Optimising images is often as important as optimising the text of the post. The process isn’t complicated at all and will not require additional keyword research on your part. But skipping this step will keep you from getting some serious traffic.

If you are not using images in your posts, start now. Even if you think your topic can not possibly have an image attached to it, there is always a way to make it happen.

If there isn’t a perfect image that explains the topic as soon as you lay your eyes on it, at least use a funny image that will warm people up before they start reading. Just make it “half way” related to the post.

I don’t even have to tell you why it is so important to have images in posts, maybe you should see it for yourself. This is a screenshot of a site in pet industry (not dogs, not cats) with its top 21 traffic sources (it is all I could fit in the screenshot).

As you can see, 5 out of top 21 sources are image related.

5.75% of visits in this screenshot is organic traffic from search engines that came from image searches!

That is 4.052 visits in one month, just from optimising the images on the site!

So how much work will this take?

Hardly any additional work! Start by writing a post with a keyword in mind. Find an appropriate image for the post. Rename it using the keyword you are targeting in the post (make sure the image has something to do with it).

So if you have a recipe site and you are writing a post about “chocolate cherry cake”, that is how you will name your image. As I said, make sure the image is actually of a chocolate cherry cake.

So let’s say you buy an image from a stock photo site. It will usually have some long un-optimised name. I often buy them from Fotolia.com and the file is usually named something like fotolia_25779433_27158621_XXL. Not even close to optimised. In this case, change the file name to “chocolate cherry cake”.

Use the same keyword as an ALT tag of the image.

It is even better to target long tail keywords with these images. They will rank even higher on search engines with no additional work apart from this basic SEO. One of the reasons is that most of the people on the internet are too lazy to do any optimisation so they simply don’t optimise their images.

Another thing you can notice when you go to Google Image Search for example, is that some more specific topics don’t bring a lot of good and targeted results. So if some of your posts (or even the whole site) are related to one of those topics, this is a great opportunity to rank your images to the top of the image results.

This is one field not many blog/site owners are in yet. I am not sure why, but that screenshot is the proof how big the image related traffic can be. Don’t miss on this opportunity and if you can’t rank great for some competitive keywords, maybe image search will be your back door way in to the top search engine rankings.

I will raise my hand and admit to either committing some of these schoolboy errors (in my early SEO days), or the lesser but more shameful offensive of being involved in letting them happen.

Almost all can be avoided. Some can have drastic Google consequences and others when avoided mean you are simply playing ball will Google and your visitors. And doesn’t it feel good when you get to shoot hoops with the ‘G’ man and he pours a little Google love your way?

School boy error. Making the most basic of simple mistakes, worthy of ridicule, particularly when you should know better. School boy error!! I just made a school boy error! He school boyed!Urban Dictionary

#1 – Linking to the same page you are optimising in the main content copy (usually with keyword rich anchor text).

This doesn’t make sense to the user and will likely start a bad vibe with Google. Google’s ‘over optimisation’ radar will be alerted, and you may receive your first ‘grey mark’ from the big ‘G’ man. Too many grey marks can result in lowered Google trust and rankings.

#2 – Linking to a page more than once in your main copy (again usually with keyword rich anchor text).

This is ok in moderation when usability prevails or an important call to action needs reinforcing but repeat offenders may lower their trust and look like a spammer if it is done solely for SEO. Potential for another grey mark from the big ‘G’ man.
— the same applies for repeated bold highlighting of text for your most important keywords. Don’t try so hard!

#3 – The bulldozer approach in ‘outbound’ link building where little variation is given to anchor text.

And where you chase the highest searched, most commercial and generic search term in your industry. This trick used to work a few years back but a more natural approach is now required.

#4 – You link to your homepage inconsistently…

If your homepage URL is http://www.seotraining.org.uk, stick to it! Don’t link to http://www.seotraining.org.uk/index.php, or http://www.seotraining.org.uk/default.aspx. Otherwise you are opening yourself up to duplicate content issues and not passing your link juice efficiently.

I am a fan of conventions. Many external sites will link to you with http://www.seotraining.org.uk especially if it resolves. So why not just stick to that instead of http://www.seotraining.org.uk/default.aspx, or http://seotraining.org.uk [web 2.0 sites are cool enough to do this]. That way, you can be sure that every time you get an external link you are getting the maximum benefit from it.

#5 – After a new website design or content management system, you (or your web developer) disallow all search engines access!

Schoolboy error 101! And Yes this happens far more often than you think… When your site goes into a testing environment [like when a new design is being developed], it’s good practice to block search engines from accessing it. The cool kids always remember to unblock this. But about 5% of the time, people aren’t that cool and forget.

Sometimes they forget for a few hours [me included here], a few days – heck, a few months! Maybe even years… Don’t be in the 5%. Always check robots control through the robots.txt file and meta tags when your gorgeous new design is ready to be unveiled. Failure to do so could result in a whole world of unimaginable SEO pain!

#6 – You only create commercial content to target the money making keywords.

Money making content is great for converting sales but they generally suck big time in attracting links and attention to your site. Links build your site’s reputation in Google which makes your money making content more powerful. So think about creating some awesome content that your industry will want to share, talk about and ultimately link to.

Stuck for ideas? How about a blog? And try not to mention your money making content too much! You intention here is to be sociable and useful.

#7 – Believing that you should write for users first and search engines second but still insisting on using a keyword density checker tool.

Put the keyword density checker down and step away from the car. That’s what the Google SEO police will say. Consideration of keyword repetition and synonyms are imporatnt but there really isn’t a keyword density sweet spot like 5% that Google looks for! Contrary to popular belief.

#8 – You nofollow all your outbound links. You’re a PageRank horder…

You may be saving some PageRank for your own site, a wincy amount but you may also alienate yourself from your online community and then miss out on the abundance of link Karma that will come back from well written content. Especially if you are nofollowing links from your blog to other bloggers. Share the love! And they will follow and love you too.

#9 – GEO targeting the wrong country…

GEO targeting with SEO in mind can be a fairly complex topic and there isn’t a ‘one shoe’ fits all approach. But if you have a country neutral domain like a .com be sure to check where your website’s IP is hosted. As search engines often use this to understand your locality. If you have a used a cheap web host in India, Google will likely pick up on the Indian scent. If so, you can override this in Google Webmaster Tools settings.

As much as you will want to “take over the world” – plan to do this in your own backyard first.

#10 – Not making the best use of your trump SEO card – the HOMEPAGE.

Why is your homepage your trump card? Well, it’s nearly always the most authoritative page on your site. It’s the page with the most external links to it, so it’s the page Google pays closest attention to and so should you!

Obviously it’s very important that you target the right keywords which are within your reach. But it’s also the PageRank Mecca, so think about how you can use that link juice to flow effectively round your site in promoting your most important pages and articles.

#11 – Duplicate content – internally is not so drastic. But external duplicate content can be a shot in the foot.

Think about your product range. Do you get it in an XML feed from your suppliers? Do you put them on an XML feed and distribute it to your resellers? If so, you might get a big Google Panda slap… This is just one example of how it’s easy to have duplicate content without ‘copying’ or having the wrong intetion. There are of course many more ways.

Why not copy a snippet sentence or two from sample pages and paste it into Google to help check for duplication. You should hopefully see your site rank #1 for the snippet. If not, you may see someone else has the same content, and is out ranking you. Not a good sign, and you should research if this is a one off or sitewide problem.

#12 – Compromising Usability with SEO.

Usability and SEO really should go hand-in-hand, like a happy couple that doesn’t argue too much. Little compromising should be the norm, just common sense of what best practices to use for both. If your users feel you have ‘sold out’ by forcing in SEO best practices, you have probably ‘over cooked’ your optimisation which is unlikely to get you any extra Google love. Just a poor user experience. The magic blend nearly always exists, and it’s easy to find once you get the hang of it.

Ok, so there are a dozen school boy errors which may result in ridicule when made by and reviewed by experienced SEO professionals. The list doesn’t stop there though. Can you help me with a few more to add to the list?

1. Start With Why

by Simon Sinek
Slogan: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action.
Highlights: High on inspiration, less on ‘how to do things’.
Twitter: Simonsinek.
Website: Start With Why.
Amazon link: Start With Why book.

Simon first inspired me through his legendary TED talk (see video below) which attracted over 3 million views. So it just made sense to read the book and boy was it a good decision. As with the other books in this list it really hit a chord with me and it’s the one I found most insightful.

Using real-life examples like Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers, and his ‘Golden Circle’ formulae, he looks at WHY some organisations and people are more successful, more innovative and have more customer loyalty. By asking one simple question:

“Why Do You Do What You Do?”Simon Sinek

He says that nearly everyone can tell you what they do, and most on how they do it but very few can truly articulate WHY they do what they do. And when they can, their inner beliefs and values can really shine through in everything they do…

“There’s no difference between customers or employees – people will either believe in what you believe and want to buy your products or they will believe in what you believe and want to work for you.”Simon Sinek

I bought the audio book for this one which is brilliantly read by the author himself. Check out the excellent TED video on ‘Start With Why’:

2. Purple Cow

by Seth Godin
Slogan: Transforming your business by being remarkable.
Highlights: High on making something outstanding. Low on ‘sameness’.
Twitter: ThisIsSethsBlog.
Website: Purple Cow.
Amazon link: Purple Cow book.

I first discovered marketing guru and prolific writer Seth through reading one of his earlier titles, ‘Permission Marketing’ which is refreshingly different on how interruption marketing no longer works in the digital age. But for me (and many will agree) ‘Purple Cow’ is his signature book and probably the most widely known on this list:

“You’re either a Purple Cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.”Seth Godin

There are many tactics to enhance a website’s visibility. But what better way than having a product that is so interesting and remarkable, that people have to tell their friends and share what you do. We are not just talking about ‘refer a friend’ but something deeper than that. In the world of online and SEO, the best way to attract attention (and backlinks) is by having some truly noticeable and unique – ‘A Purple Cow’.

An extremely useful book and the audiobook is enthusiastically read by Seth himself. Check out the video below to see how you can make your business stand out from the crowd and get the attention it deserves:

3. Don’t Make Me Think

by Steve Krug
Slogan: A common sense approach to web usability.
Highlights: High on usability being self-evident and self-explanatory, low on quantitative testing.
Twitter: SKrug.
Website: Don’t Make Me Think.
Amazon link: Don’t Make Me Think book.

Every smart SEO knows that Usability and SEO go hand-in-hand. Many say Usability comes first. And when done correctly both can coexist with minimal need to compromise. As SEOs we tend to focus on quantitative testing like tracking conversion rates and web analytics. But this book looks more at qualitative testing which is not scientific or trying to prove a point but rather trying to design a better and easier to use website by being ‘good enough’ to work as intended and with few usability roadblocks.

“Don’t make me think. It means that as far as humanly possible, when I look at a Web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory. I should be able to ‘get it’, what it is and how to use it, without expending any effort thinking about it.”Steve Krug, via Sitepoint

A great book and If you’d like to take this a step further (especially qualitative testing), I recommend Steve’s excellent second book ‘Rocket Surgery Made Easy’ which is the self-proclaimed ‘Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems’.

4. Get Some Headspace

by Andy Puddicombe
Slogan: 10 minutes can make all the difference.
Highlights: High on mediation, clarity and focus, low on ‘Ommmmm’ and Mantras.
Twitter: Andy_headspace.
Website: Get Some Headspace.
Amazon link: Get Some Headspace book.

With so much information online, it sometimes feels hard to ‘unplug’ – we get up, check our emails on our phones, then do the same on our laptops and maybe check the news. Then if we are feeling brave enough, look at our ‘to do’ list for the day and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed before the day has even started!

That’s where Get Some Headspace can help out. It’s more than just a book. In fact, the take 10 is an interactive audio guide which accompanies the book and can also be found as an iPhone app or through the website:

“Take10 minutes a day, for 10 days, to find out how a bit of Headspace makes all the difference. There’s a new, guided meditation to follow each day, help with common stumbling blocks, a personalised progress tracker and unique downloads to help you get the most out of it. “

The essence of the book, take 10 (take 10 minutes a day which can make all the difference), is a no-frills way of doing mediation and the first step to take. And something I found immediate benefits from: feeling calmer, more energised and able to focus with more clarity.

Andy is a former Buddhist monk and illustrates his leanings in a humorous, fun and easy to understand way. Where you can take or leave the religion side of things. Somewhat appealing for many in the west.

Andy’s adventures as a young monk travelling the world ensure the book is not only practical in learning mediation but very amusing too. And easy to pickup and read.

I also attended a day’s seminar on mediation with Headspace (through Groupon!). It’s hard to think how you can spend a day learning how to focus your mind and breathe. But it turns out you can, and it was interesting too. I particularly liked the ‘walking meditation’ exercises which help you be a bit more in the ‘now’ and absorb what is around you when you are out and about.

I am still in the infancy of mediation and wish to do it every day for a month (and maybe longer). But if this appeals to you and you need a no nonsense kick-start to mediation, give Get Some Headspace a try.

5. Getting Things Done

by David Allen
Slogan: How to achieve stress-free productivity.
Highlights: More about [wait for it] getting things done, less about procrastinating and worry!.
Twitter: David Allen.
Website: David Allen Co.
Amazon link: Getting Things Done.

Reading this and listening to the amusing audio book changed a lot for me. In fact, it was a lifesaver! Organisational skills have never been a strength of mine but I now feel they are no longer a weakness. And best of all ‘things’ feel much more manageable and much less stressful. Both in work and outside!

GTD is a methodology for organising ‘to-do’ lists and achieving a flow and focus to your work.

Achieving flow

“In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness: ‘mind like water.’ Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact”David Allen

He then goes on to say…

“Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your staff, your projects, your unread magazines, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or your boss will lead to less effective results than you’d like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they don’t operate with a ‘mind like water.’”David Allen

So the book is really about being better organised to take control and get into the flow of what’s most important with minimal distractions. Mind like water is great if you can find it and David Allen [and Get Some Headspace] can help you do just that. Here’s video of a talk that David Allen gives to Google – a little long but very good if it’s your type of thing.

From GTD to ZTD

As great as GTD is, I couldn’t help find it delved into the detail a bit too deep. Fortunately I found Leo Babauta’s adoption of it, which is far more palatable in the form of Zen To Done (ZTD).

“It focuses on the habit changes necessary for GTD, in a more practical way, and it focuses on doing, on simplifying, and on adding a simple structure.”Leo Babauta on ZTD

ZTD adds principles from the popular ’7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ book where Leo puts more weighting on the priorities of getting tasks done. In the form of ‘Most Important Tasks’ (MITs) for the day and the ‘Big Rocks’ for the week.

