SEO for businesses today in Glasgow is now so important for the growth of any business. Because business owners are too busy running there businesses they are ever so reliant of SEO specialists so picking the right SEO company to carry out this work is very important. A business really has to weigh up a few things, here are a few things to consider;

a. Costs; if a company is offering it’s services for a low monthly fee you have got to ask yourself  how many hours SEO work is being done and by who? For example if the costs were £200 per month and the hourly rate for a good SEO specialist was £30 per hour what would that mean? Three hours SEO work and £110 profit to the company or 5 hours SEO work and £50 profit to the company and if so is 5 hours a month enough if for example your competition were doing 10 hours a month?

b. Quality; if the SEO specialist based on the same monthly SEO costs above was £30 per hour what sort of quality of SEO work would you be getting for £30 per hour? Is this the going rate for good SEO work? If you don’t know check out any recruitment site and see what good companies are paying their SEO workers

c. Research; research what and for who is this company carried out work for and who are they working for at the moment, ask them and then get in touch with there old and existing clients to see what kind of ROI was achieved doing this SEO. I am sure as a business owner you wouldn’t purchase anything without proper research so why should SEO be different?

d. Too good to be true; if something sounds too good to be true then it usually is too good to be true like; guarantee of top of page one for 10 keywords within 3 months or your money back, no one can guarantee this as lets face it only Google themselves decide on these positions.

So when you do get approached by any SEO company or you are thinking of approaching a SEO company make the correct decision as after all it is very important to the growth of any business today.

Last year the Google panda and penguin algorithm sent everyone into a frenzy, a year later and another 24 panda/penguin updates what can we conclude?

FACT: The backlink is and will continue to be a fundamental variable in organic search algorithms and organic search strategies. Backlinks matter. Period.

Backlinking strategies within an SEO strategy are often overcomplicated, but they don’t have to be. The only question you need to ask yourself is: Is this an organic backlink or an inorganic backlink?

Get back to the backlink basics and consider the origins of SEO and back linking to understand the importance and reliance they have on each other.  Basically as it has always been it is not the amount it is the quality that counts but unlike before you will be penalised for bad links!!

Inorganic vs. Organic Backlinking Strategies: Getting Back to the Basics

By practicing an optimised content marketing strategy and making sure your backlinks pass the RAID Test, your web presence will excel on Google.

For best advice ask the experts here at www.wsiglobalnet.com

It’s been 10 months since the Panda and Penguin Algorithm update, there have been 24 other updates since then with the latest being January 22nd 2013, we can now share how this will effect SEO in 2013.

1. Artificial Backlinks are being PENALISED.
2. Article Sites are being PENALISED.
3. Exact Match Domains are being PENALISED.

It is now to start thinking about value for example not link building but link earning. Start thinking about Social; shares, re-shares, links that are shared, tweets, re-tweets, re-pings and Google+.

Think about quality content on your site; “If you want your page to rank – it has to focus on a topic or it will not rank well” and what your visitors are doing on your site;

Daily:  SERP CTR + Bounce Rate

Are they bouncing?

Are they selecting another site?

Are they refining their search all together?

On Site: 

Returning Visitors

Time Spent On Site

Social Signals

So we have covered what is now most important in SEO for 2013 and going forward we can also show you how this can be monitored showing all activity and how many actual conversions/sales this activity created with our award winning tracking software.

TEL; 0141 237 4249/ 0131 226 7339 Mobile; 07868562265/ Fax; 0871 714 2609

Email: cfulton@wsiglobalnet.com l Website: www.wsiglobalnet.com

Glasgow Office: 285 Abercromby Street G40 2DD

Edinburgh Office; 42 Charlotte Square EH2 4HQ

Our existing motor group client asked for 4 new projects to go live. We are also looking into a re-targeting campaign as well!!

We are working on a few websites from hair salons to property buying and a few new websites just launched;

We have also been asked to pitch for a huge Scottish icon!! We will keep everyone posted on that one as well.

