Monthly Archives: May 2009

Reputation Management through SEO

Reputation management is something that is becoming more and more important for businesses, especially in the online environment. There are a number of ways that you can protect the reputation of your brand, and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is just one of those ways.

To provide an example, a local restaurant owner types in the restaurant name in Google, and discovers that the top 3 links in the SERPs are actually negative reviews from customers that have posted on websites. Their own website actually appears much further down the page. The owner of the business was extremely worried by this, and didn’t want potential customers to see bad reviews in Google before they got to her website.  So how do you go about protecting your reputation in this way?

Well, the first step was to improve the SEO of the restaurant website by working with a reputable SEO company so that it was ranked #1 in Google.  Ranking for the restaurant name required only minor investment as the name of the restaurant wasn’t particularly competitive. This made sure that the restaurant appeared above the reviews. The second step involved creating a number of press releases that were posted on other local websites (which had a good page rank) that appeared above the reviews, pushing them down the rankings to the bottom of page 1.

The thing about reviews, is that they tend only to be written when a customer has had a bad experience. Rarely does a customer write a review about a good experience, but this can be changed. At the end of the meal, every customer was given a card and asked to write a review on the same specific website, and there were incentives for doing so. Adding a review resulted in a discount code for a free drink with their meal on their next visit. Although these reviews could have been good or bad, the restaurant was confident that a very high majority of their customers left satisified. Additionally, in order to claim their free drink they would be a returning visitor. It’s unlikely that they would write the review if they didn’t want to go back!  The reviews on the website, diluted the current negative reviews and also lowered their ranking to the bottom of page 2 in the SERPs, as Google favours ‘newer’ content in this format.

The final push to the campaign was actually building links for lower ranked websites. This may sound surprising, but by raising their position a few places it pushed the negative reviews down to the 3rd and 4th pages of the Google SERPs. Generally speaking, most users rarely go past the 2nd or 3rd page in the Google results, so this was seen as an acceptable result.

Hopefully this example shows how SEO can be used to manage reputations effectively. Don’t fall for classic mistakes, such as writing your own reviews or getting friends and family members to write them. If you do this and you’re found out, it can be even more damaging to your reputation.

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How much does Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) cost?

We got a lot of enquiries for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), where the client wants to know ‘how much SEO costs’ before we know anything about their site or what it is that they are trying to achieve. I would be very wary of any company that gave you an answer before asking you some key questions or performing an initial analysis of your website.

The amount of work required for each campaign will be different depending on a number of factors, which include:

  • The current status of the website & current ranking
  • The industry of the business
  • The keywords they are hoping to optimise for
  • Other specific goals or requirements

Before an accurate cost can be created, it is important to know the current status of the website and how well it is currently doing. A website could already be reasonably well optimised which means that less work would be required to the on-page optimisation, and they could already be on page 2-3 of Google for their chosen terms. Alternatively, the website may require a complete rebuild in order to address any issues and may not have been cached by search engines. Even worse, the website may have been blacklisted for using spam or black hat techniques!

Performing a competitor analysis on the chosen keywords will enable you to discover how competitive the industry you are trying to rank for is. This will also give you the crucial information about how much work is required to both the on-page and off-page SEO, which is where you will be able to work out the cost of the campaign. You may discover that the keywords selected are too competitive to realistically optimise for without considerable time and investment, so you can research less competitive long tail variations of keywords that still yield a high volume of traffic.

So as you can see there is a lot to consider before a cost can accurately be created. The total cost will be dependent on exactly how much work is required and the rate of the SEO Company. If a company has offered a price before considering these factors, ask exactly what their strategy is what you are getting for your money. There shouldn’t be any hidden costs, and if they have not created a proper strategy then your campaign is likely to fail.

SEO can be expensive. Because of this reductions are normally offered if payments are made in full at the start of the campaign, but many companies offer flexibility in monthly payment schemes. In this instance, the bulk of the work is done upfront and there is normally an ongoing cost for maintenance, link building campaigns and monthly reporting.

If you have any questions about the cost of SEO, or simply want to find out more, then feel free to contact Elevator. We also offer a free SEO initial analysis report which will help provide you with an insight to the status of your site and how much work is required for you to achieve your goals.

