A referring site (or a referrer) is the source from which a website came from. For example, a web user might find some recommendations for a restaurant on a good food guide website. If the website includes a link to the restaurant website then it is referring the user to the site. This link is referred to as an inbound link.
If you have are using Google analytics on your website, you can track to see where your visitors are coming from by clicking on traffic sources. This data is divided into direct traffic, referring sites, keywords etc. If you click on referring sites, you will be able to see all the sites that have directed web users to you and how many people they have referred.
In terms of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), it is important to build the amount of inbound links to your site. Not only do they provide traffic to your site, but also improve your Page Rank which can improve your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs).
A common question we get asked when explaining the many benefits of integrating a blog into a clients website is, “what do we write about?”. Well here are just a few things that you can write about:
Industry news (current events)
Writing about the latest industry news is a great way to get more relevant traffic to your website. As well as writing about events, make sure that you add your own comments and thoughts to make the article unique. Whatever happens, make sure that you don’t just copy and paste from other blogs / news pages or you could end up with content duplication issues!
Personal experience
People are always interested in personal experiences, especially within business. For example, this very blog is based upon my own experience with clients that are new to SEO. Providing this information in this kind of context is very useful to helping other users understand the importance of what you’re writing about, or trying to achieve as a business.
Top 10
If you’re ever stuck for something to write about, a top 10 list is a great blog to write. If I’m looking for a good website, I will also search for other peoples top 10 lists. I like to see their recommendations, and these lists will show that you know the industry well. For example, a web design agency might list their favourite top 10 websites for a particular year, which will provide their readers with an indication of the level of quality and how uptodate they are.
Advice and tips
Some people may advise against putting advice and tips on a blog. After all, why would you give users tips for performing the service you’re charging for? Another way of perceiving this, is that by providing tips and advice you will be perceived as an expert within the industry, which in turn will lead to more business enquiries. You don’t have to give away all your secrets, but showing that you know what you’re talking about is definitely a plus.
If you don’t have a blog on your website, you’re potentially missing out on having unique, regularly updated content added to your site which is a key part of your SEO campaign. To find out more about blog integration, you can contact Elevator or read more on this site.
YouTube has recently made the decision to block nearly all of its music videos to UK visitors, after failed negotiation attempts with British Royalty collectors for the PRS (Performing Rights Society) for music. Both are holding each other to blame for this decision, but they are still hoping to come to an urgent agreement.
The result of this decision is going to leave a great number of users in the UK very disappointed, and is one of the key key selling points to YouTube’s service. However, Patrick Walker of YouTube said that their hands are simply tied by PRS, and that all videos will be blocked until they can strike up a new contract that is “economically sustainable” for both parties.
Patrick Walker said:
“But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before,” he wrote. “The costs are simply prohibitive for us - under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback.”
YouTube isn’t the only company that has struggled with licence agreements in the UK. The popular music genome project “Pandora” also blocked UK viewers after being unable to afford the licensing costs.
When PRS were asked to comment, they seemed more interested in talking about how much revenue YouTube were making per quarter than actually explaining the justification behind their changes in costs. PRS most likely want to increase their costs because they see how much money YouTube is making with their videos. What they must also consider is that YouTube is a great service for the music industry, helping to get as much exposure as possible to their artists. If the videos are removed from YouTube permanently, then users will go elsewhere and often to illegal downloads where both parties will miss out on money making opportunities.
It seems one of the main problems companies have when trying to optimise their page, is with their keywords. A classic mistake is that they will have hundreds of keywords rammed into their meta description. Some of these keywords will be single words with little or no relevancy to the company on their own! Additionally, the same keywords and meta description as then repeated on every single page.
Other companies who know a little a bit about SEO, or who have been ill advised (find out more about the dangers of DIY SEO) include the keyword wherever possible in the page. This includes the title, H1 tag, umpteen times in their content, and at every possible link and ALT tag for images. As such they end up with a keyword density of up to 50%!! A search engine will normally see a keyword density of over 10% as keyword stuffing, and as such will penalise sites for this.
Here are some simple guidelines you can follow for optimising your page for your chosen keywords.
- Ideally your site will have site-wide keywords and page specific keywords
- Try and optimise each page for one keyword, with a maximum of 6 keyword per page
- If you include your keyword in the page title and h1 tag, and at least once in your content - that’s 90% of the job complete!
- Keywords should all be in lowercase and separated with commas (no spaces)
- Use the most relevant keywords first
- You can emphasise the importance of a keyword by using the <strong> or <italic> tags on the first appearance of the keyword in the content
- Aim for a keyword density of about 2-4%
If you need more information or have specific questions about your keywords, then contact us.
The cost of web hosting can range dramatically in price, from £1.99 per month to hundreds of pounds. When times are hard it’s very tempting to go for the cheapest option, but is buying cheap web hosting actually a false economy? Even worse, could it actually be costing you money!?
When looking into your hosting provider, it’s always worth checking out feedback from other users. Additionally, it’s worth checking out the uptime of the servers. Google records everytime your site is down, and having a low uptime (or an uptime of less than 97%) can be potentially damaging to your SEO campaign. You can check out the hosts with the best uptime at this link:
http://uptime.besthostratings.com/webhosts-uptime.php
It’s possible to get cheaper deals if you buy your server abroad from countries such as the US or India, but you have to take into account the speed of your server. Although having a slow website won’t directly affect your rankings, it makes it harder for Googlebot to go through your site, and having slow loading times can lead to a high bounce rate. Ulitimately if your bounce rate is high, your conversions are going to be low which will cost you money.
If hosting seems irresistably cheap, check the geographic location of the server and also make sure it’s not just part of reseller package. You may be purchasing webspace from a teenager working out of his bedroom at weekends! Ultimately the service you receive if you use any of these providers isn’t going to be great should you need any assistance.
Depending on how serious you are about your SEO campaign and the content of your site, it is worth investing money into decent web hosting. In most cases, a standard, mid price range host will be satisfactory for your SEO needs - but do some digging before you commit to ensure you get the best value for your money.