That said GTD is great and a worthy read. Your requirements for productivity will be different to mine and you can adapt as you see fit.

Tools for GTD/ZTD and achieving Flow

I have tried and tested dozen of ‘to do’ lists software. My requirements are one that allows for iPhone and online integration and allows for easy ZTD adoption. The winner after months of looking is Get Flow. Very fittingly named might I add.

6. Presentation Zen

by Garr Reynolds
Slogan: Simple ideas on presentation design and delivery.
Highlights: High on visuals, white spaces and simplicity, low on bullet points and lots of slides.
Twitter: Presentation Zen.
Website: Presentation Zen.
Amazon link: Presentation Zen book.

If you ever have to get up and present in front of people, you will know it can be a nerve-wracking experience.

Garr’s popular book simplifies presenting in a Zen-like way which will help you feel more confident and learn from the great presenters of our time like the late Steve Jobs. He focuses on the impact of visuals and storytelling. One big thing I learnt is to be more conversational when I am speaking in front of others.

7. PH Miracle

by Robert Young
Slogan: Balance your diet, reclaim your health.
Highlights: High on greens, energy and alkaline foods, low on acid forming foods and lethargy!
Twitter: PH Miracle (not active).
Website: PH Miracle Living.
Amazon link: PH Miracle book.

Ok, this is quite a strange one for the list. It’s a diet book! I wasn’t sure either but decided to include it as like exercise, your diet can have a big impact on how you feel, your ability to focus and the energy you have through the day.

And as we turn to the New Year, the PH Miracle is possibly the best detox you can do! Although the book is quite a dry read, the science behind it is truly fascinating, albeit a little hard core.

In a nutshell, the PH Miracle is about eating an alkaline diet, and balancing the PH in your body:

“The first thing we all have to realize is that our blood stream is set at an alkaline count of 7.365. The pH scale goes from 1 to 14 with 7 being neutral. Anything below 7 is acidic, and anything above is base or alkaline. Our blood, like our body temperature is set at a specific number and if it varies from that, we experience problems, just as we do if our temperature varies from 98.6.
The body therefore will go to great lengths to maintain it’s slightly alkaline fluid environment. If the body or tissues becomes too acidic, the body will tap into alkalizing buffering reserves to neutralize acidity and maintain it’s delicate balance of 7.365. Some of those alkalizing buffers would include calcium from our bones and magnesium from our muscles.”Dr. Robert Young

Unfortunately, many of the foods we enjoy are acidic. White carbs, processed foods, soft drinks and alcohol are obvious offenders. But other healthier sounding foods such as meats, some fruits, some nuts and some brown carbs are also acidic which Dr Young believes are often to blame for our declining health:

“Your health depends on the balance of an alkaline environment, created by eating foods such as tomatoes, avocados and green vegetables…striking the optimum 80/20 balance and regulating your body’s acid/alkaline chemistry through simple changes in diet can result in weight loss, increased stamina and strength, a stronger immune system and a greater sense of wellbeing”Dr. Robert Young

I am not sure I will aim for 80% alkalinity in all my meals but I plan to relook at what I eat in 2012, and try to eat more greens, starting with a fresh green juiced veggie drink in the morning, which surprisingly tastes quite nice!

Energise for Life is a great website on the alkaline diet and you can find information on what food is acidic and what is alkaline.

And here’s 3 on my reading list

1. Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography.
2. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Been too long on my list to read.
3. The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, and Rick Levine – I keep meaning to read this and here is a great review by Stuntdbl.

Have you read any of these books, and if so, how did you find them? And, what books would you recommend on a similar theme?

Guest posting –writing an article for someone else’s blog – can be a very effective way of establishing yourself as an expert in your field, and helping to market your business. Posts can seamlessly incorporate keywords to benefit the blogger’s SEO efforts, and they often generate industry discussion, get shared on social networks such as FaceBook, re-tweeted (RT) on Twitter, and linked to from other blogs.

Using the example of an online travel gear retailer, here are some ideas to help you generate great guest posts.

1. Research the guest blog
Familiarise yourself with the host blog to understand the types of blog posts that work well and who the blog’s typical readers are, then craft your article around this. Consider getting in touch with the blog owner to pitch your idea to them or, if they invite submissions, read and follow their guest blogger guidelines. For a blog about independent backpacking adventures, for example, there would be no point in blogging about the best travel accessories to pack for a package beach holiday to Mallorca.

2. Interview someone inspirational
Ray Mears might be an ideal interviewee for a guest post on ‘travel survival tips’ or ‘bushcraft’. Unfortunately, however, it’s not always easy to secure time with well-known celebrities. If your dream interviewee remains out of reach, try to find a non-celebrity industry expert instead – in this case, a survival training provider would be ideal as they could offer you top quality answers, give your article weight, and ensure it has ‘sharing’ power within the travel community. Or even better, perhaps you are the experts or celebrity in your industry?

