers will resist for as long as possible. The one advantage that advertisers have is that there are millions of potential advertisers on line and while many will resist, there will still be millions left to take on the campaigns. Publishers that can earn 5.00 per click for pay-per-action ads will be quite happy if they can get a 4-5% conversion.

The number of domain names left is infinite, however, unless you are really lucky then all the short easy to remember domain names have been taken. Should you use a hyphen in the domain name?

My recommendations are to never use hyphens in a domain name. People can remember domain names when they are relevant. They tend to get confused when you start to put hyphens in often not being able to remember where the actual hyphen goes.

In fact, if you have to use a longer domain name you may find there is good SEO value to that name. If you sell blue widgets here in Scotland, you may find you can register bestbluewidgetsinscotland dot com. I know, it sounds like a mouthful, however I sure people can remember that compared to best-blue-widgets-in-scotland dot com. Easier to read, yes but not friendly to type.

The SEO potential for long domain names like that shown should not be underestimated. Keyword groups such as ‘best blue widget’, ‘blue widgets’, ‘blue widgets in Scotland’ and ‘best blue widgets in Scotland’ would all receive a push whenever you mention your domain name.

When considering a domain name, think of the keyword value and forget the hyphen options - think of a domain name that people can remember with ease, that you can market, and is easy for your visitors to type.

There are several reasons to create a blog, the first being to attract more traffic, the second being to add links to your web pages. Blogging for link juice has become popular however there is a right way and a wrong way to maximise your links.

Use and offsite blog.
Linking from within your own domain provides on marginal value, in fact it is similar to linking two pages together. Blogging from an offsite domain is regarded as another web site linking to yours.

Only one link per page.
The second mistake that most web owners make is to go link mad. Google is one search engine that really only values one link to a particular page per page. If you have a post with three links to your web site, only the first will be counted. You can have one link to ten different pages on your web site so long as each page has only one link.

Make the link count.
When linking to your web site, make sure you use keywords associated with the web page you are linking to. If you do not use keywords the links value is significantly reduced.

Ignore the sidebar.
The sidebar is a great place to have ads, and links to pages within your blog. However, if search engines only recognise one link per page, then having sidebar links and post links is doubling up. If you do want to have navigation links in your sidebar, make them ‘nofollow’ links.

Link often.
Every time you post it should link to one of the pages on your web site. Whilst you can have as many links to as many pages as you want, the reality is that you don’t want it all to look spammy. Select the most important pages on web site and link to them as often as possible.

Follow those simple guidelines and the number of inbound links will improve significantly.

There is more to link building than just finding suitable sites and encouraging links. You need to be more proactive by getting out and developing links.

Links can gained through directories, article submission, forums and social sites; in fact, anywhere there is an online page there is the potential for a link. Not all pages are suitable for linking and there will be times when perhaps you find a link that is coming from an undesirable sight. Those are the pitfalls of link building - you cannot always pick your links.

There are many links you can pick however, and these you need to be constantly checking and updating. Links from social sites can often be modified to point to pages you want to develop. You also need to ensure that all links still flow to active pages on your site, particularly if you have been doing some heavy spring cleaning. Link building is a continual process - not always a set and forget.

If you think your links may be getting old and rusty then you may need to spend some time redeveloping your link building strategies and ensuring that all links are providing the utmost value. Internal link building strategies need to be constantly monitored. Don’t let them get rusty.

(cc)credit: Mark Barkaway

Image is everything and images are everywhere so when it comes to branding and marketing your online business, the first consideration has to be your image and how others perceive you.

The online world is in a unique position when it comes to image. You can promote your image through website and through offline activities such as sponsoring events or charities. However, your online image can be promoted in so many more places online that branding and marketing activities could almost be a full time job - in fact, for many large organisations it is.

Product and company branding is about increasing brand awareness. Online forums and social networking sites are being used more and more each day to undertake branding and marketing strategies with good results. In fact a measure of the return on time invested is greater than that for the offline world and traditional marketing methods.

Through these online activities you can deliver your branding and marketing program to literally millions of individuals and often the message is passed on by the very people viewing your activities. In the online world, it only takes a small number of individuals to recognise you or your product in a positive way and the word spreads faster than a wildfire.

Traditional word of mouth, ie, talking, is slow compared to digital word of mouth. Digital word of mouth can reach thousands or more in seconds, spreading the word. But beware, as quickly as good news travels, so to does bad. Your branding and marketing campaign needs to stay focused on delivering a positive message and developing a trust.

Branding and marketing is all about image. Create a positive image and you have a firm base to develop your online activities.

Keyword research is an important part of any online business and collecting a list of important keywords to attract users to your site can be daunting. Whether you’re developing a pay-per-click campaign or looking for effective keyword content, these five keyword research tips may help you find the right target keywords.

Brainstorm
Make a list of all the obvious keywords that could be associated with your site. Try to think of every variation possible including plurals.

Competition
Try each word on your list in the search engines and make note of the top ten sites for each word. If there is a trend to certain sites appearing regularly, check the keyword meta tag in their page source code. Are there any keywords that your could add to your keyword research list.

Research Tools
Now that you have a set of basic keywords it is time to use a keyword research tool to drill down for related keywords. There are many tools that also enable you to check the number of searches made for each keyword - if keywords get 10 or more searches each day, note them down, less than 10, delete them from your list.

Search Engines
You will have a lot of keywords now so it is time to really trim them back to a manageable level. Use the search engines now to search for your keywords. Enter the keyword (in inverted commas) and see how many sites are returned.

Prioritize
Make a note of the keywords with the fewest sites returned. You do not want to compete with millions of other entries for one keyword.

Once you have gone through this process, look at some long tail keywords or keyword phrases that could be used. Start to think of questions that users may enter into a search engine. Once you have this list, go back to the search engine and repeat that step. Keyword research is time consuming, however, once you have your list, you can start to target those keywords to effect.

The basic premise of these five steps is to find keywords that have a reasonable number of searches performed each day yet have the smallest competition pool. Whilst this represents a very basic keyword research program, for individuals considering doing there own SEO work, this type of keyword research is a good start.

Domain names have been the subject of legal disputes for several years now with companies complaining about domain name farming around brand and corporate names. Do you know what your rights are here in Scotland?

The registering and ownership of domain names here in Scotland is covered under UK law and provides substantial relief for many businesses. The most important issue when disputing a domain name is to establish your rights to that brand or business name.

In many cases this can be done by simply proving registration of your business name or trademark. This will almost always satisfy previous rights to domain names for both .uk and .eu domains. It may often be enough to satisfy complaints when challenging ’similar’ domain names that try to take advantage of slight changes to your brand or trademark.

If you have not registered your trademark then you will need to demonstrate a history of ‘use’ of that trademark and that the trademark is associated with your business. You would need to provide historical evidence including sales and advertising material bearing that trademark.

In simple terms, no one can take your registered business name or trademark and ‘beat you’ to registering it as a domain. You may also be able to dispute similar names that take advantage of your reputation.

There are several bodies that may hear your dispute including Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Nominet Dispute Resolution Services (DRS). If you feel that your business, trademark of brand has been registered as a domain then speaking to your web service provider in Scotland may help. You should also approach a legal representative that specialises in internet law.