Google’s Penguin Update – Part 2

Posted on 04/05/2012 by Chris Griffin

SEO Services from WSI IMSIn our last post we commented on how Google’s recent Penguin update had focussed on link quality, content quality and how having poor quality links pointing to your website probably means that you have suffered in terms of SEO as a result of this algorithm change.

In this post we are going to look at the second critical success factor which is for your site to have a strong presence on the social media sites.  Google is now placing a higher weighting on ‘social signals’ which can be defined as the buzz on the social networks about your business or your products.

The Penguin update means that if your site relies on traditional links and has no presence at all in the social networks you are highly unlikely to be able to compete in the search results with the sites of your competitors that have social signals.

If none of your competitors have social signals either, this may not be a problem for you but if you are in a really competitive sector, trying to get a high ranking for very competitive keywords, having a strong social presence will help you to convince Google that your pages should be ranked higher than those of your competitors.

The increased weighting given to social media will of course help the big authority sites such as Amazon.co.uk who get many Facebook likes and Google+ likes and many mentions across the whole of Web 2.0.  It can help smaller businesses too!

Blogs continue to be an excellent way for you to build links but now it is important for you to try posting on different blogs as well as your own, i.e. guest blogging and we would suggest that you try and vary your link text from time to time.

Links created in good quality relevant content are still the best kind of links and still carry by far the largest weighting in Google’s algorithm.

Link building allied to the production of great quality content along with a strong social presence is definitely the way forward in terms of organic search engine optimisation.

Here at WSI IMS we offer a comprehensive range of quality link building plans, all allied to content production and submission and we have plans to meet all budgets.  We also offer a range of social media management plans so if you would like to ensure the continued success of your business online, please leave a comment below or if preferred use the contact form.

Posted in Link Building, SEO, Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Forget Panda, it’s the Penguin you need to know about!

Posted on 03/05/2012 by Lesley Black

SEO Services for Surrey, Sussex & kent Business from WSI IMSWe have been asked by quite a few clients about whether SEO is still worth doing – they have read quite a bit recently about over optimised sites being penalised by Google in their latest update which is known as the Penguin Update.

Penguin is the latest significant change to the way in which Google determines who ranks where in its search results and much ‘noise’ has been evident over the past 3 or 4 weeks about this.  Much of this noise has come from people who do not fully understand the finer points of organic search engine optimisation and we thought it might help if we did the next couple of posts on this topic.

First of all it’s important to focus on what is really happening both to your sites and those of your major competitors and make your own decisions based on that rather than what you hear.  If your site has been impacted by the recent algorithm change by Google the chances are that your site content is not of great quality and many of the links that you had pointing to your site were created via poor quality link building.

The Penguin algorithm change was made by Google to improve the quality of the results returned to its searches.  It is often said that Google is determined to feature only the websites of large corporate players on Page 1 of its results but there is little foundation for these rumours.  Many sites on Page 1 of the results are for larger businesses but the truth is these sites often have more content and give more information to the searcher and this is the real reason why they are on Page 1.

Google’s two main drivers currently are:

  • quality of the web page content and the value it gives for visitors
  • social reputation and social media activity

The key to having a good organic SEO position for your keyword phrases is still good quality links, created in relevant good quality fresh content that adds value to the reader.  If your site has disappeared from the Google results, albeit that your site has good content and a good number of links the chances are that the majority of those links pointing to your website were coming from sites that have been de-indexed by Google.  Effectively this means that your own site content has not been penalised by Google but the sites that linked to you were not of sufficient quality and therefore any value that was given to you for those links is no longer helping you.  If you think this might have happened to you the answer to regain your previous ranking could simply be to replace the ‘lost’ links with good quality links.

We will continue to expand on this topic in our next post.  If you would like any more information about our Search Engine Optimisation services please leave a comment below or visit our SEO page.

Posted in SEO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Social Media Training for Businesses in Kent

Posted on 13/04/2012 by Chris Griffin

Social Media Tips for UK Business from WSI IMSIf you are the owner or decision maker of a Kent business and feel you need to know more about Social Media and how you can use it to promote your business we have some good news for you!

