First of all apologies for the lack of posting over the last couple of weeks, work has been busy and the World Cup has pretty much dominated my evenings

So now England have been dumped out shamefully I thought it might be a good idea to discuss something pretty positive that has happened to me over this World Cup period, I NOW RANK IN THE TOP 5 FOR ‘search engine optimisation’!!!

Now that I have gained a glory ranking I thought it might be a good idea to discuss how I got there. I work with clients daily that throw massive budgets at SEO and not surprisingly get results very quick, however my blog has had very little in terms of budget thrown at it and it goes to show you can make it to the top working cheap, the results will come a lot slower though.

Altogether it has taken me 18 months to position my website there; I did a lot of the work in the early stages and as my site has grown in trust the anchor text from article directories and blog carnivals have really started to count.

The truth is, in the last 3 months I have done very little link building with most of my links coming socially and none of them anchored with the target keyword (except maybe one site wide a fellow SEO kindly gave me).I genuinely believe working to a tight budget does not exclude you from achieving results as long as you’re consistent and gradually increase your investment.

Anyway enough bragging, what I want to do now is show you my exact approach to ranking SEO wizz where it currently is (4th ‘search engine optimisation’ 13th ‘seo’),

Quarter One

The first 3 months of any blog are painful, you spend 90% of your time writing and 10% reading, however there were a few fundamentals I wanted to achieve in the first Quarter, ones that I knew would see me well in the future;

- I wanted to create a hook, so I developed some tutorials, this would ensure a nice flow of natural links

- I wanted to have at least 20 posts optimised for long tail target keywords

- I made it a must to at least get one link back to each deep page/post

I knew things would be slow at first as I have created many affiliate blogs and they have all started the same way.

Quarter Two

My blog now had enough content and I could really let Google know it existed without risking the sandbox. The idea was to get as many links to the blog as possible with preferential anchor text.

- I decided to write 100 articles

- Submitted them through Article Marketer (Now content crooner)

- Mixed the anchor text between my main target keywords search engine optimisation, seo techniques, google seo, seo consultant, seo (All of which are now on the first page of Google bar ‘SEO’ however watch this space.)

This wasn’t about getting the blog to rank, it was more about building a bulk amount of links so that I could get new content indexed faster and give myself a little bit of an anchor text push.

Quarter Three

Traffic was now picking up; Google was beginning to give me a little authority so it was now time to turn up the heat. To do this I decided to write some posts that would ensure me a way of getting links in the long term, I am talking serious viral content.

There is an important definition to be made here, some people consider viral content as a way of driving masses of traffic, the problem is going viral on stumble (which I have done quite a few times) does not necessarily mean masses of links, in fact very often it doesn’t mean any. I wanted to create content that when people did find it they would link to it.

- I posted on Bing SEO vs Google and did a small case study (I rank no.1 for Bing SEO and gain new links every week with no effort)

- I posted about Link/Ranking correlation (Linked to by SEOmoz and has delivered 1000′s of visitors and recognition)

- I also completed a monster post on SEO content writing which ranks very highly and is still my third most visited page!!

This is the back bone of my website, the posts that give a return over the long period and not just an instant traffic boost. Every website should create this type of content/product/resource, something that is going to continually get new recognition.

Quarter Four

I was really beginning to rank well now but still needed more diverse links; I had some high quality links but needed a more diverse profile. To accomplish this I;

- Submitted to blog carnivals taking advantage of preferential anchor text

- Joined new forums adding my links in bio’s and signatures (not spamming, genuine forums)

- Attempted some cross linking with other bloggers (Didn’t particularly work)

The above gave me a better profile and pushed my PageRank to 4; however I was still sitting on the second page for some of my major terms.

Quarter Five

Now I had a diverse profile and some really good quality or high PageRank links, however it was time to bulk up the quantity, to do this I:

- Created some reciprocal link partners with good online buddies

- Commented on do follow blogs with ‘top commenter’ widgets (I stopped this as it didn’t really work)

The increase in the sheer quantity of links lifted me onto the first page of Google for a lot of terms; however I still needed to add something to the mix…

Quarter Six

I knew in order to reach the top five I need those ‘trusted’ links from websites long established on Google and the only way to do this was to grovel!

- I leveraged all my blogging connections and friends

- I offered links from my other sites in return for a link to SEO wizz

I only managed a few however these highly trusted links were very effective, pushing my website to the top of the tree!

You see??? No Magic, no ridiculous techniques just hard work and a smart well thought-out plan and anyone can do the same, given the right skills and commitment.

What’s my plan moving forward???

Well I can’t give everything away; however I will let you know when I’ve done it

Thanks to all who read, link to, promote and support SEO wizz, reaching the top wouldn’t have been possible without you guys.

Cheers

This post is aimed at those in the SEO/Online Marketing Industry, if you have no interest in the industry you might find this a little dull, if you do read on

I have numerous requests now asking for a post along the lines of “a day in the life of an SEO consultant” or “a day in an SEO Agency”, obviously there is an increasing amount of interest in the Search Marketing industry and people want to know more about how it works.

I guess the main issue with writing a post like this is that every agency, every consultant and every in house team will differ in their approach to SEO and Online Marketing in general. The type of clients you service has a massive impact on the techniques you use and the resources available. Some clients literally just want to see a report every month, other clients want to be actively involved in the processes, and neither is wrong, just different.

So in this post I want to give you an honest insight into the processes and departments at Branded3, of course some things I can’t disclose in the interest of the company but I will try and give you the best insight possible into roles, processes and responsibilities.

Link Building

I think the best place to start is link building, the link building team are the back bone of any good SEO outfit, and these aren’t just spammers who get links here, there and everywhere. Our link building team are looking for ‘quality’ links and we have weekly meetings discussing link strategy and creative new ways to get links, if we wanted to just spam everywhere we could outsource it for a few hundred dollars, that’s not our aim and if you’re a serious SEO outfit you need to start producing quality.

When brainstorming link building for a particular client we consider the following sort of questions:-

- What does our client have to attract links?

- Does anything need creating in order to attract links?

- What types of websites are relevant to our clients’ product?

- What other products are relevant to our clients?

- What leverage is needed to acquire the links?

- What is the competition doing?

We try and get the whole SEO department involved in this process in an attempt to be as creative as possible, we have a select time each week to discuss the link building requirements of every client we service and tend to stumble upon new ideas every week.

Just a quick note on leverage……

I know after reading the above points some of you are going to be asking “hmmm, leverage = Paid links???”………. I am not going to turn this into a paid links debate but I will say this, If a link looks like a paid link it is going to be devalued whether money passed hands or not. So if you have a blogroll link that you got from a good friend and they have 20 other blogging friends that pass good anchor text, the chances are these will be classed as paid even though you never spent a dime.

So, with regards to leverage and link acquisition in general, all I will say is ‘be smart’.

Typically our links builders will perform the following tasks;

• Competition Analysis
• Viral Marketing Brainstorming and Implementation
• Create and maintain online relationships
• Source relevant links agreed upon in client meetings
• Report to Head of Search on rankings, link acquisitions and quality details

We have a very strict quality process with regards to acquiring links taking into account:

- Pagerank

- Moz Metrics

- Inbound Links

- Outbound Links

- Indexation

- Trust

- Relevance

These are obviously very broad but it gives you a good idea of what we look for in a typical link.

We tend to avoid using our link building team for acquiring directory links, article links or press releases, not because these types of links are worthless but because we can outsource them relatively easy whilst still having a say over the quality. We differentiate between premium links and ‘content/user generated links’ they all have a place but we prefer to use our internal resources to develop quality link acquisitions.

On Page Optimisation, Keyword Research and Site Auditing

I and Patrick are both firm believers in on page optimisation and the effects it can have on the traffic of any website.

We have an ‘on page team’ who constantly work on enhancing the content and general optimisation of our clients. The tasks we complete are varied but the main aim is to better target page keywords and to fill in any gaps with lucrative terms, what Patrick refers to as ‘gap analysis’.

A typical site audit involves the following;

• Keyword Research
• Page optimisation – completed on every page of a website
• Site Architecture
• URL Structuring
• Internal Linking
• Content Brainstorming

Some of these practices merge and every client has different needs with regards to content and on page issues, however when a new client relationship begins we always start with an audit making sure everything is in place ready for the link building to begin.

Our content team work extremely close with the Pay Per Click side of Branded3 ensuring the keywords we are targeting are the most profitable and that traffic potential is as accurate as possible, often even if we don’t take care of the PPC for a particular client we ask for access to their Adwords campaign.

Pay Per Click

At Branded3 we class ourselves as ‘natural search’ experts, however we also get involved in the search marketing side of things, our intention was clear when we launched ppcagencies.org.

Our aim with Search Engine Marketing is probably the same as every other agency, we are constantly looking to reduce costs and increase conversions producing the best possible ROI. We see PPC as an ongoing management task, much like SEO, removing unprofitable keywords, increasing ad copy and landing page relevancy and ensuring our clients ads are seen at the most profitable times in the most profitable locations.

We report and discuss on PPC activities weekly so we can quickly get on top of any account issues.

Our main platform is obviously Google Adwords, however, we do use Facebook and MSN ads with limited effect if I am honest.

The Many Meetings

Yes here at Branded3 Search we are no different to any other agency and have a diary full of meetings including;

- Client Updates and Reports

- Traffic and Conversion Analysis

- New Business Meetings

- Brainstorming and Planning

- One to One Consultant Meetings

- Team Meetings and Feedback

- Training and HR

It can seem like a lot of time spent discussing instead of doing but if carried out efficiently meetings are essential to the success of the business. They help us prioritise, plan and implement, often you will find that someone has a great idea about how we can improve a particular campaign but unless they have a formal procedure in which to put forward their ideas they will never do it. These meetings allow us to stay on top of the major goals for each client and encourage creativity on all levels.

A Typical Day

A typical day for anyone in the online marketing industry will depend on their position, the clients they work with and the type of work they do (agency/in house/consultants). I head the search team at Branded3 Search and will give you a little insight into what a typical day for consists of;

8.15am – I try and hit the office at this time, however some of my colleagues may beg to differ . I spend the first hour of every morning going through my check list of urgent tasks and emails; this is an attempt to prioritise for the day and to ensure I complete what I’ve set out to do. Often they will be quick fixes such as emailing a client or answering a client query, however sometimes they can be large tasks such as hunting down an indexation issue or dealing with a severe rankings drop, these have to be scheduled in to be completed that day or week depending on urgency.

10.00am – We have a meeting with each member of the team to discuss the clients they are dealing with and how the campaign is doing in general (usually a weekly meeting). We discuss things such as;

• Links
• Traffic
• Viral campaigns
• Brainstorm new ideas
• Set action points for the month

We also discuss any potential issues or requests from the clients that are outside the norm….

12.00am – Lunch time!!!! This is usually spend at my desk with Fish and Chips Thursday being the highlight of the week!!

1.00pm – After lunch I like get my hands dirty with the link building, highlighting those clients that need an extra push that particular month and going out there and trying to create some fruitful relationships. I think it is important for any Head of Search/SEO Manager to get involved in the day to day search work. Not only does this keep them skilled in the practice but also allows them to better understand the issues consultants and analysts may be facing in their roles.

2.30pm – I will now look back to my task list and begin to work down them, the ones in the afternoon are the more time consuming issues and they can vary from sorting out bad press, problem solving on page issues, brainstorming viral ideas, advising on new page set up, diving into Google Analytics, communicating with PR companies and agreeing new terms with link partners. These are just a few of the many tasks I could deal with, I think that’s why I love the industry so much, it gives you the chance to work with a different problem every week, particularly within an agency environment.

4.30pm – I like to spend the last 30 mins to an hour checking in campaign process and seeing what links we have managed to acquire that particular day. We don’t have link targets as such; however what I will say is that I would prefer to see 2 Quality links at the end of any one day rather than 10 low quality links.

5.00-30pm – At the end of every day I spend time making sure I am ready for the following day with tasks clearly defined and important contacts recorded in the diary.

Of course there are a multitude of other things I do and times when office hours extend beyond the norm, however this should give anyone who is thinking about entering the industry a broad enough overview.

I realise not everyone that reads this SEO wizz is in the industry but hope this has been interesting to those that are.

If there are any posts anyone would like to see on here, just let me know, always happy to look at putting any sort of content together.

Well it has been a while; things are really busy at Branded3 with business coming in thick and fast, hence the lack of posts recently.

Something I wanted to discuss today is a trap I always get caught in despite knowing better, I just can’t help myself, let me explain….

SEO wizz has found itself on the first page of Google for some decent keywords including ‘search engine optimisation’ ‘google seo’ ‘search engine marketing’ ‘seo consultant’ and even ‘seo’ on the odd occasion. (These are UK rankings)

Despite these ranking successes 90% of my search engine traffic still comes from long tail keywords.

For example, I consistently rank between 1 and 5 for ‘SEO consultant’ a keyword that the Google keyword tool estimates around 8100 searches on a month in the UK. You would have thought my top 5 ranking would pull in a decent amount of search then???

Nope about 35 a month!!!!!

Why is this? Well Google’s tool is definitely inaccurate but I also think the only people searching on this term are SEO consultants attempting to rank for this keyword!!

This keyword is far from the exception, I have worked with a client ranking 2nd for the keyword ‘mobile phones’ out of 5 million estimated searches per month, guess how many clicks they got???

A whopping 4500 per month!!!! That’s 0.09%!!

Yes the Google Tool is definitely not accurate and I know for a fact that figure would have been 10 times higher if they had been in first but it should make everyone in the search engine marketing industry think twice about ‘Glory Rankings’, this is not how high traffic sites gain all those lovely visits.

I have long advocated targeting long tail terms and if you want to create a huge amount of traffic this is where your focus should also be. Yes target those competitive keywords on your homepage (TLD) but make sure you put the same amount of effort into making sure your site has lots of genuine content that is easily found.

Indexing Issues

Many websites that struggle to pull in large amounts of search engine traffic usually suffer with these common issues;

1- They don’t create enough unique content

2- Not enough pages on their website

3- Poor internal link structure

4- Poor on page optimisation

5- Have a Google penalty of some sort

One of the main issues I see with big clients suffering to get the amount of search traffic they think they warrant is indexing issues and this usually comes down to poor internal linking or a homepage heavy link profile.

If you think you might have a problem with pages being indexed there is a fairly straight forward way to find out…

Simply login to your Google Analytics account and perform a month by month search on the keywords your site has been found on, compare this to the amount of landing pages your website has been found on recording both figures for every month, to make it more visual place the figures into an excel file like so;

This is a graph for SEO wizz over the last 13 months as you can see I recently took a dip in landing pages, there is a reason for this that I’ll get to later.

Once you have highlighted a dip in keywords and landing pages, and that dip has not re peaked, there is a strong possibility your pages are not being indexed in the same quantity.

The first step you should take is to make sure your site is not suffering with any sort of penalty..

- Is it coming up in Google when you search your domain?

- Does it come up for an exact title tag search?

- Have any of your rankings suddenly dropped off the charts?

If you have any of the above issues you may be experiencing a penalty which is a whole other post, if not it’s time to move on.

The next thing to check is your internal linking;

- Are there any forgotten no followed internal links (this was one of my issues)

- How often are you publishing new content? (Again one of my issues, if you aren’t updating 3 – 4 times a week I have noticed drops across multiple websites)

- Are pages deeper than 3 links in a standard crawl from the home page?

If you wanted to get more technical you could create multiple sitemaps for each category which can help you highlight which areas may be struggling, read more about this on blogstorm.

This will usually present a fix, if you have checked all of the above you will almost always come across issues that you can fix, however there is one more thing to be aware of…..

If your site is new or has very few links to the homepage, there is a strong possibility that Google deems your site to be lacking in terms of importance and therefore why would it rank your deep pages??

The easiest way to fix this is to build lots of easy links (article marketing, social bookmarking, and directory links) to deep pages of your website, sometimes simply book marking every page you create can solve this issue and you will see significant traffic improvements.

So to summarise…. If you want more search traffic put more focus on having a well indexed site rather than ranking for ‘glory terms’.

Thats right, I have joined the SEO team at Branded3, in my mind it is an excellent move for me, for many different reasons.

Now I know this may be shock to some of you who have seen SEOwizz grow nicely over the last 12 months, however I hope after reading through this post you understand my reasoning for the move.

For those of you new to the blog let me give you a little background.

I (Tim Grice) have been involved in the SEO/Internet marketing arena for the last 5 years, starting with affiliate marketing and progressing to more technical SEO activities and research.

I began taking on freelance clients in 2008, this was mainly through forums and other blogs that I actively contributed to, the contracts were small and involved very little in terms of project work.

SEOwizz was born at the beginning of 2009 and was an outlet for me to promote my skills and to share information with those who weren’t in a position to pay for it. SEOwizz grew faster than I thought it would, ranking on the first page of Google for a number of competitive terms and clients were signing up in the first 3 months of launch.

Work has been flowing through for the last 6 months and various contractors were employed to manage the work load.

So where are we now and why the move?

Well SEOwizz has reached the point where, in my opinion there are 2 avenues.

A – Investment to grow in an attempt to compete

or

B – I move my skill set to a firm who already deals with major clients

In my mind Branded3 is the perfect move for me, not only does it allow me to work with some of the UK’s biggest corporations but also gives the opportunity to learn and grow. On top of this I will be under the wing of Patrick Altoft, author of blogstorm (the biggest Internet marketing blog in the UK) and Director of search at Branded3.

I hope you can see how great and appealing this opportunity is for me.

However let me try and address the obvious responses;

How can you give up the freedom of being your own boss?

Why not be more patient and grow slowly?

The best way I can answer these sort of questions is by being honest.

SEO is not a money making scheme for me, it’s not a way for me to dominate the serps with cheap looking sites (even though I do dabble in that arena), for me SEO is an obsession, the whole Internet marketing landscape is my passion and the opportunity to work with corporate clients, grow my skills and learn from others is just as important as occupational freedom and money.

I am sure there will be those of you who disagree with me and may question my decision and hey, we all have different priorities. My hope is that regardless of personal opinions you will continue to come back and read the blog here.

Also I need to add that I didn’t simply join the first company out there, I have had a number of offers from some of the biggest firms in the UK. I joined Branded3 because of their strong focus on quality, even though they do build rankings and search engine traffic they are more concerned with building and maintaining successful businesses, this is why the opportunity to join them is one that I cannot let pass.

What is the future of SEOwizz?

Nothing has changed in my mind other than the SEO services will be directed through myself and the Search Team at Branded3. All tips, tutorials, research and rants will remain business as usual!!

So even though I am particularly busy over the coming weeks, I hope to throw in a few posts around the new link strategy topic, so please stick around

There will obviously be a number of changes on the blog over the coming days, so please be patient, I’ll try and keep things as smooth as possible.

Thanks

Tim

Yes I do talk a lot on this blog about link building and I am sure you think you have heard it all before, however I am of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with going over old things, after all repetition is the mother of skill.

So I have decided to put together a full explanation of how we structure link building at SEO wizz, focusing on what we look for and how we go about getting it.

I guess the ideal place to start is by highlighting what we try and achieve in any one link buidling campaign:

- Building authority:- Yes link popularity is important but we also need to build links from authoritative sources.

- Domain Diversity:- You must look to get links from a diverse set of domains to increase value.

- Deep linking:- A lot of the links will point to your home page, but you still need a strategy for deep links.

- Think Local:- Many businesses are targeting local key phrases, so why aren’t they building links locally?

- Anchor Text:- Yes the biggy, you won’t rank without it, ANCHOR TEXT!!

If you are not implementing all of these then you are missing vital opportunities and your campaign will not be as effective, however let’s look at these in a little more detail.

Building Authority

I guess the first thing to ask here is – “How do we know a particular domain is authoritative?” – and it’s a good question as there are very little indicators available to check a sites authority in a given industry or niche.

However at SEO wizz this is how we like to target authority sites in a given area.

1) First we search on 4 – 5 popular keyword terms in our niche.

2) We may scan back as many as five pages and take note of anywhere between 10 and 20 sites that seem to pop up on multiple searches.

3) Then we go through each site in our list and check the Page Rank from the Google Toolbar, then list the sites in the order of highest PR.

Obviously the links with the highest PR are likely to hold the most authority, if you can you should sort after link from these pages, however don’t get your hopes too high, as if you’re in a competitive niche there is a good chance none will link back to you, this is very common, however if you only manage to get one this is a good start.

Building Links To Authority Sites That Are Not Relevant

I am a big promoter of relevance, I think if you link build with relevance in mind it holds more value and any traffic you receive is more likely to stick around…

HOWEVER, and it literally is a big however…. There is also tremendous value in building links from websites that aren’t so relevant, every link counts. My advice when doing this is to only build them on established domains or domains with a good amount of links pointing to them as a whole and try and stay away from site wide footer links. The page you get you link from may be a PR0 but if the domain is strong the link will and does carry weight.

No matter how you look at it getting links from websites with authority is time consuming but necessary, you may be able to make some progress without them, but need them if you really want to dominate.

Domain Diversity

Now this can be a hard one to convince people of when all they can see in the SERPS is a multitude of sites ranking with thousands of footer links, site wide and anchored.

However, our research is showing more and more that a diverse link profile is an essential element to ranking well and better Google visibility. I always like to hearken back to my university days when trying to understand domain diversity, let me explain…

If a Professor had his work quoted thousands of times by 1 or 2 other academics this would be great, however if they had their work referred to thousands of times by thousands of other academics, they would no doubt be the ‘known’ authority in that area. This is what Google wants to show at the top of the SERPS the ‘known’ authority in a particular niche.

Again building links from a diverse domain is not easy, this is why I always encourage tracking your linking domains as much as possible, you may need to use them on a new site or venture.

Local Link Building

If you are targeting local terms it is imperative you try and get your links from local sources, businesses, local authorities, local directories and education authorities are all great places to get local links from, just one can change how well you rank for a particular local term, trust me.

If you are a business going for those local terms this is something you cannot fail to take into account. Getting these links increases your relevance and is particularly important if you are targeting a specific country. Want to rank well in the UK? Then wouldn’t it make sense throwing a few .co.uk domains into the mix?

There is very little research in this area but I think it’s a no brainer.

Anchor Text

Anchor text, yes the Daddy of the link building strategy. The must! You are going to struggle to rank for anything without it. Anchor text is the major search engine signal; if you are trying to rank for “used machinery” then at least 25% – 40% of your links need to have it in the anchor.

If you are building links naturally then there is only one thing to be aware of, the search engines will punish ‘anchor’ over optimisation, well Google will, especially if all the links come in bulk, this is known as ‘link bombing’.

At this point many webmasters ears prick up and start shouting about social media?

Even the most viral piece of content is not going to acquire thousands of the exact same anchor, even when they do the rankings are usually temporary thanks to Google’s freshness algo.

All I am saying is to go publish 50 articles to multiple directories with the exact same anchor text, especially if your domain is less than 12 months old, is fatal.

Also remember, there are natural ways to get the anchor text you want. We’ll look into that a little more at a later date.

Anyway these should be the basics of any link building strategy, you need them if you want to beat off the serious competition and remember these links need to be hitting multiple pages of your site, not just the homepage.

I am going to go through each of these areas in a lot of detail over the coming month or two, explaining techniques and tips on how to make them more effective and work harder for you. All the info will be easy to follow and more importantly it will work, or even more importantly it will be free!

One thing I do want you to take away and think about though is this;

“Don’t think about building links, think about building pages”

Remember better pages equal better links, how are you going to make the pages linking to your website more effective?

We’ll spend a full post on this at a later date.

OK I’m going to let you know early on that this is a little bit of a rant. Sorry

You see SEO changes all the time, something that worked 6 months ago rarely works now, link building methods consistently have to be changed in order to maximise your campaign.

I love SEO just because of that, it is forever changing and there is no such thing as boredom, however Google have over stepped the mark, and the reason I am upset is because it effects me.

Long term readers will know I have been targeting the keywords ‘search engine optimisation’ for around 6 months, so link building efforts have obviously been incorporating this keyword.

So what has Google gone and done??

Well, try searching for the keyword ‘search engine optimisation’ on the .co.uk domain; this is what you will get?

Showing results for ‘search engine optimization’???? Do I want to search for ‘search engine optimisation’???

Seriously, I am searching in the UK, in the UK we use ‘s’ instead of ‘z’ – organisation, recognise etc….

I fully understand why Google might think I mean ‘optimization’ but instead of hitting me with the ‘Did you mean’ sign, instead it shows a set of search results I never searched for or wanted!! Crazy.

So where does this leave me in terms of decisions, If I keep targeting ‘search engine optimisation’ people who search it are not going to be given the results that are relevant, so do I switch my optimisation methods to rank for a key phrase Google says I should be searching on??

Does Google even care that there are 33,000 searches a month in the UK for the key phrase ‘search engine optimisation’, are all these people wrongly hitting the ‘s’ instead of ‘z’ Google???

The other option I have is to hope this switches back and shows results based on the keyword that was input, but will Google ever realise optimisation came before optimization?? I’m not convinced.

I think I am going to simply add optimization to my title tag.

I love SEO, I love the fact that it is a constantly changing landscape but this is ridiculous.

Sorry for the rant, but thought some of you might find it of interest.

So many bloggers think they can simply put a blog together, submit to a handful of social sites and loads of traffic will come piling in, as I have said many times before this is not accurate.

If you are a blogger and you’re serious about making a living from blogging, then you have to invest like you would any business.

So where does Google Adwords fit in??

When I encourage bloggers to use Google adwords to give their blogs that necessary push I usually get the same responses;

“Adwords is too expensive”

“I don’t sell a product”

“How do I track conversions?”

“It’s just not measurable!”

Now when it comes to promoting your blog it is true the success of any PPC campaign can be difficult to measure but this really depends on your goals.

- Are you looking to attract readers?

- Do you sell an eBook?

- Do you have ads?

- Do you promote affiliate products?

Remember with Adwords you could fully optimise a page of your blog to promote a particular product or affiliate program and send relevant traffic straight to it.

However, even if you have no product at all you can still use Adwords to promote your blog and increase your brand and online visibiliy, let me give you a few tips about how to go about this;

Keep It Broad

When you first come to set up your Adwords campaign you are going to have to select keywords to use, then you can use keyword matching options to select either;

- Broad Keywords – This will display your ad to searches who use your keyword, any variations of it or even related keywords. This is great for branding and general exposure but not so brilliant for keeping click rates and conversion rates high.

- “Phrase Keywords” – These will activate your ad when a your keyword is used or any variation in the exact order. This is a much better way for increasing conversion rates but can mean a low click through rate.

- [Exact Match] – This means your ad will be activated only when the exact keyword search is used. Brilliant for maximising conversion and click through rates.

So which type of keywords do you think should be used to promote a blog? Well if you are selling a specific product you will probably want to go with the phrase match, however if you are simply trying to give your blog some exposure you need to stick to broad matches, this makes sure you get a good amount of impressions and your clicks are as cheap as possible.

A blogger’s main aim is to increase readership, if you can get 1000 clicks for 9p thats £90 spend, and you convert 10% into readers, this basically means you could increase your readership by 100 every month for £90. Obviously conversion rates are not all the same but if you create decent content and have a compelling opt in box there is a good chance your conversion rate may be higher.

Placement Ads

Ever since Google Adwords introduced it, this has been one of my favourite ways of attracting blog readers.

It allows you to place your adwords ad on targeted pages that are in the adsense program, so how are you going to take advantage of it?

Really easy, search for one of your main keywords and search down the top 20 results, then make a note of the ones that use adsense, and target them in your placements. You may even know popular blogs within your own niche that use adesense without searching for them, target them too.

Out of all the advertising methods this has made the biggest impact on readership and blog activity. The clickers are already reading a blog before they click your ad, this means their more likely to convert if your content is up to scratch.

Just a couple of final things to finish with.

If your aim is to increase readership then you need to create huge keyword lists, this ensures your using as many long tail keywords as possible and getting clicks for the lowest amounts. For this I suggest you head over to the Google Keyword Tool.

Do a “website keyword search” and this will show you all the keywords that relate to your sites content. It will even display keywords in keyword groups so you know exactly how to group your ads. This is just the starting point though, I want you to use the keywords it suggests to create huge keyword lists, take every keyword and run it through a descriptive search, this will give you a huge keyword list to start your campaign with.

Remember to keep the keywords in the groups the adwords tool suggests.

This will ensure you keep your campaign as relevant as possible and it will keep your cost per click down. Don’t increase your cost per click to accommodate for the expensive keywords, stick to a certain amount per keyword, some keywords may become ineligible but we are not looking to increase quality score here, just looking to drive lots of traffic through low cost clicks.

If you are thinking to yourself, “I am not paying money to promote my blog!” Then you are probably not going to be a successful blogger, you have to invest in this game.

When we first start out with our internet businesses it is very hard to prioritise different tasks that need to be complete. Do we build links? Write content? Spend time in social sites? Advertise? Optimise conversions?

The truth is at some point you will probably need to do all those things, however working online has its wicked little temptations that really don’t add anything to the success of your website and business.

There is that much advice online that new webmasters really don’t know where to turn and I wanted to address some of those things that are a waste of time and don’t really matter.

Obsessing Over Your Alexa Rank

Many bloggers/webmasters refer to Alexa as being a valuable source of information and many advertisers rely on it to ensure they are getting a good deal. The truth is Alexa is a highly flawed piece of data and tells you very little about the popularity of your site.

Alexa only counts visitors that use and have downloaded the Alexa toolbar, therefore if your traffic is not high in social visitors your Alexa rank is likely to be low, despite the fact you may get 10,000 search engine visitors a day! Sites that have a high Alexa rank are usually those linked with a social aspect of the web.

As a new online business owner or webmaster, I would take little notice of the stats on Alexa, maybe check it every month just to get an idea of traffic trends, but forget the rank.

I have to be on the DMOZ and Yahoo Directories!

The amount of times I actually here this is quite worrying, “Some guru told me I had to be on these directories in order to be noticed?”. This is false and many a high ranking sites are not listed on these directories.

Sure these are highly trusted pages that Google crawls, so make sure your website is well designed, clear and offers genuine information and submit it! Once you have done this forget about it, it really isn’t worth the worry or stress of checking every month and resubmitting all the time like a mad person.

Daily Analytics Checker

I have mentioned this before but feel it is worth mentioning again.

Do you wake up and check your Google analytics every morning? Then flick to your adsense account or some affiliae programs? Then a quick check of your link growth?

OK stop, looking at these stats is not going to make them go up any quicker and I bet if you took that time that you spent checking your stats and put it into something more worthwhile you would become successful much quicker.

Set aside a couple of hours a month to look at your stats, simply to make sure you’re getting picked up on the right keywords and to take advantage of any unexpected ones. Also look for any significant drops in traffic, identify the reason and make sure you put it right. Your traffic analysis is one of the best ways to notice changes in Google’s algorithm and the visibility of your site online, do check it but only once a month.

I Must Read 10 Articles A Day!

Many webmasters believe the best way to succeed online is to read other blogs, that is the way to make them succeed!

No, seriously there is no issue with reading blogs and taking in the information, but do not become obsessive with it. If you read blogs everyday of the week this is too much. Again like the analytics, set aside some time to catch up in your industry. Maybe select one evening a week when you go through your inbox or RSS feed and take in the weekly posts. It’s good to be on top of industry news and views; however it is a massive waste of time if you are reading blogs more than actually working on your own business.

The Social Bug

I am not a social junkie but do use it, well facebook, twitter and a little SU here and there. It can be a great way of building online friendships and communicating with likeminded people.

HOWEVER, if you are tweeting, stumbling, updating, digging; every single day, then you are wasting a lot of time for very little results.

I wrote a post on why social media is overrated a few weeks ago and I stand by a lot of the points I made. You see social traffic generally does not buy, or should I say converts far less than genuine search traffic, therefore your time should be focused on finding relevant search traffic not social. The people who buy from you generally don’t spend their time on twitter and stumble.

When it comes to social media, I like to have a good dig through it once a week, pardon the pun! Reply to friends, ask questions, publish your work, it is actually a great way to get links.

Multiple ‘Link to me’ emails

Ok you’re a new webmaster, you know you need links so you jump on the first piece of advice you read and start emailing relevant sites only to find no one replies.

Writing emails when you first start out is a complete waste of time, why?

a) Your site has no authority or PageRank yet so why would anyone want to link to you or get a link from you?

b) Webmasters do not take kindly to random emails out of nowhere asking for a link.

You need to build your sites link portfolio first, then when you think you have a site worthy to link to, normally after 4 – 6 months, then do the following;

1 – If you find a site that is RELEVANT to yours then read it, find out about the product, service or mindset of the webmaster.

2 – Don’t just dive in and email for a link, first attempt to build some kind of relationship with the webmaster, “I like your info, but what do you think about this?” or thank them for providing such a great resource. Build a friendship then you are more likely to get a link.

I think the problem with the online mindset is that many do not see their time as a commodity. They think they can waste time because their not spending money.

Your time is precious and what you decide to do right now will determine where you and your business are next year and years to come, charter your course and value your time.

OK lets address the first issue, SEO wizz grew up! Yes I was up until 4 am this morning with David from Quixotic Media cleaning up the last few bits of the design. I know many of my readers use the thesis theme and if you want a top notch design for a reasonable fee you should head on over there and see what they can do for you.

