Search Clinic Blog news stories about online marketing

Online Marketing cost guide by Dr Search. Although we at the Search Clinic are pretty open about our services- both what we offer and how much it's going to cost you, when we found this recent post at INeedHits we thought that we would repeat it as a third party independent guide for your benefit.

Whether you’re just starting out, or re-evaluating your website strategy, it’s important for you to get your plan and budget right.

The rule “Build it and they will come” rarely works in the online space. For you to be successful with your website marketing strategy – you need to have a solid plan and be realistic about the real costs of doing it properly.

Too many business owners spend £1000’s on getting a fancy website developed, only to find they have no money left to promote it.

One of our sales guys uses this analogy
“It’s like building a shopping mall in the desert. Without the budget to promote it – who’s going to find it?”

So to help you get your website design and marketing budget right – here’s a quick guide to what you need and the approximate costs to do it properly.

The development of a website has many variables. Accordingly the costs can vary significantly depending on factors such as whether its static or dynamic, whether it includes a shopping cart, is the design bespoke or templated etc, etc, etc.

The reality is that websites can vary from £1000 – £50,000, and 90% of the time, you get what you pay for.

If it’s really cheap, it’s likely that there won’t be much functionality and it’ll use a template. The flip side of that is that if it’s too expensive – ask yourself whether you “really” need all the bells and whistles.

And most importantly – shop around. Draft a detailed requirements document and then check with a few website designers/developers to get the best price.

Also, don’t forget to budget for hosting and maintenance. Websites need to be updated in terms of content and systems (e.g. cms) regularly, and without hosting - you wont appear anywhere.

The simple truth is that the majority of website traffic comes from search engines and directories. Most of our clients see upwards of 60% of traffic coming from search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. While the organic search engine traffic is free (no click costs), you do need to invest in a professional SEO program to ensure you’re maximizing this free search engine traffic.

SEO campaigns again vary significantly. To hire an industry leading SEO consultant can cost as much as $1000 per hour.

Here’s a guide on SEO pricing that Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz posted 2 years ago. As you can imagine – prices have grown since then…but it serves as a guide for the premium end of the scale:

Professional SEO is an investment. If you’re in business for the long haul, you’d be crazy not to allocate a decent proportion of your initial online budget on SEO – (or if your budget is tight, then study hard and invest the many hours needed to do it yourself).

To get started with an SEO campaign (fully managed by an experienced SEO professional) that’s going to generate serious ranking and traffic results – you should be looking to pay at least £500 per month - minimum.

As with all things, you’re probably looking for some quick wins in terms of traffic and results from your website. This is where PPC (pay per click) Search Engine Advertising (e.g. Google AdWords) helps.

With a well setup Google AdWords campaign, you can have highly targeted visitors delivered to your website almost instantly. It’s a great way to ensure you’re still getting a return on your website investment while your SEO and other strategies take effect.

Professional PPC campaigns, depending on your industry and how much traffic you need, can cost as little as $200 per month and the sky is the limit. But be aware that with cheaper campaigns, you’ll find most of your investment is going into the setup and management – rather than the media (click costs) – which makes it hard to generate decent ROI.

A serious PPC campaign for a small business should start at approx £500…and depending on your goals – go up from there.

Affiliate marketing is a very cost effective way of generating traffic for your website. With most affiliate networks offering CPA models (cost per acquisition) – it allows you to generate traffic that you only pay for when the visitor converts (makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, submits a query).

The challenge with affiliate networks is that they take time to be effective and the best networks are often very selective as to who they promote.

Most decent networks will charge a small set up fee ($500-1000 upwards) and then take a commission on every sale or acquisition. Some of the larger ones will also charge a monthly management fees to help you optimize your campaigns.

Most publishers will be looking for between 10% - 30% commission on sales, or a decent bonus for lead/enquiry based programs.

There’s a range of other website promotion opportunities such as Social Media, Email marketing and Ad Networks.

With Social Media, it’s definitely an area that small businesses should be getting involved with, but remember; it’s not a fit for every business and Social media is like SEO - it’s an investment and normally takes a while to generate good results.

There are plenty of other ways to drive more traffic to your site, but in reality – the areas mentioned above will be your main traffic sources.

So with that in mind – you can now get a much clearer and more realistic picture of what it costs to get serious results online. Even if we use the lower end of these costs as a guide, small business owners should be looking at

Now that’s only a starting guide, and as I’ve mentioned previously - the cheapest options aren’t always the best in terms of results and generating good ROI.