WSI IMS in conjunction with Bussroot are running a half day workshop –“ Social Media Strategy for Kent Business” at The Hop Farm, Paddock Wood on Tuesday 24th April from 8:00am.

The workshop will focus on giving Kent business owners an overview of the main Social Media channels:

  • Blogs
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

We will be covering these purely  from a business angle.  We will be looking at how they can be used to best effect to help you to promote your businesses and build your reputation and achieve success for your business online.  Full details of the workshop can be found at http://www.wsiims.co.uk/socialmediaworkshops.aspx

More and more Kent based business are aware that they need to ‘do something’ about Social Media – but they are not sure what.  This workshop has been designed specifically to help you.

The cost of the workshop is just £75 +VAT (Early Bird Rate) which includes workbooks, copies of all the materials covered in the workshop together with refreshments and car parking.  Feedback from some of the people who have attended previous workshops can be found here.

If you need any further information please leave a comment below or call either Chris Griffin at WSI IMS on 01293 822 755 or Susi Ibelati at Bussroot on 01622 871 823 or use the contact form.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Google+ and SEO for South East Business

Posted on 05/04/2012 by Lesley Black

Google+Google+ is Google’s new attempt at having a ranking system combined with what will become a social networking site that businesses and individuals can interact with in a similar way that Facebook allows with their “thumbs up” button.

If you are a South East business, where competition is rife, then using Google+ and SEO in general can make the difference between huge success and huge struggles.  The problem is that many people are underestimating Google+ and just how important it could become very quickly.

Although Google keeps everything very secret to try and stop people using SEO to manipulate their results, it is highly expected the Google+ will become at least one of the factors that they consider when choosing to rank your business.   Not only this, but Google+ is going to become more and more of a factor that influences searchers and users as to whether they click on a website or not when looking at their search results.

Google+ effectively allows people to “vote” for a site of interest.  Therefore, it stands to reason that the more votes a site has, the more likely someone is to click on it as the number of votes will be shown next to the search results.

So, for example, if you are a South East Business selling fireworks in Kent among dozens of other competitors, then a quick search by a browser could easily have their eye led directly to your website if you happen to have “+2400” compared to the other sites that have no or very few results.  Therefore Google+ votes are anticipated to not only help and be taken into account within the actual Google ranking algorithm, but will actually be a visual cue for browsers as to who they instantly trust or see as worth as a click.

This means that when considering your SEO strategy next, you need to also consider Google+ optimisation and start to implement it into your overall internet marketing strategy.  Remember, what seems like a small insignificant addition today, could be what Google revolves around tomorrow so take action now and be ahead of the game!

If you would like more information about any of our Internet Marketing Services please leave a comment below of visit WSI IMS – Professional Internet marketing Services For Businesses in Surrey, Sussex, Kent and throughout the South East

Posted in SEO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Why Content Marketing is Important for UK Businesses

Posted on 03/04/2012 by Chris Griffin

WSI IMS Content Marketing ServicesDominating the search engines is something that every UK business strives to do and it is no surprise why when you realise that around 95% of all clicks are done on the websites that are on the first page of any Google search. In fact, the top three organic search positions actually take as much as 60%-70% of those clicks, meaning if you manage to get into the top few listings on Google, then your business can really boom!

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your products and services to your customers online while also helping your search ranking. You see, Google absolutely loves content and the more fresh, unique and interesting content it can find on your website, the more relevant it will view your pages and the higher it will rank your website in its search engine results pages.

Not only that, but each page of content can be seen as a doorway to your business. Every new page of content that you create is another page that can be indexed by Google and can effectively be found by a potential client, clicked on and read. The more content marketing you do, the more of these pages you have, the more “doorways” you have indexed and ranked and therefore the more chances you have that someone will stumble over your information, find it of interest and lead on to purchasing one of your products or services.

The thing with content marketing is that you do need to be careful with what you create. Creating lots of sales pages ramming your products down people’s throats is not very effective and writing content for the sake of content is also rarely a good idea for either your customers or Google.

