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Mar 31 / admin

Google’s Overoptimisation Update & SEO

In a recent interview, the head of Google’s Webspam team Matt Cutts admitted that their next algorithm update would target sites that were ‘overoptimising’ – sending shockwaves through the SEO community.

Google’s latest move aims to devalue sites that use the same keywords over and over to the detriment of user experience – leaving pages looking ‘spammy’.

And while well-meaning webmasters may have previously been guilty of this in order to try to improve rankings and attract traffic, Google have taken the unusual step of announcing their intentions in advance to at least give site owners and SEOs time to correct their mistakes – which is to be applauded.

How to Avoid an Overoptimisation Penalty

The practise of mentioning your target keyword 100 times on a page is known as ‘keyword stuffing’ and is essentially just a ham-fisted attempt to make the page more relevant and thereby gain better Google rankings.

It’s an old school technique that hasn’t worked for a while, but still some SEOs persist, leaving Google’s results full of terrible-looking sites.

If this is you – it’s time to re-evaluate your content strategy. Instead of using ‘Adidas trainers’ every other word, go for ‘Adidas footwear’, ‘Adidas Sambas’ etc etc – the page will look more natural and you’re less likely to be found guilty of keyword stuffing.

Will This Affect Rankings?

While your site’s rankings can never be update-proof, writing more natural content by introducing synonyms is a good start and not only that, but there’s also a suggestion that you can improve your traffic levels by optimising for more keywords.

Google already uses latent semantic indexing to identify words that are synonyms for the search term used. Earlier I performed an ‘inurl’ search for ‘pets’ and ‘write for us’ and saw the following:

The word ‘dogs’ is emboldened because Google sees this as a synonym for ‘pets’ – showing how Google has come to understand the meaning of words rather than systematically showing results for the exact match keyword.

It should be pointed out that the inurl search filters out a lot of results, whereas an ordinary Google search for pets still brings up the closest match pages without synonyms. This could be set to change however…

How Will Google’s Update Change This?

Google’s results should see an increased reliance on synonyms in accordance with its shift towards semantic search. Therefore the bad news is that the update will downgrade sites who are guilty of overoptimising, but the good news is that webmasters can finally stop thinking about SEO and concentrate on writing natural, user-friendly content.

There’s no need for a knee-jerk reaction – no call to suddenly de-optimise a site, eliminating all exact match keywords. That’s a sure-fire way to destroy the good rankings you’ve worked so hard for.

Instead Google is handing us the chance to write content that users will love without worrying whether the page is 100% keyword-targeted. Now SEO and user experience come hand-in-hand – a great move from Google.

So the advice is – no more keyword stuffing. Not only does it not work, it’s bad for rankings. Use a greater range of keywords and take advantage of the huge traffic potential of semantic search.

Author Bio:

Matt Fielding is an SEO Consultant at Preston-based Online Marketing agency Custard Media.

For Twitter updates follow @CustardMedia

Mar 27 / admin

Titles & descriptions

YouTube’s search algorithm works a lot like Google’s in that it relies on video titles to determine relevance. Unlike Google, YouTube also uses descriptions as a ranking factor, so make sure your target keywords are used prominently in both and vary the keywords used to attract more traffic.

A good tip is to promote your own site through the description as well as promoting the video itself.

Make it easy to share

Embed codes are vital as they allow bloggers to use the video on their own blog – increasing traffic to your video. You can also encourage visits to the video by promoting it on your own site, which increases the chances of YouTube ranking it highly.

How to increase views:

There are a number of ways to give your video a boost if the viewing stats aren’t what you’d hoped:

Promoted Videos – The pay-per-click advertising that YouTube offer is not only reasonably priced but the fact that you only pay for views you receive makes it risk-free. Upload a good video that sells your company and your ROI is pretty much guaranteed.

Video responses – Think of this like blog commenting. Piggy-back on a popular, relevant video by submitting your own as a video response (see below) and you’ll see traffic filtering down into your page.

