Browsing Archive: April, 2009
If there are any of you who don’t already use Google Alerts, you’re missing out on one of the web’s great free resources. Just type in a relevant search term, and every time something new pops into Google’s index, you get an email. Simple as that. At the very least, you must have a Google Alert set up for your company’s name.
However, by setting up Google Alerts for industry topics, you can create a continuous source of ideas for your blog, as Set Up Alerts to Monitor What is Happe... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Tuesday, April 21, 2009,
In :
SEO
B2B copywriting is tough stuff. Instead of, “Wipes clean with a damp cloth,”
you may find yourself trying to simultaneously explain and extol the virtues of
some complex mechanical system while being creative and persuasive at the same
time. Copywriting for B2B SEO is even tougher. Here are ten tips to help you
succeed.
Watch the lingo Make sure to use
generic terms on the page. In most cases, B2B searchers are more likely to use
generic terms than brand names. Proprietary brand nam... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Saturday, April 18, 2009,
In :
ADVERTISING
Many regional newspaper titles are being forced to fold, 60 in fact in the last year, as the recession forces unprecented cuts in the local print industry. Even before the recession, newspapers were changing their ways of working - altering structures and embracing the web and video.
The pace of change has now quickened in the fight to survive and advertising most follow suit.
It would appear gone are the days when you can advertise in the local rag and the prefered method is now advertising ... Continue reading ...
If you’re wondering if (or to what extent) your company should get involved
in social media, there’s a good article called Is
social media effective for B2B lead generation? on the Sales Lead
Insights B2B Marketing blog which suggests that there’s not much
evidence (to the author, at least) that it can produce sales leads. And for most
of us, that’s what this marketing lark is all about.
I agree; I’ve not seen much evidence either. The likes of Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn etc ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 15, 2009,
In :
SEO
Plenty of aspects of search engine optimisation are contentious. When it
comes to page titles (that’s the title which appears on the top of the browser,
not the headline on the page), I always recommend that you keep things to 70
characters or fewer, so that Google will reproduce the title exactly as you
wrote it, in full, in its results. However, there’s evidence that Google does take into account what
happens after that point in longer titles, even if it doesn’t show them in full... Continue reading ...
The most important, yet most often neglected element of a B-to-B web site’s home page is its main “billboard” messaging. A user will decide whether to stay on a site or leave within 5 seconds.
While a typical site will serve multiple objectives (e-commerce, marketing, customer service, employee optimisation/intranet, public relations, investor relations, channel partner relations), in most cases, the focus is on NEW LEADS AND PROSPECTS.
This being the case, we can never ASSUME a visit... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 8, 2009,
In :
SEO
You may have noticed we have just added a Share This button to our website.
This is a free a fast way that allows our website viewers to share the page content with others.
I would take 2 minutes to watch the videos below and consider adding this to your website.
Customisation
Customisation ensures that the ShareThis widget blends in with your site.
Watch the Demo
Reporting / Analytics
Reporting and analytics will tell you the top shared content, how it's being shared and much more.
Watch the... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 8, 2009,
In :
SEO
If a page on your site can be accessed with more than one URL (http://….),
this can cause difficulties with the search engines, which might consider you’re
repeating the same page over and over again, even though you’re not intending
this to happen. The search engines may divide up the “strength” of the pages
between the different versions they think they can see, and indeed, external
links may be divided between the versions too.
But do you suffer from this problem? It’s har... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Friday, April 3, 2009,
In :
SEO
I’ve been playing with a tool called Linkscape a lot recently; although it costs money, it provides some fascinating insights into your website, and it’s the sort of tool which is essential if you’re undertaking any “search engine optimisation” (aka “get my site ranking better in Google!”) programme. One of my favourite reports from this tool is a list of the Top Pages on a Domain, i.e the ones which probably carry the most clout with the search engines.
Why do you need to know... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 1, 2009,
In :
SEO
Not sure about all this “social media” stuff when it comes to your business? Are things like Facebook and Twitter really relevant to selling blue widgets to serious-minded industrial buyers? Don’t worry, I’m as sceptical as the next person, although every time I see someone doing something clever with this stuff, I get just that little bit more open-minded.
So, can we use Facebook to our advantage? The Hallam Internet blog suggests it’s easy enough to give it a go that it might b... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 1, 2009,
In :
SEO
Unless you’ve been saddled with a really unlucky company name, you’ll be top in Google for that search. This is very important, because a large proportion of the people who want to find your company website nowadays just type your company name into Google, rather than type in your website URL in the address bar at the top of their browser. That’s why, if you look at your website stats, the top “search term” for traffic coming from Google is probably your company name.
So if you’r... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 1, 2009,
In :
EMAILS
You know those really irritating emails where the sender tells you what you need to know in two lines, and which then have pages full of corporate legal mumbo-jumbo which appears to say that nothing in the email can be trusted anyway? If you think that the sender’s company has insisted on all this garbage being added because they’ve got in-house lawyers and want you to know it, you’re probably not far wrong. But you do need certain information on every business email, and looking throug... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom SYkes on Wednesday, April 1, 2009,
In :
SEO
Google rolled out a couple of updates last week, and here’s my take on the first of them, and how it affects you. If you’re using a search engine optimisation consultancy, make sure you ask them how their advice to you is changing as a result.
The more instantly obvious of the changes concerns the description or “snippet” part of the results. Traditionally Google has served up the title of your page and then two secondary lines of text, which would be your meta description tag if tha... Continue reading ...
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