3. Use ‘celebrity’
So, you may not have managed to secure a one-to-one interview with a top celebrity in your field, but you could still touch on the subject of celebrity to help generate interest in your post. Perhaps a celebrity has recently shopped at your travel store, or been seen using a particular product that you stock? As long as your name-dropping is honest and valid, the chances are it will add value to your guest post.

4. Break news
Anything ‘newsy’ tends to attract attention simply because it’s fresh and hasn’t been seen or read before. If you or your company has some genuine news to announce, such as becoming an exclusive supplier of an innovative new travel product line, a high profile blog can be a great platform from which to shout about it. But less commercial content tends to do better on blogs, so perhaps you can break some news that will be relevant and interesting to the bloggers readers.

5. Give your opinion
If you offer your opinion or ‘commentary’ on a topical issue that’s currently in the headlines, you might get quoted in other news stories on the subject, and your post may attract links. Controversial opinions often generate maximum publicity, but remember that you usually only want good publicity! Before you spread the word, consider the potential impact of your views on how your business is perceived, e.g. encouraging travellers to visit a destination that’s experiencing political upheaval could be deemed irresponsible. Copyblogger are the experts when it comes to magnetic headlines ideas.

6. Generate magnetic headlines
If you can stop people in their tracks with your headline alone, you’re well on your way to achieving the perfect guest post. You could tempt readers in by offering them a secret, for example: “Secrets to avoiding the world’s worst travel scams” – or ask a question to which readers will want to know the answer: “Who are the world’s best travellers?”. It does still need to be backed up with a good, solid article, however — you don’t want to disappoint readers with a weak post after reeling them in with an eye-catching headline.

7. Highlight a new trend
If you’ve spotted a new trend in your industry, whether it’s destination-focused or travel theme-focused, this can make a great hook for a post. Perhaps you have conducted an online poll or travel survey on your site, and can use the results to create an interesting post topic. E.g. 80% of travel insurance claims are made in the last 20% of a holiday.

8. Use film and TV references
References to popular culture – especially TV and film – can help you to connect with many audiences. For example, for a guest post that will be published while the X Factor TV series is running, you could write a travel blog about how “Destinations of X Factor Judges’ Houses inspire holiday searches’ – or something similar.

9. Capture ideas and incubate them for a rainy day
If you have a moment of inspiration while you’re sat on the train, or wolfing down your lunch, jot down your thoughts before you lose them – whether you use your iPhone, a MindMapping software (I use MindJet), start a rough draft post in WordPress, or scrawl it on a piece of paper to develop later.

Bonus Point. Show you care…
It’s likely the passionate blogger will already have lots of great posts. Use Google to search their site (site:theirsite.com topic keywords) for related keywords to your topic. And link to these where relevant in you guest post. And as the fairly new phrase goes ‘Sharing is Caring’, so do you bit to promote the post on sites like twitter and be sure to answer any comments that are asked afterwards.

Guest blogging is a great and natural way to gain more attention. If you have a blog, you may find you get more subscribers to it. Having a blog also makes guest blogging easier to do as there is a voice that already exists that people can connect with. Also, you will likely get a link form the blog itself, and possibly further links in the future either from the content you wrote being further referenced or by the awareness gained from the post by other key bloggers.

SEO agencies can be expensive for small and medium sized businesses, and more and more such sized companies are deciding to manage their own SEO activities in-house. Few have the luxury to treat it as a full time position and allocate it significant time and resources, meaning it can get overlooked completely for more pressing issues.

The best approach you can take is to integrate a small amount of SEO work into your day-to-day routine, fitting it in alongside all your other tasks. Committing just a few hours a week to SEO can make a real difference.

Initial ‘One-Off’ SEO Work

As a starting point, spend an hour a day or a few hours a week getting to grips with improving your website’s content to make sure its well-optimised. This includes conducting thorough keyword research and understanding who your customers are. Add unique title tags on every page, and incorporate chosen keywords into the body copy and other key elements – jobs that once complete will boost your SEO and only need to be reviewed every three to six months.

Ongoing SEO Work

If you’re grabbing lunch at your desk, spend some time browsing the latest SEO blogs to stay up to date with the latest trends and pick up useful pointers to implement on your website. We have compiled a list of a dozen or so blogs to help you do this here: http://bitly.com/seot.

The ongoing SEO work that has the greatest impact, however, is building or attracting links to your site and, once you start doing this well, there’s no room for complacency: you must keep at it to keep progressing.

There are plenty of online articles that cover link-building tactics such as submitting to relevant directory sites; publishing online PR to press release aggregate sites; or encouraging exposure of your business or its activities regularly in industry relevant blogs. Remember that what Google values the most is earned links – and these are achieved when you publish outstanding content that people just want to link to, whether it’s from their blog, Twitter feed, a newspaper site, or so on. Include keywords to help drive targeted traffic to your website. Few SEO tactics will prove more effective than publishing awesome content that genuinely stimulates discussion and creates a buzz within your industry.

