We relaunched the HLA Services website in May, with a specific brief to improve search engine performance. The client came up with a wish-list of twenty-five keyterms - only one of which was ranking at all on Google at the time - covering the various specialist areas of the business.

Just over a month into the project we’re happy to report a veritable avalanche of results;

• 20 rankings overall
• 14 Top 10 / 1st page rankings
• 7 No#1 rankings

So in a period of five weeks, from a benchmark position of one solitary keyterm ranking, the HLA Services website is now a powerful competitor on twenty prime industry search terms - in the top ten for most of them and the absolute top ranked website for seven of those.

Just to clarify, these weren’t keyterms that we cherry-picked ourselves to ensure a positive result - these were client-specified, highly competitive terms designed to generate more business.

Like our Lucion Environmental project, HLA’s SEO programme is a long-term campaign, so we’re aiming to take this even further over the coming months.

Does this sound like the sort of SEO performance that your business could do with? If so, get in touch.

It’s been little over two months since we mentioned the SEO success of Lucion Environmental following the start of Green Media’s search optimisation programme, and we’re pleased to say that the results have got even better. Lucion’s website is now ranking on the 1st page on Google for every single keyterm that was targeted by the client at the start of the campaign.

Starting from a benchmark position of no ranking at all on the chosen keywords, the lowest ranked term is now 3rd. That’s quite a leap.

What’s more, Lucion’s Google PageRank is rising, underlining the increasing authority of the website and providing a sure sign that the programme is working as planned.

Take a look at the rankings;

“asbestos newcastle” - 2nd

“asbestos gateshead” - 2nd

“asbestos crawley” - 2nd

“asbestos northern ireland” - 2nd

“asbestos tyne” - 3rd

If you’d like your company to experience the same SEO impacts on the keyterms that matter, drop us a line.

We’ve launched the new Beamish Hall Country House Hotel website this week, see for yourself at www.beamish-hall.co.uk

We’re also search optimising the site for a range of hotel, wedding, conference and dining keyterms, so come back soon to see the progress.

We started search optimising asbestos surveying and management specialists Lucion Environmental’s website during February, targeting a specific set of industry keyterms. We’re happy to report that we’ve already achieved 1st page results on Google searches that the Lucion site was previously unranked on, providing a greater presence where it matters.

Best of all as it’s a full twelve-month SEO programme, we’re just getting started…

Take a look at some of the results so far;

“asbestos newcastle” - 2nd

“asbestos crawley” - 9th

“asbestos northern ireland” - 6th

Contrary to popular belief, pay per click (PPC) isn’t about throwing money at your account until it gets to the top of your searches. This way you’ll end up spending way over budget for a lot of very general traffic, and your conversion/ROI rate just won’t stack up.

PPC also tends to be something that a lot of SEO “experts” and amateurs think is easy to jump into and get immediate impacts without any real knowledge of the systems or strategies that should be used, which more often than not results in poor performance.

However, PPC can be a really effective platform when it’s used to its potential. Here are some quick ideas to get your PPC moving in the right direction.

1. Use organic SEO priniciples

Think about how you create your keyword list - terms that are difficult to achieve on organic searches translate to being competitive and expensive to achieve on PPC. The answer? Go long tail and be specific - you’ll find that CPCs are lower and the quality of visitor is higher.

2. Cut poor performers out

If your campaign contains a straggler keyterm that’s generating nothing and getting a far lower success (clicks/impressions/positioning/conversions) rate than the others then get rid of it. Your Quality Score is based on the whole campaign and poor performers can drag the entire thing down.

3. Be creative with your ad copy

An obvious but often overlooked PPC issue. How to do it? Look at the competitor ads on any given keyterm, you’re sure to find at least a few that are basically saying exactly the same thing - avoid doing this at all costs. You need to make your ad sufficiently different to stand out, and get as many USPs in as possible to encourage a click. It’s amazing how much detail can be squeezed into those 70 characters.

4. Write lots of ad variations and use them all

The main PPC systems allow multiple ads to be assigned to campaigns, and they carry out their own “survival of the fittest” process to determine the most effective. The result? The best ads are shown the most. This is a great help to marketers, and there’s no excuse not to use it. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, get a load of ads written up and let them sink or swim on their own. Once you know which ad style works the best, refine and improve it even more.

5. Diversify with ad groups

Don’t lump all your keywords in together. If the scope of your campaign is broad enough, use ad groups to split it up. This will let you create more specific ads for each topic, and move away from being too general.

6. Make your display URL jump out

While the display URL is a fairly rigid element, why not try introducing capital letters to make individual words stand out more? Look at this example, it’s clear which one is more attention-grabbing;

www.freshredroses.com

www.FreshRedRoses.com

… a minor point? Maybe, but in a competitive market every tactic helps.

Green Media are Google Adwords Professional Qualified, which means that every single PPC campaign we create and manage is handled in the most appropriate and effective way. We employ all of the techniques described here, as well as some more advanced methods learned through years of experience to achieve the best results. Get in touch to find out how PPC by Green Media can help your business.

In the last of our SEO articles for 2008, we’re exploring one of the most enduringly misunderstood and misused terms in the business - “first page results”.

Don’t get us wrong, first page results are absolutely fantastic, they’re the goal of any SEO - but only ever on lead generating keywords. It’s absolutely pointless achieving first page results on keywords that no-one ever searches for.

When you view SEO as an indiscriminate race to get keywords - any keywords - on the first page of Google, it’s quite a simple process. In reality though, it’s a little more involved, especially if you’re looking to achieve the massive business benefits that SEO is capable of delivering.