Creating the right kind of content that is informative, has a gentle leaning towards your product and services and also has the right keyword saturation does require some knowledge and experience. It is also very time consuming to come up with a constant stream of fresh content that Google and your customers will like. Therefore, it is sometimes advisable to possibly use a professional content marketing service from people like WSI IMS that have the specialist experience in creating good quality content that can draw in new visitors and then gently convert them into customers.

For more information about WSI IMS content marketing services please leave a comment below or visit the content marketing page.

Posted in Content Marketing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Search Engine Optimisation – How Can You Keep Up?

Posted on 28/03/2012 by Lesley Black

SEO Services for Surrey, Sussex & kent Business from WSI IMSAt our recent WSI Excellence & Innovations Conference in Paris we were  given an update and overview of the high level changes and initiatives introduced by Google over the past 18 months or so.  We thought that, as you are interested in SEO, you might find it interesting:

In that fairly short period we have seen:

  • Panda Updates
  • Google’s confirmation that back-links allied to good quality content are still important
  • Confirmation that Citations (mentions of your business) on the internet are important
  • Poor Quality back-links (link farms) have been ‘busted’ i.e. taken out of the mix altogether
  • Only back-links created through the distribution of optimised relevant content are now included in the search algorithm and this is likely to stay that way
  • Social Signals now account for 8 -10% of Google Search algorithm
  • Google Plus Launched just about 1 year ago
  • Freshness Update 260 days ago – priority given to recent content over dated content
  • Google announced it was going to ‘crawl’ Facebook comments 160 days ago – i.e Facebook content now indexed
  • ‘Search plus your world’ update 70 days ago – Full indexing by Google of Facebook and Twitter content (profiles and posts).
  • Content published on Google Plus seems to be the quickest to be indexed and is likely to remain in the results the longest
  • 7 days ago – Google announced it would punish ‘over –optimisation’ i.e. keyword stuffing on web pages and poor quality links not matched with good quality content

One thing seems sure, you will never be penalised by Google for producing good quality relevant content.

SEO is likely to become the outcome rather than the strategy.  For the foreseeable future organic search engine ranking will be determined by content relevance.

We can help you succeed with your SEO and online marketing goals and genuinely believe that we have access to better quality information than any other digital marketing agency in the UK.  WSI IMS are committed to providing all our clients with the very best advice and customer service.  We hope you have found the above useful and if you would like to know more please leave a comment below or visit WSI IMS – Professional Digital Marketing Services for UK Business.

Posted in SEO, Search Marketing Trends | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Is SEO and Link Building Still Important for UK Businesses?

Posted on 26/03/2012 by Chris Griffin

SEO Services from WSI IMSI have read several articles and blogs recently which seem to suggest that there will be no place for SEO in the future and that Link Building is all but yesterday’s news and does not work anymore. Is this actually the case though?

It might surprise you to know that in 2010 alone Google made changes to its algorithm over 531 times! Some of these changes were minor and a couple were major, especially the ‘Panda’ updates which attacked certain types of link building and also weeded out websites with low value or duplicate content. Many websites which had previously enjoyed a high ranking in the search engine results disappeared from the listings overnight. These sites had low value inbound links, often created via ‘link farms’. It is these low value links that Google has removed from their algorithm.

I think this is only right and proper as it now means that only good quality relevant links generated from useful original content published in high PR web properties have any value for SEO purposes. All WSI IMS link building is done in conjunction with the publication of good quality content, either blogs or articles, on high PR blogs, directories, social bookmarking sites or other niche relevant websites. Any SEO company still offering stand alone link building services i.e. link building not allied to good quality content production is simply not up to speed with what is happening.

Professional SEO services such as those from WSI IMS must focus on the production of good quality, fresh, original content that adds value to the reader and that content has to be 100% relevant to your business.

Organic Search Engine Optimisation will continue to be important in the internet marketing mix but tools, technologies and tactics have evolved and of course UK business owners themselves have become much more aware of the internet and they quite rightly expect a return on their investment i.e. results!

