The formula for quality onsite content (beyond good grammar and effective turns of phrase) isn’t set in stone. What makes content effective varies depending on the type of site, the intention, and the target audience. There is quite a bit of rubbish, unfocused and generally boring content online… especially on company websites.

To begin with you must ask yourself, honestly:

Is my content rubbish?
Does my content effectively communicate what I want it to?
Can people arriving on my site find what they are looking for?
Or have I fed them irrelevant or poorly created content that will cause them to bounce off the site almost as soon as they arrive?
Am I actually targeting the right audience?

Many site owners think their site content is amazing, generally because they wrote it themselves. Unfortunately, even a good education doesn’t automatically make you a good writer, nor does being able to write well make you automatically able to write effective online content.

This isn’t to say that all site owners are rubbish at writing; on the contrary, some are excellent. However, we must always remember that writing effective site content isn’t just about slapping information on a page.

Even well written content can be useless if not well chosen.

Here are a few tips for positively affecting your website’s rankings and increasing targeted traffic through well chosen content:

1. Focus: Find out what you really want to say and who you want to say it to. Then, say it as clearly and concisely as possible. This can take time to get right, but it is pretty much a guarantee that properly focused content will help your traffic and conversions,. It’s amazing how many sites have content that is irrelevant to the audience they want to reach. Don’t be one of them. If you are, fix it!

2. Do a little research: If you want to target a specific market for a specific product, have a look at Google’s keyword tool or any other keyword tool. Play around in search engines and find out what comes up when you type in a specific keyword. Target one and stick in the first paragraph of your text. This tells Google and your visitors whether or not they’ve found the right page. Make sure you know who you’re targeting and what you hope to achieve as this will have an effect on how you write your content.

3. Mention your brand: It’s a strange phenomenon but many companies don’t like to say their own name in content. This is silly. When writing a bio or telling someone about yourself, you tend to mention your own name, who you are and what you stand for. Don’t be afraid to mention your brand or name in your site content. Brand is important.

4. Link internally: Linking isn’t just about incoming links. It’s also about internal links. Think about it this way. If someone is reading your content and you mention say, SEO or a freelance copywriter, put a link in (see what I did there?). This means if they’re curious about the topic, they can follow the link and find out more about it. It’s intuitive and also a natural way of giving your site some authority and ease of use.

Quality content is not just well written content. Ensuring you’ve done your research, targeted your content to the correct audience, included your keywords, brand, and internal links where appropriate is all part of effective onsite content creation. Remember, site content should always be search engine optimised and user optimised.

If you need help creating optimised, targeted content, please get in touch with us as we’d be happy to help you create effective content for your site.

On the10th of May, 2012, Bing introduced the ‘New Bing,’ a search engine that subtly involves social signals to help you “spend less time searching and more time doing”.

We talk quite a bit about Google here. This is because Google is currently the biggest search engine and greatest  influencer of search in the market. However, Microsoft’s Bing search engine is hot on Google’s heels and vying for a place in the limelight. Little brother to the search giant, Bing has a few tricks up its sleeves and seems determined to prove that search can be better.

Back in December, 2011, I was fortunate enough to attend a talk by Stefan Weitz, Director of Search at Bing in the US. Back then Stefan baffled several SEO engineers by speaking of Bing’s potential to create a different kind of search, indeed to effectively incorporate social networks into search engine results. The conversation sparked much debate about the relevancy of Bing to SEOs at all, and spiralled into philosophical debates about the potential of social search, or personal search, to cater too much to individual biases. It was an intriguing day. Many scoffed at the relevance of Bing, thinking of it still as the underdog but of little significance.

It is still the underdog but now that Bing has rolled out its new social search, it’s sort of made Google look… anti-social.

art by Silver5

There is a new Google algorithm in town. Its name? Penguin (this is the algorithm formerly known rather conspicuously as the “webspam” update).

This latest Google revision has resulted in some unexpected hits and hard times for some web owners (Google quotes the number of glitches at 3%) and many frustrated SEO companies. In an effort to calm the tide of anger and bewilderment, Google has provided a place to complain or give feedback if you feel your site was wrongly hit by Penguin.

For those who don’t know, in brief, the Penguin update is targeted at reducing the rankings of sites raised by spammy links, keyword stuffing, exact match anchor text, paid links, link networks, etc.

In theory, such an update should benefit small business and SMEs, and provide a reward for SEOs engaging in white hat tactics. Assuming Google soon issues a fix for Penguin’s glitches, this attack on spam could be a very good thing for the web.

So what does “Penguin” (glitches and all) mean for businesses big and small?

1) This is a good reminder to stay aware and keep learning. If you think you know everything you suddenly know nothing. Having a (hard-working) student’s attitude is the best way to approach SEO. Search engine optimisation is an industry that is always evolving and adapting. Approaching SEO as a fully knowable field will inevitably cause problems somewhere down the line. Therefore it is wise to embrace unknowing and be willing to experiment intelligently.

2) SEO is now a team sport. If Google’s updates tell us anything it’s that the days of spammy linking, tricking the system and technical elitism are likely to disappear into history very soon. Effective SEO can no longer be a solo sport. As search becomes increasingly personalised it’ll not always be about that number 1 spot either. Now more than ever SEO must combine forces with marketing teams, content creators, PR specialists, design, social media and branding in order to create effective strategies.

3) Brand identity, trust, and awareness is becoming more and more important, even for search engine optimisation. Customers are increasingly concerned about trustworthiness and authority in businesses and products. This is especially important for e-commerce. If your site comes across as untrustworthy or uninformed, you’re not likely to see high conversion rates. How does this effect SEO?

It is very important to know a brand’s identity and unique voice (along with its goals and target audience) in order to write focused, optimised content that effectively communicates the brand personality, authority and credibility. This is something SEO content creators will need to embrace now, if they haven’t already.

If technological trends and advancements continue at the astonishing rate they are at now, the world we’ll exist in just a decade from now is likely to be very different from the world we see today. Our information is becoming increasingly digital. We aren’t burning books but we are printing less of them. Being prepared for rapid change means staying informed and rolling with the punches.

If your site was unfairly hit by Google’s Penguin Update, let Google know, then move on. The best plan is to embrace a unified online marketing strategy that combines PR, content, SEO, brand awareness and social engagement. The wider the scope of your online marketing and awareness efforts, the harder it will be to bring you down.

And yet? Ultimately, as Aaron Wall wrote in an article for SEO Book, the future is unknowable.

It is therefore wise to embrace the unknowing with optimism, creative planning, and wonder… not fear.

A standard duathlon, Chris explains, is a 10km run along with a 40km bike ride and a final 4km run, but long distance is 15km, 60km and 7.5km.

Chris has always loved to push his personal limits and has been involved in sport since junior school. He is a member of the Black Country Triathletes where he trains for sprint, Olympic, and middle distance races along with racing at IronMan distance, one of the world’s most intense long distance endurance races. He also races for Fred Williams Race Team at time-trail and road racing.

Training for IronMan typically involves more than 15 hours a week swimming, cycling and running. In other words, it’s not easy. It takes determination and dedication. As part of his training, Chris will take part in more middle distance (Half Iron Man) races as preparation (typically 1.2mile swim / 56 mile bike / 13.1 mile run).

Chris was very pleased to qualify for Team GB early in the season and is looking forward to taking part in the Championships in Horst this weekend, as well as hopefully the World Duathlon Championships and Long Distance Triathlon Championships later in the season in France and Spain respectively.

Chris is sponsored for this event by High5 Race Nutrition, Fred Williams Cycles, SuttonMaddock.com, & Oxyfit.co.uk and is in talks with new sponsors for later in the year.

Getting ever closer to his dream of competing at the IronMan World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, Chris will be racing at iron distance events later in 2012 and again in 2013.

We are very excited for Chris and wish him all the best in the Netherlands, Germany and beyond!

You can find out more about Chris and keep track of his many adventures on Google +

Obviously a rise in traffic is happy news, and this is something we very much like to see. However, low conversions indicate there’s a weakness somewhere. Often this is due to a disconnect between visitors and site content.

In our experience, this high traffic-low conversion problem generally comes down to unfocused or under targeted content. SEO can be great for getting traffic to your site, but conversion is about more than a few scattered keywords.

In the old days, the goal was just to get as many people as possible to visit your site. Nowadays however, the goals need to be different. Websites need to be focused.

Most businesses aren’t interested in high traffic alone. The idea is for traffic to convert into customers. If it never converts, what’s the point? It’s like bad evangelism. You don’t want people turning away because you haven’t preached your company’s message well enough or to the right people.

If you’re seeing a high traffic-low convert trend in your site, here are a few tips to help optimise your content and turn that traffic into targeted traffic and higher conversions:

1. Know who you’re target audience is: This can sometimes be as simple as figuring out what you want as a company. A quick example: more rentals or more sales? If you’re content is targeting rentals but you really want sales, then your content isn’t optimised for your specific needs and goals.

You may find you have different niche markets and are only targeting one and losing the other because your site doesn’t cater to them. This could be solved simply by providing targeted content and niche landing pages for different customer groups. But you have to do your research and identify these unique personas or groups before you can target them.

2. Put key content at the top: We need to remember that most people who use the internet have what I like to call media-induced ADD. Put simply, we don’t stay still for long. A culture of instant gratification and high speed internet, constant adverts and the like have made us impatient. As a result, we move on very quickly if we don’t find or can’t find what we’re looking for.

When it comes to content, using the old inverted pyramid newspaper format can come in handy. Don’t save your best content for the bottom half of your paragraph. Stack it on top! This helps Google, and your audience, know what your page is all about very quickly.

3. Watch the tone of voice: This might sound simple, but it’s very important to keep in mind – if your targeting people over 50, make sure you don’t sound like you’re talking to a 16 year old. And equally, a website for kids shouldn’t sound like it’s for their parents.

Focusing your content is one of the best ways to increase conversions and more targeted traffic to your site.

If you’re interested in having some targeted content written for your site, please get in touch as we’d be very happy to write for you or help you come up with a content strategy!

As weeds are to trees and flowers, so spam is to natural linking.

We know that Google likes to keep SEOs on their toes. The Google algorithm seems determined to evolve at exponential rate until it has reached its prime (or lead to the destruction of mankind).

The latest whisperings in the SEO world are about Google’s decision to combat unnatural linking or rather to step up its combat of this type of linking. This includes spammy links, link networks, and exact anchor text in linking. Many companies have been receiving emails about the shadier side of their link profile. Shortly after receiving said email, these sites have seen radical drops in search rankings.

Combating unnatural linking makes sense. To be honest, I’m not sure why it’s taken Google so long to do this as it’s a great way to cut out spam and increase authentic and social linking (but then, I’m not a techie and don’t know the details of how algorithms like Google’s work, not beyond the basic theories anyway).

So cutting link networks seems obvious but the place where SEOs may be hit hardest is exact anchor text.

This tactic by Google does make sense thoughl Think about it: how many non-SEO’s put something like “holiday to [destination]” or an exact key phrase match when sharing a link? I don’t, not when I am posting on blogs or recommending links to friends.

Despite all the logic against it, many SEOs have been confident to carry on using spammy tactics and unnatural link building because of the short term positive effects. With this in mind, here are a couple points to think about:

1. As with most things in life, the quick and easy solution is often not the best and certainly not likely to be the most reliable in the long term.

With Google’s continuing adventure in seeking out websites with true authority, content, information, links, and quality, easy to get spam-based links are not going to be the way forward anymore.

It’s like planting weeds instead of trees.

I’m no gardener. In fact, I’d say my thumb is quite clearly grey, not green, but I know that while some weeds look pretty in a garden or field, they will choke the life out of other plants (the ones you really want). Weeds are ruthless and mean plants. They don’t sit happily beside their neighbours, they try to crush them. Spam is the same thing.

Spammy and unnatural linking results may look nice for a little while, but as the search algorithms continue to seek out and destroy all weeds, if you’re not careful some of your prize plants (links) may be destroyed in the process.

So if you’re not already, now is the time to plant trees (some good solid links… without the exact anchor text).

If you’ve been hoarding spammy weeds, let them go. Spend some time watering those roses. Even better? Focus on the saplings. As they grow, their roots will spread, creating strong foundations.

Do some SEO gardening, pull up the weeds and give room for the natural links and great content to breathe in fresh clear air and spread roots.

2. Like the conservation of forests, SEO link tactics should be about preparing for the future, not just today.

Conservation of forests isn’t just about some hippie notion of wanting a greener earth. Conservation is about preparing and planning for the future. Trees hold landscapes together preventing avalanches and mud slides. They filter the air to provide clean oxygen, and so much more. We know this.

Conservation is common sense.

So. In the same way that conservation of forests is common sense, spam free natural link building is common sense. Why plan for today when you can plan for tomorrow? You might not end up on top right away but as that saying goes “aim for the moon and you’ll land in the stars”.

If you want your site to be found, ranked well, and maintain a consistent level of authority and respect by Google and other search engines, cut the spam and focus on good, solid natural linking, great content and social media.

Images are powerful and sincerely do speak louder than words… to us, to humans. But not to Search Engines. In an internet ecosystem that is becoming more and more visual, what is the future of search?

In the current world of search, Google remains the king of kings. But in this kingdom over which Google happily reigns most powerfully, the primary indicators of authenticity, authority, and quality are derived from content. That, specifically, is textual content or words on the page.

Google’s algorithms are based on many factors. I am not a technical whiz so I won’t attempt to dive into all of the details, but Google is a text-based system (with the help of code and numbers and other things too of course). Its spiders do not see photos or videos. They are essentially blind to non text content.

Will we soon have some very blind Google spiders on our hand?

As if on the visualised internet’s evolutionary cue it was announced in early April 2012 that Facebook had acquired Instagram, the popular social photo manipulation app, for $1 billion in shares and cash. Now, Facebook and Instagram understand the visual ecosystem of the internet and the power of photos. They both know and capitalise on the fact that human beings love to share images.

Facebook’s social growth and success comes down to several aspects but the photo uploading and sharing services have been vital to its popularity. Instagram, which has grown exponentially in the past year was seeing 4.5 million photos uploaded every day in January 2012. It makes sense then that Facebook would want to get its hands on it.

Now think about this: there are around 2-3 Terabytes of photo uploads every day on Facebook. That’s 15 billion photo uploads a day. Sure there are text updates as well but images are key to Facebook’s popularity. Now if you combine the image uploading power of Facebook, Instagram and relatively new platform Pinterest, you soon realise that there’s an ever expanding landscape of visual items to search through on the web!

Is Google doing enough to keep up with the visual evolution of the internet? We’ll have to wait and see.

Text still features prominently in our world, though it is image, both still and moving, that is the most influential. How many people read an article based on solely its title these days? Bloggers are encouraged to include photos. Websites are increasingly visual and image heavy. Even our operating systems are becoming less text based and more visual (just look at the iPad and the new Microsoft OS!).

Video, photo, images… these are the ways of the future. But until Google develops an algorithm to help its spiders see your visual content, you need to ensure your visual content can be acknowledged by search engines.

So what can SEOs do to keep up with both Search and an increasingly visual world?

1. Tag everything. Alt tags are your friends. Be specific and use keywords and brand names in your tags to ensure Google’s spiders can see your photo and let it add to your overall page assessment and ranking.

2. Describe videos. This is for Google and those of us who don’t always have time to watch videos, but may be interested in the content and save it for later. Every time you post a video, describe the content. Use your keywords, provide a link, and describe what the video is about. Summarise and entice. Think of it like the back of the DVD. Make us want to watch it and make Google see that it’s not just another cat video. Unless it is…

3. Continue to create great content. We may be entering the visual age but that doesn’t mean people don’t want good stories and great ideas. Keep ensuring you are telling good stories, and creating great content whether it’s a photograph, an infographic, a video, or even a song. This will ensure you get noticed and stay in the game. Don’t forget to tag it, label it, summarise it, and get people excited about what you have to say.

Hi. I’m Kimberley Newey. I’m a freelance copywriter and scriptwriter from Canada, currently living in the UK. I’ve just joined the team at a451 as a freelance SEO and content specialist!

I have always dreamed of being a freelance copywriter. This year I was finally given the opportunity. My first freelance gig has landed me here at the lovely office of a451 in Chichester, West Sussex.

So far, the foray into freelance contracting is proving to be incredibly rewarding. This is in part due to the wonderful team at a451 and perhaps also down to the fact that both David and I hail from Canada! With a mutual love of maple syrup, Rocky Mountains, good beer, England, and motorbikes, we seemed destined to find ourselves sharing an office! I am very happy to be working with a451 as a freelance writer and SEO for the next few months.

A little bit about me…
Other than my relatively recent passion for ethical SEO, I have always been fascinated by the power of words to create images, ideas, evoke emotions, and tell stories. I have recently contributed to a zombie comic anthology, won an award for excellence in Steampunk storytelling for my short  film Tick Tock, and I have written several other projects for film, tv, and the web. I am passionate about writing regardless of genre, industry, or medium. I’m a bit of a geek with a love for comics and dystopian fiction and a new love for Triumph motorbikes (unfortunately the bike above is not a Triumph)!

A bit of history…
I have a BA in Communications and an MA in Writing for the Media. I stumbled upon SEO in March 2011,  after winning a place on the Sussex Internship Programme with a small software company in Chichester. I read hundreds of blogs, articles and how-to guides, and taught myself SEO and article marketing practices while helping the company re-write their entire website. I also mastered a new CMS, brushed up on basic HTML, and learned about Meta Data, tagging and keyword research.

In addition to this technical stuff, during the internship I  was able to flex my creative writing muscles and try out some content strategies; I set up a content schedule and ran their two blogs for three months. It was an incredibly rewarding experience, one which taught me the joy of helping companies be found by Google using primarily well crafted and well chosen words.

From there, I joined the ranks of Fresh Egg in Worthing. I was there for 9 months and in that time learned more than I could have imagined about writing optimised onsite content, blogging, article marketing and the theories and practices of SEO including learning the meaning of black hat tactics vs white hat. Don’t worry, I am stalwartly white hat. I call this ethical SEO.

Ethical SEO?
It’s about being trustworthy, transparent, and authentic. For me quality content whether text, video, or image, is the key to effectiveness in search results, conversions, and gaining client trust. It’s good ethics, good business, and good SEO. Thankfully, this is something David, a451, and I have in common too.

And so…
In March 2012, I decided to become self employed. Armed with a year’s experience in SEO from a content perspective, CMS experience, a love of the internet, and technical curiosity combined with over 5 years professional writing experience in blogging, article writing, and scriptwriting, I knew I was ready to make the leap.

I must say, it’s been quite exciting so far!

You can find out more about me, my work, and a list of SEO writing samples by visiting my  website here: Kimberley Newey, Copywriter

If you call the a451 office  in the next few months you may hear my voice. You’ll also be seeing some blog posts from me here on the a451 blog for the next little while so I hope you’ll enjoy what I have to say!

a451 is pleased to announce that Jonathan McLellan, an account manager with our partner Pixl8, is participating in the epic and spectacular Mongol Rally for charity!

Jonathan has teamed up with three others called “The Adventure Collectors” who will drive together over 10,000 miles.

The trip starts at Goodwood UK and goes through 1/3 of the world in a route to Mongolia that will take them through over 20 countries, 3 mountain ranges, 5 deserts, and 8 time zones! The trip will include bad roads, no roads and all sorts of potential to get into trouble and have a truly unforgettable adventure.

However, all of this will be done with more than a view to merely having a good adventure. The team is hoping to raise £30,000 for charity.

The team has chosen to support the amazing work of The Children’s Hospice Scotland and The Lotus Children’s Centre. All proceeds will go right to the work of these wonderful charities. Not a penny goes to the Adventure Collectors! Crazy, right? We couldn’t be more proud of them.

For more information, and to find out how to donate and support the two great charities and Jonathan and his team’s crazy exciting, dangerous and spectacular journey to Mongolia, please visit The Adventure Collectors website.

We’d like to wish Jonathan and  The Adventure Collectors great success on their journey!

“WHAT?”

Above was a common reaction which was found throughout the SEO world. Matt Cutt’s actual comments were as follows:

‘We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization and overly SEO – versus those making great content and a great site.’

You could well, at this juncture, point out that the descriptions on either side of the ‘versus’ are in fact describing the same thing = A good SEO-er. You may well be frustratingly tapping your foot under the desk right now, or squeezing that office stress ball to death or even scrolling manically down this blog to find out what on earth Matt Cutts, and therefore Google, can have against White-Hat SEO who are following all of the MANY Google rules.

Stop, Breath and Read On….

Matt Cutts then went on to say - ’….. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect….’

Let’s try and understand what he’s actually saying. An interpretation could be that, rather than attacking random SEO’s, firing here and there with their algorithm and hoping they take home a trophy at the end of the hunt, what Google’s Head of Search Spam is actually hinting at is in fact….big surprise…..Spam.

You see, as much as Google keeps evolving to get better at weeding out Spammy sites, those Spammy webmasters are also evolving to avoid the long arm of Google’s Algorithm.

So, back to Matt Cutt’s comments; there are 4 main takeaways from this:

1. Keywords

2. Links

3. Relevance

4. Quality

Yes, I know what you’re saying, but we already know about the importance of those. Well, you may do, but that doesn’t mean Matt Cutts isn’t going to keep reiterating them. This new update is nothing new in effect. What he’s saying is: Google will not put up with Link Farms (we already knew that), Google will not put up with Keyword Stuffing (yep, that one too), Google will only strive to show results that are relevant to a user’s query (standard) and of course Google will only rank quality websites with quality content highly (in fact I think I knew that too).

So, for those of you who are following Google’s rules already, who are building links naturally, who are optimising the correct amount of keywords, who are improving the relevancy and quality of their site and content: DON’T WORRY.

For those of you who are breaking Google’s rules: WORRY.

For more information about the services a451 offer (which align perfectly with Google’s rules!) you can visit our website here.

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