Get involved in the community – The social side of YouTube is strong, so add friends, comment on videos that others upload and make a genuine contribution to the community. This will increase the chances of you being seen as a genuine user and of your videos being watched.

Trial & error

Learn from your successes and failures – be analytical in your use of YouTube stats and break down successful posts for ideas of how to move forward. Similarly, if one video fails spectacularly, pick out possible reasons why and steer clear of these in future.

YouTube Success – More Tips

Keep it short

5 two-minute videos are better than one 10-minute video – and this means you can optimise for 5 specific keywords rather than one generic term.

Make it look professional

If this video is going to represent your company, do you want a shaky, amateurish production or a polished, professional-looking clip? Using an experienced video production company like Vidify guarantees impressive results.

Author Bio:

Vidify are an expert video production company based in London, specialising in helping SMEs reach their customers through online videos.

COMMENTS / FEEDBACK

We would very much like to know if you find these articles useful or helpful and whether you would like to see more of these and what topics would be useful to you. If you have a question please do feel free to contact us and let us know.

If you would like to write a guest article please also contact us, we would love to hear from you.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Nov 2 / admin

Guest Post: Great Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies for Your Business

One of the first steps you should take when starting a business is deciding how you will market your products or services. There are so many marketing strategies to choose from, and you should constantly be reviewing and changing any problems with your marketing strategy if you want to have a successful business. Word of mouth marketing (WOMM) can be a very powerful strategy if used properly. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s usually free.

If you decide to focus on WOMM, you should know that there is no right or wrong way to this approach. Each company is different, so what works for you may not work for another business, or even one of your competitors. You will need to find the best way for your company to maximize exposure, so here are a few strategies you could use from the beginning.

Talk to friends

If you don’t have much experience in sales, or you are not very experienced in marketing, you may find it difficult to sell your business to others, especially those who are closest to you. You may feel like you are putting a burden on them or that they won’t understand what you are trying to do with your business. Word of mouth marketing is a perfect solution. This way, you are not asking them to sustain your business financially, but you are asking them to tell others about the great qualities of your business. When you ask your friends and family to tell their others about your business, you will be able to trust the information they are giving to your potential new customers. Starting with those who are closest to you will give you a way to promote yourself and your business with a strong support group to back you up.

Give before you take

You could also start supporting other small businesses in your community to gain their support in return. When you make an effort to help those around you, their customers could start to talk about your business as well. Make sure that the other businesses and their customers know how much you care and support them, and they will be more likely to share positive information about you.

From there, you could try giving out free samples to people who will use them. This process is called seeding because you are “planting a seed” that will grow by word-of-mouth. The key with this strategy is to find people who will like your product enough to tell others about your business. These customers should also have a strong influence on others as well as the ability and the resources to tell many other potential customers about your product. Once you have sent out the free samples, make sure you follow up with the recipients to see if they enjoyed the product and ask them if they will tell their friends and family. Sometimes, all you need to do is ask.

Customer service is the key

With any business, customer service is always the key to success. A happy customer may be able to help your business a little, but an unhappy customer can do a lot of damage, especially to a small business. When you think about it, customer service is an investment. You want to build strong relationships with your customers so that they want to tell everyone about their great experiences with your business. There are more than a few ways to approach customer service to ensure positive word of mouth, but these are the strategies I found most beneficial.

Go above and beyond – When you go above and beyond what your customer expects, they will definitely have a reason to talk about your business. Try to exceed even your best customer’s expectations, and treat every customer with that level of enthusiasm.
Make customers feel like insiders – Ask your customers what they think about your business, your products, and/or your services, and then actually listen to what they have to say. Let them know that their opinion matters to you, and that you want to do what is best for them.
Provide quality service from the start – This will give even the newest customer something to talk about.
Respect – It’s sad that this must be included, but some businesses simply don’t treat their customers with respect. Even something as small as knowing a customer’s name will let them know that you are trustworthy.
Stay in touch – Keep your customers informed about sales and send them any coupons that might help them save some money. Enough of this communication will increase their visits to your business and keep them talking about you.