SEO and Link Building will both remain relevant because more people click on organic search results than paid search ad’s. Google tell us that between 11 billion and 12 billion searches are made (worldwide) each month. Organic search results get between 80% and 90% of those clicks – paid search is only 10% -20%.

SEO is also the number one conversion tactic. Businesses using SEO including link building and Social Media Marketing together can achieve a 94% increase in their click through rate

Google are now looking at ‘web presence optimisation’ – not just your website but all your other web properties as well e.g. your blog, your social profiles and the quality of your social posts. Broadly they are looking at the following:

a) Website: good quality relevant content, regular content updates, good quality back-links from high PR sites relevant to your niche using appropriate anchor text to the correct page in the website.

b) Other Online Properties: fresh, original, unique content with a minimum of 10% of the current algorithm weighting being allocated to social media

WSI IMS believe that in the future we would not expect to see ‘SEO’ as a separate cost item in a company’s P&L – it will be absorbed into a new category ‘Content marketing’. To succeed in internet marketing, businesses will need to have optimised content marketing strategies.

We are well aware of the state of play in the world of internet marketing – over 12 months ago we stopped doing link building that was not allied to the production and publication of good quality content. This is the value you get by working with search engine optimisation professionals like WSIIMS who are affiliated to the world’s largest internet marketing business, WSI.

For more information about Link Building or any of our internet marketing services please leave a comment below or use the contact form.

Posted in Link Building, SEO | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

3 Great Reasons Why Content Marketing for Surrey Business is a MUST

Posted on 08/03/2012 by Lesley Black

WSI IMS Content Marketing ServicesMost professional internet marketers agree that if a business does not take advantage of content marketing to promote their business, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with that business.

Content marketing for Surrey business is a must, and below are three very good reasons why.

1. A good content marketing campaign gives you positive SEO results

Google loves content and despite what others might have you believe ‘content is still very much king’. Google loves sites with fresh and regularly updated content even more. And it’s best practice if a site is always updated with relevant and keyword-optimised content.

By creating a good content marketing strategy, you give the search engine spiders a reason to keep coming back into your site to see what your business is up to and if there’s anything new for them to include in the search engine’s index. If you keep your site updated and relevant, your business will inch its way up in the search engines’ search results pages. Just be constant on your content marketing effort.

2. Content marketing establishes you as an expert

By publishing and distributing your own content, you effectively establish yourself as an expert in your field – someone who your customers and prospects would consider as a reliable source of useful information. The key is to constantly update your target consumers with high quality and extremely relevant information on a constant basis.

Blogging everyday (or every other day) is a great way to keep your customers in the loop on what’s happening within your industry.

3. Content marketing creates a strong image for your brand

By constantly churning out relevant and high quality content relating to your brand either through blogging, article marketing or video marketing you will get a good amount of exposure for your business across a wide ranging audience on the internet. Thus, if done properly content marketing has the ability to potentially create a strong image for your own brand.

Hopefully you will agree that content marketing for Surrey business is a must as not only will it provide your brand with a good amount of exposure; if done right, it also has the ability to attract new customers for your business and help retain the existing ones. Get into the habit of providing the internet and your consumers with fresh and relevant content about your business now!

If you need help getting started with your content marketing plan please leave a comment below or visit WSI IMS – Professional Internet Marketing Services for UK Business.

Posted in Blogging Tips, Content Marketing | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Blogging For UK Business – 3 Reasons Why You Should Blog

Posted on 07/03/2012 by Chris Griffin

WSI IMS Blogging for UK BusinessJust last year, talks about how blogging had ceased to be effective surfaced in the internet marketing community, making some people wonder if blogging for UK business was still an effective strategy.  This notion came about when social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook really took off and almost came to be viewed as the be all and end all of internet marketing.

People believed micro blogging with Twitter and sharing their thoughts on Facebook as the thing that would see off mainstream blogging.  The truth of the matter is however, and we cannot stress this enough, blogging is not dead at all.  Blogging is still very much alive and there are many benefits to be had by integrating blogging into your overall internet marketing strategy.

