Archive for August, 2011

Unrealistic Expectations, Domains, Apple Trees and Saying Goodbye…

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

How do you tell a client it’s goodbye?

Don’t want to bring a tear to anyone’s eye, but on occasion it happens and for lots of reasons.  No one really talks about it either but that doesn’t mean it’s not a topic we won’t approach!

We have always been proud that as a company we offer transparency and honesty with clients – trying always to convey the reality of Search Engine Marketing of websites.

Sometimes we see potential clients who have a new domain that they’ve got a site for and like a lot of other people in the world they want Google results quickly.  But, in reality Search Engine Marketing success comes from hard slog and an ongoing level of maintenance and updates.

Often we will work hard on the Search Engine Marketing techniques for a company and after twelve months of slog, there can at times be tendency to think that now page one rankings have been gained across the board, there’s no need for the SEO anymore!  This is completely wrong of course but it does happen.  We have no power here at all but can say that when we go back to the sites we helped start, the rankings slip and our joyous results have been slightly greyed by lack of attention.

On New Domains

We always think of new domains like an apple tree in an orchard.  The younger trees do bear fruit but it’s the older trees with a bit of background that yield the very best results!  New domains are very similar in that they are by far the hardest to get ranked because there’s just no history.  The apples are the size of cherries and while they look nice, we’re still attracted to the giant fruit on the older tree next door.

Google likes sites that have been around a while and gained some credibility and if you have a new site, then you need to be realistic about what’s achievable and most importantly understand that it’s not a five minute job.

The hard keywords are achievable but not in five minutes and sometimes the reality as a Search Engine Marketing company is dealing with that.  If you can’t get them to number one in a month or two then it must be down to something not being done correctly.

All we do is prune at the right time, feed when required and if we can see a root needs some attention we do it because we know that months down the line the results will be so much better and here to stay!

Old Domains

An old domain has a lot more potential for Search Engine Marketing because very often it just needs a bit of TLC.  If you have a website that’s five years old but not getting much traffic, something can usually be done to improve its chances online and if we go back to the analogy some simple or even extreme pruning and nurturing will usually have it coming back stronger than ever before.  But, with clients, it’s not always easy to convey they just see a tree that’s not got any fruit on it!

Localised Keywords – SEO Finchley anyone?

The truth is very simple.  Anyone can get relatively good rankings for ‘localised’ key words (in fact you can read our previous blog for some information on this) but getting ranked for the words that will bring in the best traffic and therefore the best leads is a whole different ball game and so much more effort!

Unfortunately Search Engine Marketing is misunderstood by many and because of this it’s very easy for some ruthless companies to take advantage of that fact.  Whereas the honest approach is actually the better one – but it doesn’t have bells on it so it maybe doesn’t have the same appeal to the odd client here and there and that is one factor which can lead to ‘goodbye’ on occasion.

Brace yourself!

We love our clients – we really do and many of them have stayed with us for years because the SEO services we provide are high quality, transparent and above all very honest.  However, sometimes there’s the odd client that in reality wants the ‘bells’ to be ringing and who doesn’t really care about quality, longevity and the how or why – they just want to be number one.

But if they have a brand new domain – how do you really tell them that what they want is just not achievable over night?

We did a test on a blog the other day and wrote about the riots that were happening all over the country.  Within an hour or two we got a page one listing on Google for that particular blog.  You may think this is marvellous – but on day two we had gone to page two and I daresay that by the end of the week we’d be further down the listings again.

Anyone could write that blog, but how do you get it stay at number one or on the first page?  That’s the bit that an honest SEO company will be able to help you with.  The less desirable will sell you a service and get you to number one (maybe) but you simply won’t stay there.

Goodbye my Love

So, as a Search Engine Marketing company that cares, on occasion we are asked to undertake SEO and we like to deliver results.  But, here’s the thing, we don’t want business that is not founded on the very best principles and it’s times like those where we have to politely say ‘no’ or even ‘goodbye’ to the odd client.

It’s not because we don’t care – but because we do and for this reason we are always a little apprehensive about saying goodbye – even though we know it’s for the best!

So, how do you tell a client it’s ‘goodbye’?  Answers on a post card please!

Paul

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Google Panda…We’ve Cracked It!

