Well it took a while. In my previous post I mentioned the issues with outbound links. Having removed the offending item it should have been a swift journey back to the top of the search results.
Unfortunately we watched the the site move from 700+ to 800+.
Then the email we had been waiting for… Google saying we have reconsidered your site. Great. Then the site fell out of the top 1000.
I was left scratching my head.
However, now a week after the email the site is back to the top.
Finally.
I have been completing some SEO work with an ecommerce company recently and during our work the site plummeted from position 1 to 600+ in Google SERP. ‘What the hell’ was my first comment. Especially as none of the other Search Engines were penalising the site at all.
Anyway, we went back through the basics just to make sure we hadn’t overstepped the mark. Removed some recently added products, just in case the balance of keywords had been thrown. And we waited … position 700+. Not good, we were moving backwards rapidly.
I had gone through and checked that each of the links from the home page connected to sensible content using Microsofts internet explorer. What I should have done, and as a tip to those focusing on Google, was to use Google Chrome browser to review the sites. It turns out that one of the links connected to a site containing malware links. Only when I opened the site through Google’s Chrome browser was a warning displayed regarding the problem.
Links are removed and a reconsideration submitted, just waiting for the Google bods now.
Michael Bates - Director - MSI Commerce for SEO
It has been a while since I have added to the page, but a few things have changed recently so I have a bit more time to focus on the important aspects of ebusiness.
A recent call revealed that an acquaintance had been off and had a website developed. The company in question didn’t do search engine optimisation, which is a shame as this is critical in developing a site. I have said it before and will say it again there are a few key elements to a site which are vital from an SEO stand point.
1. Ensure that each page has appropriate titles and that they are not the same across the whole site. Google prefers that they are not the same, as this indicates that the content is the same across all the pages. Titles should be unique.
2. Please ensure that you have the ability, if they are not their already, to add tags to existing/new content. Specifically marking certain parts of the page with h1 tages is key.
3. If you are buying a site with a content management system (please do it will save you money in the long run) then ensure it has access to elements such as the page titles, meta keywords and meta description. The meta description is still the call to action from the search results page. If you can’t add something, then Google will randomly select some other stuff from the page which may not be an appropriate message for a potential customer.
I have recently been working with an affilate company, called Pennymix, to revamp their site. Having worked in the web industry for some time I was familiar with the whole concept but hadn’t been directly involved.
The concept is very simple really, a web site (probably ecommerce) will pay affiliate web sites for sending them traffic. Why? I here you ask.
Well the web is a massive place and someone like Amazon (Don’t worry if you are a little smaller than the big A this still applies) can never expect to reach the top position for every product they sell. In fact if you look at the web today, it is mainly the review and user generated content sites that reach the top. It therefore makes sense, rather than spending money on search engine marketing, to share some of your margin with those at the top. It will probably cost you less in the long run.
Plus it is not just one link to a product from one site, it could be hundreds of links from many sites. Similar to having a high street presence in every city… well in the world.
The really interesting part about Pennymix, is that it will pay you money back for clicking through the to ecommerce sites and making a purchase. What, what, what??? exactly. Well the margins are just cut further. Pennymix now takes some of the money it earns and gives it back to you for using its site as the launch pad into the retailer. Everyone wins so to speak. The retailer sells, Pennymix gets paid and you earn cash back on your shopping. Affiliate heaven.
This isn’t limited to the big boys (sorry persons), small retailers can provide an affiliate application form on their site. You may need to make it worth their while but it starts your expansion on to every high street in the world….
I have just spent some time trawling the net looking for some statistics on the benefits of an email newsletter. To my suprise I haven’t found anything to report back on.
“Hang on.” do I hear you say, “There are tons of stats out there.”
Yes indeed there are, but none are specific on the benefits of just a newsletter. No sales, no offers just a business talking about what they have been up to. This might be that some of the largest email senders are retailers. Hardly suprising as there are stats that offer figures like $50+ per dollar spent (sorry for the dollars). Impressive figures.
But what about the humble enewsletter? I have worked with a company who, on launching their site, sent out a newsletter talking about the site launch and the what they had been up to. The response was 2 enquiries from a cold (first email) list of 400. The numbers are low, but then they aren’t in retail.
I will shortly be launching a round of newsletters from my own business and will be looking to report back on the response. I will continue to look round to find the stats but there are the obvious benefits:
1. Keeps the customer up to date with your industry developments, this can be useful as it proves that you are adding value to your services, which they can benefit from.
2. Keeps them informed of what you are doing in the market.
3. Reminds them that you are there. Which in todays market is vital.
The other point is that some businesses don’t suit a sales letter, as the customer base probably wouldn’t accept it. Some work with a fine wine company revealed that their customers expect the personalised phone service that the business has been built on, to switch to a swarm of marketing emails would downgrade the brand.
Let me know if you have any feedback on the newsletters.
Online back up has many benefits, over the more traditional inhouse facilities. If you are not already storing your data, why not, but… there has never been a better time to start. There are plenty of online backup facilities available www.Carbonite.com, www.SquirrelSave.co.uk www.mozy.com to name a few.
