Hmmm… So, which course?  These were my initial thoughts.  Do I do a long distance course or do I stay close to home and come to the building.  By opting for the SSMM (Search and Social Media Marketing) at Media City, I now know, I made the perfect choice.

University of Salford Campus – Media City

It had all the aspects that I was hoping for and none of the ones I feared.  I didn’t want to just do ‘a course on seo and social media’… I wanted the course that would add value to my skillset.

When you leave University and/or Further/Higher Education, the question usually is… “What experience do you have?”… This is usually followed by an answer consisting of erms, buts and opportunity.  In other words, doing your best to prove you are willing to learn.

For probably only the second time in my life, I found myself on the other side of the argument.  As, somewhat fortuitously and serendipitously I found myself knowing a lot about SEO, social media and digital marketing, but didn’t have the academic or professional qualifications or accreditations to back up my experience or prove what I knew.  So it was important on my part that I showed evidence of Continued Professional Development (CPD).

I work in the charity and voluntary sector, so it is vital to spend the limited resources we have in the most productive, efficient and effective way possible.   This just happened to involve social media, website building, search engine optimisation and other aspects of digital marketing.  This is because, these activities can be done on a very limited budget; the challenge being, knowing what to do and having the time to invest.

So began my journey into the world of social media, website building and SEO.  It started off as a hobby with the website/organisation I founded called, Positive About MS (www.positiveaboutms.com) and it’s social media following which now reaches out to about 10,000 supporters!  Subsequently I developed a website called, The Luggie Scooter (www.theluggie.com), which features on the first page of Google and in some cases features in the coveted Golden Triangle section of Google on page1!

So you can see SSMM was something I fell into and something I just happened to enjoy too, not realising at the time it would become Web 2.0.

However, all this experience didn’t give me what I needed, which was a way to quantify what I know and give me a recognised professional accreditation and/or qualification.

The Search and Social Media Marketing course

Right from the first week of the course I liked what I saw.  From the email communication prior to arrival, to the structure and general feel of the class.  It was just what I hoped it would be.  There was a structure to the whole course and it was clear what the course would give you.  I thought it would be more formal and not as comfortable, but I was pleasantly surprised.   I really liked the layout, atmosphere and the general way of teaching.

One of the reasons I opted for the course, was the opportunity of interaction with the course leader (Alex Fenton @AlexFenton) and the chance to ask questions in person.  This also exceeded my expectations.  You could speak in person, via social media, on private linkedin groups or by email.  It gave you further reassurance that you weren’t just going to be given course notes with a presentation.

Guest speakers

The format of giving you a presentation on the subject matter, followed by a talk and Q&A session from an industry professional worked really well and I got more than I expected from it.  We got the opportunity to hear from the likes of Phil Morgan (@PhilipMorgan) & Tom Mason (@totmac) from Delineo (@Delineo), Aisha Choudhry (@AishaZulu) from Fast Web Media (@FastWebMedia),  and the UK’s Number 1 best selling small biz marketing author; Dee Blick – pictured (@DeeBlick) of www.themarketinggym.org.

Dee Blick – Guest Speaker

I also felt the course was well pitched and did exactly what it said on the tin!  Initially I was apprehensive that parts maybe too basic or complex, however this was not the case and it was helpful that Alex Fenton would sometimes spend more time on certain subject areas than others, based on the group and what we needed.

It was never a case of times up and that’s it, you got a chance to review what we’ve already discussed and check your understanding.

One of the many revelations to me personally was the benefits and features of using Google Drive, something I was neither keen nor found necessary to use before I went on the course.  Google Drive allowed you to revisit slides and talks from previous weeks and made it very easy to review course notes.

I found it very refreshing and useful that information on the course and was freely shared by Alex, and that was what I had hoped for.  If there was something you were not sure on, there was always the opportunity to revisit it out of class time, with informal group sessions.

Overall, this course has filled in those missing gaps from my own learning’s and has also introduced me to industry terms and given me a chance to quantify what I already knew, by putting names and phrases to the processes I was practicing.

Furthermore it has opened up my eyes more to the idea of Web 2.0 and the importance of Digital Marketing.