By publishing a regular blog, you also show search engines that your website content changes frequently. Google’s recently announced the “Freshness update” which marks a significant change to its search ranking algorithm, and experts believe this will affect around 35% of searches. Google tries to decide when a query should prioritise “fresher” (up-to-date) search results over older articles.  The ‘Olympics’ have been widely used to illustrate this, as Google would conclude that most people searching on this term will be more satisfied with results about London 2012, rather than about older Olympic Games. The potential impact of this Freshness update makes it all the more important to consistently publish up-to-date, high quality content on a regular basis.

Building momentum with your SEO efforts

There’s no quick fix when it comes to SEO, and the best way to gain momentum is to keep taking small steps. Don’t get hung up on knowing everything and getting it perfect right from the beginning, or you just might find you never really get started!

If like me, you probably check your most important keyword rankings on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes Google likes to personalise the results it returns based on sites you have previously visited. Resulting in your site or any site you regularly visit appearing higher for you than it would for others. A nice touch at times but a tad frustrating and perhaps misleading when you want to check how your SEO is truly doing.

Until recently, I overcame this by using a separate browser that I only used for checking rankings. I used Internet Explorer for this and ensured the cache and history had been cleared. This worked well but I recently found a better and quicker way and wanted to share, thanks to Przemek Hocke from New Bamboo. He suggested I stuck to my regular browser and used private browsing instead:

Private Browsing

Chrome

Longcut: Click the Wrench -> New incognito window.
Shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + N

FireFox

Longcut: Select Tools -> Start Private Browsing.
Shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + P

Internet Explorer

Longcut: Select Tools -> InPrivate Browsing.
Shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + P

Now you can check your ‘true’ rankings without changing browser, or clearing your cache/history. Just flip on private browsing and you are away!

Update: If you are signed into a Google account, make sure you sign out as well.

In fact, this is something I was asked just the other day. And my answer is a resounding ‘Yes‘. Well, kinda resounding and the good news is it’s not as shifty as it sounds .

And for the newer folks to SEO, let’s look at a few reasons why DMOZ is a great place to be listed.

• Strong editorial guidelines - this is a bit of a double-edged sword. Good because the DMOZ editors are selective and search engines trust their choices. And bad because editors can be picky and legitimate worthy sites struggle to get selected or reviewed.
• Google used it as its own directory - until recently Google used DMOZ as its own directory. With the Google Panda update earlier into the year there was a crackdown on duplicate content offenders, so this may explain why Google no longer scrapes DMOZ content. Whatever the reason it is still compelling evidence that Google has rated the directory highly and I believe still does.
• It’s free - and one of the rare free directories that actually pass SEO value.
• It’s the best – ok, this one is a bit subjective and vague. While Yahoo is not far behind it will sting you with a $300 / year fee.  You may find more worthwhile directories relevant to your niche that can bring in more qualified traffic and sales. Or by being niche they may pass more SEO value. But as generic directories go, I believe DMOZ is still the leader and will be for some time.

The Backdoor Way

Perhaps not really a backdoor way but only because it’s completely legitimate! There are really two ways of finding appropriate DMOZ categories to submit to, the most obvious and probably the best is by finding the most topical page relevant to your business:

Topical

e.g. Top: Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: Business and Economy: Computers and Internet: Internet: Site Promotion: Search Engine Optimization Firms

The way this site is listed on DMOZ.

This is often the most useful approach for DMOZ users and most relevant for your SEO, but you will not always find you are accepted this way. Assuming your site is respectable and worthy for inclusion you may struggle to get listed because there isn’t an active editor or the editor is overloaded for your category. And I am being speculative here but your very important submission may have just got lost in the post! So it can come down to luck.

But wait, there is another way. Maybe not quite as relevant but the biggest goal is getting that trusted link and gaining exposure from DMOZ. It’s by drilling down deeper to where the location of your business is located. And then trying to find a relevant page within the location / region. You will find the relevancy drops off a bit. But from my experience it has a higher success rate of submission. It is logical to think that organising DMOZ editors by regions is easier than topics which may explain the higher success rate.

Regional [ the backdoor ]

e.g.Top: Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: England: London: City of London: Business and Economy: Computers and Internet

It’s really important that the location of where you select can be easily found on your website as this will be one of the first things the DMOZ editor checks if you take this route. In the above example we have selected ‘London City’ because our registered address on our website is in London Bridge/Borough.

Word of warning: Do not to submit your site to regularly. It’s quite possible your latest submission will overwrite your previous one and DMOZ will order sites to review by submission date. Meaning your repeated submission will get pushed to the bottom. If it doesn’t work like this (and I really don’t know how it does),  multiple submissions will likely seem like SPAM, which will annoy editors and perhaps delay or even result in your submission being overlooked completely. It also helps when sites  look professional and ‘complete’.

My advice is too go for the topical option first and to look for a category that does not have too many listings if possible. Hopefully its included within a couple of weeks. If not, set a reminder in your calendar to check back in about three month’s time and if it’s still not listed, go for the regional option. This recently worked for a company I trained and they had been waiting for 8 years!

Best of luck.

