SEO Training

Directories are now about as much use for SEO as a telephone book

The internet is full of directories, and full of people offering services to include your site in all those directories.  They are of little use for SEO today, certainly when compared to Social Media as an SEO tool.

Going back just a few years businesses were going mad about directories.  Online budgets were being spent on premium placements and button and banner advertising.  Things change however.  Directories no longer hold the same power.  Google have even said that they will not be placing as much emphasis on dmoz (the mother of all directories).  This is because many sections are without editors and there has been widespread criticism of some editors.  It is something I noticed myself.  It can be extremely difficult to get a site listed on dmoz.  At best it can take months.

Am I saying not to bother with directories and to concentrate instead on Social Media?

Not quite.  When it comes to Google Local, the map results for businesses, local directories seem to hold some weight.  This is because Google is slow to trust submissions to Google Maps by businesses.  If the business address given on your contact page is the same as that listed in various local directories then it builds that all important trust.  It also helps to identify you as an actual local business.

The links from directories still hold some weight too, depending of course on the directory.  They just don’t help your SEO as much as they once did.

For my money, I’d rather invest in SEO training and in particular Social Media training than on expensive banner advertising on directories.

Niche directories are probably more useful than general directories now too.  This is because nobody really uses directories to find sites any more.  Search engines are just fine for that.  A niche directory however will get you targeted, specific results, and probably ranks better for whatever it is you are searching for than a generalist directory.  A good niche directory will hold information on the field too, rather than just being a list of businesses/ websites.

By the way, don’t bother with paid directory inclusion services, they are likely to do more harm than good!

I've heard of a fire engine, but what is a search engine?

The difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation while SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing.

Strictly speaking SEO means targeting just search engines.  It is concerned with getting your site as far up the Google, yahoo and Bing rankings for chosen keywords as possible.  Achieving that is done in many ways.

SEM on the other hand has several meanings in regular use.  Some think of it purely as PPC (pay per click) advertising campaigns.  These are the ads you see on the right of the search results in search engines, and occasionally occupying the top slots.  I like to think of it as much more than that though.

When I think of SEM the word marketing takes priority.  I like to think of Search Engine Marketing as encompassing SEO but taking into account the user experience.

Let me expand on that.  A site may be extremely well optimised from an SEO perspective, ranking well in the major search engines, but that does not mean that the site is a good user experience.

It is a mistake to put SEO ahead of user experience.  I’ll give you an example. The following is SEO optimised text

Car washing by the car washing experts.  At Car Washing Ireland we wash cars all day every day.  When it comes to car washing we are the number one car washing company in Ireland.  If your car needs car washing then you have found the right site.  Contact us and one of our mobile car washing units will be dispatched to you and one of our car washing experts will have your car gleaming.  You will be so impressed with our car washing that you will return to car washing ireland again and again.

Actually, that is terrible SEO.  I have exaggerated it hugely.  The point is that SEO optimised text is not necessarily particularly readable text.  If the quality of English is high, then you use different words or phrases to describe the same thing.  This is at odds with SEO, where you want to repeat your key phrases.

The object is to achieve good legible text that a user will read, while retaining a keyword density that is reasonably high (though not much above 5% of total text).  It would be entirely better for both SEO and the user experience to write the above text with far fewer instances of “Car Washing”.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is all about S......elling!

SEM is more holistic.  It encompasses good SEO techniques for on page content (but not at the expense of the user experience).  It also covers Social Media as well as PPC advertising and even banner or button advertising.  Search Engine Marketing is about selling your site online.

A lot of SEO’s make the mistake of using the meta description purely to put in keywords.  Same goes for the page title.

In the case of the meta description it is fairly likely that google does not include that text in any meaningful way in its ranking algorithms.  I am not saying that you should not put keywords into the meta description or page title, but use them to better effect.

Better effect means using them to sell.  To stick with our car washing example, The title can be “Car washing Ireland”, the meta description could read “Get your car washed at home or at work.  We come to you.  Discount for online booking”.  No key words.  Just good descriptive text that helps sell the service.

The whole reason for this post was because I am writing about Social Media and somebody asked me “what has social media got to do with SEO training?”.

Well these days you can’t market your website online without at least paying lip service to social media.  And if you know your stuff (or get Social Media Training) then you can really make it work for you in a big way.  Look at what happened with the Susan Boyle clip on You Tube.  She became an overnight, international sensation, from a clip of an audition!  Wow.  That just does not happen with traditional media.

