SEO and Branding

25/08/2010 by Leave a Comment

Branding in the traditional sense is not necessarily achievable on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). That is, having the company name on a SERP has little or no positive effect. However, branding is the inevitable outcome of the volume of visits that SEO generates. Even better, search engine traffic improves branding in its truest sense and it reinforces the correlation between a brand and the products that a brand offers. To achieve this branding SERPs need to be thought of separately. While advertising banners are designed to heighten brand awareness by way of well-designed images and copy, SEO achieves branding by reinforcing what a brand offers and by delivering visitors to a site.

A high ranking on a search engine should not be considered a branding opportunity in itself, but rather an opportunity to deliver traffic to the place where branding is strongest – the site itself.

SERPs also offer the ability to add to the understanding of a brand. By increasing the number of search terms that a site can be found for, brand recognition is also increased. Particularly for large companies with several product ranges, SEO offers a very effective means of conveying all the products offered under a single brand umbrella.

Branding decisions on a website should be made with the priority on achieving high rankings and attracting actual visitors. Issues like company names in titles, slogans and marketing jargon should take a back seat to actually getting relevant visitors to the site, where this information can be more effectively conveyed.

Written by Bill Vasiliadis

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With: , ,

Are Inbound Links Important?

05/08/2010 by 1 Comment

I’m going to answer this question by sharing two experiments which I have been conducting for the past four months. I won’t give details of the websites and keyword phrases that I have been targeting, just enough information to answer the question “are inbound links important?”

Let me answer the question before I give details of my experiments, yes, inbound links are important, actually they are extremely important.

Here are the details of my first experiment. I picked a niche market, and from keyword research determined one of the most popular keyword phrases. The competition for this phrase was high, so my initial estimate was 6-12 months before achieving a Google Page 1 ranking. Mind you, this estimate based on a fully functional website undergoing an SEO campaign.

I chose a domain name which had never been registered, not matching the keyword phrase, and no SEO history what so ever. I took out a dedicated server and created a landing page. The landing page consisted only of an image, no content in the body. The only on-page optimisation performed was on the title tag, meta description tag, meta keywords tag, the canonical link tag, and an alt attribute for the image. That’s it! Nothing else.

The title tag contained the popular phrase I spoke of above. I also included it in the meta description and meta keywords tags. We know the meta keywords tag serves no purpose with Google these days, but I included it anyway. I also included the popular phrase in the alt tag of the image.

With no content on the page and the whole site consisting of just this one landing page, you don’t really expect it to rank in the search engines.

My experiment now was to source quality and relevant inbound links and monitor the rank of the popular phrase that I was targeting.

After four months of consistent and steady back links generation, the landing page is now ranked Google page 1 position 7 for the popular phrase. I have not ‘spammed’ the engines by sourcing thousands of back links, nor have I used tactics which would be considered ‘black hat’. The back links sourced are from quality and relevant sites and using the appropriate anchor text.

Keep in mind, this is a single landing page with no content, just one image.

My second experiment targeted a phrase from a very competitve industry. The website, again, was a new site with no previous history on the domain name. The domain name did not match the keyword phrase as with the first experiment. The server in this case was shared with hundreds of other sites. The site consisted of 12 pages and the only on-page optimisation completed was for the title tags, meta description tags and meta keywords tags. No additional pages were added nor any further updates made. Just a static site for four months.

By sourcing steady, quality and relevant inbound links, the home page of the site is now on Google page 3 (and improving) for this very competitive phrase.

So what can we conclude from the above experiments? The definate conclusion is that sourcing inbound links from quality and relevant pages have a ‘huge’ impact on your rankings. Steady and consistent back links growth will push your rankings towards page one. Add basic on-page optimisation and consistent content creation to the mix, and you will surely give your competition a good run towards the number one spot.

Written by Bill Vasiliadis

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With:

What is Keyword Research?

21/07/2010 by Leave a Comment

Keyword Research and analysis is the most important part of any internet marketing campaign. It is the process of identifying the terms that users are typing to find a product or service within a particular industry. Targeting these phrases will lead to the highest traffic and conversions.

How to select the right keyword
The right keyword is the one which is most relevant to the concept of the page, ad, landing page, etc and not necessarily the one with the highest search count. Selecting appropriate keywords will result in targeted traffic. Targeted traffic results in better Return on Investment (ROI).

Where should the selected keywords be used?
For Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the selected keywords should be used in the metadata (title tag, meta description tag and meta keywords tag), body text, anchor text, header tags, file and folder names, image alt tags etc. according to relevance. Keywords should be regionalised by adding location or region where possible.

For Pay-Per-Click (PPC), the selected keywords should be used in the title and description of the ad. They should also be used on the landing page linked to from the ad.

Why is the right selection of keywords important?
Selecting the right keywords is critical to the amount of traffic directed to a website as well as the type of traffic. Pages and ads optimised with more targeted keywords will be ranked higher in the search engines results pages. Therefore relevant and focussed keywords will result in better quality traffic along with quantity of traffic.

An example
As an example, ‘blue badges sydney’ is better than ‘badges’ if the page is about selling blue badges in Sydney. Firstly, the competition for ‘badges’ and ‘blue badges’ will be high. Secondly, if someone is looking for blue badges in Sydney, they are more likely to convert for a page or ad optimised for the exact term rather than just ‘badges’ or ‘blue badges’.

Final Note
Don’t underestimate the importance of keyword research. It will enable you to compile a list of relevant and popular phrases to target for your internet marketing campaigns that will maximise your ROI.

Written by Bill Vasiliadis

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With:

Is Google going social? Again!

28/06/2010 by 1 Comment

There is a rumour about that Google is developing a platform that will rival Facebook! Even so, will users adopt to it? It’s interesting to see Google entering the social media space and at the same time Facebook is entering the search space with its Open Graph developments. Interesting times ahead.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With:

Hello and Welcome!

20/06/2010 by Leave a Comment

Welcome to my blog where I will post a bit of this, a bit of that, and all things internet marketing!

Feel free to ask any questions or join in on the discussion.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: Internet Marketing
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