So if you’re starting a new website project - you can see there’s more to consider than just the website design costs. If you want your new website in 2010 to be a success - be realistic when doing your planning and budgeting!

Increasing the external links to your website is one of the most important elements of a successful optimization strategy. 

They can boost your rankings in the search results, drive traffic, and increase your presence across the Web. But securing external links can be a challenge. That’s why it’s important to explore every opportunity to acquire them.

Standout B2B websites are usually brimming with great content, including lead generating materials such as whitepapers, articles, and case studies. 

Because this type of content generally includes interesting and useful facts or best practices, a target audience is likely to share the information via email, blogs, and forums. Given that, such content represents considerable opportunity to generate external links via proper online citation.

But despite the valuable time and resources spent on developing great content, it often doesn’t get the chance to fully live up to its potential to create external linking opportunities. Why? 

Because more often than not, little thought is put into making sure that the website gets cited when the content is shared online. In fact, many marketers simply assume that when someone cites their content, they also automatically link to the website. Unfortunately, that is not the case. As a result, many marketers are missing the opportunity to leverage their content to secure valuable external links.

For example, let’s say that a consumer research firm publishes a whitepaper about shopping trends by the day of the week. The document is emailed to existing clients, who then copy and paste key callouts in emails to their colleagues, quote the whitepaper in their blogs, comment on other blogs with snippets, and mention it at a meeting, prompting others to search for it.

Obviously, the content succeeded in engaging the target, and it was shared amongst many potential customers. 

However, there is nothing to confirm that the interest generated resulted in a single link back to the firm’s website. If the firm were using some type of proactive method to ensure citation, they may have increased their external links. Instead, the lack of attention to SEO-friendly citation translates into a huge missed opportunity to increase their link credibility for search.

To effectively leverage your content for external links, you need to ensure that your shared content is accompanied by a link – even when it’s just snippets. But keep in mind that generating external links through online citation is not the responsibility of your visitors. 

After all, even if they do link back to you, they may not do so in an SEO-friendly way. Given that, automating the online citation process may yield the best results. Below are a few tools that will help ensure you receive proper online citation and net external links when visitors share, post, or copy and paste your content:

   1. Social Bookmarking – An old favorite, social bookmarking widgets have evolved to encompass nearly every social media platform and network available – from Facebook and Twitter to more niche sites such as Slashdot and Sphinn. These widgets are commonly customizable to match the aesthetic of your website and the platforms you prefer, and are easily implemented with the code generated by the provider. 

Many of the most popular social bookmarking widgets are free, and some come packaged with analytics to track click-throughs. My personal favorite is Social Twist’s Tell a Friend, whose tabbed format offers social bookmarking, blogging, social networking, email, and IM options.

   2. Site-Hosted jQuery Script – Search and Share, a jQuery script for your website, takes automated citation to the next level. Recognizing that when visitors highlight your content they’re most likely interested in sharing it with others, Search and Share automatically provides sharing options when text on your site is highlighted. In addition, the script embeds the source page’s title and URL when the content is shared — even when a mere snippet is copied and pasted. 

If your target audience is highly engaged in blogging and forums, the benefits of this script are undeniable. Instead of hoping that your site will receive a link when your content is quoted, you can feel confident that Search and Share will make it happen automatically. As a result, it will simultaneously increase the links to your site, and decrease your dependency on your visitors for proper online citation.

   3. Providing Optimized HTML – For online marketers, it’s sometimes hard to remember that not everyone on the Web is an HTML whiz. Considering that, one of the simplest ways to make sure people are linking to you in the way that fits your optimization strategy is to actually provide them with the code. 

For example, take a look at PR.com’s Link to Us page. PR.com has provided pre-formatted HTML code for people to use when linking to their site. By eliminating the work of coding a link, PR.com is increasing the chance that their target will follow through. 

Providing an exact HTML link enables you to pursue any optimization strategy you choose, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the links on your search visibility. This strategy can be especially beneficial when securing a link from a business partner or vendor, as you may have more flexibility in determining the format of the link.

If you are going to invest in developing interesting and engaging content for your website, be sure to leverage it as a means to generate external links via proper online citation. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your visitors are citing your content. With several tools that eliminate the hassle and increase the likelihood of linking back to a site, there’s no reason to miss this opportunity.

With thanks to Search Engine Land at:
http://searchengineland.com/3-tips-to-ensure-b2b-content-gets-seo-friendly-citations-30456

The Free Dictionary definition for optimize is: op·ti·mize:  To make as perfect or effective as possible.

Ergo the long standing definition of Search Engine Optimization (SEO): “Making your site the best it can be for users and search engines.”