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

We love Pandas!  Aside from being very rare they’re also pretty cool animals with an array of interesting eating habits and behaviour that makes them quite captivating and very cute!

So we thought we’d make use of Pandas to talk about the Google Panda Update, which has had many scratching their heads in the SEO world.

The Panda (that’s those cute black and white bears) are generally found in China in case you didn’t know and are considered to be amongst the most highly revered animals in the world.  So, it probably wasn’t an accident on Google’s part that their new search engine algorithm was called ‘Panda’ either.  The word Panda roughly translated means ‘black and white’.  At this point you may already have figured out that there’s ‘white hat SEO’ and ‘black hat SEO’ so Google’s update isn’t just a cool term.  It has meaning in the SEO world!

If you don’t know what ‘black hat SEO’ is then take a look at our recent blog posts for more information and to learn some of the essentials in getting your Search Engine Marketing right with the ‘white hat’ SEO instead!

What’s Google done now then?

Google is the biggest search engine in the world and on occasion releases new search algorithms that offer challenges to many SEO companies who have to work out the best way of solving what is a giant puzzle.   Google wants the quality of information you find to be highly relevant, interesting and of course accurate – so the update was actually necessary.

As a Search Engine Marketing company you have to figure out how the new algorithm works so that you can continue to offer the very best results.

Now, while many will offer good top level Search Engine Practice, there is a real skill to doing it properly, without resulting in ‘cheap tactics’ or easy key words.  So, we’re quite pleased to be writing this blog with some good news about our Search Engine Marketing services and that Google Panda update!

So what has Little Big Voice been up to?

On behalf of our clients we’ve been furiously dealing with the Google Panda Update and are pretty pleased with the results we’ve had, working really hard to get the answers and solve the puzzle before us.

Since April (which is when the update was released) we’ve seen big changes for our clients online as well as our own site which has given us a fairly good indication of how we’ve coped with the update itself.

For example, if you type in SEO London or Search Engine Marketing in to Google you’ll find us right on page one and overtaking some of the larger agencies in London since the update.

Now, this may not last forever (SEO is after all an ongoing process for any company, including us) and so our next job is to sustain our presence and of course improve upon it, but it has proven one thing to us and one thing alone…we’ve cracked Google Panda!

This is great news for us and our clients!

Without sounding like our own trumpeters either, what this means is that we’ve managed to get page one listings on Google for THE hardest key words!  If you want to read about why highly searched key words are important to your traffic, then remember to check out our previous blog post which explains all about wasting money on easy ‘localised key words’ rather than the tough ones!

What it also means for our clients is that we can consistently service their online needs and ensure that they’re ranked in all the right ways for their own sites.

So how did you do it?

We can’t really let you know exactly how it has been done, but you can get some information from our previous blog post. But can tell you that we’re just really proud to be in a position where we can continue to help our clients and of course build upon their Search Engine Marketing success.

We really wanted to share it because having seen many sites fall down the rankings, along with the sites belonging to some of the bigger SEO agencies in London and beyond, our thirteen years experience really counts for something!

We’re not smug we’re just pleased our experience has paid off.  This is why we don’t mind being geeks in the Search Engine Marketing world – because what one person doesn’t really want to know, we will run over hot coals if we can figure out a puzzle.

Can you imagine how many games of Sodoku get played in this office?

Paul

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Why Do Web Developers Offer SEO?

Friday, August 26th, 2011

If you have a toothache, you go to the dentist right?  And equally if you require some stitches you’d probably go to the hospital.

Now imagine you’re at the dentist and while he’s inflicting pain on you for that filling he says he can help you with that open heart surgery you spoke about last month.   He knows you’re going private but can offer you a better price if it is part of your filling!  What would you honestly think?

One reaction might be that he has finally lost the plot and you run screaming from the dentist’s chair and the other, more cynical (and thankfully more likely) view would assume he is looking to increase his turnover and as with all things in business he is selling to his current client base…you!

Okay, this is obviously an exaggeration.  Though if anyone does offer you open heart surgery while you’re at the dentist you’ve either fallen in to the Twilight Zone or you should report your findings at the nearest police station.   However, in principle it’s no different to your web development company offering you SEO and the best advice here is that you should proceed with caution.

So why can’t web development companies offer SEO?