The new design is all part of my strategy for 2010, 2009 has been a good building year for SEO wizz but it is now time to take things to the next level and make a challenge on the SEO big shots in the UK and anywhere else for that matter. I think the design incorporates commercial and social interests quite nicely and will be perfect for the marketing push I plan on rolling out in 2010.

So I guess now is as good a time as any to take a peek at what 2010 may have in store for us and how we should be approaching our online strategy.

Nothing Changes

Throughout all the years I have been working in the SEO industry the basics never really change;

1) Create a quality resource, product or piece of content

2) Ensure Google can access the site and deal with any broken link issues

3) Keep you site architecture as flat as possible, linking to your most important pages from the home page

4) Keywords need to be in all the major areas title tags, body, images and I would still utilise the h1 and 2 as good practice

5) Generate links through content distribution, link partnerships, viral content and blog entries

6) Do it over and over again until you win

These are the bones of SEO, sure there are a number of technicalities hidden within each area but don’t be led astray by the ‘just write great content crowd’ – you need links and you need to emphasise the relevance your site has to key phrases.

Define What You Really Want To Accomplish

This is particularly a problem for bloggers, I have lost count of the amount of people that have emailed saying “I am blogging about making money online and need loads of traffic, how do I get it?”.

First off I think how original, secondly I think well what is your business plan??? To publish low quality or regurgitated content and hope the links and traffic are going to come flooding in??

You need to be smarter than that if your plan is to build a business out of your site.

It’s not just bloggers though, how many derelict ecommerce sites are there out there floating about?? Tons!

So if the online business world is for you then I would start by asking myself the following questions;

How much do I want to make?

If you answer is ‘as much as possible’ then stop. You need a target, a goal, something to aim at or else the chances are you will fall apart in the first year when you’re barely making $10 a month with adsesne.

Set a goal of income, a reasonable amount, then if you make more you have over achieved.

How are you going to make it?

It is no good thinking content will win all, I’ll paste ads everywhere and be a ‘click’ millionaire!! Time for a reality check.

Search traffic takes time to build and social traffic will not click your ads or buy your affiliate products, it’s a fact unfortunately.

So decide what products you are going to promote, how you’re going to build an opt in list, are you going to promote services? If you’re going to use affiliate links don’t just simply paste them on, sell them in a few articles beforehand.

One word of warning on affiliate products, do not sell them if you haven’t used them and found them to be of good quality. Your readers will never forgive you for selling a scam.

Test the product, illustrate how you benefited from it, and show the results… your conversion rates will be far higher.

How are you going to get traffic?

Erm SEO??

Yes you are going to continually optimise your pages; however you may have a product to sell right away, why wait?

You could use banner advertising on relevant blogs, google adwords or even free ads, depending on the nature of your product.

Don’t sit back and wait for pure search engine traffic, go out and get it if you believe you have a product that converts.

Are you going to use social media?

This is a tough one for purely commercial sites, will it really do them any good? My opinion is no, unless they have something to offer the social scene, which in my opinion they should.

Social media is not going to drive home sales or even give you tons of links, however what it does is give you an ideal opportunity for users, clients and industry experts to interact with your brand. It allows you to answer concerns quickly and sell the benefits of your service or product easily.

Social traffic will not turn into sales, but if your brand is out there, this means there is a good chance your company will get mentioned within context and this could lead to a word of mouth referrals.

Many of you may think I am anti social media, I am not as you can clearly tell from some of the widgets on this site, I simply believe in using social time sparingly. Many webmasters indulge in the hope it will lead them to riches, this is not the case, social media is exactly what it implies, the opportunity for you to socialise with others in your industry and with those who share similar interests.

No Investment, No Reward

Something that I learned quickly all those years ago is that if you’re not willing to invest you have lost already. The investment doesn’t have to be huge but you have to be willing to take it.

So many webmasters don’t want to pay for a nice design, for tools that cost more than a dollar or for recurring membership fees; some even think it is a waste of time paying hosting and for a domain. Granted there are scammers out there that will sell you big piles of rubbish, this is one of the online learning curves I try and prevent people from feeling when I write this blog, it can be really harsh.

My advice here is to find a reliable resource, and then use reliable resources that the initial resource recommends. Also don’t just buy, look for reviews before hand and any reviews that simply sell the product are probably scams. It’s a tough world but you have to be willing to push through it to succeed.

Plan your budget before hand, how much can you spend per month on;

1) Hosting and domain name
2) Advertising
3) Link Building
4) Design and functionality

Once you have this sorted the only other investment is your time. Don’t try and cut corners, software cannot write you a viral piece of content. Put your all in this is your business now and the rewards are real.

Believe You Can

If you are thinking “I’ll give this online thing a try” you’re going to lose.

If you are thinking “If I can make some money free, then I’ll invest” you’re going to lose.

If you are thinking “I’ll just build it and they will come” you’re going to lose.

If you actually believe in your business model and are willing to invest your time, money and talents into making your online dream a reality then you will more than likely win, even if not at first your attitude will drive you there.

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have had sites that have flopped and I have felt like jacking it all in, but every time I learned something new, I developed a new skill set and still am learning and developing monthly if not weekly. You have to be willing to keep betting on yourself, that’s the difference between those who do and those who don’t.

Making a living from your online business is not guaranteed however the possibility is a reality, in 2010 bset a goal to take your site to the next level, double your investment whether that investment be your time or your hard earned money.

Keep reading SEOwizz and have a fantastic new years eve.

All the best to everyone for 2010!!! See you at the top of Google!!

p.s. Sorry for the post length I got carried away.

I guess it is the way of cyber space, everything must be free otherwise it’s not worth bothering with.