The tide is slowly turning on this - just last month Google-guru Matt Cutts discussed the likelihood that “ranking was dead” - but some SEO companies are still pedalling it out as an indication of their so-called expertise. Here’s a little insight into why they’re wrong, and how to go about approaching SEO properly.

Lead generating keywords

Accessible through their PPC interfaces, Google, MSN and Yahoo all have accurate systems that show how many searches any given keywords rack up over a monthly period. Once you know the level of searches that a keyword is generating, you’re in a better position to decide on your target list. If a term doesn’t get many searches, then it’s obvious that while it’ll be relatively easy to rank for, it’ll probably not generate any level of interest. It’s always worth running your initial keyword list through one of these systems, you might be surprised at the level of searches they generate.

Unless you’re working in a genuine niche market with a totally unique product or service you’ll be required to compete, and the competition will naturally be fiercer on the lead generating keywords. This tends to be the point at which SEO companies who bleat on about “first page results” make their excuses and disappear. It’s important to formulate your target keyword list around lead generating terms, or else it’s quite a pointless exercise.

Fluidity of results

No matter how successful your SEO results may be at any given time, it needs to be kept in mind that search engines are constantly evolving, and your competitors are likely to be fighting tooth-and-nail on the very same keywords that you’re optimising your site for. Even if you do get a great result there’s no guarantee you’ll be there at the same time the next week, because when you jump up some positions, your competitors notice and react. However, with a well-strategised SEO programme you’re in for the long haul, and you’ll be able to fight back when required with proven techniques.

Return on investment

This is the single most important factor with SEO, and the reason why the vague claim of “first page results” just doesn’t cut it. SEO is no different to any other type of business marketing in as much as it needs to have a positive return on investment (ROI), otherwise it’s a complete waste of time and money. Adopting the “first page for anything” mentality that’s so common in the industry simply doesn’t achieve ROI - if you’re getting results on unpopular terms then how can it?

It’s commonly known that link building is a key element of search engine optimisation, but as with most SEO factors, taking short cuts can actually have a detrimental effect on your website search performance so it’s vital to do it in the right way. In this article we cover the misconceptions and mistakes that surround link building for search, and look at the most effective way to get results from the process.

The biggest mistake

It’s often thought that simply having a massive volume of backlinks is the way to go with link building, and there are countless companies offering link building as a quick-fire service. However, these services more often than not involve masses of links from irrelevant sites, link farms and generally disreputable sources. Take a quick look in your junk folder and you’re sure to find a promo email from a company selling this service - there’s a very good reason it’s been classed as junk… Using these services results in hundreds (or thousands) of new links being added at once - a great way to set alarm bells ringing when your site is indexed. Once the service is finished, which won’t take long, you’ll be saddled with a load of pointless - and at worst negative - links attached to your website.

Think quality over quantity

Quality, effective link building for SEO is a straight-forward enough process, but it takes a good deal of planning and time to implement correctly.

Building your links steadily and regularly shows search engines that you’re developing organically. Aim for between five and ten quality new links a week, with sites that have relevant themes. Working this way over six months or so will result in a good batch of backlinks that present your website as a reliable and authoritative resource.

Outbound linking

Don’t restrict yourself to inbound links either. Although inbound links are absolutely more important from the mechanics side of SEO, having a good range of useful outbound links can provide a helpful service to your visitors and give them another reason to come back to your site. Think of outbound links simply as good content that enrich the user experience - the ultimate goal of SEO.

We wrote last week about how it was absolutely critical for businesses to continue marketing during the economic downturn in order to keep their message out there in front of prospective customers. Well, exactly the same approach should be applied for website search engine optimisation (SEO).

SEO is about getting your weblink in front of people precisely when they’re looking for what you offer. Looking at it from such a brass tacks angle, it’s the ultimate form of web marketing and as such it really shouldn’t be optional for business anymore - it’s nothing less than essential.

Organic SEO is an incredibly rewarding process at the best of times, but the value of a regularly high-ranking position on a prominent keyword during a downturn cannot be underestimated. It’s as effective as any targeted marketing and it’s out there all of the time, 24/7, on the world’s most used medium.

To find out how you can take advantage of SEO during the downturn and beyond, get in touch.

“Click here” is one of the most enduring terms used online, and has been around from the start. In fact, searching for “click here” on Google brings in an incredible 1.3 billion results, demonstrating how ubiquitous the term has become. It’s the second-nature anchor text choice for a lot of web developers and search copywriters, although moving away from it is so easy - and beneficial.

While “click here” still has great relevance in email marketing for obvious reasons, you’re missing an ideal SEO opportunity if you continue to use it indiscriminately on websites. From both a user accessibility and search engine indexing perspective, the term isn’t exactly the most helpful. Thinking about the search engines, if an anchor text and tag uses some of the keywords relating to the page that it’s linking to, then it’s far easier to classify - boosting the relevancy to a given topic. What’s more, your real-world users will know instantly what they’re clicking on, so you’re enhancing their visit as well. “Click here” doesn’t offer any information whatsoever, other than the presence of a link.

It’s another example that usability and creating a positive web experience should always be at the forefront of your web development and copywriting.

So, try to come out of the “click here” safe zone and you’ll soon find that SEO benefits will follow.

Maile Ohye followed up her outbound links article on Google’s Webmaster Blog last week with a succinct explanation on the value of good quality incoming links, and the importance of a well thought-out strategy. It’s another good example of how Google is opening up about its processes, and it also backs up what we’ve said about inbound links for a while now.

Another thing we’ve said over and over on Green Notes is that there’s no secret with this anymore. The whole point of a search engine is to enhance the user’s experience, so if you’re doing something that goes against this then you’re likely to be damaging your SEO potential.