Why do companies invest thousands of euros in SEO training?  It’s all part of their marketing mix.  SEO is marketing.  Therefore, SEO is SEM and SEM includes SEO.  By the way.  I’ve just broken a rule there.  I’ve overused the phrases again (my site may pay for all this bad SEO!).  I was only playing with words, but be careful.  Remember we are dealing with dumb machines (no matter how good the algorithms are).  They do not see a bit of word play, but rather an attempt at keyword stuffing, which can hurt your ranking.

So, SEM is all about selling.  SEO is just about trying to get better ranking on Google et al.

One of these days I’ll learn to write short concise posts, but I hope that I’ve cleared up the difference between SEO and SEM somewhat.

Social Media Training, No sweat required!

Social Media Training?  What do I need that for?  That’s Twitter and other nonsense isn’t it?

If you are in business then you need to learn, and learn before your competitors.  Let me put it in old world terms….

If you open up your newspaper and see your competitors adverts plastered all over the pages, with no reference to your own business you would not be happy.  If you see a competitors advertisement on the television, and you are not advertising on it yourself, you would equally be a little worried.  Then you wake up in the morning and on the way to work notice that the $!@%’s have advertised on billboards too.  Who is going to take more revenue, you or your painful, advertising competitor?

The online world is no different when it comes to exposure equaling success.  Here we have a medium that is in just about every home and workplace in the developed world.  The potential for increasing your exposure is giganenormous!  The competition is, however, fierce.

Ok, so there is a lot of competition, are there any upsides?  Absolutely.  What was your budget for PR and advertising this year?  What if you could reach the same number (or many more people) and all it would cost you is a bit of time, and maybe some outlay on bringing in somebody to train you (which just saves you time and points you in the right direction).

Not convinced of the need?  Lets take a look at what is happening in recruitment right now.  I have chosen recruitment because I happen to be in the thick of it, and recruitment is at the cutting edge of online developments.  First we saw a reduced spend in traditional media like newspapers.  Before the internet took off newspapers are where everybody looked for jobs.  Then came the big job boards.  They made a lot of money, charging for every job posted on them.  Now there is a not so subtle shift occurring once again.   Recruitment Agencies are beginning to use social media and it is being so successful for them that they can afford to drop some of the expensive job boards.  They are saving money and finding the results fantastic.  Obviously this is not true of all of them.  This is where Social Media Training comes in.  You can waste lots of time on social media if you don’t know what you are doing.

So what should you be doing?  In Ireland there are three main sites to focus on.  They are Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

In following posts I will explain how they interact with each other, and how to harness them to help your bottom line.

In the mean time, if you want quick guidance and training on SEO and Social Media, drop a comment on this post. Do not forget to leave your email address and a telephone number! (No numbers will be published online)

Most of you know exactly what PPC advertising is.

Quickly, For those of you that don’t….

When you type in a search query into google Pay Per Click ads are the small text ads that appear to the right of the search results and sometimes as highlighted search results at the top of the page too.

In Googles system these are called Adwords.  Every time somebody clicks on one of them it costs the advertiser.  Usually this is a nominal amount like 20c, but can be as high as €2 or more depending on how high competition is for that search term.

Why use PPC advertising?

If your website is not ranking well for a search term you wish to be found for (SEO in my case), then Pay per Click advertising offers a way of jumping the queue.  You can appear on page one of google (or yahoo / bing /Ask) simply by paying for the privilege.  You only pay for when your ad is clicked on, so you are only paying for actual traffic to your site.  You can set payment caps on what you spend, so that you don’t blow a years budget in a month.

Why Not to use PPC advertising

It is expensive.  €100 a month will not get you far.  The more popular your links, the more expensive it gets for you to rank well.

Compare that to some SEO training.  SEO training can be expensive too, but the results you get from it are free.  If you are ranking well for your keywords then then Adwords become redundant for those keywords.

Ad blindness is also a factor.  Something in the region of 85% of click on ads are made by just 16% of the internet using populace.  That simply means that most people ignore the ads completely.  84% of us rarely click on pay per click adverts.

When to use Pay Per Click Adverts

1. Your site is starting off and has not yet gained any authority in the search rankings.  If your site is new it takes time to build up your rank.  SEO activities take time – something in the region of 6-12 months in general, depending on how much competition you have for your keywords.
2. One off events.  If you have a concert or other event that is a one off, then SEO is not such a good investment.  It takes too long and you will not need the links once the event is over.  In this case using Adwords (or the other PPC ad systems) makes sense.  In fact, with the exception of using social medial it is about all you can do.