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Top 5 link building techniques

It is now common knowledge that Google is cracking down on websites that pay for inbound links. Paying for links has always been viewed as ‘morally grey’ from an SEO perspective, but now more and more sites are being penalised and dropping out of the rankings. As such, we are now getting asked a lot more about our natural link building techniques. So, in answer to your questions, here are 5 top link building techniques:

  • Directory submission: It’s an old favourite, but directory submission is a great way to instantly get links to your site. We recommend not using any type of automated submission process or program, but instead manually selecting appropriate directories. Make sure that you include high PR business directories such as BOTW, Yahoo directory and of course human edited and niche directories.
  • Link bait: Link baiting was once considered bad practice, but is now an acceptable and very powerful link building strategy. A link bait normally involves creating something on your website that is either useful, humorous, or unique in such a way that people will link to it (a bit like a viral).
  • Article submission: Writing good quality content and submitting them to announcement sites is a great way to get good quality inbound links to your site. The article should be about something related to your industry, and will be made publicly available for others to read and use on their own site. The article will include a link back to your site which can provide a huge quantity of relevant links back to your site.
  • Blogging, forums and comments: Writing good quality content on your site will attract visitors and links to your site. If you write good content, you will be perceived as an expert within your industry or niche. This can be backed up by regularly posting on forums (which can also include links in i.e. footers) and by leaving comments on other blogs in your industry. Some webmasters will allow links from the comment to your site, which can be powerful links if they are .edu or .gov sites.
  • Reciprocal linking: Reciprocal linking gets a lot of bad press, and there are many SEO experts that believe it has little or no value. However, for a new website reciprocal linking can be very useful. Linking to other sites helps Google to categorize your website, and the reciprocal link will no doubt have a higher PR than your site so it will be a good link. You may also generate a lot of traffic from these links if it is from a popular website. Additionally, you could be a bit sneaky and ”nofollow” your link back to the site…

Hopefully this will answer a lot of the questions you have a give you a good start on your link building strategy. The great thing about link building is that over time your inbound links will rise exponentially as it gathers momentum (a snow ball effect). The downside of link building is that is can be very time consuming, and you have to be very careful about who you link back to!

There are many other techniques that you many find useful, including the current buzzword, ’social media’. Most links from social media sites do have the “nofollow” attribute, but having a large quantity of links can help generate traffic and your trust rank. We would always recommend leaving link building to an online marketing expert, such as ourselves! For more information, feel free to get in touch.

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New Google Webmaster Tools interface

A lot of you  may have noticed the “We’re changing - check out our new look” link when you sign into your Google Webmaster Tools (or GWT to those in the know!).  Google have decided it is time for a Spring update and have been busy working on a new user interface.  A lot of the new features are mentioned in the video (see above), but some of our favourites include:

  • Improved Dashboard
  • Grouping sections together onto the same page for easy reference
  • More information on inbound links
  • More information on internal links
  • Easier / improved usability on functionality

I look forward to seeing the finished version later this year, and also everyone else’s reaction to the updates.

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SEO developer / programmer needed (Manchester SEO Company)

Elevator is a growing Manchester SEO company. Due to expansion within the Elevator SEO team, we have a requirement for an experienced SEO programmer / web developer. The ideal candidate would have:

  •  At least 1 years recent experience in a SEO position 
  • A good understanding of the latest SEO techniques & skills
  • Good working knowledge of HTML, CSS, XML, PHP, MySQL
  • Experience with developing and integrating WordPress
  • A good understanding and knowledge of Google analytics

The following would also be advantageous but are not essential:

  • Experience or knowledge of PPC
  • Experience or knowledge of natural link building techniques
  • Experience with Drupal & Joomla
  • ASP, SQL, .NET
  • Any other web programming skills

Daily tasks include:

  • Hands on website development
  • Analysis and implementation of SEO techniques
  • Maintainance of the Elevator SEO site
  • Daily SEO blog writing on latest online marketing trends (1 per day)

Summary:

Position type:  SEO web developer
Salary:  Competitive (dependent on experience)

Please send all CVs to info@elevator-seo.co.uk or use the information in the Elevator contact page. All applications must be received before the end of May 2009 in order to be considered.

STRICTLY NO AGENCIES PLEASE

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