I have used one recently that requires a simple piece of software on your computer. It then organises the files to backup and does the rest for you. Its low cost and the great thing is that you don’t have to take the tapes off site.
There are some rules that need to be followed in order to make it cheap and lower risks.
1. Ensure everyone saves their data on to one computer (the server) on your network. This helps to reduce the cost as a number of providers charge per computer.
2. Make sure everyone saves work on to the server at all times or at least whenever possible. One of my employees lost 2 weeks work because he had been working on a piece for some time and not storing it on to the server. The hard drive went and so did the work.
3. Check that you can retrieve the data from your storage facility. No point storing if you cannot get it back.
4. Don’t assume the software will capture everything, they typically have a configuration process which may need a little tweak. What you consider important may not be automatically backed up.
Storing it off site through the internet also means that you can access the data from elsewhere and very worst case, should a major disaster (fire, flood etc) happen at your office people can all access their work remotely. Which reminds me, do you have a disaster recovery plan?
Hope some of that makes sense.
In a previous post I mentioned that you shouldn’t believe what you read about Tuesday’s being the best day to send a mail. I have been looking at some recent email stats from emaillabs and Tuesday’s is the most popular day to send an email with 25.4% being sent on Tuesdays, yet Wednesday is the most popular day for people opening the emails. This is confirmed by stats from the EmailStatsCenter.com.
But, just to prove my point I then found the following information from emailcenter that says Thursday is the most popular day. Their view is that this is the best day for consumers as they are just starting to think about the weekend.
Adding my own comments to this I would say that the most popular days are probably best avoided and your email could be lost in the sea of emails that arrive in peoples in boxes. Further to this as most people are already doing it is best to avoid early Monday as all people do on a Monday morning is delete the emails they don’t want to deal with. Ultimately, the only way to tell the best time is to either ask your customers or keep trying until you find the best time. You might find that this becomes one way that you choose to segment your customer base.
In the web world people are always going on about pay per click and its benefits, yet for most small businesses the opportunity is passing them by.
Well what is pay per click?? This is a way of advertising on a search engine, where you only pay for the advertising if someone clicks on your advert.
Why all the fuss? Pay per click or PPC for those that like the acronyms allows you to try advertising on the web for next to nothing, with the option to spend as little or as much as you like without committing to future spend. It also has the added bonus of being easy to measure return on investment unlike some more traditional forms of advertising.
What do I get? If you perform a search on Google for a formal shirt you will notice that there are up to 3 listings at the top of the page and a number down the side that are titled sponsored links. These adverts have been “paid for”, or at least they will be if you click on them. You don’t get much for your money, a title of 25 characters and two lines of 35 characters, plus your URL (only up to 35 chars). Based on this you need to think carefully about your wording which I will cover soon.
How much will it cost? It depends. Unfortunately if you are in a competitive industry it could be quite expensive, take car insurance, rumour has it each click costs the company something like £10. If you are selling bottle widgets you may find it is as little as 5p. You will need to set up an account on Google (about £5) and run a few tests. You can bid on as many keywords and phrases as you like and you can set a maximum budget for a day. So if you have a budget of £1 a day and this gets you 5 clicks at 20p a click Google will then take down your ad. No massive bills to pay and if it isn’t working for you, switch it off tomorrow.
You mentioned return on investment? Because Google tracks who clicks what in its search engine, you have a report on how many times your advert has been displayed and how many people have clicked through to your site. If you combine this with an analytics package there is a wealth of information that can be reviewed.
So with not much wording to work with you need to try a few variations to see what works best. At the end of the day you want to qualify your leads so that you are not wasting money, but on the other hand scaring people off before they get started isn’t good either. You need to get your customer hat on and decide for what they search for. The great things is though, if it isn’t working then change it.
I am just starting some PPC work for a small clothing company in Guildford. With a website that isn’t built with SEO in mind this is a way to traffic. It doesn’t require vast amounts of effort to get in place and once I have them setup they can do most of the work themselves.
It has been a few weeks since I posted on the blog, but August has been a quiet month for me, especially as I am in a new business.
I have been involved in a couple of pieces of work where small businesses aren’t seeing anything from their websites.
It seems that small businesses are still missing key points during the development of their websites, which is a real shame. Could be poor or no advice from their web development companies.
Taking a look at the two examples.
1. Pictures and Graphics
It may be true that pictures say a thousand words, sadly not in the case of search engines. The site I reviewed was nearly all pictures, which looked great and someone had obviously spent a lot of time on developing these great images. Google however wasn’t able to find enough worthwhile content to rank the page in the search results. Key phrases and keywords were nowhere to be seen.
The other problem with pictures is, if all your content is graphical it will restrict your ability to update the site at a later stage. Unless of course you have in-house graphic capabilities, which for most small businesses is unlikely.
2. Keywords and Key phrases.
If you are running a small business and expect to attract most of your business from the local area then check out the number of searches for your business type and the area name. EG Accountants Norwich. The Google keyword tool is a great way of researching your keywords. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
You will probably find that there are several hundred searches for
If you need some help in either of these areas why not get in contact.
http://www.msicommerce.co.uk/contact/contact.asp