Blog

When it comes to tracking the success of your website and the effectiveness of a search engine optimisation campaign then it’s vital that you use a good quality website traffic stats package or web logs analyser.

My personal preference at the moment is Google Analytics which was first introduced a few years ago after Google acquired the web analytics firm Urchin Software. Google Analytics is continually evolving and new and exciting add-ons appearing on a regular basis. (more…)

A recent busy period at work has unfortunately been beset by a catalogue of complications and problems (not my making I may hasten to add). This has highlighted to me the importance of client education and an effective project management strategy.

I have always been of the view that any relationship, be it business or pleasure, is a two way affair and requires a mutual understanding of roles and boundaries. In order for business relationships to develop and grow it is important that a firm foundation of understanding is set out at the beginning so that everyone involved is fully aware of the project boundaries, areas of responsibility, project goals and any timescales/deadlines involved. If this is done correctly, the whole process has a better chance of running in a smooth, professional and cost effective manner. From experience, I have found that where these details are not clearly set out and agreed to in the early stages, then this will often result in a long drawn out and painful affair potentially resulting in bad feeling and wasted time and money. (more…)

For me the dawn of a new year is a time to reflect and look forward to making fresh starts, New Year’s resolutions and building on the successes of the previous year. It’s a prime opportunity to look at your website and conduct some essential housekeeping, maintenance and planning in order to give your site some much needed TLC. (more…)

When dealing with the search engine optimisation of a website the issue of duplicate content is something any website owner needs to be aware of, including the causes and correct solutions in dealing with any problems that may arise.

What is duplicate content and why should you be bothered?

Simply put, duplicate content is when two or more web pages or even separate websites contain the same or similar content. But why is this a problem? A search engines aim is to ultimately return the most suitable and relevant results for any given search. For this reason, search engines, particularly Google, apply duplicate content filters to a website should they detect that there’s a possible duplicate content issue on a site. They then give the pages a lower ranking in their search engine results by placing them in a supplemental index. (more…)

When it comes to the search engine optimisation of a website it’s commonly known that ‘content is king’. The continued development of a website’s content is a key ingredient if you’re serious about long term search engine results for your websites. As someone working on the online marketing for many websites, one of the most common dilemmas I continually encounter is that of who should take responsibility for the continuing content development of a website. Should it be the client or should it be the SEO consultant as that is what they are being paid for? (more…)

Wordpress is one of the leading blog applications around with it’s strength lying in its ease of use and installation. It’s extremely customisable through the use of a whole host of themes and plugins which allow you to easily change the look, feel and behaviour of your Wordpress blog. When setting up this blog these were some of the deciding factors which influenced my decision to choose Wordpress over its other rivals.

Following the recent release of Wordpress 2.3 I was forced to review some of the plugins I used as several were no longer compatible with the new version. In searching for alternatives I managed to turn up a few gems and felt the resulting collection of plugins essential for the successfully search engine optimsation of any wordpress blog. (more…)

I regularly come in contact with many print designers who insist on designing websites as well as promoting their services as web designers or so called ‘interface designers’.

So I’d just like to take this opportunity to say that, in my experience, print designers can’t design websites. Why is this the case though? What does a print designer need to consider when attempting a new website design project? Here are my thoughts on the matter. (more…)

Meta Tags are one of the most well known parts of the search engine optimisation mix and probably one of the most misunderstood and misused elements. Meta Tags have been around almost since the dawn of search engines themselves and were once a critical part in the search engine optimisation process. However, several years ago, due to the excessive use of black hat techniques, search engines changed their algorithms to place less emphasis on them. This is probably where a lot of the misunderstanding about meta tags stems from. Even today, I come across website owners, company directors or marketing managers who are adamant that the recipe for success is to simply stuff every keyword under the sun into those two lines of code at the top of your page.

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I recently wrote a post which covered my top ten tips for search engine optimisation success. In that post I briefly touched on the importance of choosing the right keywords and phrases for your website. I feel that as this area is one of the most important stages in the optimisation process (and quite often the most overlooked) that the subject required a closer look. (more…)

For any business that’s serious about promoting its products and services online then a focussed strategy of search engine optimisation is, in my view, as necessary as having a website in the first place. The process of search engine optimisation can seem like a minefield though.

The task of finding the correct path to follow can be very tricky due to the amount of information and mis-information that needs to be sorted through. This is made no easier by the fact that search engines regularly change their algorithms so a methodology that was once the in thing is now old hat and could even be frowned upon. (more…)