Every company aspires to appear at the top of the search results for its chosen search terms but to write effective SEO copy you have to strike the right balance: on the one hand, you need to create copy that your target audience will want to read and can relate to; and on the other hand, you need to incorporate keywords and phrases that search engines can pick up on to help you appear in relevant search results.

Achieving this balance is easier said than done. You want to end up with well-researched and well-written content that engages your audience and helps build up your reputation, creates trust, and gets people to buy your product or services – or it’s just not worth the investment.

Since the Panda updates, Google is taking a firmer stance on web content than ever before, and poorly composed copy will raise alarm bells. Badly constructed sentences and repetitive text is equally off-putting for human readers, and it wasn’t long ago that the BBC reported that “spelling mistakes cost millions in lost online sales“.

Writing SEO copy in-house

Your own team knows your target audiences and your company’s products or services better than any external copywriter or SEO agency, so ideally you will create your company’s web content in-house. The keyword research you carry out for your key commercial pages needs to be closely aligned with your business objectives, and you are the best people to know what these are. Once you’ve decided on the keywords, it makes sense for you to then be involved in using these to optimise the copy.

If your in-house team lacks the skill or the confidence to create SEO copy, however, you have two options: you can book in-house training to get your team up to speed, or consider outsourcing your SEO copywriting work.

Outsourcing SEO copywriting

Once you outsource SEO copywriting you inevitably lose some control;  even if you provide a tight brief and a list of required keywords, the external copywriter’s style will influence the overall tone of voice, and the amount of impact the words have on readers. If the copywriter does not know your company inside out, their copy might not provide a perfect fit. And if you try to retain too much control, you could end up spoon-feeding the copywriter and doing the majority of the work yourself – which defeats the purpose of outsourcing it.

Outsourcing can work particularly well, however, if you have already written your key commercial content in-house but decide you want someone to write some additional regular content – such as blogs or articles – to keep your website fresh and up-to-date – which is becoming ever more important with Google’s recent freshness algorithm update . For this kind of job, you could start your search for copywriting skills at sites such as www.contentnow.co.uk, www.odesk.com and www.copify.com – but remember that the chances are you will never speak directly to the person who writes your content. Make sure that the company or individual you choose has decent quality control measures in place to ensure that every piece of content is proofread and polished when it reaches you – preferably with one team carrying out the research and writing, and a separate team dealing with the proofreading. And it is also very useful to see samples of work produced by the copywriter being reviewed.

Fees for content writing vary dramatically, with some writers promising to deliver a blog post of several hundred words for as little as a few pounds. Don’t simply choose the cheapest source of content you can find – as with all services, you will generally find that you get what you pay for. Good quality content costs money – but you can expect to get a return on the investment. Cutting corners (or budget) will leave you with half-baked content that no one wants to read, and that’s unlikely to achieve any of your business objectives whether that’s bringing in potential customers or attracting links for SEO.

SEO blogs and topical articles

SEO copywriting can work very effectively in blogs and articles, particularly if the chosen copywriter (whether in-house, or external) is well-established as an expert in your field, and has a wealth of knowledge that other people in your industry are keen to absorb. Not only will this type of writer attract a good following on Twitter, LinkedIn and other relevant social networks, but their blogs will be valuable enough for followers to share to wider circles – whether through ReTweets, or inlinks to the article from their own website or blog.

If you have a suitable writer in-house, they could also offer to write topical guest blogs for other industry websites. Their author biography would include a link to your company website, again helping to raise its profile and establish you as industry experts. This can work really well for getting your name out there and boosting your search engine link popularity power.

If you don’t have anyone in-house with the kind of profile to achieve this, you could consider inviting (or paying) a guest blogger from the industry to write regular articles for you. They will benefit from using your company as an additional platform to show off their expertise, and you will benefit from an association with a well-known industry expert. Which can attract a lot of buzz and interest from the big search engines.

I hope you find this article interesting, and as always comments are always welcome .

Maybe it’s remembering a loved one’s birthday or visiting the doctor. Important things that you don’t want to miss.

How about backing up your website? Or backing up your livelihood or your passion?

If like me, you have a WordPress website that you care about then the number one thing to do is back it up regularly. Do you do this daily, weekly, monthly or ever?

I don’t wish to scare you but a friend of mine recently lost a big chunk of their website through lack of regular backups which is of course a soul destroying process. Things do go wrong, things do get deleted and web hosts can fail.

Here are two important backup considerations:

• you need to backup physical files that make up you site’s template, theme and plugins.
• you need to backup your database which is where all the content is stored and how it’s all connected. This is your prized asset, so be sure to protect it!

Now, lets look at four backup solutions to give you a little more peace of mind:

1. WP-DBManager and FTP

This is one of the most popular methods with bloggers and small businesses alike. It’s also completely free! But it does require some manual backing up and storing of files somewhere safe. Simply install the WP-DBManager WordPress plugin, get FTP details to connect to you web host and choose your FTP software such as the equally popular and free FileZilla.

2. VaultPress

If you don’t like the idea of manual backups and do like the idea of automation with added security and multiple cloud sever backups then VaultPress may be for you. Created by the makers of WordPress but it does come at a premium price. Although a very slick solution which is popular with serious bloggers and businesses.

3. Use your web hosting Control Panel

This is the tried and tested approach which I have personally used for years. I use Cpanel to backup the physical files and database in one click. Like the first option, to be extra sure of the backup you will need to make a copy of the backup somewhere other than your web host e.g. locally or hosted somewhere else.

4. Automatic WordPress Backup with Amazon S3 Cloud

The Automatic WordPress Backup free plugin looks really slick and something I am currently piloting. You need to sign up for Amazon S3 cloud hosting but this is very economical as you only pay for the bandwidth you use. And the plug ‘n’ play means it’s a breeze to setup. Best of all you are safe in the knowledge that there is an automated backup of your site hosted safely with Amazon and not just on your web host.

It backs up both your database file and physical files in one automated swoop. And here’s a handy video by WordPress Backup showing you what you need to do:

For more backup options be sure to checkout WordPress’ backup guide. And here’s how you re-install your database through phpMyAdmin/Cpanel.

Hope this helps some folks protect the fruits of your labour!

Update: I have missed perhaps the simplest way of backing up your data. It’s using the WordPress Tools Exporter which exists by default in WordPress. This backs up your WordPress data in a couple of clicks. It’s manual process so be sure to save it somewhere safe and also save your physical files separately using something like FTP.

Since Google’s recent Panda update, many article sites have become less valuable than they were in the past – because Google regards the majority of their content to be duplicate or of low value. Many article sites are now trying to change this by only publishing expertly-written content – which makes it even more important that companies focus on writing punchy, original and genuinely useful articles that are more likely to generate a lot of interest.

With the current economy, many advertising budgets are being pared down, so the popularity of free article marketing remains high. But with so many article submission sites out there, and countless new articles being added every minute, how do you make sure yours stands out from the crowd?

Focus on quality over quantity

Use your expertise to write niche articles on subjects that relate to your website, sharing tips, advice, or opinions that will be genuinely useful to the people you are hoping to reach. This will help to build up your reputation as a trusted author.

Be wary of using article-generating software or employing an article rewriter (“spinning”) who takes an original piece and changes it slightly to create several different versions. Article promotion is only truly effective when people read your article and want to take inspiration and talk about it on their website, link to it, or share it with their Twitter followers (or within other social media networks). If your articles don’t say anything of value, no one will want to use them.

A single good article that attracts lots of links and Twitter shares can have a far greater impact than several mediocre articles that never appear anywhere other than where you originally posted them. It’s fine to include relevant keywords (it would be difficult not to when you’re writing about a topic that’s closely related to your business!), but don’t stuff your article full of them at the expense of good copy.

Create an attention-grabbing title

Your article’s title and introductory paragraph can make or break it. Make sure the title or headline is relevant, catchy and informative, and that the introductory paragraph draws in the reader and gives them an outline of what the rest of the article covers.

Aim to create the snowball effect

Your articles need to generate interest and stimulate debate, ideally outside of the immediate circles of the article sites. This happens when content is exceptional, and prompts readers to ‘share’ your article elsewhere – be it with Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or via LinkdIN and any other social networks to which they belong – immediately multiplying the number of potential readers, and letting other people do the promotion for you.

Choose your article submission sites carefully

Concentrate your efforts on submitting the article to no more than two or three of the most appropriate and effective article directories. Make sure the sites you submit to are “Do follow” sites – that is, they do not use “No follow tags”. When you include a link to your website from an article on a “Do follow” site, it influences (and should boost) you website’s Page Ranking. “Nofollow” sites, on the other hand, tell search engines that your hyperlink should not influence your link target’s ranking. “Do follow” sites include squidoo.com, ezinearticles.com, hubpages.com and buzzle.com.

Include a link to your website in the appropriate place

Make sure you include a link to your company’s website or personal blog. You want readers to know who is behind the article.
Often this link will need to appear in the ‘Author Bio’ box, because links in this section are ‘followed’ – whereas those in the main article copy are often not. This is worth checking on each individual article site, however – because there are some such as Squidoo and Hub Pages which do allow “dofollow” links in the main article copy as well.

Do your bit to promote the article, too

While the best case scenario is that your article is shared and linked to by other people who have read and enjoyed it, you also need to do your bit to promote your own article. Post it on your Twitter feed, your business’s Facebook page, and any other relevant social media networks. It may just get picked up there and shared more widely as well.

Like many other link building tactics the key is not to over-rely on any one. Think about mixing things up with your articles and adding to your overall backlink profile. Remeber there are some really interesting social article sites like Squidoo and Hub Pages that let you add social elements like Flickr images and YouTube videos.

This makes them fun to create, fun to read and fun to share which can really help boost your SEO.

Flickr credit: adc

P.S. You may like to read this 2006 blog post by Google’s Matt Cutts highlighting the importance of writing useful articles that readers will love which applies to both article marketing and blog posting.