SEO is both as simple and as difficult that

Making something optimal by its very nature is going to be hard work. Being the best you can be at your job, your schoolwork, your relationships, or anything else is not easy. Very few people, if any, will ever be optimized, or perfect. The same is true for websites. But that shouldn’t stop you from attempting to be optimized.

Rule #1: Optimization shouldn’t turn people off
Take a bartender who has a great sense of humor, but can be sarcastic at times. While thick-skinned patrons (like me) find her extremely witty and amusing, others don’t. These folks didn’t come to a bar to be teased, thus, making this bartender not truly optimized. Or take the bartender who can never quite pour a full beer and doesn’t notice that your glass is empty until 10 minutes later. He or she is far from being optimized.

As it applies to your website: Is your website stuffed full of keywords? Is it extremely slow-loading and/or all Flash? Is it optimized for search engines, but not people?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re turning people off and therefore, your website isn’t optimized.

Rule #2: You can’t fake optimization
As it applies to a bartender: Take the one who is super-duper nice to everyone. While you might think she is an optimal bartender, she’s not; her extreme niceness comes across as phony to many. While it does fool some, and may even be optimal for them, she’s not optimized because she’s only pleasing one segment of her clientele.

As it applies to your website: Are you creating doorway pages/domains? Are you writing about “the history of whatever”? Are you using automated software to scrape articles off others websites and then mixing up the words? Are you hiring someone to write hundreds or thousands of low quality articles?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you may be faking your optimization. While it may appeal to some search engines for a time, it’s certainly not optimal, nor will it provide you with long term results.

Rule #3: Optimization is hard work
As it applies to a bartender: The optimized bartender is not necessarily perfect, but she is authentic. Everything she does on the job is to be the best bartender she can be. She works her butt off to please each and every customer the way they want to be pleased, which is no easy feat. 

Every patron is different and what’s optimal for them won’t necessarily be what’s optimal for another. If a patron likes to be flirted with, she can do that, but not so much that they think she wants to date them. On the other hand, she would never dream of flirting with a guy who was with his wife or girlfriend.

The optimal bartender treats both genders equally, and quickly learns their drink preferences, where they like to sit, little tidbits about their family, etc. She also discloses bits of personal information about herself and family, but not so much as to be always talking about herself. She’s humorous and can be self-deprecating, but in good quantities. And by the end of her shift, you know she’s exhausted (it’s often exhausting just watching her!). You can bet that this level of optimization is hard work.

As it applies to your website: Like patrons at a bar, every website is different. While there are basic strategies and tactics most websites need, there’s no SEO formula that will work for each and every one. 

Are you spending time every day making your website better? Are you being authentic and putting yourself out there in your blog or newsletter? Are you thinking about each and every potential customer, client or user of your website and making sure your website has exactly what they need? And are you working your butt off to do all this?

If you answered yes to those questions, you are probably tired! But you’re also on your way to having a successful website and business online. Congratulations! But first, go take a nap–you deserve it, and will need it before the real work begins!

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a science. Crafting rewrite rules and so forth is pretty geeky stuff. The science side of SEO is where Dr Search spends most of my time.

A dichotomy is that SEO is both subjective and objective. The point at which a title tag, URL, or headline is “good enough” and thus moving on to the next task is warranted — that is certainly subjective. Also consider what might comprise the most optimal URL structure? Does it end in / (slash) or a file extension like .html? Again, subjective.

In my view, SEO for the most part is cut-and-dry, it’s objective. That’s because it can all be boiled down to an algorithm, and in fact, it already has. The algorithm I speak of, of course, is Google’s (or Yahoo’s, or Bing’s). 

The SEO practitioner’s challenge is to reverse-engineer that algorithm to the best of their ability. But it shouldn’t stop there. Why not write your own algorithm — an approximation of the search engine’s own algorithm, one that teases out the various signals and accurately assesses the quality, relevance and importance of these signals without human intervention/assistance?

Running algorithmic analysis on a site-by-site and a page-by-page basis will then allow you to ascertain a site’s SEO health, and more importantly, the subsequent actions required in this never-ending process known as optimization. That is data-driven decision-making, my friends, and it will be a key driver in the next stage in the evolution of SEO.

To be effective, SEO scoring has to get granular. Knowing you scored an 89 out of 100, or a B+, overall with your SEO may be reassuring, but there weren’t any next steps that followed from that knowledge. The same is true even if you individually score each of the major SEO areas of focus. 

In my SEO Report Card column for Practical Ecommerce, I (arbitrarily) chose the following areas of focus: Home Page Content, Inbound Links and PageRank, Indexation, Internal, Hierarchical Linking Structure, HTML Templates and CSS, Secondary Page Content, Keyword Choices, Title Tags, and URLs. I don’t claim that these are the best “buckets”. Nonetheless, scoring such broad areas is still not actionable, really.

Score the title tags, internal anchor text, keyword prominence, H1s, meta descriptions and so forth separately, and on a page-by-page basis, and now you’re talking!

SEO effectiveness can be deconstructed into its many components. It can be benchmarked against competitors. Inferences can be made, priorities can be set, content can be massaged, link juice can be directed. Consequently, the SEO practitioner relies less on their gut and more on the data to drive their actions.

What do the best landing pages have for potential customers?

Can an ecommerce store’s product detail pages bog a visitor down in too much detail? Can you provide the wrong information and leave people with unanswered questions?

My friend and ongoing client Michael runs Very Colourful Jewellery, an store for handmade fashion accessories. He recently asked me for some online marketing consulting to help him increase his conversion rate. I thought I’d share this mini-usability review to help Mike and other store owners who may be struggling with these issues.

First let’s check out detail page.

The page gets the general info down fine. It obviously matches the keywords likely to deliver visitors, and like the rest of the site, there’s shopping cart info in the top right.

Possible solutions to test:

    * By far the easiest solution is to offer no alternative colors. By making the color question a simple yes-or-no decision, momentum is a lot easier to maintain.
    * A better solution is to offer a very limited range of popular colors. You could probably copy The Gap and go with blue, pink, gray, red and black. This avoids leaving money on the table in the case of people thinking, “No, I don’t like the default color.”
    * Add pictures of the product in the alternative available colors.
    * Have some pretty girls model the product, and explain what size they’re wearing. Tests typically show that actual-use pictures convert better.

Shipping questions for detail pages- two common questions visitors have are:

    * When will the product arrive? (Sometimes phrased as, “When will it ship”)
    * What will the price of shipping be.

The product arrival date info is automatically estimated, which is a great piece of functionality. Unfortunately, this too is hidden in the discreet “Additional Information” box below the product image.

As to the price of shipping, this is nowhere to be found on this detail page or any others.

Normally this emphasis on the checkout is good, but in this case it will create a lot of scenarios like this:

    * Add to cart
    * Check cart info
    * Continue to checkout

Then when people move on to the billing page, the ‘Standard’ and ‘Rush’ shipping options don’t provide any more info on price.

So what?

So the net effect of this lack of information on shipping times and rates creates anxiety. Again, this slows momentum towards conversion.

Possible solutions

    * Embed a simpler calculator in a reasonably prominent part of the product detail page. For example, some of the whitespace on the right hand side could be used without affecting how clean the page looks. Of course, that’s just a hunch – you’d have to test that to know for sure.
    * Since most products have a standard weight and size, Mike could use USPS’ “If it fits, it ships” product and just automatically list shipping rates on his product detail page according to product type.

The fundamental role of a product detail page is to decrease anxiety by spelling out clearly what the product offer is. It should offer enough information to answer visitors’ questions, without overwhelming them and making them bounce.

Dr Search belives that nearly every organization should offer SEO training to anyone who even remotely touches the company’s web site, and why every senior manager should also be encouraged to attend. 

Failure to train people can lead to serious problems, with a frightful waste of time, blown schedules, wasted expenditure and ultimately a failure to effectively capture search traffic. You may think I am fear-mongering here, but to head that off, let me provide some real world examples:

One company had an existing site that they wanted to migrate to a new domain. A key goal was to preserve the legacy search traffic as much as possible. They selected a CMS for the project and built the site. Then they brought in the SEO firm to begin working on the site. The trouble was that the CMS was an SEO disaster, and did not allow unique title tags on each page. 

The cost of fixing this problem: a six month launch delay at a cost of hundreds of thousands of Pounds.

Another company was rebranding their site. They were going for a major upgrade in look and feel, and they had made a corporate level decision to target all their messaging at the “C-Suite” (CEOs, CFOs, CIOS, etc.). Based on this they made a decision to implement an all-Flash site. They created a site with a beautiful user experience, but that was virtually impenetrable to search engines. 

The in house SEO that was trying to work on the site did not have the authority to get people to understand the consequences of this decision, and search traffic plummeted.

In large enterprises one of the big challenges is that there are many different groups that are involved in decisions. You have marketing, sales, development and the executive staff. Anyone of these groups can make decisions that are basically fatal to SEO. 