It is a fact that there is a lot of information online and more specifically a lot of quality information; however does that mean you can find everything you need to know about SEO free?

Well actually, yes. Everything you need to know about SEO is free, you can read this blog and numerous others all offering good, however slightly different SEO advice.

Implementing SEO? This does cost, in one way or another, whether you’re a blogger, online entrepreneur or internet marketer, you will find yourself in a position where you have to invest in your online interests.

There are those who become involved in blogging and social media for kicks, but I’ll continue with this post with “making money” in mind, whether that be through a business, a blog or any other venture that requires search engine traffic.

Let me run by three different scenarios and if you’re trying to build a successful website you will probably fall into one of these;

All scenarios are based on those trying to make money from their websites

Scenario One – Quality Resource Approach

You have a website and decided to go down the “quality resource wins all” route. You spend money on web design and pretty graphics, you dive into twitter, stumble and digg in order to raise interest in your brand and product. The traffic comes in slowly, if your product is excellent it will eventually pay dividends. If you are a blogger going down this route you may submit pages to social sites regularly, guest blog and maybe even pay for a little advertising. If you are a good writer or have a hot product you will no doubt see a lot of traffic, if your writing skills aren’t up to scratch or your product is outdated then you may as well not exist.

Even those with a great product or excellent writing skills can still find themselves a year or so later with little or no traffic.

Scenario Two – It’s all a matter of time

There are those that believe in the power of search engine optimisation and decide to use it to promote their pages. They find the right keywords and optimise their pages, they slowly build quality unique content, submit to the odd article directory and make multiple blog comments, even on no follow blogs in the hope of a quality backlink.

Now if the niche targeted is not competitive the people in this bucket may see a little success, however if they are targeting competitive phrases they will always be lagging behind those who are willing to invest.

Scenario Three – I will stand on top of Google

Finally there are those who believe driving search engine traffic to their pages is the make or break of their business model and go all out to lead the pack. They believe in the power of SEO so much that they are willing to invest in this belief. They will pay for link analysis software, rank tracking, keyword research, article and press release submissions and link building. All groups are willing to invest time but this group are willing to make a real monetary investment in their belief that they can dominate Google.

In my opinion these are the ones who win in competitive niches, the ones you see dominating Google.

In every scenario nothing is free, unless you class your time and energy as a free commodity.

The difference between those who do and those don’t is simple. Those who do, believe in their venture to such a degree that they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

I know there are those who say “all you need is a free wordpress blog and you can make a ton of cash” this is so untrue on many levels;

- You need the right niche
- You need an effective marketing plan
- You need to know SEO (at least the basics)
- YOU NEED TO INVEST

I remember Darren Rowse at problogger commenting on how he used pay per click in the early days of his blog to drive traffic and many many more have done the same, including the famous John Chow. They are where they are because they have made an investment that goes beyond their time.

I’m Not Selling Anything

I am not leading up to some big sell, don’t worry. I am simply trying to convey the reality of being successful online, there is no one that gets where they want to be without paying for it in one way or another and in my opinion it requires more than your time.

What do I need to carry out successful SEO?

If you are targeting a competitive niche and you really want to sit with the big boys you need to do as they do.

I am not going to recommend any particular products, not yet anyway but am going to try and point you in the right direction.

Link Analysis

In my opinion anyone serious about SEO needs to invest in quality link analysis. Yes I know there are free ones out there but none I have tried have given me what I need to carry out a successful link campaign. I need to know the PageRank of the page the links are coming from, the title tag, whether or not the links are followed, what they are anchored with etc….

Hosting

Now you can have a successful SEO campaign on a free hosted blog, however I have an issue with this and that is you are creating something that you never actually own. When you register a domain and host it you are building something that you own the rights to, so investing in a domain and hosting is a must.

Backlinks

You need backlinks to rank, plain and simple. Now I am going to be very careful talking about investment and backlinks in the same sentence as I don’t want to stir up any trouble for myself, but the truth is there isn’t a site sitting at the top of Google that has not invested in some sort of link building strategy or software.

I am not talking about spamming here, that is a big NO NO, I am not even talking about buying links (even though many of the top sites do) I am talking about networks that will help you generate natural editorial links.

Article Marketer – This system publishes your articles to thousands of directories that all help to generate backlinks to your site. I use and have used it many times, however I have moved on and found a better way of creating links. Still use it in the early days of your sites to get on the grid, but I now recommend using it for no more than 6 months.

My Article Network – This works in a very similar way to article marketer except the sites are anonymous and the links are in the actual article not the author box. If I were to publish articles anywhere it would be here.

Backlink Solutions – Simple network where you write posts that are distributed throughout a blog network. There are many networks like this, it works similar to articles, content for a link. My only issue with this system is that a lot of the blogs in the network are not 100% indexed and therefore some of the links drop off the grid.

Linkvana – This again is a blog network system, the difference in my opinion to backlink solutions is that the blogs where the content is submitted to are of far greater quality. All content on the blogs is 100% unique and therefore indexed, a lot of the blogs in the network are PR5 and even I noticed a PR6 link just a few weeks ago. If you really want to invest this system is a must have.

Now I didn’t link back to these tools as I didn’t want anyone to think I was simply trying to sell them products, all these work and are not cheap. Obviously like any product the more you pay the better the results, if you decide not to use tools such as the ones mentioned then you will be left behind by those that do.

By all means create a quality site, that is what the internet is all about, but promote your site at the same time. If your blog/website is worth enough for you to invest hours and hours every week then surely a small money investment is not too much to ask.

As I say whether you take my advice or not that is up to you, the ones that do – I’ll see you at the top of Mount Google

People SEO advice is FREE, but implementing SEO is not FREE and the results you get will ultimately depend on the price you’ve paid.