And not to mention Internet Marketing for a Junk Removal Company in Glasgow which I am sure will get great results as we did for over 2 years for a client in the same industry.

A law firm client has also asked us for more campaigns but sshhh!! Can’t tell you what as the competition might be looking in!!

We have also been asked to look at a new ecommerce solution for electronic cigarettes, who would have imagined a website selling electronic cigarettes? Quite appropriate actually as we have someone in the office who has just purchased one and is trying to give up smoking, they managed to get them in menthol!!

Looking forward and into February will be a case of re-visiting some existing clients who may need a website re-design!!

Facebook have unveiled a new social search feature called Graph Search that will allow users to search their friends’ content on the Facebook platform.

The new feature is not a global web search engine like Google, that will allow users to search Facebook’s social graph. However, users can only search content that has already been shared with them.

A Brief History of Facebook’s Search Function

If you’re a regular Facebook user, you’re probably aware that the current search function isn’t great. You type in your friend Robert’s name, and the search results it returns can be any of the following Rob, Robert, Robertson, Roberto, Robertson’s Cakes or even Robinson’s Juice.

This has been something that a lot of businesses have struggled with for years. It is very difficult to build a search engine facility to be anywhere near as good as Google’s. This is why many companies simply build a Google search facility into their website.

This however is where Facebook have done it differently; they have decided to launch Graph Search to help improve the Facebook search experience. In fact, Graph Search is powered by Microsoft Bing.

What Is Facebook’s New Graph Search?

So, what is Facebook’s Graph Search, and how is it different from what’s already out on the market?

Facebook search will use social signals to try to create a truly social search experience. This might sound remarkably similar to what Google tried to do with the invention of Google+.Their goal was to deliver better, more relevant, more personalized results for a user’s search query based on who they were connected with on their Google+ network. This never worked as Google had planned due to Google+ not kicking off the way they had hoped.

However Facebook already has a grasp of most of the world. Graph Search, according to Facebook, is focusing on four core areas: people, photos, places, and interests.

Ways in which it can be used

1) Searching for a Business

Let’s say you’re looking for a nice Italian restaurant. Instead of going to Google and searching for Italian restaurants near you — which will return the restaurants that have done the best job at SEO — you could use Facebook search and get recommendations based on what your Facebook friends like the most. It will use signals like location-based check-ins, tags of restaurants, or Likes of that Facebook Page to indicate it is a good choice.

2) Searching for Content

Facebook is also frequently used to share and surface content. If you’re looking for, say, photos of your friends, the search engine will allow you to type in extremely specific long-tail queries like “Friends photo’s from holiday in Florida 2012.” You could expand this concept to all types of shared content such as articles, music or videos

3) Searching for Connections

Facebook’s search engine will also help users expand their social reach as the search function takes into account a user’s likes, history, location, and activities. Users will be able to search for people they want to simply talk to and network with, by inputting a search like “People who have an interest in social marketing from Edinburgh, Scotland.” This is the kind of functionality that will help users on a personal and professional level.

What effect will Facebook’s new Search Engine have on marketers?

Difficult to say at this stage but one thing is for sure that marketers will be working to use this new function to their advantage.  Two critical points to Inbound Marketing are;

1. Content is critical to marketing success, and …
2. Social media helps give your business visibility.

This new search function is helping to not only make it easier for people to find your business and its content via Facebook, but it’s also making it easier for it to reach new audiences! 

A typical SEO contract consists of analysis, recommendations, implementation and reporting. The most painful of which is reporting from data sources to demonstrate progress to the client, never mind trying to make it look pretty. Laborious, repetitive reporting takes away too much time from what will really pay off – the doing of SEO.

This reinforces the Truth#4 Making use of technology for weekly or monthly automated reporting will allow for more time being spent on the task of SEO which will yield better results for the client.

SEO Truth #8: Social Instead of Google

Yes, Google continues to be the entity that SEOs attempt to please and rightfully so. I can’t see this focus changing in the near or distant future either. With the continual convergence of social media and SEO, we also need to think about the prospect of searchers starting their searches directly on social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest.

SEO Truth #9: Communicate the CTR Opportunity Gap by Keyword.

Once there is an understanding of the high-converting keywords, it is worth the exercise of applying paid search volume data with organic click through to gain an insight into the difference between CTR on different rankings on Google.

For example if the keyword ranking 7th provides you with better CTR and as a result more sales than that of a keyword ranking 2nd then you will know where to put your focus.

SEO Truth #10: It’s about the Hierarchy of Web Presence Optimization.

Search Engine Optimisation is now more about Web Presence Optimisation. As the ways we sell and deliver SEO services continue to evolve we should use this as a model that may help structure sales contracts and service delivery tasks while ensuring that keyword metrics are focused on conversion, backlinks are built out effectively, and social signals are integrated into the overall SEO strategy.

An SEO company or agency should take advantage of all the support and assistance it can receive through using SEO technology. Sales consultant’s hired to improve sales processes and conversion rates would not attempt to do so without customer relationship management (CRM) software, an SEO company should adapt the same approach.

There are a lot of different  SEO software packages and tool’s out there to help. SEO technology is required more today than ever before in order to assist in the on-going efforts of keyword research, rank checking, competitive analysis, backlink discovery and tracking, content tracking, analytics, social signal monitoring and monthly SEO reporting capabilities. The technology and tools you select can make or break you.

By going it alone you are running a real risk of failure. More than likely that you will end up with poor, immeasurable results that will not satisfy yourself or your clients.

SEO Truth #5: Daily Insights into SEO Metrics Can Be Beneficial

The SEO reporting cycle has by in large always been monthly, however recently some of the larger firms are starting to report on a weekly basis.

Having daily and weekly insight into the metrics included in an SEO campaign is important to understand how your efforts are leading to the ultimate goal.

Having the insight and intelligence to adjust the goal if more or less progress is being made than anticipated can only be accomplished with daily insight into accurate SEO data and metrics.

SEO Truth #6:The Need For A Content Marketing Strategy

It is amazing to see that there are still a lot of SEO companies promising to build ‘x’ number of backlinks per month. Although this is still an essential part of SEO you would have thought that the Panda and Penguin updates would have taught SEO companies to not be over reliant on backlinks alone.

SEO companies  should continue to deliberately build backlinks in directories that are industry or locally specific to the client, but that’s where deliberate backlink building should end.

An optimised content marketing strategy is required to build long terms links. Fresh, relevant optimised content must be produced on a consistent basis. Content in the form of blogs, press releases and case studies that contain keywords that are driving organic search conversions are required as well as naturally occurring backlinks to the main corporate website. Not only will this approach to backlink building withstand the test of time, it will also create social signals which will also positively impact the web presence.

This is made more difficult by Google changing its algorithm and competitors beginning  to jump on the SEO bandwagon.

I think it’s safe to say that managing the client’s expectations in this environment is just as difficult as the moving target of SEO itself.

Over the past 3 years the landscape of SEO has changed drastically. This in the whole is for the better and is driven by the importance that Google place on relevance.

However not all aspects have changed at the same rate. The three aspects of SEO that have not changed at the same pace as the rest of the SEO industry include:

1. The way SEO services are marketed and sold.
2. The processes around how SEO is delivered and reported on.
3. The ability for agencies and in-house teams to prove the ROI of SEO efforts.

But the importance of SEO in the digital marketing mix remains unchanged and unchallenged. There are over 1 billion Google searches per day with 94% of those clicking on organic search results. Patience will continue to be a virtue to the marketer who invests in SEO over the long run.

Below are 10 SEO truths that have been discovered throughout the past 12 months:

SEO Truth #1: Conversions Matter More Than Ranking

I witness many SEO conversations where improvement in rank or position is the focus without any consideration given to web page visits and conversions. Many clients and bosses are lost in the infatuation of ‘Ranking #1 in Google’ and unfortunately because that’s what they want to pay for, that’s what they are sold and/or what we as SEO marketers try to prove to them.

