SEO Belfast

This is interesting for those of us who like to study the SERPS.

For the first time Gumtree is on the first page of Google SERPS for ‘web design Belfast’. I’ve checked this over the last couple of weeks and http://www.gumtree.com/website-design-services/belfast appears at number 6 in Google (see the screenshot below).

Google stopped showing Places listings for ‘Web Design’ terms along time ago, though maybe the effect of Google Pigeon is to have boosted directories such as Gumtree in the Organic search results as well.

I’ve also noticed that one of my own directories Graphic Design Belfast is no1 in Google for ‘Graphic Design Belfast’.

Without a mobile strategy, you’ll be left behind. According to Search Engine Journal 1 in 4 searches is being made on a mobile device, though from a quick look over in analytics this varies considerably from site to site and market to market. Nevertheless, how should you capitalise on the ever increasing popularity of mobile search?

Everyone owns a mobile device nowadays, and many of you reading this will be doing so on a phone or on a tablet; for some, a tablet may be your first choice device for browsing the web, communicating, absorbing online video, reading for pleasure, or any online activity. We’ve truly gone mobile mad. Why? Convenience, practicality, and usability.

Now, 91% of everyone currently on the earth owns a mobile phone, and 72% of tablet users are making purchases online on their tablets on a regular basis (according to research by AF-Studio.pl and Super Monitoring).

Who’s doing it?

So, while mobile is booming, what is your company doing to incorporate mobile into your marketing?

If you’re still failing to integrate mobile into your marketing, you are ignoring a significant portion of the market that your competitors will be snatching up.

Almost 50% of all enterprises include defined mobile strategies as part of their marketing plan. 81% have said that mobiles have affected how they run things on a fundamental level.

Also in this study, Conducted by IBM, 90% of enterprises aim to engage with their audience, inform customers, employees, and grow their business by optimising their mobile experience as part of their overall marketing strategy.

There are no excuses to put it off any longer as there are many easy and affordable ways to optimise for mobile search, available to businesses with any marketing budget. Whether you’re already considering mobile in your strategies or not, the following tips will make sure you’re optimising effectively in the mobile environment.

Let’s go!
continue reading this post »

This is quite annoying, every Google Analytics account I look in has referral spam from Kambasoft.com, Semalt.com, youtube-downloader.savetubevideo.com and one or two others.

Log into your Google Analytics account, if you’re running the universal ‘analytics.js‘ version of Google’s tracking code click on ‘Admin > Property > Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List’

continue reading this post »

Not everything you read about SEO is gospel truth, far from it. There’s so much information on blogs and forums that clearly isn’t true or is written with an agenda. Below are my SEO Myths based on working on personal and client projects.

1. Rankings Don’t Matter

I’ve seen this quite a lot over the last number of years, it tends to go along the lines of ‘rankings don’t matter, it’s conversions that are all important‘.

Surely higher rankings with a better conversion rate is the target?
continue reading this post »

Linking Google Webmaster Tools with your website is an absolute must. Aside from the software being free, other perks include the ability for webmasters and site owners to ensure that they’re running a healthy and well optimised website.

If you’re a small business on a budget, Webmaster Tools offers the same value and more as other commercial SEO tools – but you just need to know what to do with the data in your interface to make the most of it.

In this article, I’m going to highlight the most important characteristics of Webmaster Tools that will benefit the small business.
continue reading this post »

The practice of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has been in a state of flux in recent years. The main catalysts were a number of Google’s algorithmic updates, including Penguin and Panda. Both of these updates penalised websites for attempting to manipulate Google’s search results through spammy techniques.

Penguin, which was first rolled out in 2012, penalised sites for over-optimisation and attacked a number of web-spam tactics such as keyword stuffing and overuse of keyword rich text backlinks. The first Penguin roll-out was estimated to have affected 3.1% of English queries and had a considerable effect on many business websites, transforming many page 1’s overnight, and no doubt crippling many businesses that had relied too heavily on Google’s traffic.

continue reading this post »

Just a quick blog post, unfortunately with another cautionary tale.

Always make sure that your site isn’t stopping Google from indexing it’s pages. This tends to happen when a site has been redeveloped and the restricing code is left in when the development site is moved over to the live site. It’s not uncommon, but usually spotted very quickly, or atleast in most cases it should be.

Last week I was with a company that were unaware that their site had a robots.txt file with the code disallowing Google from indexing ALL the content on their pages. Oops!
continue reading this post »

Ok, takeaways from a failed reconsideration request.

1. All the sample links highlighted in the message are links that Google mentions in the Google Webmaster Tools ‘Download Latest’ spreadsheet. This seems to confirm what John Mueller has stated that going through
   the listed link profile in Google Webmaster Tools before submitting a reconsideration request would be enough in most cases.
2. Took around 4 weeks for a reply from the reconsideration reply, and that’s over the busy holiday period.
3. 2 are article marketing directories, with keyword rich anchor texts. These links were overlooked and should have been in the original submission.
4. Google has little tolerance. The vast majority of these website links had been removed or disavowed at considerable time and expense, and removing links didn’t just rely on the limited links in GWT though as stated above this may be enough. Other software such as Majestic SEO was used to identify the link profile.
5. Google’s Feedback certainly helps.

Here’s a quick review of some (obviously not all) important events over the last couple of years, and the odd link with advice. If there’s anything you think I should have covered then please add them in the comments section.

2011 & 2012 – Google Strikes Back

Following on from 2011 and the release of Panda, 2012 was certainly a turbulent year in search. The Penguin & Top Heavy updates caused mayhem and caused huge traffic drops to those affected sites.

April 2012 saw Google release Penguin that targeted over optimised websites with a heavy reliance on the similar keyword anchor text links, an over optimised structure and poor quality links.

The Top Heavy Alorigthm update of Jan 2012 affected sites with too many banner ads above the fold and little content. Monetizing websites with banner ads just got riskier.

continue reading this post »

Over the last few years I haven’t really had much time to put any effort into any of my own personal sites including this one, so I’m hoping that can change over the next few months with some more content here, and some new development & design work on my other sites.

At the end of May the penguin update was rolled out and hit one of my newish clients that had a pretty poor backlink profile. When I took over the site there was a dilemma as to whether to spend time cleaning the site’s link profile as well as improving the on site over optimisation or just forging ahead with building a better site, with better content, less over optimisation and better quality links. Getting hit by Penguin 2 obviously made the decision easier.

I decided to run LinkRisk, to see if it matched what I thought were the poor links and to see how they scored the site according to their chart below.

continue reading this post »