Hey Guys!
Great news – hot off the press – Google Real Time has now gone live! View visits to your site as and when they are happening! Fantastic update from Google! A little geeky but VERY excited about this! What are you waiting for? Get logged on and view your real time visits now!!!!
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation Tags:
Hey SEOers!
Today I’m going to talk about 404 error pages – we’ve all come across them but not all of us know the best way of dealing with them!
So basically, you delete a page from your website, but that URL doesn’t simply disappear – it creates a 404 error page which is still crawlable by the search engines. 404 error pages are not great for SEO – they are still crawlable by Google, could show up in search results pages and too many 404′s on a site can make it look incomplete and spammy. Not to mention the lost page rank.
What you have to do is get to know your 301 redirects VERY well! Because all your 404 pages need to be redirected.
Do I redirect all my 404 error pages back to my root homepage?
No – if you have a large amount of 404′d pages, directing them all back to your homepage will look unnatural. The best thing to do is redirect them back to the most appropriate page of your site. If there is no relevant page then you can use the homepage to redirect it to.
Benefits:
Everytime a 404 error page is created, get in the habit of redirecting them – this way you don’t have a massive job on your hands 2 months down the line!
I hope you found this useful! Happy 301ing!
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Great video from Google’s Matt Cutts on how to move your website to a new domain name:
Categories: Website Stuff! Tags:
Hey SEOer’s and welcome to today’s blog!
Here is a fantastic inforgraphic from Brafton which explains very clearly the benefits of good quality content when it comes to search. Guys – also great points about how social media assists in search results. Especially take note of ‘twitter helps content get indexed faster’ and Google + is set to be a ranking factor in the future – Click on the image to get a bigger picture:
Once again, I hope you’ve found this useful – feel free to leave feedback good or bad!
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation Tags:
Hey guys!
Just an update to my previous entry where I touched on <rel=canonical> – here is an in depth look at the canonical tag and how it can be used on site to combat content duplication issues:
Ok, say for example you have an ecommerce site selling fashion clothing – www.indigofashionclothing.com
You may have a page on this site which sells shirts – www.indigofashionclothing.com/shirts
You may also have a page which specifies gender – so ‘mens shirts’ – www.indigofashionclothing.com/mensshirts
Finally, you might have a ‘print page’ which again would generate a different url – www.indigofashionclothing.com/print/shirts
All 3 pages have the exact same content which creates an internal duplication issue.
How to solve this?
What you want to do is tell the search engines that all 3 pages should be considered as one and the rel=”canonical” tag does just that.
How?
Place the following tag within the <head> tag (same place as your title tag and meta description) in the html code of the duplicate pages. Obviously replace the url with the correct one – not my example one!
<link rel="canonical" href="www.indigofashionclothing.com/shirts" />
This then gives the instruction to the search engines that all the duplicate pages should be treated as the same page and eliminates your duplicate page/content issue. Happy days!
I hope this post has been useful – good luck with your canonicalization! 
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation Tags:
Hey Guys!
Sorry for the uber lateness of this blog post – here’s just a quick post about the panda updates or as I call it ‘Panda Gate’!
I have seen alot of sites recently that have started to lose significant amounts of longtail traffic. Generally, from what I can summise this is due to panda algorithmic updates that are filtering out sites/pages for the following reasons:
So, how to regain rankings and traffic…??
What you have to do is make relevant changes so that next time Google visits your site it reassess your sites value and places you higher up in the rankings:
As always folks, hope you find this useful and speak to you soooon!
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation Tags:
Hey Guys! 
Today I’m going to talk about how to drive rankings & traffic to your site using methods other than link building!
Ok, so you might be page 1 for the search term ‘BMW car leasing’ but how do you get more traffic to your site through other keyphrases? How do you rank for MORE phrases? Follow the tried and tested, simple techniques below and wait to see the results!
To summarise, if your site has fantastic content then it will get linked to naturally anyway – helping to boost your overall rankings. Also, the more content you have on your site, the more phrases Google will associate your site with and therefore will start ranking you for a broader span of phrases, in return driving more traffic to your site. Good luck & happy writing!