It is Far More Important to Measure Conversions

So it could be that a client wants to rank #1 for ‘restaurant supplies’, and they currently rank #5 for that keyword with a conversion rate of 5%, while a similar keyword phrase, ‘supplies for restaurants’, has a conversion rate of 10% and is ranked #9. Clearly the latter should be the focus since it already has a higher conversion rate with a lower rank.

 It is important to assign resources to understanding the opportunities throughout the web, and optimising content for the keyword ‘supplies for restaurants’ is a better investment of time and money.

SEO Truth #2: For Great SEO You Need Great SEO Research

SEO is the on-going process of understanding how to have a web presence, how to analyse your competitors, which keywords are driving organic search conversion and of course, optimising for those keywords by producing fresh, relevant content.

This process is impossible without access to accurate, timely data about that web presence including:

-          Page-level rank

-          Competitive Intelligence

-          Analytics Conversion Data

-          Organic Search Keyword Research

-          Backlinks and Social Signal Data

Basing SEO decisions on old, inaccurate SEO data will yield disappointing SEO results. Data is the starting point to the entire SEO process and outcome. Great insights will lead to great outcomes. SEO data and SEO software should be considered a cost of doing business or executing a campaign just as email marketing campaigns require an email platform.

SEO Truth #3: Social Signals Becoming As Important As Backlinks

Think of social signals as the new backlink. Now don’t get me wrong, backlinks are still important to organic search and should continue to be reported on, but social signals also deserve on-going focus and integration into an SEO strategy.

It has now been two years since Google announced that they are factoring social signals into their organic search algorithms. Agencies and in-house SEO teams need to demonstrate that they are increasing the number of Likes, Shares, Tweets and YouTube Views at both the web page level and the network level. It is imperative that social signal metrics should be included in the monthly SEO report as well.

What has happened?

The number of web sites, pages, blog sites and social media content has increased drastically from the days of only having a few million web sites online. Nowadays the internet has millions of pages of content, blog posts and social media content.  There is an incredible amount of content generation daily and this will only continue to accelerate.

In order for the search engines to provide quality, timely search results for users, they had to develop algorithms to sort through all of the information. The complexity of optimising for organic search rankings has gone through the roof, but the underlying formula for success can be achieved through a combination of strategy, tactics, effort and long-term vision. Of course, software automation added to the process will drastically help.

Secondly, competition has increased during this period of time.  Not only do we have an ever increasing volume of content but also many businesses understand the art of search engine strategy and have started spending money on optimising their web design and web  content.  Businesses are actively measuring their results with analytics and making changes each month as they understand the value of being found naturally in search engines. 

 According to an eMarketer.com survey of senior Marketing and business owners in 2008,a large percentage have added “SEO” to their marketing budget as a separate line item.  Forrester Research surveyed 204 marketing executives in July 2009. Their research unveiled that marketing executives are expected to spend $2.8 billion on SEO services in 2010 with spending to increase year-over-year to $5 billion by 2014.

Thirdly, the rise of social media gives us another dimension to focus on. Social media has completely transformed how people share information.  The real-time delivery of information provided by Social media, combined with the changes in the way we search mean that social mentions, press releases, blog posts and videos can rank higher than business websites. The most interesting part is that they can rank very quickly, sometimes in minutes.  People are also using social search results as a replacement for traditional search engines.

What does this mean to your business?

This means that it is imperative that business owners understand the changing SEO landscape and adapt appropriately. In-house talent, interactive agencies and/or specialist consultants are all being hired to work manage organic search. 

What other SEO trends should business owners be aware of?

Major search engines are developing relationships with social media web sites. In the summer of 2009 we saw that both Google and Bing developed closer to ties with both Facebook and Twitter. 

Bing and Yahoo recently announced a deal that they would combine their search results and that merger would result in an approximate 28% search market share with Google taking the bulk of the remaining 70%. Google and Binghoo are providing more real time data in their search results.  Real time content is coming from streams like social media, press releases and blog posts. As always, a large portion of Page ranking is being determined by popularity, authority and relevance of the backlinks to a piece of content (blog post, web page, etc).  These links traditionally were relatively static between two web sites, however now they are now being created much more dynamically from social media posts in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites.

Local Search

Local search has become much more important in recent years as it has become easier to add local listings and in turn made it easier for users to understand that they have the option of searching locally. Consumers are also searching more often using alternative searches such as maps (via Google Maps).  It is important that businesses understand how local search impacts their search results, especially at the macro level when considering how your results appear in different regions such as UK or USA.

Web Presence

We believe that the largest issues that businesses face today  are needing to understanding the internal and external factors that make up their web presence, how to monitor these factors and then finding the time to effectively manage their web presence effectively over time.  We consider SEO, Social Media, Press Releases and Blogs as web presence optimisation. 

Content marketing is about understanding what information your customers need to know about your products and services. You must give them relevant content and educational content that persuades them that you are an expert in your field.

Why do you need quality content?
• It develops trust
• Drives traffic to your web traffic
• Educates and informs

The Panda update focused on ensuring that sites that are given high SERP’s are actually relevant. If a site has poor quality content it will be penalised by Google. The quantity of links isn’t important; it’s all about the quality. You need to write good quality content and you need natural links.

If you aren’t on social media and you don’t have the social share buttons on your website, you’re not giving your content the opportunity to be shared and distributed online.

Content audit

• Analyze your current content efforts
• Competitor analysis
• Observe the social surroundings
• Determine where the gaps lie

What are your social efforts?

• How well are you using social technologies like?

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Blog
• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Pinterest

How personas can improve your SEO!

• Match keywords to those that your target customer may use
• Identify target for link building
• Help create the right content

This website can help you determine the user personas for SEO: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/user-personas-for-seo/

A good way to write relevant content is to keep an eye on the news and relate it to your business. Another thing you can do is follow the thought leaders. By this we mean large firm CEO’s, people making news.

You should never refer to your “Facebook strategy” or your “LinkedIn strategy” – it’s all a conversation strategy.

Web property strategy

You need to own all your website properties, such as a Facebook fan page, Twitter accounts, a LinkedIn company page and so forth. Your social strategy needs to engage, inform, participate and provide behind the scenes info.
Do you know what your customers are saying about you throughout the social sphere? You can do a keyword search to find out where you are being mentioned and what consumers are saying about you.

Set these as your goals;

• Listen and learn about our customers: Set up alerts on Google, Twitter, Blog. Create rivers of information.
• Grow community to 5,000: Develop targeted campaigns to encourage sharing of content on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook Pinterest
• Website integration: Integrate social properties with website properties
• Reach new markets: Grow the LinkedIn group to 250+ members
• Become a resource authority: Build up your website & company’s authority and trust, both on and off-site

Openness & Transparency

Society is moving more towards full transparency as a sign of truth and trust. That goes for corporations and individuals. It is important to be transparent; if consumers cannot find you online there will be a lack of trust and as a result a lack of business.
When you optimize a website, your home page has to be optimized for your company as a whole. When doing keyword research, you need to move away from single keyword phrases like ‘carpet cleaning’ at some point. Do keyword research that includes questions like ‘why’ to get to the top of the funnel.

Try www.ubersuggest.com to broaden your results.

The content funnel

Creating your voice. Increase knowledge, understanding & awareness of your company. This can be done in any of the following ways;
• Blog Posts
• Social Media Updates
• Infographics
• Press release

Consideration

Make people think about the value proposition of your products & services. Try and explain to them why they cannot do without your product or service. Try using
• EBooks
• White papers
• Webinars
• How to
• Presentations

Decision

Create confidence, purpose & conclusion around your brand. This can be done by producing the following;

• Case studies
• Products
• Brochure
• buy now
• services
• free demo
• loyalty scheme; packages; methodology