Successful SEO efforts require that all these groups are working in unison. Yet coordinating all these groups of people can be very difficult to do.

There are two ways that the problem gets worse, both of which are examples of bad decisions being made about SEO. These are:
    A- In some organizations SEO is thought of as something you do after the site is built. This is just too late. At this point the damage has already been done.
    B- The organization hires someone to do SEO work for them, and they are knowledgeable about SEO, but they are relatively junior and do not have the confidence or presence to sway the C-Suite or other decision makers.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing at their expensively revamped website cim.co.uk have just made exactly these mistakes. The Cs- David Thorp and Rod Wilkes don't know anything about online marketing and even less about search engine optimisation. Their only care is cost.

To summarize, either bringing in an SEO resource too late, or making use of one that is too junior to have sufficient influence in the organization is a mistake you do not want to make.

How do you solve this problem? You put key people in all constituent groups in your organization (including the C-Suite) through basic SEO training. Knowledge can be a very powerful thing. Once people “get it” they are in a position to make much better decisions. Sometimes there is a tension between corporate objectives and the requirements of SEO, but these can nearly always be handled elegantly if the issues are confronted up front.

In one training session I did, I had the senior management team of a good sized company for a full morning. The group was comprised of really smart people, but with no background in SEO. During the course of that meeting we kept everything at a high level, and we covered a lot of ground. There were tons of questions and dialogue, and by the end of it all the team had gotten the basics down.

The outcome of the meeting was amazing. Historically, they had a great focus on onsite SEO (or technical SEO) but the focus on link building and web site promotion was not high enough. After the meeting decisions started to get made a bit differently. The focus on link building went way up, and the improved results on new business obtained from search engine referrals has been impressive.

The key to success

Large organizations are complex beasts, and a lot of different people have the opportunity to provide input (or directives) about the web site. Everyone is usually well-intentioned, but what you don’t know can hurt you. 

Training people is the key. It’s not necessary for most people to spend years learning all the ins and outs of optimisation, but they do need to know the basics.

The best time to do this is as soon as possible. Decisions about the web site are made on a regular basis. Of course, there are other priorities in the organization, and those need to be taken into account. Sometimes a good time to fit this training in is in conjunction with planning meetings for site redesigns or updates. These meetings usually bring the various constituent groups together to make decisions anyway, so it’s an ideal time to provide them with the knowledge they need to make better decisions.

Training can help prevent disastrous decisions, and can also enable great decisions. Knowledge is indeed power, so make sure that those with power over your web site have the knowledge they need to be successful.

Search engine marketing for Europe is more than just using different languages.

If you ask any search marketer what the main issue is when trying to optimize your website(s) for Europe they will tell you: language. But there is more to keep in mind when trying to win over Europeans.

Europe consists of twenty seven countries. If you think that means you will have to optimize for twenty seven languages, you’re wrong. The European countries which are part of the European Union together already have 23 official languages. But that’s just the European Union. Count in the rest of Europe and you can add many more.

The “problem” of focusing exclusively on languages in Europe is that its not one country, one language. It’s one country, many languages. Take the Netherlands for example. With only 17 million people living on a little piece of ground which (41 thousand square kilometers, which is about 16 thousand square miles) the official language is Dutch, but Frisian is also accepted as a official language. Next to that there are about 8 or 9 dialects, but when optimizing for websites you don’t have to take those in account.

When traveling south from the Netherlands it gets more complicated. In Belgium there are three official languages: Dutch, French and German. For the Belgians its therefore is very tempting to copy and paste the Dutch, French and German content and think you’re done. 

Think again. Dutch spoken in Belgium is a different kind of Dutch than that spoken in the Netherlands. And the same goes for the French compared to what they are speaking in France.

Getting the picture? You can probably guess what I will be saying about the countries when traveling to the south even more. How many official languages do you need to handle in France? Surprise! Only one. The French are considered to be very stubborn and very proud of their country. 

That translates into the language where, though about ten times the size of the Netherlands and with five times more people living there, they only speak one language. A complete different situations than with their neighbors further south. In Spain Castillian Spanish is the official language, spoken by 74% of the population but the Spanish also speak Catalan, Galician and Basque.

So now you get the picture: Europe has many countries and many languages. Some say there are over 200 official languages to take in account. Others also look at the dialects and then count over a 1000. So language really is a big issue when optimizing sites for Europeans.

“Ok,” I can hear you saying. “Thanks! Now I know there are many languages, so let’s get to work and translate and optimize our sites.” Stop, wait right there. There’s more…

Language is one thing, but Europe is a strange continent in which you have other things to take in account when optimizing. For one thing, there is the cultural aspect. I’m talking about the differences in culture in the way people live and think.

Last year TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington was part of a panel discussing the differences between Europe and the US at the internet marketing event LeWeb in Paris. He decided to be his usual self and became somewhat “rude” when accusing the Europeans of being lazy. 

Wherever did he get that idea? Here’s how: the days before he was invited by the organizer of the event to join in on a “typical” French lunch. And that means it will take a couple of hours in which you wine and dine. Arrington believed that the French therefore were lazy, because they prefer long lunches to working hard.

He could not have been more wrong. Yes, the French do like to take long lunches, but they also work later towards dinner-time. In fact, dinner time in France is typically not before 8PM. But there was an even bigger mistake Arrington made: with his statement he showed he had no idea of what the differences in European cultures are. 

Taking a step back northbound for example, to the Netherlands, lunch time is very different than in France. There lunch most of the time consists of a sandwich which is eaten within half an hour. Then again, when its 6PM most Dutch will be out of the office, heading home to have dinner early.

So what is people eat at different times, what does that have to do with optimizing my webpages? Well, everything. The Europeans have different lifestyles, which means they also have different online behavior. They are online at different hours and most probably also looking for different kind of topics, thus searching differently.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)- the latest video in our series focuses on how small businesses can effectively optimize their website when they don’t have the cash to get it done professionally.

SEO can be very time consuming for small business owners, not to mention often expensive if you outsource to professional SEO companies. Google understands that many small business owners and webmaster don’t have the time or funds, which is why they have stepped in to help with some quick DIY SEO tools tips.

“Google Guru” Matt Cutts has put his top SEO tips into a video. It’s not too long but does give some good tips for webmaster or business owners new to SEO.

Here is Matt’s video for your viewing pleasure:

The video is a great start for newbie SEOers who don’t have the budget for large scale SEO. Just in case you can’t view the video (or choose not to watch it), here are Matt’s 2 main tips:

1. Start with a small niche (geographical location or specific product)
2. Make your site stand out with creativity (this will encourage more backlinks)

Do you have any additional tips? If so feel free to share them in the comments section below.

If you’re not keen on doing your site’s SEO yourself, then check out our wide range of affordable SEO services specifically for small business owners.

Search Clinic guidelines that might help Bing's MSNBot (The Bing web crawler and other web crawlers.

The web crawler used by Bing is also known as MSNBot.) effectively index and rank your website. Bing has also provided a list of techniques to avoid if you want to make sure your website is indexed.


Use the following techniques to ensure your website is technically optimized for MSNBot and other web crawlers:

* Use only well-formed, HTML code in your webpages. Make sure that all paired tags are closed, and that all links open the correct webpage. For information on validating your HTML code, see either HTTP Compression and HTTP Conditional Get test tool or W3C Markup Validation Service or use a comparable tool.
* If your website contains broken links, MSNBot might not be able to index your website effectively, thus preventing people from reaching all of your webpages. For information on finding broken links on your website, see the Help topic for the Webmaster Center's Crawl Issues tool.
* If you move a webpage, set up the webpage's original URL to redirect people to the new webpage. Indicate whether the move is permanent or temporary. For more information, see What to do when your website is relocated.
* Make sure MSNBot is allowed to crawl your website and isn't on your list of web crawlers that are prohibited from indexing your website. For more information, see Control which webpages on your website are indexed.
* Use a Robots.txt file or meta tags to control how MSNBot and other web crawlers index your website. You can use the robots.txt file to prevent web crawlers from crawling specific files and folders. For more information about the Robots.txt file and the Robots Exclusion standard, see A Standard for Robot Exclusion. This site might be available in English only.
* Keep your URLs simple and static. URLs that are complicated or that change frequently are difficult to index as link destinations. For example, the URL www.example.com/mywebpage is easier for MSNBot to crawl and for people to type than a long URL with multiple extensions. Also, a URL that doesn't change is easy for people to remember and bookmark. That makes your webpage a more likely link destination from other websites.

Bings guidelines in full can be found at:
http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_webmasters&market=en-GB&querytype=&query=&tmt=&domain=help.live.com&format=b1

Dr Search has been having a lot of fun recenly blind testing Google against Yahoo and Microsft's new search engine Bing.

Since Microsoft launched their new search engine Bing.com people all around the globe have been testing the site and providing their feedback on the results.

Initial reports have been quite positive, with many people saying they’re impressed with the quality of Bing search results. Statcounter is even reporting that Bing has overtaken Yahoo! as the number two search engine in the U.S!

While these stats will probably level out in the coming months, the Search Clinic does agree that Bing is a significant improvement from Microsoft’s previous ‘Live’ search engine.



But is it possible that Bing’s results are actually better than Google’s?

For most of us, we’d quickly dismiss the idea because we’ve considered Google to be the holy grail of search results for such a long time. But if you were subject to a blind test, an unbranded comparison between Bing, Google and Yahoo! – would Google still come out on top?

Take the test for yourself: Blind Test Search Engines at http://blindsearch.fejus.com

Using the site above, you’ll be presented with 3 unbranded columns of search results and you simply pick which one you think is most relevant. After you choose, it will let you know which search engine provided the results. Keep a tally and after 10 or so searches, let us know which search engine came out on top! You may be surprised!

In the tests taken so far Bing does seem to rank our websites better than Google.

Bing also seems to concentrate on shopping, so if your website provides online goods or services Dr Search strongly recommonds that you factor this into your optimisation and links.

SEO Top Tips for a new designed website by Dr Search

Although the Search Clinic optimises many websites which have already been constructed, we often get asked for top tips on what a business owner should be briefing their web designer, if they are redesigning their website.

Below are the top 7 features to ask for which will help your website become SEO friendly from day 1.

1) Ensure your URL’s are keyword rich and avoid dynamic URL’s which normally contain characters such as “?, % or =”. The URL of a Nike shoe model for example should include your desired keywords and look something like http://www.wisemoney.com/bad-credit-home-loans.htm

2) Ensure your copy and navigation is text based and not an image. An easy way to check this is by trying to highlight the text on your web page and copy/paste it into an editor such as word. If you can edit the word that you have pasted in your editor, it means the search engine can also read it and index that content accordingly.

If you can't see the text then neither can the search engines.

3) Ensure your images have ALT Tags. This is basically an explanation of what the image is as Search Engine crawlers can not easily recognize images.

In the UK this is also a legal requirement and is high on Google UK's key ranking criteria.

4) Ensure a sitemap is included in your web design and linked from your homepage. This enables search engines to navigate your whole site. XML sitemaps are also a great way to inform search engines of all of your web pages.

Dr Search posted about sitemaps recently.

5) Avoid websites with frames. Search engine crawlers have trouble navigating these and hence don’t give you the SEO power from your content.

6) Avoid an over reliance on flash in websites. Search engines cannot adequately categorize the flash content. If you really can’t do without flash, ensure you create a html version of your website also.

7) If buying a website with a CMS, make sure you have access to altering the Title and Meta Tags, as well as adding text on the web page itself. You would be surprised how many CMS systems don’t even allow these features which can help with the ranking of your website.

By having as many of the above features readily available, it will ensure that you have built a solid foundation which can allow an SEO company to optimize your website for much better results. For top 20 guaranteed results Dr Search suggests that you have a look at the Search Clinic Gold SEO service.

SEO- will search engine optimisation still exist in 5 years? Mr Google, Matt Cutts was recently asked if SEO will still exist in 5 years.

Matt kindly put his answer in a short video which you can check out here:

The short answer from Matt is yes, SEO will definitely be around in another 5 years.

Matt used the analogy of SEO being like polishing your resume; you will continue to apply polishes to your website through SEO, especially through canonicalization.

The one thing that Google hopes to change within the 5 years is for black hat SEO (or “crap hat SEO” as Matt calls it) techniques to become less productive and eventually disappear altogether.

With so many white hat SEO techniques being used, I tend to agree with Matt, I can’t see SEO dying anytime soon. What do you think? Share your thoughts below.

Need some help with your website’s SEO? Check out our range of affordable SEO solutions here.

This is a timely warning for all website owners with a Google local listing- avoid competitors being able to “close your business down” online!

The folks at Search Engine Roundtable brought this to my attention and I thought it was definitely valuable information to pass onto you all, especially with the recent update of Google Maps listings.

The problem is that anyone can make your business appear as though it has closed down on Google Maps.

Here is an example of how your listing may appear:


Now before you go all crazy with worry, competitors can’t automatically “close your business” if you have the proper barriers in place.

You need to ensure that your business is verified with Google’s Local Business Center. Those businesses that are not “verified” can easily be sabotaged, which could hurt their sales.

There has been a lot of talk about this issue lately in numerous forums and Google employee Joel H explains more on the Google Maps help forum:

I just want to reiterate: there are two types of listings with the Place Closed label, and, for each type, there’s a way to remove that label.

For claimed listings through the Local Business Center (LBC): Please sign in to the LBC and select Edit to the right of the listing. On the following page, select Submit. Within a day or two the listing will appear without this label of Place Closed on Maps.

For unclaimed listings, which are open to community edits: Please select Edit below the address and choose Restore Place.

So, you know what to do - go ahead and secure your listing. In these uncertain financial times, the worst thing you can do is make it easy for your competitors to sabotage your business’s online success.

Google have expanded their local business listings on Google Maps to boost the number of clickable search results from ten to hundreds of businesses.

Instead of just plotting the first ten search results on the map, Google now includes hundreds of other businesses across the map using small red circles.

For example, the search for “lighting in Gloucetsreshire” now returns the following map showing hundreds of businesses across the local area:

You can click on any of the circles to get more information about the business they represent, essentially giving many more local businesses first page exposure on Google maps. It should be noted that the top 10 listings will still appear as pins on the left hand side of the map.

This is great news for businesses with local listings as it now gives you even more exposure across Google maps and in local search results. It should make it easier for local customers to find your business and also see specific areas where related businesses are grouped together.

If you’re a local business without a Google maps listing, now is the time to get included! Please ask the Search Clinic of you need any help.

Claims have emerged that Google has been giving big brands a helping hand in their SEO efforts. The Google ranking algorithm apparently now includes branding in its ranking calculations.

The discussion started when Aaron Wall, one the industries most respected SEO proponents, released a lengthy blog post titled “Google’’s New Search Engine Rankings Place Heavy Emphasis on Branding“.

After taking his reader’s through a brief history of Google’s algorithm updates, Aaron goes on to highlight via some RankPulse charts, that big brands seem to have received a major ranking boost since Jan 09.

An unprecedented number of them breaking into the top 10 miraculously. Aaron describes the situation:

in some cases brands have 80% or 90% of the first page search results for some of the most valuable keywords. There are thousands of other such examples across all industries if you take the time to do the research, but the trend is clear - Google is promoting brands for big money core category keywords.

In his post, he refers to a presentation Eric Schmidt gave which might have been a hint into the future tweaks Google was planning for the algorithm.

The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives. Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool. Brand affinity is clearly hard wired. It is so fundamental to human existence that it’’s not going away. It must have a genetic component.

It does beg the question: Does boosting brand rankings enhance the user experience or are Google just aligning themselves with the companies most likely to be valuable advertisers?

Do you need help to promote your own online brand in the face of grwoing competition? If so please contact Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic now.

The Search Clinic updates you woth the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

This has to be one of the more bizarre SEO stories of the year. Google have penalised one of their own sites, Google Japan, after they were caught paying bloggers to write positive reviews about their services.

Google have taken the drastic move of dropping the PageRank of Google.co.jp from a 9 to a 5 after reports emerged, and Google expert Matt Cutts stated, "I expect that to remain for a while."

So how did this come about? Let's look at the story of Google Japan.

Firstly, it should be noted that Japan is one of the few countries where Google is not the dominant search engine. Yahoo! rules in Japan with 51.2% market share compared to around 39% for Google.

In order to compete with Yahoo!, Google have been releasing a number of Japan only services, including a recent widget for blogs that displays the top 10 hot keywords from Google Japan searches.

To let people know about this service, Google hired internet marketing company CyberBuzz to promote the keyword feature in a pay-per-post campaign. This effectively means Google was paying bloggers to write about and praise their new service - something that's strictly forbidden in their webmaster guidelines.

After this story was uncovered across various blogs, Google's Matt Cutts came in and confirmed that Google Japan would be penalized.

Google Japan have since offered an apology for the incident, which has been translated by Asiajin:

Google Japan is running several promotional activities to let people know more about our products.

It turns out that using blogs on the part of the promotional activities violates Google's search guidelines, so we have ended the promotion. We would like to apologize to the people concerned and to our users, and are making an effort to make our communications more transparent in order to prevent the recurrence of such an incident.

If there's been one positive for Google out of this, at least they will be seen as enforcing their rules fairly, even against themselves!

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, 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 capitalize 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 localized 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.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) should be the foundation of your digital marketing. Not only is the most cost effective element of the marketing mix but also forms the basis of focus for effective online sales conversion and possible future pay per click campaigns.

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

Typically, the higher a site's "page rank" (i.e, the earlier it comes in the search results list), the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign.

Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right (for left to right languages), looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site.

However, more search engine referrals does not guarantee more sales. SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's goals.

A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic traffic to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.

SEO may generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.

For more information please ask at the Search Clinic