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Happy Friday campers!!!
Today I am going to talk about WordPress & discuss as a newbie WordPresser the pro’s, con’s & pitfalls that I have come across so far, which may help those of you out there who are experiencing the same issues that I have come across.
Ok, so first of all, know the difference between WordPress.com & WordPress.org before signing up!
This was my first pitfall – I assumed that WordPress was just WordPress and didn’t realise there were 2 different types. I signed up to WordPress.com, paid for my mapped domain and then realised *shock horror* that I couldn’t install plug ins or run ads on my page!
This caused 3 major issues for me:
Also, be aware – if you want to change your text font, CSS code or other cool stuff to make your blog appear more aesthetically pleasing, you have to pay – aorund $30 per upgrade.
Had I realised all this before I set out, I would have definately chosen the more all singing, all dancing WordPress.org version.
That being said – WordPress.com is very easy to use and you can easily create a professional looking blog with no development skills needed.
For a full run down of the differences between the 2 sites click here
Hosting:
If you choose to buy and map a domain via WordPress.com or set up a WordPress.org site, you will need to find WordPress friendly hosting.
I use bluehost – once you set up your bluehost account, you are also provided with full ftp access and can easily visit the control panel to install the WordPress application. Once you have done this you will be sent a new log in URL for WordPress and you can manage your blog on the same platform as before. Simples!
Bluehost allows you to host an unlimited amount of domains – just be aware that each time you want to host a WordPress site you have to reinstall the WordPress app!
Comments on this topic are very welcome guys – so if you have any tips or want to add anything to my spiel feel free!
Also – if anyone has knowledge of how to upload plugins via ftp for WordPress.org I would love to hear from you!
Happy blogging, friends!
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation Tags:
Hey Guys!! 
Today I’m going to talk about the Google +1 button. Google +1 is pretty old news now in the ever evolving world of the internet, but it is still not as mainstream as other social media platforms like facebook or twitter so figured it’s worth a mention!
For those of you who don’t know the low down on Google +1 here it is:
Google have launched a new social platform called Google +. Just like facebook, you can add friends, post comments & do a whole range of other stuff including +1′ing other folks sites that you happen to quite like.
The +1 button works in a very simillar way to a facebook ‘like’ acting as a vote of trust from one person to the rest of the web. The more +1′s you get on your site -yep you guessed it – the more trustworthy your site appears to users everywhere on the internet. Great right? To +1 someone elses site you do however need a Google account.
If you want a +1 button on your website simply click here for the code!
Oh…and the extra buzz?? Google will probably start to use this as a ranking factor in the future as social media recommendations become more prominent in the world of SEO!
Happy +1′ing!
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Hey there fellow SEOers and welcome to my blog! Today I am going to talk about the power of the title tag!
This post covers SEO basics and is directed at newbie SEO’s or businesses trying to run their own SEO campaigns.
So, why is it so important to optimise the title tag?
What makes a good title tag?
Should you use your company name in the title tag?
Generally, most businesses have their company name in the domain name so there is no need to inlcude this in the meta title tag. Using the company name in the title tag uses up precious keyword space so avoid where possible. If you really want to include your company name – use it at the end of the tag.
Strategy:
Ok, so we’ve covered the basic principles ,so now how do you go about strategising your title tags?
You may not want to rank your homepage for these very specific items so you should think about more general phrases for the homepage like this:
Fishing Tackle, Fishing Equipment, Fishing Rods, Fishing Reels
Next, start to optimise your internal page title tags. The categories mentioned above should be optimised appropriately for the products found on the page.
Calls to Action:
Help stand out from the crowd and encourage a higher click through rate by using a call to action in your title tag. If you have a promotion running try using this in the title tag. For instance if one of your products has a 20% discount you could change the title tag to the following:
SALE – Fishing Rods 20% Discount
So, now you have all the tips on how to write great title tags! Good luck & happy writing!
Thanks for reading – see you all soon!
Categories: Search Engine Optimisation Tags:
