Link building and SEM is one side of the story, but also what you do on your site is equally as important.

Covering every single SEO aspect on-site and on page is a clear flag you are over optimising. So, below are some hints and tips that you can implement to make sure your on-site visitors find your site a great resource along with the search engines!

If you have WordPress installed on your website, you are the lucky ones as you have a plethora of plug-ins and ways to optimise your site very easily. If you are using another CMS system, then make sure the areas below are covered on page and on-site.

If you have WordPress as your CMS system, install the ‘All in one SEO’ plugin. It covers all the essentials you will need for on page SEO. When you first install the plug-in, you will need to go into the settings and add the criteria below. I won’t explain why only the elements below need checking, but suffices to say they are the main SEO elements you need. The list below should be how you see the elements listed in the all in one SEO plug-in setup page.

‘All in one SEO’ plugin for the settings page.
Plugin status – Enabled.
Home title, description – include ‘keywords.’
No meta keywords.
Post Title Format – %post_title%
Page Title Format – %page_title%
Category Title Format – %category_title%
Archive Title Format – %date%
Tag Title Format – %tag%

Only tick -
‘Use noindex for Archive’
‘Use noindex for TAG Archive’
‘Capitalize Category Titles’

Once you have set up the all in one SEO plug-in, you can go to a post and add to the form boxes in the SEO plug-ins section in the post.

The basic on page SEO criteria are – your main keyword in the title tag, description tag
A 300+ word article.
To make the juiciest page possible, below are a list of criteria to cover for each page in full. Some parts apply only to WordPress sites, so if you don’t have WordPress, you are missing out!

1. post title Should have primary keyword phrase.
2. permalink – keywords in url.
3. meta title keyword in – in’seo pack’ section.
4. descriptions and headings.
5. internal linking to your site pages in content.
6. outbound links onpage to relevant sites.
7. h2 or h3 for additional keywords, images alt tag, add video, pod casts in content.
8. ‘all post’ or ‘all pages’ of your posts list shows which pages need keywords.
9. 300 word articles. .
10. outbound links near bottom of article.
11. social media links, letting page readers share your content (‘AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget’ plug-in for WordPress)(facebook, twitter, google+, social bookmarks, help people hare cool stuff.)

Don’t over do the ‘onpage’ SEO. Don’t be afraid of some outbound links, if they are relevant to your post or site. You are adding relevant resources to your page. Adding social bookmark links so people can share your content is vital.
WordPress has quite a few plug-ins to allow you to do this. Also, stop adding tags to your WordPress site, only add the post to one category and get rid of your archive posts. Why? It’s creating duplicate content. You want your content in only one place on your site.

The above stuff does take a little more time than just sticking in a title or post, but the effort is worth it to make sure your page is as relevant as possible. The more relevant your page the more chance it has to rank naturally and attract human traffic.

About a year ago, many articles were de-indexed from the web as they had no worth and little readability. This was a good thing. We have now seen Google apparently de-index most of the pages from private blog networks. On one level, this is a good thing. It has stopped an easy way to acquire links which were paid for. On the other hand, some of these blog networks had a long-term business plan to provide quality articles, which they thought would work. However, Google didn’t think so and have stated that this was done as these type of blog networks were manipulating the results.

I think we have to look at both sides of the picture. These private blog networks were in place to essentially manipulate the organic listings. As in the case of buildmyrank.com, you submitted 150 word article with a link. If it passed build my ranks quality criteria, it will be posted on one of the blogs in the network and you gain a link and a bit of passed down PR. So to build links on build my rank, you had to write daily content for each link or get someone else to do it for you. This seemed okay on the surface, but the resultant blogs had tons of 150 word articles on totally separate themes. This is where most of the problem lay. Non-themed blogs, full of unrelated content. Only there to gain link juice for its paid-up members. If these type of blogs were the main content of the web, we would only see short content, only there to get link juice.

However, if you look at any news website, it is full of unrelated themes, with varying lengths of articles. Because the blog networks content could be about anything and not about current news, it was also seen as negative. Although the article submitted were usually short, networks such as build my rank only allowed content which read well, had proper punctuation and grammar.

The other argument is that a lot of people built links with the best of the blog networks, as they thought they were legitimate links. Paid for, yes, but you still have to put in the work to write content and hopefully have it but live. Now all those links are gone and we have a knock-on effect. Businesses and SEO people have potentially lost work and rankings. Dropped placings for businesses means less sales. Should search have this much control?!? These networks were in it for the long term or the best of them were. They wouldn’t have gone down this business route otherwise.

Lastly, as it was recently pointed out, SEO in principle is manipulating the results. I don’t know one company who have built a website with any intention of promoting it online that have just built the site and left it there, hoping people will just come across it. If you have a wonderful product or service that everyone is talking about, then you may organically promote yourself from people naturally linking to you. However, most businesses employ an SEO person or agency to promote their website online. In some way or other, this is manipulating the results. Just as paying more than the next person per click, manipulates paid search engine advertising.

If this de-indexing of the blog networks is to make sure the lengthier, more in depth, theme related content reaches the top of search then fine, but the mass de-indexing does seem a bit Big Brother like and a making example of.

But this is really all academic at this stage. The search engines rule the roost and we play by the rules. If you are promoting yourself online, then the same basic principles apply as they always have. Get quality content out there and lots of it. This will take you time and money, but over time it will work. As social signals are playing a bigger part these days, you can also get busy in this area. But obviously, this will depend on your business type.

A webpage is of worth when it is seen as quality content that has some age and has been referenced or cited many times, i.e. linked to. Cover these areas over time and you should do well.

Google has reportedly done this to try and make sure these type of the networks cannot manipulate the results and as a way to provide more relevant results.
However, a lot of the most well-known blog networks have known that to be long lasting, they have to provide quality content. Although they did to a point, the content that was posted to the individual blogs was completely separate in theme and arguably short in length.
Some of this content may have been worthwhile for people, both for back linking and human readability, but this means nothing, as the big G made the decision that these networks had to go.
This means, no matter how white hat the content was, if you posted on these networks, they now do not count.
It’s a shame on one level, as legitimate, white hat SEO tactics tried to provide quality content to get quality links. But this is now just academic.

In the long run, it may be for the best, so that more lengthy, unique articles are only available on the web.
We saw this last year with a lot of the article directories getting slammed for posting trash content. Everyone saw the benefits of this, as no one wants to search for ages only to find search listing of a trash article.

So if you have relied on blog networks for part of your link building or even all of it, where do you go from here?
Some talk has been on still creating a blog network, but one of your own that is completely private and only for your own use. But eventually, will you be found out?
Personally, if this has happened to the largest networks it is not really worth the time, energy and money to have it done to you sometime in the future.
You may be thinking, if you create your own blog network and keep it as private as possible, you will not get hit. But the whole point of the blog network, is to build it and make it more for worthwhile. This will mean at some point in the future, search engines will find your footprint. If they do, you may go the same way as the others.

There are plenty of ways you can get quality link juice without using blog networks.
You will still have to produce quality, unique content, as you always have done. You just need to work at it harder, produce more and work to get that quality content on quality sites.

Link building in this way, takes time and energy, but if done right you will get links that will hopefully stick and humans will find as a worthwhile resource.
Ultimately, this is what the web should be about anyway. You do a search and in no time fine quality information.
If the web is just going to be full up of junk articles, then the originators of the web who worked in academia to transfer information more efficiently, will be turning in their graves(or labs!) as we speak!

Produce quality content on the web and it will ultimately be a better place. (……. that along with less crap videos on youtube of cats falling off chairs..!)

Google places.
The main hurdle most businesses have in the organic listings, is Google places or the equivalent on other search engines, sponsored listings at the top of the organic lists and pay per click ads.
Depending on which keywords you want to rank for, will depend on how many Google place listings are on the first page. Google place listings usually come up when you type in a keyword and the locality, e.g. locksmiths Manchester.
If you are listed at number one in the organic search and there are seven Google place listings above you, it’s only natural for someone searching to look at the Google places listings first.
Now if you want to have a listing in Google places in a locality not centred on your business, you’re going to have a hard time being listed, So, your only option is organic search and pay per click.
With Google places, make sure you have no duplicate listings – type into the Google search box your brand and telephone number, to check there is no duplicate listings. If there are, delete the ones you don’t need. Also, make sure all the fields in your Google listings are filled out with as much information as you can. Take a look at other people’s organic listings, preferably in the top three and see what is working for them.

Organic listings.
You still want to rank in localities where your business is not based. You now have paid per click and organic search to focus on.
Talking to fellow SEO chap, who only specialise in pay per click, stated that they don’t bother with organic search as it takes too long. To rank highly in organic search, can take a few months to rank highly, especially for competitive keywords. The benefit of organic search is that your listings will stick and last much longer. Also, as what has been always been said, people naturally look at the organic listings first as we read left to right, as our eyes are naturally drawn to the top left corner of the screen. Also pay per click ads only last as long as you are funding them.
If you have X amount of money to spend on online advertising, where do you spend it?
In truth, both organics and pay per click cannot be ignored. With a little knowledge and a few online tutorials, you can get the very basics down of handling a pay per click campaign. A small, very targeted and focused pay per click campaign can help your organic listings, so they can work hand-in-hand.
Organic listings are more convoluted to make work and arguably need a lot more experience with the link building process. The other advantage to this being, as links are built for a client, web surfers should naturally find your links and if they find the content interesting where the link is placed, they may naturally visit your site or link to your site, creating a talking point or further promoting your site. Work done for you without spending a penny.
So, basically organic listings take longer to work but have a more long-term effect and can be used to naturally spread the word about your business around the Internet.
Like any other marketing or advertising,  this takes a lot of time and leg work. This is where the cost comes from for promoting an organic listing.
As a business, you can do some of the online promotion yourself. Creating links in itself is not hard to do, just time-consuming. To make this effective though, you need to have a link building plan, know where to put these links, how to link them together properly, what type of links to get, content creation and reporting are all needed for an effective campaign. You can also read up on research the processes you need to do the above. But the question is, how much time and effort will you put into this which will be taken away from you focusing on your business efforts.
I use the example of building a house. If you want a house built, it’s quite possible to learn all the skills needed, buy the materials, get a few hands to help you and off you go. How good the house will be at the end, is questionable if you’ve never done this process before or even a few times before. For the amount of time and effort you need to learn all the skills and implement them to a professional level, may cost you more time than the money you will save.
This is the same for online promotion. People in the industry are performing this work and researching all the time, to make client’s campaigns the most effective.
For the foreseeable future, organic listings will be the number one way people will find information on the Internet and to rank highly in the organic search can be the difference between a good online promotion and about one.

I know i am mentally chastised by you all!
SEO tactics for ranking organically have changed somewhat over the past 12 months, mainly by changes to the Big G, so we all follow.
For many, in these economic times of doom and gloom, where we all have to tighten our belts, as a few banks went a bit bonkers with our money, we are all looking for ways to better spend our money and get better return on our online investments.
Doing this right means you can carry on with the lifestyle you want and enjoy hopefully, the nicer things in life.
Promoting yourself online is a time consuming job, a question of resources. If you sell clothes online, could you compete and beat Marks and Sparks? Maybe, but probably not. They have more resources to sepnd and put in place than the small trader.
Thus, if you are an SME, think for online like you would offline, what customersa are going to buy from you and what are they looking for?
Add useful content to your website constantly, offers, discounts, ‘only 10 left at cut price, so hurry!’, make your products in short demand. Anything you can to show your successes, what your up to…..all adds up. Make you titles of your content/blog/news long tail keywords -(find these by looking for the latest news on google about your business area, then replicate those, for a very simplified method.)
Get on all feee index sites where reviews can be added. Ask happy customers to put testimonials. If they are happy with you, they should be ok adding a few short sentences on how wonderful you are.
Creat a buzz, hook about your business. Think like a PR person would. An interesting story to put out about what you are doing. Get a friend to help as this is not always good to do on your own.

There are many things you can do on your own and like anything in life, it depends on how much time and resources you have.
Hope the little tips help!

I don’t post that often on this blog, mainly due to the fact of putting client’s work first, as with most SEO and web designers.
Anyways, this post is really about the correlation between learning a musical instrument and SEO. What you say, another mindless analogy.
Well, analogies work if you are familiar with the analogy example presented. If not, it can confuse, but for those who play an instrument or have done, as i have for many years, then the similarities in some respects are close.

If you learn a classical instrument – piano, flute, violin, etc., you usually go down the graded route, learn formally, learn pieces of music and you aim is to nail those pieces of music to the best they can be played.
In the ‘pop’ instrument world – guitars, bass, drums, etc., you take lessons, teach a bit yourself, learn songs, bit of theory, etc. Arguably a more creative route, but more haphazard.
But, in the pop instrument world, the main advice from the top players is – emulate then inovate. In other words, copy your favourite artists/players, then come up with your own stuff. After learning a piece, pull to bits how they play, how they phrase passages, how they contruct a tune – tune structure, chord progressions, melody lines, do they favour one scale over the other….the list can get lengthy, but you can just practice until you know a tune second nature then let something come out by osmosis.
The greatest composers had to do this – Mozart apprently wrote his first symphony at age 4….wow! But he really didn’t just come down stairs one day and thought, i’ll just tinker on the piano never played before and rattle off a symphony! No, Mozart’s dad was a well know music teacher who sat young Mozart down from age 0 at a piano. That linked with an innate musical ear was the difference, but he did emulate to come up with those first melodies. Led Zeppelin – listen to their very first recordings, i think their first b-side, its a blues tunes by another artist with different lyrics! Emulate then inovate.

The same then with SEO or really SEM/internet marketing. You need to emulate the best in the field – emulate then inovate.
But again, great analogy, but your saying i’m lost……..i only played the recorder for a month at school because i was made to!
Well, you have a market, you picked a niche you have wittled down your keywords to see which are best to go for from – relevance, traffic, competition and if they can be montised. Thats your research.
But then you have to look at the top competitors.

What are they doing to be at  the top? Pull apart (not literally) their landing page that is ranking – what elements are they covering on page, do you have those elements in place on your landing page?
Is their site optimised covering all the on site items needed, again same check with your site.
Content – does the content appeal to a human and the bots, does it have a call to action.
After all on site stuff – offsite stuff – what backlinks does your competitor have, where are they coming from, are the links quality or there on mass – all the link criteria covered that make a good link.
The list can be as indepth as you like, but the deeper the information you have on a competitor and more familar you are with their site, the better you will spot what they are doing or not doing.
Implement, then innovate, but the inovate bit, like in music can work great or fall flat on its face. Again, see what has worked for your competitors if they have added new content, features, functionality, offerings, layout. They may have done the research before you.
All this takes work and time. Some stumble across a successful way to promote their sites, others have to work every step of the way, which is most of us, so by emulating the best of the competition, you will at least be near to what is expected to be no.1.

Benefits – let your visitors view your events, locations, places of interest on the move and once downloaded, viewable offline.

If you would like an iphone viewable 360 tour, please call us today – info@bassmedia.net

Newsnight had a feature on Sarah Palin from Alaska at some kind of snow race thing, being all smiley and showing her ‘recreational’ side. No worries there, apart from Sarah was only half taking notice of the interviewer and did comment that the event was really no place to talk politics – (if you want to run for the big title in the US you have to be on it 24-7 -  its expected, as you will be running the country, remember.)

What was frightening is the shots from her folks house/homestead – first the outside shot of nice skulls of presumably animals long shot by the family, then a cosy inside interview where the nice folks, talked about Sarah Palins victimisation by the media in general, but on the walls, behind the nice folks were most of the wilderness, skinned and pinned to the walls. Well, maybe not the whole wilderness, but i spotted a full bearskin and a few other outwear garments from animals.
Ok…..be accepting, but after that, to a firing range where kind locals, made practice with automatic weapons. An ak-47 for the first man and what looked like one of those machine guns the transformers have bolted to their arms was being rattled off like they were practicing for world war 3.
Follows -  bit more politcs speak from Sarah, etc.,  then back to the studio.

From a UK perpective, if we saw on the TV a political candidate’s parents talking from there home covered in animal skins, proudly despatched and skulls on the outside of the house and gun dragging locals, we would think, do not go within a hundred miles of that candidate. They are clearly barking.
While from the Newsnight piece, Sarah and co. looked proud of this aspect to there lives.

In the UK and in Canada, we feel we can protect ourselves mostly without bullets as we have advanced to the level of discussion, diplomacy and debate to solve stuff….this we have found causes no one to die.

If the US are going to elect Sarah for her policies and they believe in them, truely, then fair enough, if its to support the American right to arm and shoot things – while on a skiing holiday, then put Ted Nugent in the presidents seat. At least he can play guitar…..

Coming from a Teaching back ground, i’ve found trying to get information across in an understandable way, always works when put in an easy to digest format.
I always remember a documentary on ‘John Craven’s News Round’ (i’m old!) where ‘proper’ news reporters would sometimes research the program, as it put forward news stories in a child friendly format  that kids could easily understand.
As the program was expert at the ‘child friendly’ way of presenting news, it was gold for how to explain what could be complicated topics.

So, why can’t all information and learning be like this and why can’t this be applies to SEO?
If you had a comic book you started writing and wanted to tell everyone in the real world how great it was and they should buy it regularly, how would you do it, especially on a limited budget?
Answer – you get creative and keep it simple and obvious. Start with all easy local contacts, then go from there.
Without noting here  patronising ways to do this, everyone can promote themselves and knows their industry and who is important or not in the areas you work.
Online – the methods are the same, but you need to play by online rules (mainly search rules), but keeping it simple, straight forward and to the point is needed.
Online can be more complicated, with more data and things to keep track off and as online is getting more competitive, the market place is slowly getting more crowded.
But, with planning and a little strategy, you too can have a winning comic!

Flash, these days, as it really always has been, has had its supporter and detrators.
The common points of why not – cannot search content properly, plugin technology, Apple hate it, only good for banners or arty animated intros.
The common points of why – simple to get basic animation going, a whole site can be built in the environment-with text, images, animation, etc. years before html5 was even thought of….any many more.

So, why from an SEO point of view do i like flash?
Mainly, nostalgia!….No, really i have used or dabled with flash over the years since version 4 and used it in a variety of ways (yes, i have built a full flash site in the past, but it was only my 3rd website…ahem!)
Flash, personally shouldn’t go away. It is too useful.
It should be thought of as what it can do, not its ailments.

Think more on-page/user experience/on-site worth than, ‘the content is not searchable’,  ’iphones cannot see it.’
View a flash banner on Amazon or Ebay – does it catch your eye more than a static banner?
Applications, yes applications. Flash can make an app. easy and all in one environment. Where can you use it? Internal use, where you have control over the technologies.

The debate will rage on and will get most interesting when html5 has its full use of weaponry, but for now, the pub debates will continue……