Hopefully, this has helped you regarding your professional development course choice.  Feel free to share this post or share your views, I am @mrkazlaljee on twitter and you can use the hastag #ssmmUoS

More information & booking details for the Search & Social Media Marketing Course  &  Salford University location at Media City UK – Video

Tapping the Social Media apps on my phone has become more of a habit than a conscious decision. Whether it’s to check out the persistent notifications for a picture I clicked ‘like’ on days ago; or to answer a private group message about a friend’s birthday meal. I no longer need to simply wonder how an old friend is doing, as their profile picture and status updates will tell the story of their relationships, hobbies and interests. Status updates can be akin to a diary extract; often telling us a lot more than we care to know.

Everything is Good by David Shrigley

Pew Internet’s research has shown that, “As of January 2014, 74% of online adults use social networking sites.” Whilst we live our private lives in the public eye, it’s important to consider that a respective new employer is able to scope us out before that life changing job interview. They will have already have made an opinion based on our online public persona. Perhaps due to this ‘social’ nature of Social Media, some companies aren’t taking it seriously enough and are reluctant to use it.

If you choose to use it to your advantage, you could be just one social media campaign away from beating your competitor to the number one spot in Google rankings. You will be better connected to your customer base, promoting your business to a wider audience all whilst being inspired and quite possibly entertained.

Choose Life, choose a Social Media platform

Consider the strengths within your company and use them to your advantage, but firstly…

• Who are your target audience?
• What’s your unique selling point?
• What objective are you trying to achieve?

Once you have established all of the above, you will be able to determine the correct Social Media platforms to use. Here are some of the usual suspects:

• Facebook

Facebook is still, far and away, the most popular social media platform. According to Statista.com, ‘As of the third quarter of 2014, Facebook had 1.35 billion monthly active users’.  It speaks volumes really. You can set up your company and wait for the ‘likes’ to come in, or if you have the capital, use pay per click adverts that work on pay per interaction rather than pay per impression. This is a real advantage over some of the more traditional online advertising techniques, where Return on Investment (ROI) can be low.

• Twitter

Despite being, arguably, the second-most recognized platform out there, Twitter is fourth in usage. The ultimate, real-time conversational micro-blogging platform; perfect if you like to keep your posts short, sweet and less than 140 characters.

• Instagram

If you are an ‘image heavy’ company this is an excellent medium to use. It’s fun, requires little management, just maintain a good level of high quality images.

• Tumblr

Hosting some 188 million blogs, Barack Obama took to the ‘micro-blogging’ platform to discuss issues such as national security, instantly dispelling previous perceptions that the site was little more than a hub for playground discussions between teenageers. Tumblr gives you ‘gofollow’ results, which is SEO GOLD! You can also use Google Analytics to track key metrics.

You can use ALL of the above, or just one, depending on how much time you available to dedicate. If you can spare at least half an hour a day to Social Media, make sure you use the platform that will create the most engagement. You can use a Social Media dashboard, such as Hootsuite to put out the same content  all the platforms at once, you can even schedule a suitable time in the day; reaching your audience in the USA when they are drinking their morning coffee. This will save you from setting your alarm for the middle of the night to send a Tweet.

To rank at the top of Google, you need to have a fresh unique website which is updated on a regular basis. A neglected page will make you drop off the first page on Google faster than you can say, ‘sneezing panda’. Set time aside each week to update the website. Try adding blog posts from guest bloggers, who have their own suitably engaged followers who can link back to your site.

Here’s a stinky statistic for you; according to Mashable, “There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 5.1 billion of them own a cell phone, but only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush”. This shows how imperative it is to have a mobile friendly website, we are all using our mobiles to view Social Media.

Be a Smarty Pants

One of the many fun things about Social Media is you can be a bit of a smart ass. There are so many things you can do, beyond basic tweeting and using the correct hashtags. Google trends is an excellent way of engaging with your desired audience, this will help to stay on top of trends relating to your business. It will inspire you to write a tweet at the perfect time. The best timed tweet I ever did was for my DJ collective project, Dance Lady Dance, (shameless promo) during the World Cup which got us 52 new followers. Thank you Miley!

Albeit, more football fans than music fans followed us…. which swiftly leads me to my next point:

Find the right audience 

Buying Twitter followers, or going on a follow-frenzy, is not going to be beneficial to your company. Locate your audience, who do they follow? This may be your competitor; if so ‘follow’ their followers, they may soon follow you back. Use an appropriate hashtag # that relates to your business and follow the latest followers who are tweeting about related topics. You’ll soon have a relevant audience who are ready to interact with you.

The best Social Media Marketers are creative thinkers who take risks. SEO and Social Media Marketing is ever changing, so there really is no guidebook on how to do this; its trial and error. Youtube hosts countless videos on unsuccessful marketing campaigns. Only the very best campaigns will go viral via Social Media (or ones with cats playing instruments).

You are ready!

Remember that your profile picture and cover photo is the first thing your audience will see, you have about five seconds to win them over, so make it count. Use something that represents your company and what you have to offer; always have a link to your website in your profile.

Follow the steps, keep your content updated and you’ll soon find that people will follow you whenever you go.

Connect with me @louloupembers

When I started my first business in 1988, a men’s fashion store, it would be 7 years before I first touched the internet. In 1988 there were few options for free publicity for a new Micro- Business. It’s a different world in 2014. I explain here the basics of social media for a small business in the uk.

If you are starting a business, there are a few things that you should do yesterday. First up put yourself on the map, Google Maps to be exact. Google is the most powerful search engine on the planet and nearly every potential customer has access to Google Maps through their smart phone, laptop or PC. If they’re searching for a perm for their poodle in Portsmouth and your business can help, you need to make sure they can find you. You’ll need to set up a Gmail account and Google+ before moving over to Google Local to set up a G+Page for your business. Before you know it, Penelope visiting Peter in Portsmouth from Paris will be able to find your Poodle Parlour, or a competitors.

Now for Facebook. You’ve probably got your own personal Facebook account but for your business you’ll need a separate Facebook Page, which you can claim from your existing account. It’s a straightforward procedure that will ask you quite a few questions about your business. Answer them in as much detail as possible as it’s often a really useful information point for new customers. I helped the Grouse Pub & Chinese Restaurant set up theirs. Its amazing what a difference easy access to opening hours, a telephone number, address and in this case a menu can make to a new business. The Grouse also started getting really good feedback from day one which went viral locally from one persons 200 local friends to another persons 500 friends etc. Facebook is really good for communicating with Joe Public, Coca Cola can’t be wrong can they?

Next up is Twitter. No, its not full of people talking crap about Arsenal FC. My 2 favourite uses of Twitter are B2B and competitor research. My own business in2wrk was surprised to find out that one of the great things about Twitter was communicating with Job Centre Plus offices. JCP send us many of our customers and they recently appointed a digital champion in each office. We tweet them (and our followers) information about our courses and they tweet us information about job vacancies. Once you’ve set up your Twitter account your first step might be to follow your suppliers, interesting personalities connected with your line of business and potential customers. The next step is to interact with them. You might choose to set up a phony Twitter account to follow your competitors. Your smartphone will have the ability to handle multiple Twitter accounts.

Now its movie time and your business may be the star! While you’re getting all social on Facebook, Twitter and Google + why not share some home movies on YouTube. If you’ve already set up a Google+ account it’ll be a cinch to set up your You Tube account. While you’re thinking about some content of your own, subscribe to and share some movies relevant to your business and customers. Maybe you sell DJ gear, how about a few words from a Superstar DJ, a major manufacturer and a “useful how to”. There’s a phrase bandied around in the digital world, “content is king” and the way that applies to video is that your video doesn’t need to have a Hollywood budget; it just needs to be interesting and relevant. Go on, get that Smart phone out, Camera! Action!

That’s the basics done, when you have the time, and depending on your business, (certain social media channels are better for certain types of business) here’s the best of the rest. But first pop over to 123reg and buy a domain name. You might even have time to set up a web site one day.

Instagram: A great place to store and share (square) photos.

Pinterest: Another photo site, great for things like fashion, jewellery and food.

LinkedIn: A place where people look for jobs, and jobs look for people.

That should keep you busy for a while. If you get stuck, theres almost certainly an instructional video that will help you out on You Tube. One last tip, be a little careful what you post, you wouldn’t want a PR disaster would you?

If you live in Leeds or Manchester and you’d like to learn more about social media for a small business in the uk, We are running a 1 week training course called “Social Media for Small Businesses” in January 2015.

Richard Hallam is MD of in2wrk. Find him @richardhallam and it @in2wrk on Twitter. He has run a training business, in2wrk.com since 2002 that delivers learndirect training mainly to Jobseekers.

Why? Because when you strip all the marketing terminology back we’re simply storytellers and Google loves a good read!

HatTrick has from day one been about embracing change; constantly looking at ways of doing delivering communications differently, through to investing in new technology to ensure everyone in the business can seamlessly deliver global brand campaigns. It’s that hunger for change that led me onto the Search and Social Media Marketing professional course at Salford University.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve I was hungry to learn more about how PR and Search have emerged and how HatTrick as an international communications agency, based in Manchester could connect the two disciplines together.

Learnings

From the course I’ve learnt that while once, many considered SEO to simply mean getting inbound links to your site to boost visibility on Google search results pages; nowadays this is no longer the case. Today, as far as Google is concerned it’s all about relevance, influence of the site and quality content. Some elements of the course were sounding very familiar and I was right to feel this way because this is exactly what PRs have been doing all along and why I believe that public relations is becoming the new SEO.

Here’s why:

As PR professionals, a key aspect of our role is analysing the client’s audience and then finding the right channel or publication to target with well-written and engaging content. The change in media landscape over the past ten years and rise in social media channels has opened up more opportunities than ever before for placement of content in order to build brand awareness and reputation.

Given that PR has always owned and managed communication channels, the responsibility of setting strategies and delivering content through social media naturally has become a daily task of a PR consultant. According to Google guidelines, having a strong Social Media presence is just as important as having an updated website.

By identifying and pushing out content to online influencers, naturally encourages them to share it with their followers. The more active a brand is in seeding out across social media channels, including Google +, Facebook and Twitter, means there is more chances to obtain higher rankings.

Everyone’s focusing on quality content

Add to the debate, Google’s recent changes to its guidelines on how websites are ranked on the search engine, also means that SEO professionals are too also now focusing more on creating quality content that people want to share, rather than just link building, in order to get its clients’ sites at the top of the search engine – exactly what PRs have been doing all along.

Do you agree? Nevertheless, regardless of whether the two disciplines are merged together in the future or that SEO may no longer be the answer to traffic-related prayers. Through storytelling content marketing tactics, brands can only now navigate their way through the treacherous SEO landscape of 2015 and beyond with support from a strong public relations campaign.

After many many years of actively using a hotmail account, I have finally come over to the ‘The Dark side’ and opened a gmail account. I have had access to gmail before, but this has been just as one of the users on a charity organisations account, so not one I could call my own.

The limited experience I had, didn’t really impress me that much and couldn’t find reason to switch from hotmail. However, things have just changed…

I always heard about this ‘make believe’ place called Google Drive and didn’t really know what it was… I’d heard people can organise meetings and send items to others, but didn’t really sound groundbreaking enough to investigate it.

Today I finally accessed the Google Drive, courtesy of @Alex Fenton, who teacher my course; SSMM… and must say I am very impressed at the ease and simplicity of this ‘make believe’ place!

Also this week I have accessed WordPress for the first time too… Not really sure what to make of it yet, so time will tell.

I now think I’ll be adding Gmail as one of my smartphone accounts… Not sure if I’m ready to ditch hotmail just yet, but time will tell!

Anyway, regards my title…. ‘The Dark side’, maybe it should read the ‘The Brighter side’?

Content marketing: Why your content isn’t being shared

We’ve all heard the phrase “Content is King,” but what does it actually mean? Most people make the mistake of thinking that content is merely written copy used to acquire backlinks and justify keyword placement, but in reality it’s much more than that. Images, videos, infographics – literally anything that’s published on the Internet – all comes under the content umbrella. We’re all publishers; and as publishers we want our work to be seen by as many people as possible, and that’s where sharing comes in.

Amassing shares on social media – aka “going viral” – can expose your content to a phenomenal amount of people; however, getting others to share your work for free is quite a challenge as you can’t just ask without doing any groundwork. It’s imperative that you understand what makes good content valuable to others and how to effectively make your approach.

As the owner of a premium search marketing agency – Distinctly – I’m constantly asked how to get content shared. The truth is, there is no guaranteed method. You can, however, significantly increase your chances by merely publishing content that’s in demand. Part of my job is to find out what others are looking for, and then devise a plan to maximise exposure; but whether or not people share it is down to two things, quality and luck.

You’re not helping anyone

So you’ve written an excellent informative article or blog post with decent images, a video and possibly even an infographic, but it’s still not getting shared. No doubt you’ve encountered this problem before. The first thing you have to ask yourself is, “Does this content actually help anyone?” If the answer is no, then you’ve already got your reason.

Good content isn’t about flawless grammar and clever wording; it’s about helping others and publishing something that’s unavailable elsewhere. Type in any keyword and you’ll probably find that 80% of the websites you visit are irrelevant, or simply rehashing the same information. If you fall into this category how will you ever expect to gain exposure? To succeed sometimes you have to just forget about promoting your business and develop content with the primary aim of helping people.

You’re failing to do any outreach

Publishing content is merely the first step. If nobody knows about that content how will you ever expect to receive shares and likes on social media? No matter how good your content is you need to tell people about it. It’s important to start the outreach before you publish the content. Contact bloggers and businesses you think it will appeal to and start trying to build relationships with them – comment on their social media pages, compliment their work, send them a friendly message, etc.

When we started working for graphic design agency The Pink Group, we began the outreach process weeks in advance, and by the time we published their content – the Social Media Cheat Sheet – we already had a collection of bloggers and businesses that were willing to share it. The result was over 12,000 social media shares in just a matter of weeks.

You’re not monitoring your activity

Monitoring your traffic and social media activity is crucial. Where is your traffic coming from? What pages of your website are people visiting? The more you know about how people are finding and using your content the better.

At Distinctly we use a tool named Share Tally to get a general overview of how well a piece of content is performing. Share Tally combines every share, tweet and like, etc., from across multiple social media platforms and gives you an overall figure. We’ve found this website to be very helpful when implementing new content marketing strategies as it allows us to measure spikes in sharing.

You’re not communicating with your audience

Interaction accounts for at least a third of the content marketing process. Social media is called “social” media for a reason, and many businesses tend to forget that it’s designed as a communication and networking tool. When somebody leaves a comment on your page, respond to them publicly; if they share your content, thank them for their support. Treat your audience with respect and they will become very loyal followers.

After we publish content our primary focus is on strengthening relationships. We often recommend that our clients spend a few minutes each morning simply taking part in the community that they’ve built. Personal communication will go a long way and people will be more inclined to share content when they know their efforts are appreciated by a person rather than a corporate entity.

Fundamentally, not every piece of content you publish will get shared and liked – it’s just the nature of the beast. But, the more quality content you publish the bigger your community of followers will become. Rinse and repeat the process and there’ll be no reason why you won’t succeed.

Article by Rob Cook of Eco Home Uk

Search Engine Optimization you can do it! We’re all fascinated with it we all think we understand elements of it, we get frustrated with it and the mystery that’s created by professionals who have manipulated our gullible nature and our hard earned cash! The dirty word is of course SEO (search engine optimization).

Search Engine Optimization “Bull S#@t” for hire             

With the sheer volume of SEO’s available for hire all promising the same thing different day! It can seem like you’re forced to choose from the best of a bad bunch, but if you don’t engage you feel as if you could be missing out on revenue! After all that’s what it’s all about, we expect to optimize our websites to increase brand awareness, sales revenue and bottom line profit!

What can be done to combat bad SEO companies? 

Knowledge is power and with search engine optimization firms claiming to have the know-how “but it’s gonna take time and a boat load of cash”. This brings me up to date with our predicament that’s why we decided to gain expert, inside knowledge on the SSMM training course with Salford University. The course has been invaluable; It’s given us the knowledge base and ability to physically put into practice our new found skills! We took our tired non-functioning site and replaced it with a new site/URL that we started rite in terms of SEO, call to action, interest and desire! What’s more the results have been astonishing. We’ve now received more leads in a week than we did in 6 months from the old site and it’s all organic search results no Pay per click! The beauty of this course from our perspective is that its broken down into small weekly sections and by having it structured this way it allows you to go away and implement your learning’s before the next week’s session.

How we got search engine optimisation working for us

We now have a mobile friendly website, it has call to action, our social media icons work properly. Our pages have been key word selected and optimised and it have “good quality content” did I mention that its key to have good quality content? Our meta descriptions are easy and cheesy, our videos and images are alt attributed for keywords too and the site structure flows. In essence we haven’t done that much, but its been done right and it will require constant upkeep, and its something you can achieve too. We wanted to sell more boilers and that’s what were doing.

Search Engine Optimisation summary

I don’t want to label all SEO’s with the same poop stick you may find one that works well for you, however this is likely to cost big money. With the SSMM course from Salford University you have the benefit of knowing when an SEO firm is ill advising, not performing and out and out taking your money and not providing a service. Get involved now learn today, earn tomorrow! 

The following article was written by Tom Shurville of Distinctly, a search marketing agency in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.

There is a wide range of activities you can participate in to improve your brand’s online visibility including social media, pay per click, content marketing, email marketing and blogging. Of course one of the best ways to increase online visibility is through improving your site’s search engine optimisation (SEO). Despite claims that link building ‘is dead’, it is still very much an integral part of SEO and can generate fantastic results, providing you go about it the right way.

Why is link building so important?

If you want to improve your website’s search visibility and increase brand exposure, link building is arguably one of the best ways to do it. Links are still incredibly valuable and serve the purpose of sending positive signals to Google, informing them of great sites with authority. Link building is also great for developing relationships between businesses within the same industry and can boost other online marketing activities carried out by brands.

Building links in 2014: What to do

There are many ways you can go about building links back to your company website, but some methods are considered better than others in the eyes of Google and other search engines. Ensure that your link building practices are both ethical and beneficial and prevent search engines penalising your website by following our tips below.

Create high quality and relevant links

When searching for websites that you would like to include in your link building strategy, it is important to ensure that the sites are high quality and relevant to the products you sell or services you offer. Broadly, you need to either cater for the same audience or operate within the same industry. It is also essential that you have read through their content to check that it is of a high standard. Poorly produced content (e.g. spun articles) can look like spam to both search engines and users and will not provide any value. Only links from high quality, relevant websites will assist in improving your search rankings.

Produce excellent content

You cannot expect other websites to link to your website if you do not provide them with anything of value. Writing excellent content that serves the purpose of educating or informing the audience will make your link building proposition much more appealing to webmasters.

It is also important to remember that relationships take time to develop. You will need to put time and effort into nurturing relationships with high authority websites in order to stand a chance at gaining a link from them.

Acquire links to more than just your homepage

Many businesses make the mistake of only building links back to their website’s homepage. It is much more beneficial to build links that land on different pages of your website, for example, a product page or even a blog post. It is important to make sure that the anchor text is relevant to the landing page, to give readers (and search engines) an idea of what they should expect from clicking on the link. Remember not to over optimise anchor text in your link building efforts, as this can lead to you being penalised by Google (e.g. only ever linking to the same term, e.g. “web development”).

Review your website’s backlink profile

Before attempting to build high quality and relevant links to your website, it is essential that you review your website’s existing backlink profile. If you have had your website for a while and have worked with multiple SEO companies over the years, it is likely that you will have built up some potentially damaging links. The problem is that Google’s algorithm updates will still penalise you for these links whether you acquired them last week or three years ago. Work with a trusted SEO company to get any paid or unnatural links removed or if necessary, disavowed.

Building links in 2014: What not to do

You may have heard that in recent months Google has been working on improving its algorithms in order to make it easier to identify the difference between quality, organic links and spam links. Although building links is a great way to improve your website’s search rankings, if you do not go about it the right way, you risk being penalised by Google and other search engines. Below we have outlined what is not considered best practice for link building in 2014.

Paid or irrelevant links

It’s simple really – don’t buy links and you won’t have Google telling you off and plunging you deep down to the bottom of the search rankings! Since releasing the Penguin update in 2012, Google has been keeping on top of penalising those with paid links and you do not want to end up with a target on your back.

It is also important to avoid exchanging links with companies that are irrelevant to your industry. As we mentioned earlier, you should only be looking to build links with websites that produce high quality content and are relevant to your industry. The way to judge it is by thinking whether or not the users of that website will get any value from clicking on the backlink and being taken to your website. If the answer is no, then that link building opportunity is not the one for you.

Automated link building tools

Automated link building tools are a big no-no. When it comes to building links, quality is so much more important than quantity. Automated link building tools tend to build a lotof links and whilst you may see an initial spike in your website traffic, Google and other search engines will see that they are spam links and penalise you accordingly.

Spam comment on other blogs

Another thing that you must refrain from doing is leaving your website link on every blog comment that you leave. Take your website’s SEO seriously and avoid this bad practice. Whilst leaving meaningful comments on blogs is absolutely fine, only leave your link if it will provide value to other readers or the blog owner.

Conclusion

Despite various sources claiming that ‘link building is dead’, the practice is still very much an important part of improving websites’ online visibility. Even Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed that link building is important when he said that they were ‘still the best way that we’ve found to discover how relevant or important somebody is.’ Whilst the use of social media and content marketing does impact search engine rankings (and is likely to have more weight behind it in the future), do not underestimate the power of ethical link building strategies.

As long as you focus on creating high quality, relevant links and avoid black hat SEO practices like spamming, there really is no need to fear being penalised by Google. Whilst white hat link building takes a considerable amount of time and effort, it can be extremely beneficial for your business in terms of improving your search rankings and driving valuable traffic through to your website.

Got a great idea for an internet business? Plan for the year and not just the build.

Many clients contact Libero Net with a ‘great idea’ for an internet business, however few of these clients have thought about what it takes to develop this idea into an online success. Having an idea for a business is great; however it is only the start of a very long business venture.
Do you plan on hiring staff? What is your yearly budget? How will you monitor your businesses progress? How will you drive traffic to your online business? Have you thought about online techniques such as social media, guest blogging and link building? Or what about offline techniques likes door-to-door knocking and telesales? How will people find out about your great business idea?

The Business Plan

These are questions we often find ourselves asking these clients. Every business, big or small, profits greatly from having a well thought-out and structured business plan. If you haven’t thought about any of the above your business may find it difficult to succeed, or even worse fail.
Owning an online business is hard and success doesn’t come easy. Sacrifices will have to be made and you will be more stressed than ever. The harsh reality of starting a business is often something entrepreneurs don’t want to admit too, but if you believe in your business and take all avenues into consideration your business venture can succeed the competition and become a fighting success.

The Financial Plan

The starting point for your business plan is the financials. Something which we see regular is businesses blowing their entire budget on a new website design and expecting for customers to find their business website themselves. Unfortunately, the competition is tough and you need to budget advertising/ marketing for the year. You can always get that top notch website when your business when profits are up!

The Marketing & Advertising Plan

Businesses use advertising and marketing techniques to reach a wider audience and inevitably drive more sales to their website. Each company needs a different strategy from the next and pursuing the appropriate advertising tactfully is a huge part of what makes an internet business successful. If you’re not sure what your marketing strategy should be, it is recommended to speak to a design agency.

The Google Plan

Every business dreams of being on Google’s first page ranking as it is good for your brand and ultimately sends customers in your direction. Generating traffic to your website comes from a consistent effort over a long period of time with the basic understanding of marketing techniques.
Once you have a beautiful website, interesting content and active social media channels, it will be worth investing time or money into SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques such as accumulating backlinks, blogging, relevant keywords, guest content and more.

Plan Plan Plan

Make sure you spend your time and investment wisely. Plan payment throughout the year and do not blow it all at once with the website build, otherwise one day you will be high up on Google rankings and undetectable the next. Although it is not an easy road to travel but if you plan your trip, you will reap the rewards later.

This is one of the best pieces of advice we can offer when you’re starting on this exciting journey, ensure you have budgeted for the long term and have the plan in place for the marketing and driving of traffic to your fantastic new website.

We’ve had this problem for quite some time and many different experts on SEO don’t cover it.

If you were to search for one of our big brands in Google, let’s say Falke, what you’d get is our 3rd and 4th biggest competitors.

Our Falke page for example, is in position 104. we hold 9th position for the term “Falke Tights” with that same section, which is not bad, but the puzzling part is that we have a “Falke” section and a “Falke Tights” sections. You’d think the latter is going rank for that search term, but it doesn’t at all.

All of our competitors use links in the header and breadcrumbs, just like we do. Opensite Exporler shows just 2 or 3 internal links for these competitors, and more than 1600 from us.

Many of our brand sections rank worse than they should, such as Pretty Polly and Charnos, both brand that we sell, rank page 2 or 3 for their search terms.

Another example is Kunert from Germany, a brand with nobody else in the UK selling these items. Our section has been live for 8 years, but we can only reach 71st on Google, 1st on Bing.

We’re working on building some quality links, but competitors have very few low quality external links, only slightly better domain authority than us but they seem to rank 100 or more positions better than us on many of our brands, including our Wolford section, one of our most authoritative pages.

This might suggest there is something on our pages or something internal we’re currently doing wrong, but all our tools tell us that we are doing everything fine.

Keyword density is close to our competitors and we’ve reduced the number of products on the page. All pages ranked well before the Penguin update, and Bing still seems to like them.

The main consensus is that we have penalties form Google, but looking at our competitors link profiles we are only slightly worse, this to me means Google has penalties on some brand pages, but why as they have few or no external links.

Is it our internal linking and if so how do I sort it out?

This is really quite puzzling, and if any one has any ideas please drop me an email jonathan@uktights.com

Thanks

Jonathan
www.uktights.com