The one man band - A jack of all trades, master of none

To be fair on at least a few web development companies, some of them use ‘white label’ SEO services, which are actually delivered by professionals.  For instance, we offer white label SEO to a number of web development companies and it works.  However, if you find a company that does not do this, then essentially the SEO they’re offering may not be their specialism.  While they’re great at what they do with websites, they aren’t necessarily as interested or focused on best SEO practice.

The worrying part of this is that a web company (especially a man who operates with the one man band approach) will essentially feel his or her way through everything else.  They may have one specialism that they’re great at but all the other things like the SEO, blogging, copy, email marketing etc. will just be ‘add-ons’.  It is here that the one man band can play plenty of duff notes which will affect you but if the base drum is loud enough you may not initially notice them until you’ve spent hundreds or thousands of pounds!

As an SEO company in London, we see many agencies offering services outside of their main remit and while we know some of them at least offer these services courtesy of the white label SEO approach, we also know a few that don’t.  But if you don’t know where they are getting these services from then you should be very wary about asking them to provide you with your SEO.  Unless you know for sure that they’re recommended or that they are happy to tell you the white label SEO provider they’re using then do your homework before signing up!

We use valued people in our business and never ‘have a bash’ at anything.  We know our strengths (that’s SEO in case you didn’t know) and we know our weaknesses (mine are biscuits) and on this basis we know that if you want the best – you’ll get the right specialist to do the job.

So how do I choose the right SEO service provider?

Not wishing to teach you to suck eggs – but generally speaking instinct and common sense are a great leveller in the world and you should not ignore them!

As we’ve written in previous blogs, if someone offers you the world for nothing – you really should question it.

And just as important, if you are a dreamer, try making sure that there’s a realist somewhere in your back-up because if you don’t spot a problem they will.

Essentially we’re all vulnerable when it comes to things we don’t understand but that doesn’t mean our instincts don’t kick in at some point.  We just have to learn to listen for them instead of focusing on the dream and completely forgetting the reality…

Paul

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Working from home: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

As a Search Engine Marketing company we work with a number of home workers in London and beyond, so we thought it would be a good idea to write a blog that offers some tips, tricks and hopefully good advice to anyone currently sat at their PC in the comfort of their living room or home office.

We’ve pretty much always worked with home based businesses, initially as a Search Engine Marketing provider but these days also as online advisors and ‘friendly ears’ to many as it can get a bit lonely out there at times!

So give us the good!

Well obviously being a home worker allows you a lot of flexibility that just isn’t possible in a conventional work setting.  You can keep your own hours, develop your own ideas and there’s always a positive to not having an overbearing boss on your shoulder day-in, day-out.

You also get to enjoy your own working hours of course, which for some may mean starting later in the day, starting really early or for the night owls possibly in the evening if the work suits.

With such low overheads, a home working office environment is financially viable – especially for newer business owners who want to try and save as many of their pennies as possible.

You can also have more holiday time if you’re that way inclined and there has to be something said for a hot summer’s day (yes we do know this is rare) when you can suddenly change your work schedule and enjoy it if by chance the sun appears.

If you have a dog (which loads of us do) then you don’t need to worry about dog walkers or rushing about to Fido’s needs either, as you can walk them or let them out whenever you need to.

Oh and did anyone tell you that there’s nothing quite like having an ‘early’ finish when you know your workload is complete for the day.

What’s the bad then?

Well if you’re not self-motivated you could end up having more time off the job than on it so to speak and if you do prefer to work weird hours, bear in mind that the majority of the world doesn’t.  So if you can’t sit down and focus on regular hours at least (that’s to say the same start and finish time every day you might have a problem).

Loneliness can also be a problem.  Now let’s not get the violin out just yet, but many people have dreamed of their own space and control, only to find that they get extremely despondent when there’s no one to talk to.  So this is really important to bear in mind if you’re not someone who enjoys being on your tod!

With home working you are self-reliant and need to be multi-skilled.  So, for example, if you have a website, you may want to ensure you get a Search Engine Marketing person on the case to ensure you’re getting traffic and therefore leads for potential new work, and work on setting up new relationships.

Sadly, this is probably the hardest part of the whole home working experience as you need to be sales person, worker, administrator, accounts person and your own coffee maker – so never go in to it without being realistic about this.

Finally, a home office can become a prison for some.  Not literally of course as there are no bars, but if you are a workaholic you’ll find yourself working eighteen hour days and weekends to get things done, so if you want a life you need to be extremely disciplined to make it work for you.

We can take it!  Give us the Ugly

The ugly truth is that home working is brilliant and horrible at the same time.  You will on occasion find that sunshine is something you’ve only ever heard of as you sit in your office through from sunrise to sunset.

You will find that you can get very isolated with such a lack of people around you.

You will put on weight if you don’t look at an exercise plan to counteract the impact of having a 30 second walk to work every morning.

You will need to work twice as hard as everyone else to get new work and sustain it.

And, perhaps worse than anything else, you will never have a financially ‘secure’ feeling as while you get a job, your mind will already be thinking about the next one and whether you’re going to have enough work for the months following.  This is probably the hardest thing to deal with and really is the ugliest of all the home working realities – but don’t let that put you off.

As we said, we work on a considerable amount of Search Engine Marketing projects for lots of home based businesses and we’ve had those relationships for years – which in essence says that if you work hard and get the right support you can make home working a good choice, while securing a bright future!

Paul

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White Label SEO

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

One day a long time ago when my age was in single figures (yes I was a young one!), I went to a festival and was ushered by an older sibling to a ‘white elephant’ stall.  Initially I was eagerly looking for something with a trunk that was rather large and obviously white – but was actually pretty disappointed to find that there was no elephant, nothing white and just a load of raffle tickets and prizes delivered by some rather flustered looking ladies and gents behind a table.

Once my distress at being duped by my sibling for making me even believe that there was going to be a white elephant anywhere I was actually quite impressed by the level of prizes that seemed to be on offer.

There were bottles of wine (not suitable obviously) a few games and some rather cool looking action figures which I was interested in.  So, I got out the only 50p I had left from my pocket money and was delighted to win two complimentary tickets to the cinema for my trouble (not that bad after all eh?).

Anyway, what didn’t leave me for some time was the concept of a ‘white elephant’.  What the heck was it?   What did it mean?  I was fairly confident that white elephants didn’t exist and frankly didn’t have the foggiest idea why a stall that was selling raffle tickets would be considered a white elephant at all.  However, years later when I finally discovered what a ‘white elephant’ really was I was a little shocked to say the least as my mind travelled back to the year I won two comp tickets to the Odeon and got to see Ghostbusters for free!

“A white elephant is a term for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly the upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth”.   Wikipedia, 2011

Aside from trying to figure out why two free cinema tickets would be a burden on anyone and why they would require any kind of financial upkeep, I’ve subsequently realised that the bath salts, cheap beauty packs, an unidentifiable white plastic tub and pot noodle that were also on the stall all those years ago could most definitely be construed as burdensome and in relation to that ‘rubbish’ we all accrue over the years makes these things ideal for a ‘white elephant’ stall.

Anyway,   I didn’t really think about it again until we started offering ‘white label SEO’, right here at Little Big Voice and someone asked me what it was.

Now, let’s get this straight here first…I’m not for one second suggesting our SEO is burdensome for us or that it’s no use – far from it in fact – but the term ‘white label SEO’ did make me wonder if people know what it really means?  So, with all of this in mind, I thought I may as well write a blog about it and how it all works!

So what is ‘white label SEO’?

Unlike the white elephant I’ve mentioned, white label SEO is actually a very cost effective service for companies who perhaps offer services that compliment it.  For example, if you are a website design company and you want to be able to offer your clients a much better range of services, you may want to opt for white label SEO as it means you can offer the very best as part of what you do for your clients.

If your specialism isn’t SEO then a white label option can be a great way to fulfil client needs and it often helps to retain clients, but it can also make what you do,  a whole lot better.

Therefore, if you do design websites, then having a Search Engine Marketing professional can really add to your skill set when it comes to designing a website that looks great but that will also perform well and when it comes to launching it, you’ve got a professional person or company in hand to deal with the next phase.

Equally if you’re a freelancer who has a smaller budget and who basically can’t afford to employ someone full-time for these kind of services, white label SEO offers an opportunity to help your clients without the risks.

So, the next time someone asks you what white label SEO is or indeed wants to know if there really are white elephants in the jungle you will have the answers on both counts!

Paul

 

 

 

 

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SEO Is Just Like Baking A Cake

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

It may be an unusual metaphor, but search engine marketing is a little bit like baking. If you get the right mix of all the key ingredients, your creation will rise triumphantly in the Google rankings like a cake in the oven, and you’ll enjoy the ever-so-sweet taste of extra site traffic and increased sales.

If you get the balance wrong, however, it’s a whole different story.

Like the fundamental foodstuffs you carefully beat into your cake mix, if you do not pay enough attention to your SEO marketing and leave out important keywords, your site will remain a sunken mess, never quite able to lift itself to the lofty heights of Google’s top rankings.

On the other side of the coin, if you over-egg the pudding, so to speak, and keyword-stuff your site with any and every related term you can find, you’ll end up with a dense and unreadable site. No-one likes having to chew their way through pages of stilted, unnatural text any more than they’d want to munch on Aunt Edna’s lumpy cake, and customer goodwill is vital to driving sales, so just don’t do it!

So how do you avoid falling into either of these unappetising search engine marketing traps if you don’t quite have the years of experience and of a master baker at your disposal? Luckily for you, we’ve got a few helpful tips up the sleeves of our metaphorical chef’s whites to help you escape the horrible fate of turning your website into an SEO marketing nightmare.

Disaster no.1 – The Underdone Site

SEO marketing is all about knowing your keywords – the terms web-users are most likely to search for when they want the kind of product you’re selling. Putting the right specific keywords into your titles and metatags will help search engines index your site, whereas vague, unrelated and overly lengthy titles and metatags will leave your listing lost in the unending mass of information on the World Wide Web.  Always get proper advice on this as you may think you know what you’re doing but even if the cake looks baked on the outside, there’s a good chance it’ll be undercooked in the middle – which only a skilled cake maker will know!

Another thing to bear in mind is the navigation of your site. Good search engine marketing means avoiding the use of too many subcategories so your pages don’t get overlooked or buried too deep.   Sorry to continue with the baking analogies but they are fun!  If you love sultana cake but end up with something that’s 90% sultanas and only 10% sponge you’re going to be pretty annoyed!

You should also avoid navigation systems based entirely on drop down menus or animations, as some search engines will not be able to follow them.  Flash is particularly bad for this and on occasion Java script can be problematic for the same reason.

Once you have chosen a navigation system, stick to it! Constantly changing the layout of your site will confuse search engines and harm your SEO marketing efforts – it will also really annoy your regular clients, especially if they are using your site regularly.

Finally, remember that www.iloveSEOmarketing.com and http://iloveSEOmarketing.com are not the same thing.  If users are typing in your site name without the www and you aren’t redirecting them to the www version of the page, you’ll be splitting your traffic in half and playing havoc with Google’s rankings.  This is often forgotten about with sub-standard web development companies, yet it’s a very important thing to consider.

Disaster no.2 – The Overcooked Site

You’ll probably be getting the hang of this search engine marketing thing by now, but be careful not to get too into it and end up ruining your efforts by taking things a step too far by trying to be Gordon Ramsay rather than the man or woman eating in the restaurant watching him cook.

As we mentioned before, stuffing your titles, metatags and body copy with so many keywords that you completely disrupt the flow of the text is a big no-no, and don’t even think about hiding keyworded text, as this could get you removed from the listings entirely.  People still do this.  Only the other week a prospective client said they’d asked their web company to ‘hide’ key worded pages.  Oh and guess what – this company offered them SEO services too!

The same goes when it comes to link-building. Having a number of well-placed links to relevant, quality sites outside of your own will give your page credibility and greatly aid your search engine marketing strategy. Mass buying links, on the other hand, will just signal to the search engines that your links are purely for SEO purposes and not adding value to the site.

Last but not least, remember that though search engines like to see fresh new content on your site on a regular basis, this doesn’t mean you can just re-paste old content or content from exterior sites. Search engines have come a long way since the early days of SEO marketing and trust us, they will know if you’re trying to cheat the system.

Voila!

Paul

 

 

 

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Quora – Could It Be The New Twitter?

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Barely have we got used to Twitter and a new concept comes along.  It’s called Quora and has been tipped to be the ‘next’ social media platform to hit the big time!

In my experience, this ‘big time’ concept has happened a million times over and it could be complete hype or considered something to take note of, but in either case, it’s probably worth taking a  look.

What is Quora?

Officially it’s an evolving platform that comprises of questions and answers that are solely created, edited and organised by individuals!  This may not seem that relevant if you’re a business owner, but if the onus is on you to create a question and answer page that is considered the best possible resource, it will become something you’ll want to get right!

As you are no doubt aware, whatever industry you’re in, it’s important to offer information about your products and generally share what you know to build trust – well if you now consider this and why having a great question page on Quora is going to be important you could well have your answer

Tell me more…

The best way to understand what Quora is, would be to look at it as a social platform where anyone can ask a question and get an answer.  In fact the name Quora is derived from ‘Questions or Answers’!

Quora basically acts as a cache for research and information from around the web, provided by other people.  So, it’s a bit like Wikipedia in some respects but much more ‘social’.

At the moment, Quora is the main site used as a meeting place for information between Silicon Valley tech companies but the word on the street is that 2011 is going to be its year to break through to the masses.

Just like Twitter, Quora allows you to follow trends, topics and of course questions and answers as well as people with similar interests, so it’s not too far removed from Twitter on this count and perhaps surprisingly it seems to be catching on with a lot of people.

However, it’s not all good news as Facebook and Twitter are putting together a new ‘graph’ concept which effectively charts interests and no doubt other things, which could make a great addition to the current social media monitoring tools and analysis platforms out there so on this basis, maybe Quora is a little late!

Keep your eye out for Quora this year. This could be the launch of a new social platform that does something quite different to the norm and as usual, when it does hit the general public (if not before), Little Big Voice Search Engine Marketing will be looking at how it may be effective for your business and how you might benefit from it.

If you are looking for any advice on Social Media, do look at our previous social media blogs, as you will find them packed with helpful information based on the platforms currently available.

Paul

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Social Media – It’s A Riot!

Monday, August 15th, 2011

If you missed recent events in the UK, you would probably have been under a stone as we saw significant rioting in many cities in the UK.  These included London – probably the worst hit, but also Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol to name a few.

Irrespective of the reasons why the rioting took place, suffice to say that it did a humungous amount of damage to businesses and communities everywhere but it also highlighted a major shift in the way that social media is viewed by the masses.

While the rioters themselves were believed to have used their Blackberrys and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to organise groups and activity, people around the world were getting the results of that activity from the same sources in real time.  So quickly in fact, that had you been watching Twitter on any of the days that riots took place, you would have found information being released twice as fast as it was on the news channels, with both images and even video being available.

At one point someone tweeted that they were on the streets of Birmingham with a video camera and that if you went to a specific channel, you could see things taking place as it happened.  I switched over to see a car driving through the streets picking up all the events – with not one inkling of the activity on the BBC or Sky News.

Another person tweeted the events in Manchester long-before they hit the news headlines on channels like Sky and the BBC, with photographs of rioters and the shops that were being damaged as it happened.  So when the Arndale centre was stormed, I distinctly remember seeing a group of rioters outside (via Twitpic) before it even occurred.

Does your mamma mia know?

Even the police were forthcoming in offering information about number of arrests and the activities taking place, which meant were you like me, watching the events unfold, you could pretty much get the full picture as it happened.  Greater Manchester Police were actually pretty impressive with their updates and a popular tweet amongst Twitter users was one that smacked of Liam Neeson in the film Taken.

“To the rioters in Manchester.  We have you on CCTV and we will find you!”.

The entire country (at least the tweeters) were commenting at an amazing pace with updates happening in seconds and it struck me that the power of social media at times like this is highly significant and having finally been noticed by Government and the Police, is perhaps now part of the masses.

The other side to the riots was of course the various clean up operations that occurred after the events.  It was actually quite touching that so many people used Twitter and Facebook to organise clean ups of their cities with fellow tweeters, with a Manchester based tweeter updating everyone after they’d taken part.  Apparently Picadilly Square in Manchester was the cleanest it has been for years!

So, while the Government and the Police are frowning upon Social Media as a tool that rioters and presumably other criminals could use all to easily, it should not be forgotten that the same social media channels were used for good.

Additionally, there were a number of people ‘caught’ by Police by using Facebook to incite rioting – which surely could be considered a good thing rather than a bad thing as well?

Needless to say I have absolutely no idea what will happen ongoing, but can tell you that in my neck of the woods the biggest upheaval was someone putting their bins out a day early – which shocked rather a lot of people!

Let’s hope that the rioters stay at home now (with some watching their stolen TV’s no doubt) and give us all a break from what has been a crazy couple of weeks!

If you haven’t been on Twitter and are still wondering what it’s all about.  Go to www.twitter.com and type ‘riots’ in to the search box.  It’s a really good way to see just what happened and what you could find as it happened!

Paul

 

 

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Cowboy SEO Companies That Overcharge

Monday, August 15th, 2011

It’s easy to assume that online purchases have been affected by a slump in the economy…but in reality it’s not the case at all.  The online sector is a fast growing one with more and more people using it for their everyday shopping to their specialist purchases.

However, the fall out of this is that many businesses want to get themselves online and ranked quicker than you can say Clint Eastwood.

SEO companies offer a service that is about raising brand awareness, getting you traffic and most importantly sustaining your rankings when you get there but there are many cowboys afoot in this industry that are only interested in your money.

Value for money SEO or just a fistful of dollars down the drain?

Why is there so much competition for SEO?

The internet presents many challenges for businesses to overcome, which makes it difficult for smaller or younger companies to leave their mark.  But while the competition online can be used as a ruler to measure your own online success and progress, this opens the door for manipulative tactics from SEO companies who know how vulnerable you are.

Smaller companies and to a great extent new companies look to the advice and services of search engine marketing and SEO companies to help them compete on a fair and balanced playing field.  After all, better rankings equals more traffic which equals more sales yes?

But, while any SEO company will tell you that search engines are a visible representation of online markets and competition, which in turn will identify what you need to do to improve your positioning, they will not necessarily be honest about what’s really achievable.

The SEO Cowboys are found all over the place and while some healthy competition is good, the cowboys aren’t really too concerned about quality of results.

So who are the “cowboys?  Do they ride a horse?”

The SEO companies that want to beat their own competitors by cutting corners wherever possible and overcharging their clients for what should be cost effective solutions are bad news for the SEO business in general, but they don’t ride a horse.   However, you may find that if they’re successful as a cowboy they probably drive a top of the range car perhaps?

Truth be told that website and business owners can be charged up to 20 times too much when it comes to improving page rankings on Google.   These kinds of bogus practices and charges create a mistrust of the industry itself, which is why it is so important for small businesses to look around for the right SEO company. There is no governing body that oversees a regulation of costs and pricings when it comes to the search engine marketing business and that means that you are often in a harsh place!

If someone is charging twenty times the average, then you can guarantee that someone will be undercutting so much on this basis that they’ll offer cheap and frankly substandard SEO services.

Lassoo your site and don’t let it go!

The main thing is to be aware that there is a disparity in what some relatively big SEO firms charge to what they can really give you. The expression, “If it sounds good to be true, it probably is,” and we often say this does apply here. Good SEO firms will charge hourly rates or package fees and be clear about what they are going to do for you.   It’s called being honest and transparent!

So consider what the objectives really are and take time to chat to your SEO provider about this for their advice.  If they’re good, they’ll be happy to advise you.

They may ask:

  • Do you want an increase in page rankings for your site?
  • Do you want more traffic and visitors to your site?
  • Do you want more conversions and sales?

Whatever the objective, SEO should never be a process that gives you instant results. It takes time and effort to achieve honest, solid rankings that produce credible results over a longer period of time.

An argument that gets kicked around a lot is that clients don’t want to know the reasons why their sites aren’t appearing on Google Page 1 yet; they just want to see results as quickly as possible. The cowboy companies deliver “results” at a costly price but these are soon falling back down the rankings.  Those results are never all that reliable or long term lasting. The worst aspect of this is that clients are overcharged to an extremely unreasonable extent and still don’t get what they want.

So like it or loath it, be patient, listen very carefully to what you’re being told and get in to it with the long-term goals in place.  You want to build a business not sporadically see visits to your website disappear.

So how can I be sure of the quality of an SEO company before I hire them?

There are different companies that provide different services at varying costs just remember to closely scrutinize them before you hire their services.

You want a search engine marketing company that can help you to stay ahead of the changes and developments in the online space. It’s not sufficient enough for an SEO company to tell you of its virtues – you need to see proof. A good quality SEO business can demonstrate its abilities through examples of its work history, credible testimonials and its amount of years of experience in the search engine marketing business.

A good indicator of a reliable SEO company is if their own business ranks high on Google and the other search engines. If their site doesn’t rank very high on Google then you have to ask yourself how can they get your site ranked when they can’t even do it for their own business. They should be able to tell you that it’s not about giving you immediate rewards and instant results; it takes patience and persistence to generate leads amongst people with a genuine interest in your services/products/site. They should tell you that if you have strong content on your site you’ll have a better chance of getting ranked.

Decent SEO and search engine marketing companies should be able to give you clear and achievable SEO strategies.

Put simply; check the apple to see if its rotten or spoiled before you take a bite out of it.

Paul

Posted in Paul's World | 1 Comment »

Chirpy, Chirpy Cheap Cheap SEO

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

As we navigate our way through the minefield that is the Internet, sometimes along the way there are things that make us really twitch (no not the song we’ve titled our blog with) but BAD SEO and frankly it drives me mad!

With so many people looking to make a fast buck and fulfil their dreams of owning their very own money making website, it is a hard fact of life that it can sometimes be a pipe dream that is virtually destined to fail!

However, despite this most likely of outcomes, like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, if SEO were lollies, there are plenty of companies who will appeal to your sweet tooth and convince you that they can help you like no other with services to die for.

So who are these SEO Catchers?

An SEO Catcher – Black hat of course…

Usually they are larger companies who subject you to calls from people called Rodney somewhere in a call centre.

Rodney couldn’t care less about your SEO to be honest but he does get £50 for every sale made, which is all he’s really interested in.  Oh and the fact that his manager has given him ‘targets’ means he will be under pressure to hit them!

Rodney will badger you and promise you the world and will cold call you numerous times to get you to say yes to what he knows is a sub-standard service!

He’ll offer ‘cheap’ SEO to you and worst of all, he’ll probably try and strike up a conversation with you in order to help him relay a number of false claims, designed to prey on your online dreams.

Okay, so he might not be called Rodney, but whoever you get a call from in this nature really doesn’t care what you need.

An experience with Rodney at the Call Centre

Recently someone I know had exactly this tactic used on them from one of these companies.  Can’t guarantee his name was Rodney to be honest, but you get the idea.

My friend was told they would pay only £100 a month for SEO services that would get them to the top of Google for ten keyword terms.

The company called three times and finally persuaded my friend to pay the money and sign up to a yearly contract.  That’s £1200 over a year and for what?

While my friend found she was at the top of Google, she very quickly understood that it was for search terms that were very easy to get ranked for.

One term had only 22 searches a month, while another didn’t even register on Google.  In this scenario at the time, my friend probably had more chance of meeting the actual Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than getting any benefit whatsoever from the service.

I’d been away on holiday and my friend told me of her ‘experiences’ with this company and after I’d stopped crying I told her that she needed to say goodbye to them as quickly as possible before spending any more money!

She did exactly this, but still got charged a month by the company for ‘administration’ costs.  Presumably that was to cover Rodney’s complicated task of deleting my friend from their system, which would have taken at least 30 seconds!

What you need to really know

So if this story of despair and SEO destruction has got you thinking, you may find it useful to know the following:

A good SEO company does not promise you the world.   By nature SEO is a long-haul investment.  Once you get ranked for top quality keywords (that have thousands of visitors a month) the next step is to keep you there.

A new domain is much more difficult to get ranked.  It takes time and effort to do it and for some it can take months of link building and SEO work to get it appearing in the search engines.

Here at Little Big Voice we approach every site on an individual basis and frankly, if we feel it’s not viable, we will not take your business – which is why 90% of our clients renew year on year.  Honesty is always the best policy!

Don’t be fooled by deals that are too good to be true because they’re actually ‘too good to be true’.

Expect to get what you pay for and above all else, stay away from the SEO Catcher!

Paul

 

Posted in Paul's World | 2 Comments »

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