Wednesday, July 1, 2009
SEO- the upside of online marketing in a down economy
As the pinch of the current financial situation takes hold, many businesses will be
trimming costs, and unfortunately these are often valuable marketing strategies.
In terms of search marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) is often the cost that's cut as it's believed that benefits take longer to realize - few quick wins.
However, dumping SEO can mean forgoing a great cheap growth opportunity.
If you're one of the businesses re-evaluating the future of your SEO strategy, please consider the following before making your decision:
1. Ongoing Value.
The value of SEO continues well after the optimization has finished. Unlike other marketing, where the value diminishes quickly after a campaign, SEO continues to generate results.
2. Traffic is free.
While we are strong advocates of PPC (fast, guaranteed, qualified traffic), it does cost for each visitor you receive. You stop paying, and your traffic stops. SEO on the other hand provides free traffic, so your costs are easier to control.
3. Against the trend
While other businesses shy away from SEO, it's a great chance for businesses to capitalise on marginally lower competition. It could help generate quicker results.
4. Untapped Opportunities
There are still many untapped niches in terms of SEO, especially within localised and specialist industry segments. Again this offers great growth opportunities for smart business operators.
5. Leverage the trend online
Consumers are being more frugal with their spending and the online space is where they're doing their comparison shopping. It's vital for your business to be in their consideration set, which is why SEO is critical. Google is where the comparison shopping begins, and where you need to be found!
Given the above benefits and the fact it's much cheaper than other online marketing initiatives, it's seem logical that SEO should remain in your marketing plan.
If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.
trimming costs, and unfortunately these are often valuable marketing strategies.
In terms of search marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) is often the cost that's cut as it's believed that benefits take longer to realize - few quick wins.
However, dumping SEO can mean forgoing a great cheap growth opportunity.
If you're one of the businesses re-evaluating the future of your SEO strategy, please consider the following before making your decision:
1. Ongoing Value.
The value of SEO continues well after the optimization has finished. Unlike other marketing, where the value diminishes quickly after a campaign, SEO continues to generate results.
2. Traffic is free.
While we are strong advocates of PPC (fast, guaranteed, qualified traffic), it does cost for each visitor you receive. You stop paying, and your traffic stops. SEO on the other hand provides free traffic, so your costs are easier to control.
3. Against the trend
While other businesses shy away from SEO, it's a great chance for businesses to capitalise on marginally lower competition. It could help generate quicker results.
4. Untapped Opportunities
There are still many untapped niches in terms of SEO, especially within localised and specialist industry segments. Again this offers great growth opportunities for smart business operators.
5. Leverage the trend online
Consumers are being more frugal with their spending and the online space is where they're doing their comparison shopping. It's vital for your business to be in their consideration set, which is why SEO is critical. Google is where the comparison shopping begins, and where you need to be found!
Given the above benefits and the fact it's much cheaper than other online marketing initiatives, it's seem logical that SEO should remain in your marketing plan.
If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.
Labels: search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Marketing, SEO Services
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, July 01, 2009
0 Comments
Links to this post
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tips to avoid duplicate content penalties on Google
Webmasters need to be careful of the penalties search engines place on websites that use duplicate webpage content.
Duplicate content occurs when two websites display identical or very similar content on any number of pages.
This can happen when one website copies the content of a competitor or even when webmasters host the same content across a range of different domains.
Search engines penalise websites with duplicate content, as they don’t want the same information appearing more than once in any search query.
Nobody can be certain of the exact penalties that are applied (which can be as harsh as removal from the search index) but one thing is for sure, they will harm your rankings and traffic.
According to the Google webmaster blog, Google first looks to filter out pages with duplicate content and list only the first version, and only penalizes sites if they perceive a deliberate attempt to manipulate rankings.
The Google webmaster blog shares a range of ways webmasters can proactively address duplicate content issues, some of which Dr Search highlights below:
Block appropriately: Rather than letting search engines determine the “best” version of a document, you may wish to guide them to your preferred version. For instance, if you don’t want them to index the print friendly versions of your site’s articles, disallow those directories in your robots.txt file.
Use 301s: If you have restructured your site, use 301 redirects to smartly redirect users and search engine spiders.
Be consistent: Endeavour to keep your internal linking consistent; for example always link to your homepage using example.com instead of example.com/index.html
Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article.
Use the preferred domain feature of Google webmaster tools: If other sites link to yours using both the www and non-www version of your URLs, let Google know which way you prefer your site to be listed using the preferred domain feature.
As a final word, don’t worry too much about sites that republish your content without permission, as it’s highly unlikely that these sites can negatively impact your ranking.
Take notice of these Google tips and you can be confident knowing you’ve taken a proactive approach to avoiding duplicate content issues.
Duplicate content occurs when two websites display identical or very similar content on any number of pages.
This can happen when one website copies the content of a competitor or even when webmasters host the same content across a range of different domains.
Search engines penalise websites with duplicate content, as they don’t want the same information appearing more than once in any search query.
Nobody can be certain of the exact penalties that are applied (which can be as harsh as removal from the search index) but one thing is for sure, they will harm your rankings and traffic.
According to the Google webmaster blog, Google first looks to filter out pages with duplicate content and list only the first version, and only penalizes sites if they perceive a deliberate attempt to manipulate rankings.
The Google webmaster blog shares a range of ways webmasters can proactively address duplicate content issues, some of which Dr Search highlights below:
Block appropriately: Rather than letting search engines determine the “best” version of a document, you may wish to guide them to your preferred version. For instance, if you don’t want them to index the print friendly versions of your site’s articles, disallow those directories in your robots.txt file.
Use 301s: If you have restructured your site, use 301 redirects to smartly redirect users and search engine spiders.
Be consistent: Endeavour to keep your internal linking consistent; for example always link to your homepage using example.com instead of example.com/index.html
Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article.
Use the preferred domain feature of Google webmaster tools: If other sites link to yours using both the www and non-www version of your URLs, let Google know which way you prefer your site to be listed using the preferred domain feature.
As a final word, don’t worry too much about sites that republish your content without permission, as it’s highly unlikely that these sites can negatively impact your ranking.
Take notice of these Google tips and you can be confident knowing you’ve taken a proactive approach to avoiding duplicate content issues.
Labels: Dr Search, Google, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, June 29, 2009
0 Comments
Links to this post
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
