SEO plays a big role in how well your website is ranking, so it’s important to focus your attention on SEO early on. If you’re just starting out and unsure what SEO really means, then take a read of our article; Is SEO Still Worth It. We discuss at some length about SEO, and it’s importance.

However, occasionally we can find ourselves stumbling over the basics trying to get it right. So that’s why we have compiled a list of the top 5 basic SEO mistakes that could be holding your website back.

The Top 5 SEO Basics:

• Not Fixing Broken Pages With Backlinks

If you have a website with numerous web pages, it can be easy to lose sight of when a pages URL needs to be updated. 404 errors occur when a URL has broken or been changed. Whether they are internal links between pages or links to other websites, if they are left broken, they can seriously affect your overall SEO. Broken pages containing backlinks are vitally important to correct.

• Missing Page META Descriptions

A META description or otherwise referred to as META tags is an HTML element which summarises the contents of your page for the benefit of users and search engines. These snippets are often seen below the title of your page. A well written and compelling META description has the power to influence the click-through rate of your organic search results heavily.

• Not Building Your Site For Mobile

Is your website mobile friendly?

It probably comes to no surprise that over 50% of the global searches come directly from mobile devices. Not only is 50% of the search volume coming from mobile devices, but Google also crawls mobile websites to determine how well they rank.

• Heavy & Large Image Files

Visual content is great for users, but are your images affecting your SEO?

Google officially takes into consideration the speed of your website as a crucial ranking factor, with bonus points given to websites that load quickly across multiple devices. Before uploading any imagery to blog articles or product pages, ensure that they are properly compressed to an acceptable size, without sacrificing quality.

• Duplicated Content

When duplicated content is present, website owners rankings and traffic ultimately suffers.

For search engines, duplicated content is incredibly confusing for multiple reasons. Firstly, search engines are unable to distinguish which link they should include or exclude for their indices. Following on from this, search engines are also unable to assess whether the link metrics are trustworthy. These factors make it almost impossible for search engines to determine which version should rank in search results.

The post Top 5 Basic SEO Mistakes appeared first on Eventure Internet.

– It is true that short generic keywords will get your ad’s seen more, but not necessarily by people looking for your products. Generic search terms make it more likely people will click through the ad mistakenly looking for another brand or without reading the ad fully, this will impact your bounce rate and conversion rates. Being more specific or using long tail keywords will help people find you who are specifically looking for your business and products.

2. Think Like Your Audience

– Consider what terms or phrases would people who want your products be searching for? It’s a great idea to use your own branding terms as these are likely to be less competitive and the people who are searching these are definitely going to be looking for your company/products.

3. Use The Tools Available

– Utilize tools like Adwords Planner or Keyword Everywhere to get ideas for keywords and to see what’s going to work the best for you. These tools will help you figure out the balance of how competitive a keyword is vs how many searches it gets. Ranking for a highly competitive keyword is difficult and usually very expensive, but often bidding on less competitive terms will mean lower search rates.

4. Scope Out the Competition

– Look into what your main competitors are ranking for or targeting. This can not only expand your list of potential keywords, as there may be some you’re overlooking. But most importantly it’ll show you what’s working in the industry at the moment.

5. Understand Match type

– Use the match type keywords to your advantage.
• Broad Match – these will give your ads the most impressions as it will include any word in your phrase, misspelt terms or synonyms of your keywords
• Phrase Match – your ad will show for any search that includes your phrase anywhere in the search
• Exact Match – This will show your Ad only when your exact keyword is used or a very close variant.
• Broad Match Modified – this will show your ad for searches that include all of the phrase but in any order.

The post 5 Top Tips For Choosing Profitable Keywords appeared first on Eventure Internet.

I want to rank for these keywords…tell me what you’ll do, how you’ll get me links and when do you think I’ll be on page one and making money.

Every time that happens, inside we die a little. Especially as it’s often followed up with “and I’ve only got £#insert-costs-here budget to spend till you’re making me £#insert-value-here”.

So, after a few deep breaths the conversation must move on. It is folly to explain that high rankings these days are an outcome of good holistic marketing; that high rankings are as much to do with a their activities across the four marketing (or seven if you wish) P’s and that even then, in a digital age those 4 p’s are probably more like the 4 E’s…

See, that’s gobbledegook to most folks and I did qualify that mentioning it was folly…

So other than explaining that it’s not just about SEO and that we offer a holistic digital marketing and that it’s not just about organic traffic, a better way to start the SEO conversation is with these four questions.

Question 1 What is it that you make or do that people want?

More specifically for SEO purposes: What is unique about your proposition and/or What are the expertise that you have that people want?

This obvious comparison here is that first P or E from the marketing mix and from a traditional SEO perspective, it’s the keywords you’ll be targeting.

But here’s the rub – It is not a wish list of what you want to be on page one for! It’s the cracks in the pavement where you’re able to offer something truly unique. It’s unlikely that you are a leader in any mass market – so the answer to this question is as good as your understanding about the personas of your specific customers.

It’s how we work out, at that specific moment of search, when the user really need an answer to their problem, are you going to be there for them?

Question 2 – What is the unique value that you provide that no-one else does?

Think about that for a moment – if you’re offering a “we also do that” website, then you are offering nothing new. In a competitive environment, to get a spot on page one, then you have two options. Either do a MUCH better job at offering what you do, or just offer something different.

There is a superb video that we’ve shared in the past about how to provide unique value. This is a powerful part of any modern successful SEO strategy. However, do not underestimate the amount of time it takes to do. The costs may be high, but the value is even higher!

Question 3 – Who will amplify my message and why?

SEO used to be easy – this amplification of message used to be done by link building en masse. That meant link farms, article marketing, directory submissions etc…Social media didn’t even exist! That’s a fantasy land now and post Penguin, we need amplification from real people.

So there are two parts of this question – the Who and the Why?

Why someone will share your website/webpages is simple. It’s about the reward they get for doing so. It’s not always money, (and see this post about THESE LONG TAIL SEMANTIC KEYWORDS) and in fact, it’s better if that is the case. But sometimes, it is about paying a person or publication to link/share you or either directly or by investing in PR to do so.

Without a doubt, what helps with this process though is having a solid social media strategy already in place which in itself requires an investment of your time as well an investment in content. At this point, you may notice why taking a holistic approach to digital marketing pays dividends in the long run.

Question 4 – What is the process going to be from turning visitors into customers?

This in essence is what is referred to as Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO). It is the analysis of the behaviour of users that reach your site, considering how and why they interact with your site the way that they do in a way the helps you achieve your goals.

Far too often, we hear clients just questioning how to get more organic visitors. All they want is to see that specific number going up as an indication that their “SEO is working”. No.

What you should be wanting to see is more people doing what you want them to do – and they usually do that after multiple visits to your site. So they may first arrive from an organic visit, but then next time they come back directly and sign up to your newsletter and then next time they come from that newsletter and buy.

Funnel marketing has been around long before SEO. But any strategy needs to critically consider how and why someone would move along the funnel from awareness, to consideration, to conversion and then onto advocacy. Assuming it all happens in a single visit, the organic funnel would need consideration of…

• How you appear on Google
• The clarity of message on your website
• The merchandising of your products
• The simplicity of your checkout
• The incentive to build loyalty

So part of any successful SEO strategy should involve an investment in CRO as well as the development resources it takes to build an amazing User eXperience (UX).

So next time you start a conversation about SEO you’ll know how to get the best for your business!

The post 4 Need To Ask Questions For All SEO Strategies appeared first on Eventure Internet.

Award shows, promotional events, blogger outreach events and much more are being hosted to celebrate and interact with bloggers. That’s not all, product advertising, giveaways and company promotions are all being offered to bloggers big and small as an alternative to other methods of advertising.

As the blogging community grows so does the overall ethics, bloggers who work on their blog daily who produce quality content want to be approached respectfully as professionals – and rightly so. A lot of effort goes into creating a quality blog including design, SEO, imagery, finding connections, planning and writing appealing content. With this in mind more bloggers are asking to be approached fairly with the respect you would approach a business partner, but still to this day companies are going about contacting bloggers the wrong way.

So why are companies approaching bloggers? The reason is far beyond cheap PR! Better rankings, social interaction, ROI and quality connections can all be on the table when you do your outreach properly with a goal in place. Bloggers can offer quality links, social shares and advertise your product all in one 300 word + blog post.

So let’s break this down and take a look at who contacts bloggers and how they’re going about it the wrong way.

The SEO buff
The person who contacts you with a specific goal in mind, often asking for links back to a certain page or product with key words linked, or asking the blogger to publish an infographic or content piece which may be of interest to their readers.

The PR (public relations) guru
The friendly face behind the brand- this person is enthusiastic about their brand and they want you to be too. In charge of dealing with promoting the brand with a hands on approach, this individual’s job role includes working with bloggers to promote the brand and its products either by sending out freebies or inviting them to promotional events.

This is a very basic breakdown of the two job titles, obviously this isn’t a standard approach across all companies but it’s an insight into who is usually at the other end of the email.

So how can people who are outreaching to bloggers improve their approach? Here are some tips.

Address the blogger correctly and personally

Dear *blog title*

This first opening line is a bright neon sign pointing out the fact you haven’t even searched for the bloggers name. In some cases bloggers may not use their name but rather use a pseudonym, if so then take the time to go through their social platforms and blog posts to discover what name they sign off with. Not taking the time to address a blogger correctly looks lazy and comes off as unprofessional.

Take time to read their blog

I can’t stress enough how important it is to read the blog of the person you’re going to contact. Find out what their niche is, what they want from companies and what they do and do not like. Most bloggers list their terms and conditions with regards to working with other companies on their site and remember just because they have posted one content piece about their favourite restaurant, mascara or hotel doesn’t mean they’re moving to that niche.

What’s in it for them?

Your infographic maybe the best thing since sliced bread but what’s in it for them, what is the blogger going to get for putting it on their website? They know that if you advertise their infographic/product/event it’s going to be an advantage for you especially if links are involved, so make sure when you write your outreach email it’s not all about “me, me, me” but instead you outline their benefits whether it be a fee, a product or a chance to write on your companies blog.

Check out our blog post Website Owners Are Selfish With No USP for further information on how you can move the spotlight on to others.

Below is an example of a recent outreach programme we devised for Italian make up brand Deborah Milano UK. Offering bloggers a choice of make up products to discuss on their blog encourages them and their readers to interact online Deborah Milano UK store.

Stand out from the crowd

You may think your infographic/product/event is amazing but bloggers will receive loads of emails from companies asking for the same thing as you – “please write about X”. You need to make sure that not only is what you’re offering interesting to bloggers but that they’re not going to get a better offer in the next 5 minutes forcing your email in the recycle bin. Make it personal, make it exciting and make it blog worthy.

Be direct

Make sure your email covers everything they need to know about what you’re offering, what you want and what’s in it for them. Leaving crucial information out can instantly make bloggers delete your email, if you can’t be bothered to make sure you’ve included everything then why should they be bothered to chase for it?

Patience is a virtue

Don’t assume that they work as a full time blogger, this is very often not the case. Just because they haven’t replied to your email within 24-48 hours doesn’t mean you need to chase them for a reply. Bide your time, be patient and don’t be pushy.

Don’t forget to follow up

Working with bloggers is a simple way to form great working relationships, creating contacts that you can turn to time after time. But, all the hard work you’ve put in to working with the blogger you’ve approached can be forgotten in an instant without a courtesy follow up. No one likes to be forgotten about or unappreciated for the work that they have done so simply dropping them a thank you email can work wonders for creating a long term relationship.

So to conclude, be respectful, personalise your emails, be creative and offer some incentive. You don’t have to offer the world to a blogger just so they mention you, having the right approach and being nice can open up doors for you.

The Eventure approach

There are many different ways to outreach to bloggers, a quick Google will show you a vast amount of tools in order to find bloggers which may be of use to you but this takes time, time that you may not be able spend. At Eventure we can do all the hard work for you with our Outreach Programme, we can find, compile, contact and negotiate with bloggers on behalf of your business. For more information get in contact with us online, or give us a call on 0845 519 7503.

The post Blogger Outreach – The Correct Way To Connect With Bloggers appeared first on Eventure Internet.

SEO isn’t how it used to be. We’ve spoken at length about that before, but there are still basics that are under your control and these best practices will remain fairly static for the foreseeable future.

These elements are under your control and the majority will be required every time you upload a product or create a new category. If you’ve gotten out of the habit of doing as you go along, perhaps it time to review a couple of things.

Basics At A Glance

Title Tags

• Keep Under 50 Characters
• State what the page content is about
• Put Important keywords at the start
• Write for customers, not search engines.

Meta Descriptions

• Keep them under 160 characters
• Confirm what the page/resource is about
• Provide a compelling reason to click
• Consider what the message is in the context of other results search results pages

Meta Keywords

• Do not bother filling these out
• Remove keywords that don’t appear also on the page
• Best practice is to simply remove the keyword tag from the entire site

Google Categories

• Don’t forget to set them
• Usually set within your admin at Dept. Category and Sub Category level (Eventure sites only)

Title Tags

Title Tags are most often seen as the blue links that are shown in search results. Every page should have a title tag and they remain as one of the most important things search engines look at when they are trying to understand what a web page is about. They are an important part of SEO.

To see the title tag of any page look at the tab at the top of your browser – this blog post for example has the title tag of “Basic SEO 2014”

Basics

The title tag should state what the page is about. It should reflect too, the keywords that you wish that page to rank for. Each page on your site should ideally be targeted to a single keyword or phrase. There is lots of advice “out there” on how to write title tags – but stick to writing title tags for humans, as opposed for search engines, and you are on safe ground for the long term.

What You Should Do

When adding a title tag, do not stuff it with keywords. Simply try to state exactly what the page is about. Keep title tags descriptive and pithy – think what will help a user and how your title tag will look to a human on a search results page. Keep it to under 50 characters and ideally to less than 4 words.

The most important keywords should be placed at the start of the title tag. Other than that, there is little else to worry about. If it is necessary to try and optimise for two different phrases, then use ampersands (&) or pipes (|) to separate elements out. I.e., “Title Tag & Meta Advice” or “Title Tags | Meta Descriptions”

For The Nerds

• Google no longer displays a fixed amount of characters in their title tags. It now shows as many characters as it can fit into a 512-pixel display. (With a “W” taking up more pixels than “I”) If you keep your titles under 55 characters, you can expect at least 95% of your titles to display properly.
• Search engines may choose to display a different title than what you provide in your HTML. Titles in search results may be rewritten to match your brand, the user query, or other considerations.
• Google is a semantic search engine, so there is little reason to try and optimise for both “Fast Cars & Automobiles” as semantically, these are the same thing.
• For more information check out the Moz blog on title tags

Meta Descriptions

Meta Descriptions are the snippets of text that appear on search engine results pages below the blue title (usually the title tag). These are your chance to convince the user to click on your listing, over and above the results above or below you.

Basics

 Meta Descriptions are the very start of the customer journey. Their experience of your site and you’re your business starts with those two lines – make them count! Your descriptions need to do all of these things in order of importance.

• Signpost that this page is indeed a good result to the searcher
• Provide a clear benefit as to why this resource is a good one
• Introduce the brand values or messaging

What You Should Do

Think about those search results pages – perhaps even look at the pages that yours will be competing against. How could you stand out and position yourself better? It’s where SEO and merchandising meet.

Keep your character count to around 155 characters, 160 is the limit, after which your text will be truncated. Keep control of your adverts appearance and messaging by controlling your description length.

Writing thousands of meta descriptions is hard work. Being entirely original every time is difficult, especially on E-Commerce sites where there can be thousands of similar pages. So a tip is to establish some building blocks of your company metas – for example if you offer free shipping, every meta description could/should have “Free shipping on every order” as part of the 155 characters.

Tag lines are also useful in meta descriptions – they generally sum up extremely well what a brand is about and it’s a brand message the is repeated throughout the sales cycle and ties up with your raison d’etre.

With these building blocks, you (and even junior staff if applicable) are better able to build up meta descriptions quickly and accurately without giving too much scope to get them wrong. It’s possible to set out rules – for example all of your meta descriptions could follow the rule…

Confirm page purpose, special offer, tag line.

This would, for example, leave you with something like…  Get awesome digital blue widgets at XYZ and get next day shipping as standard. Choose a widget that makes your life better, one example at a time”

Any way you wish to do it is fine – but do do them.

For The Nerds

• Meta descriptions are NOT a ranking factor in most search engines. However, pages that are deemed popular, with a high Click Through Rate (CTR) and a high retention rate once on site will naturally rise up the rankings. Your meta description help you influence that CTR as well as your bottom line.
• If no meta description is added, search engines will generate their own, usually based off the first bits of text they find on your site.
• When pages are shared on Facebook, usually your meta description also becomes the share description. That’s often ok, but there is naturally a gap between what attracts someone onto a site, to what someone would want to say when sharing a resource they like. To set your Facebook share descriptions, implement Open Graph Meta Tags and take control of your social shares.
• For more information check out the Moz blog on meta descriptions

Meta Keywords

These are used by search engines to understand what a page is relevant for. They are a list of words and phrases appropriate to the content of the page. However, and this is important, Meta keywords are no longer used by either Google or Yahoo. Bing uses them only as a SPAM signal. 

Basics

Bing, Yahoo and Google make up perhaps 99% (at least) of the organic search traffic mix in the UK. So spending time on meta keywords is a waste of resources. As a marketer though, in a competitive environment, coming across a competitor site that does have them, gives a lovely insight into what that company is trying to rank for and new opportunities that may have been missed – don’t give your competitors that luxury.

What You Should Do

If you’re taking a pragmatic approach (ie you’re busy), just ignore the keyword tag from now on. If you have a CMS that forces you to add keywords, simply copy and paste the title tag and move on.

If you’re worried about Bing Traffic, remove the keywords on your pages – particularly on those pages that have too many keywords, especially keywords that don’t also appear in the pages content.

Every business is different – but my generic personal recommendation would be to remove the keyword tag from all pages across your entire site as well as disabling it from your site’s admin – this cannot be undone however – your time and effort over the years of writing keyword lists will be lost. But should you make the decision to proceed, simply speak to your developer.

For The Nerds

• Google Does Not Use  Meta Tags  Keywords
• The Myths Behind Meta Keywords

Google Categories

This isn’t strictly SEO, but almost certainly, e-commerce sites running AdWords will be using them –don’t fall into the bad habit of overlooking or forgetting about them.

Google categories are assigned to every product on your website within a product feed and by adding them and keeping them updated, you increase the chances that your products will be included in relevant shopping categories. Within Eventure’s web admins, they are usually set at the Department, Category and sub category level.

Basics

When creating a new category (or sub cat), ensure you assign an appropriate google category. Usually, this is done under an admin heading “Edit Marketing” although every CMS may differ.

If you are unsure how to do this or need a refresher (or worse still aren’t running google shopping/adwords), get in touch and we’ll give you a help hand.

The post Basic SEO is in Your Hands appeared first on Eventure Internet.

In (another) Google algorithm update released today we see that Google are targeting websites that have too many adverts in the instantly visible area of the page, otherwise known as ‘above the fold’.

This change has been given the catchy title ‘page layout algorithm’ and it is locking on to sites that deliberately bury their content under piles of adverts almost as big as the one residents of Brierley Hill are dwarfed by.

Click Less – Find More

This change is all about enhancing the user experience, Google want users to be able to find what they are looking for in as few clicks as possible. They aren’t saying that websites have to reduce the number of adverts displayed on the page only that the content needs to be near the top of the page so that visitors to the site do not have to scroll down to locate it.

It was also confirmed, by Google, that sites that use pop-ups and overlays will not be impacted by this change.

Are You Guilty?

So how do you know if your site is going to be one of those penalised? Affiliate sites owners should definitely sit up and take notice.

Unlike other changes no tools are being provided by Google to enable site owners to instantly determine if there site falls foul of the new changes. Instead they have suggested that people use the Google Browser Size tool or similar to determine just how much of a page’s content is visible at first glance, it obviously takes into consideration various screen resolutions.

What the tool won’t tell you are the all important factors how far down is too far and how many ads are too many? Google, kind people that they are, have decided to leave that to site owners to decide….give them enough rope eh!

Guilty – Send Them Down

Google have stated that the change will impact less than 1% of global searches on Google but what happens if you are affected and rankings begin to drop?

If you do start to see a drop in rank from today, it is likely to be the whole site that is penalised and not just the page that is ad heavy. Don’t panic just get the changes made and wait for Google to revisit the site. It will have been tagged as ad heavy initially and, unfortunately, it could be several weeks before the changes are noted by Google and normal service is resumed.

For more information read the official page layout algorithm update post in full.

One final thought regarding this change is how Google will apply this new benchmark to their own pages or if it will even apply at all? Its funny that you can’t test their pages with the Google Browser Size  tool to see just how their pages fair…..go on, try it you know you want to!

The post Google Targets (Ad) Top Heavy Sites With Algorithm Update appeared first on Eventure Internet.

1-      PPC

Paid search, or PPC, is a great place to start to see quick results and to get your site onto the internet. Services such as Google Adwords can be highly effective as a short term tactic to quickly increase the traffic to your website.  Beware though, this form of online advertsing, if done badly, can be very costly. It pays to have an experienced PPC account manager to take over the account if you can afford for that, alternatively do some online training before jumping in!

2-      SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

It is vital that your website is visible to your potential internet users meaning it need to be as search engine friendly as possible. Over 75% of users (internet that is), are using a search engine before they make a purchase of goods or services.  As 92% of people never go beyond the second page, your goal should be to be listed on the first 2 if possible of the main search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. This is something that should be done on a regular basis. Drop it, and your website is gone among the millions of others.

3-      Social Networking

Everyone has heard of Facebook and Twitter and everyone wants to be part of them on a personal level and  for many businesses becoming part of these networks is a great idea as well as it provides an invaluable way to get directly in contact with your potential customers. Beware though Facebook and Twitter don’t work for all businesses and can be time consuming so be sure to set certain times to one side to work on these social networks.

4-      Blogging

Blogs are a great way of sharing thoughts, ideas, and reviews to other visitors. By adding links to those blogs, you will increase chances to be found by search engines. You should consider writing a blog with what your website is about.

5- Surveys

Maybe including a survey onto your website, or as part of an email broadcast, which will allow visitors to interact with your online marketing? If you are not sure what to write about, you could offer topics on relevant subjects, feedback on the services you offer etc…

6-     Email Newsletters

This is a great way to offer special offers, tips, articles etc… You should have a signup facility to offer directly on your website.  It encourages your visitors who are not ready yet to make a purchase to be up to date with your company.

7-      Online Directories

You will, by submitting your site to directories, not only increase your web ranking, but you can also drive the visitors directly to your site if you placed it in the right category.

8-      Free Information

People use the internet mainly for information. By giving free things such as guides, tips, “How to”, article, fact sheet etc… you will allow your visitors to find your website easier.

The post Eight Online Marketing Essentials appeared first on Eventure Internet.