Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Reconsideration by Google

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

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.

Review your outbound links with Google Chrome

Friday, November 20th, 2009

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

SEO - Beware of images & research your keywords

Friday, August 29th, 2008

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 in , if this is the case make sure you have them in your home page and the key phrases are mentioned a number of times throughout the site.

If you need some help in either of these areas why not get in contact.
http://www.msicommerce.co.uk/contact/contact.asp

SEO for small businesses

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
It has become clear over the last few months that SMEs really struggle with SEO activities. Although it all sounds easy it is very time consuming trying to make regular and worthwhile updates to your website.

I have found the same situation recently, as well as trying to develop the business I am constantly trying to keep the website up-to-date and make alterations as I go. 

As search engines require you to maintain a level of recency in your site it is worth ensuring that the site is developed with a number of key areas available for editing. 

At least one page if not all should be available for editing so that you can add new content to your site as your business develops. A static site may seem like a nice cheap option but it will cost you in the long run. Especially, if you have to go back to the agency to ask them to make changes. With the ability to edit at least one or more pages the facility to edit the following becomes more critical.

Page titles - these indicate to search engines what is going to be on the page that they are looking at. Make sure you can get into these to make edits to the titles otherwise it will be difficult to stay ahead of the competition if they are making changes.

Meta Descriptions - this is what appears in the search engine results page and is a users call to action. 

Meta Tags - These further allow you to flag to search engines what they are going to find on the page. Although these are now seen as less important (due to abuse) a consistent message across titles, meta  data and content is important.

Recently I was speaking with a company that didn’t have access to these features as standard through their site and they were now looking at a large bill to add these changes. Make sure you get these as standard.