If you are running a UK business, below are just 3 of the reasons why blogging is still a practical and profitable internet marketing activity:

1. Blogging allows you to better understand the dynamics of your industry

By blogging you will become a better researcher for your business.  When you blog, to make your posts relevant, you need to research more about your customers’ general preferences, trends in your industry or your niche and about your competition.  Blogging broadens your horizon and enables you to see things that you may otherwise have missed.

2. Blogging enables you to better engage with your customers and prospects

When you blog you will usually ask for the reader to leave a comment which provides you with an opportunity to ‘listen in’ on what your customers think and say about your business either directly via the comments they leave on your blog or by comments you find on one of your competitors blogs.  By listening and taking notice of what your customers are saying, you will be better able to correctly address their needs and help them by posting on topics of interest to them on your own blog in the future.

3. Blogging generates traffic for your business website

The search engines, particularly Google, still loves blogs, especially those that are frequently updated.  By updating your blog with fresh, relevant content your blog and your business website will rank higher in the search engine results.  Other bloggers in a related field could also link to your blog, especially if they find your posts to be relevant to them and of high quality, which will give both your blog and your website a much needed boost in traffic.

Whilst we admit to being biased in favour of blogging for UK business, hopefully we have given you some very good and extremely timely reasons why blogging remains a viable effective internet marketing strategy.  The key to successful blogging is to keep on topic, stay relevant and regularly post high quality content to give your customers and prospects a reason to visit your blog on a regular basis.

If you would like more information about our blog creation and blog posting services, please leave a comment below or visit WSI IMS – professional internet marketing services for UK Business.

Posted in Blogging Tips | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SEO for UK Business: 3 Essential Link Building Tips

Posted on 02/03/2012 by Lesley Black

SEO Services from WSI IMSStrategies involving SEO for UK business should always include one very crucial search engine optimisation pillar– link building.

Link building remains one of the most important aspects of SEO. If done properly, link building has the potential to send huge amounts of traffic to a site and increase any site’s popularity and authority.

There are actually three key and proven link building strategies that you should incorporate into your marketing campaigns. Even experienced internet marketers swear by these three link building strategies. 

1. Creating value by guest posting

Every campaign on SEO for UK business would become more successful with a carefully laid out plan for guest blog posting. For years, bloggers have been utilising this fantastic strategy as it not only raises their profile as a subject matter expert; it also allows for high quality links to point to their webpage. 

Guest posting also shows other blogger’s audiences what you are capable of and what value you can offer them. 

Get in touch with other bloggers within your niche and create a good working relationship with them. Ideally, you want to guest post for a blogger who has an established reputation and who has a blog that has a high pagerank on Google. 

But keep in mind that the goal is to provide value for the blog reader. Offer to write stuff for other bloggers not for the sake of creating quality backlinks to your site, but to offer the other blogger’s audience a bit of advice that you think they’ll really benefit from. 

Follow SEO best practices when linking by using anchor texts to link to your site, and be sure that the anchor text is very relevant to the content that you are linking to. 

2. Submitting content to article directories

Article directories used to have a good amount of Google juice, but after the launch of Google’s Panda update, article directories’ value seems to have slid down a bit. However, they still offer some good SEO value and a lot of benefits in terms of traffic. You want to post content on a regular basis on these article directories, especially on EzineArticles, one of the top article directories out there. EzineArticles is still visited by millions of visitors for unique and high quality content for any information that they need. 

To get the most out of posting on EzineArticles, be sure to post completely unique keyword-optimised content that provides real value to readers. And to make it easier for readers to find your content, post your articles to the relevant category. 

3. Linking from social media sites 

One of the surest and fastest ways to grab attention to your content is by linking back to it from social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and StumbleUpon. You might also want to check out Pinterest, today’s rising star of social media. 

Google and other search engines index content, comments and posts posted on social media sites very quickly, thus providing content with good SEO value. But the real value to posting content on social media sites is the amount of traffic that it potentially generates. And that is achieved with cleverly created description and attention-grabbing headlines. 

When incorporating these strategies for SEO for UK business, keep in mind that value comes first. Traffic will come next, naturally.

Posted in Blogging Tips, Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments