All you really need to know about internet marketing for beginners.

Part 2

If you missed part one you can find it by clicking here.
We previously compared internet marketing to a can of drink. We previously covered off the ‘looking good’ element of the analogy, so this section is on the ‘taste good’ element.

So what do we mean by ‘taste good’? Well this has to do with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This is the process of optimising your website to affect its visibility within search engine results, essentially making your webpage appear higher/or more frequently in the page results. SEO can affect different areas of a search engine from image search, local search, academic search, video search and so on. There are now a lot more areas to consider than just traditional text searching.
As you can imagine, SEO is an incredibly important pillar in the Internet marketing scaffold, and therefore has to be dealt with if you want to get the best out of your internet marketing. The amount of time it can take to deal with SEO can sometimes be extensive and requires you to keep up to date with the process to ensure you are not left behind on important changes.

SEO involves everything from the technical optimisation of a site to link building and driving visitors. When trying to get to the top of search engine results you need to consider what keywords you should be aiming for. These keywords can be anything but some rules have to be considered:

Service or product - This might be quite obvious but what you need to do is consider what your business does. For example if you have an estate agents you want to be considering particular keywords which someone will search for in Google like “selling property, residential property, buying residential property” etc.

Location – Identify your business location and the area you wish to aim for to produce business. This is because identifying a specific locations (or locations) allows the ability to gain page ranking slightly more quickly than generic terms.  If you search for keywords like “Clothing”, “Shopping” and wide ranging keywords you will find that massive companies, firms and king retailers will appear in the highest ranking slots of a search engine. The technique we suggest you use is localised keywords that help filter other businesses from having the high rankings.

Example:
Competitors – A great way to identify what keywords you want is to look at a competitor’s site and identify what they are aiming for. This allows you to compete against them and identify what you need to do to gain higher rankings. Looking at competitors keywords allows you to adapt them and find others that may cover additional market space.

Amount – This needs to be taken into account how many keywords do you want to cover? Having too many keywords won’t allow you to focus on them enough, and this will affect the overall outcome of the page results, meaning it takes longer to generate results. This isn’t the end of the world, but needs to be considered when setting your expectations.

There are even more parts of a website that get the best out of SEO, like Link Building which is the process of creating links to the site via particular techniques. Once these techniques have been implemented then there should be a steady stream of visitors coming to the site from other areas of the web which are related to your business. Link Building is technical and has to be constantly monitored and maintained. This is a crucial part of the process and is unfortunately fairly time consuming, so time needs to be set aside for this purpose.

We produced an article about ways to gain links and we fully recommend checking it out as an aside to this article:
http://redcowmediaseo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/other-ways-to-create-links.html

The world of SEO can take a lot of time and effort, and this can affect other parts of the business, that also need maintaining, which is why specialist SEO agencies are often engaged to carry out the process on your behalf.

There’s a lot more to learn about SEO, but hopefully this article has helped you identify simple strategies in getting the most out of your SEO.

Who are we?
We are Red Cow Media, an online marketing agency specialising in SEO, WebDesign and Social Media marketing. We provide services to enhance your online presence, getting people to connect with you and helping to spread your message and drive revenue. For more information you can talk to one of our friendly team or visit the website by clicking here.

All you really need to know about internet marketing for beginners.

All you really need to know about internet marketing for beginners.
Part 1

New to Internet marketing?  This article will go through the basics of what internet marketing does for your business and the different areas it involves. We will also identify the good and the bad aspects of different forums of Internet marketing to give you a general idea of what services you may be receiving from other SEO companies, and where this can be expanded on.

There are many parts of internet marketing but the three main parts which most companies consider are:

Web Design
SEO
Social Media

These parts influence the amount of people who visit your site and could potentially invest in your services or products later on, this is why you should ensure you are getting the most out of your internet marketing. A great way to look at online marketing is to imagining your site as a signature drink - what your drink needs to do is look good, taste good and have people talking about it.

How does this relate to internet marketing?

Well each individual part is similar to what your signature drink needs to have. For example, the website should look good; you need a site that is easy on the eye and allows visitors to navigate through different pages easily.

Web Design is a key factor in creating influence in your business; it’s a front cover for your business and needs to influence a customer and inspire confidence in your brand.

Website design and User Experience factors are a key part of internet marketing and need to be at a high grade to perform the best it can and maximise business brought in through your online presence.

What should you consider when creating a website?

You want your site relatable to the business and this means multiple things have to be considered, from colours to style, text and website type. There are so many options and things to consider, which is why most business employ a web designer to take on the task. This is usually the best course of action as a good designer will take into account your preferences and produce some designs which are suitable for you to choose from.

What are the different types of websites?

Dynamic websites – Dynamic websites, unlike static, allow advanced interactions and allow the ability to use databases to deliver certain content for an individual page. This kind of interaction allows the website to formulate catalogues, photographs, videos and series of data. One of the good parts of a dynamic website is allowing the ability to stop users accessing different parts of the site and can include password restricted areas and other user permissions to get through the site - such as member areas etc. The down side is that it is much harder to implement different SEO techniques into this kind of site, meaning some potential visibility in search engines may be lost.

Flash websites – Flash can implement unachievable levels of interaction that other web types can’t do and can be stunning and eye catching with animations and graphics. But all this is often outweighed by the inability to implement any form of meaningful SEO on to a flash site. Therefore if you’re wanting to get a site to page one of the rankings, flash sites aren’t the option for you. These are best utilised as portfolio sites to showcase work which doesn’t necessarily need to be searched for.

Static websites – One of the simplest forms of website in which the site’s content may include graphics and animation and may have JavaScript features. Static sites are principally for brochures sites. The down sides/limitations being that they’re not very complex and lack in user interactivity, this is because they cannot gather information for a user or serve content which is dependent on user actions.

Content managed websites – These are a Further refinement of a database driven dynamic site. A content management system provides a user login system to protect the interface. This allows the user to add, edit and remove the content from the site and is particularly useful if the business needs a large site which has numerous contributors.

eCommerce websites – These are dynamic websites which have the functionality to implement financial transaction gateways e.g. PayPal. Most eCommerce sites also include a content management system so that all product details can be added and updated, and some include advanced features such as automated stock control.

Part 2

So what do we mean by taste good? Well this has to do with SEO (Search engine Optimisation)…

Coming soon…


Who are we?

We are Red Cow Media, and online marketing agency that specialise in SEO, WebDesign and Social Media marketing. We provide a social media service which helps enhance your social media presence, getting people to connect and spreading your business message. For more information you can talk to one of our friendly team or visit the website by clicking here. 


References:  http://www.thememagazine.com/
http://www.buystockswithus.com/
http://www.optillion.co.uk/web-development/website-types.asp

Long Term Effects of Blackhat SEO

In a previous article we covered if businesses should prepare for the effects of targeted negative
SEO, but never got into the potential long term effects of negative practices.

This article is going to go through the long term effects of using black hat SEO techniques, how
it can affect your business site and prevent you from recovering the SEO of your site.

What is Black hat SEO?

The Reliable SEO Metro defines Negative SEO as “a black hat technique that uses bad text
links with negative connotations linking back to a competitor’s site, linking competitors to link
farms and free-for-all sites, etc.” It can also include hackers or malware that has infiltrated the
site to change or shut it down. When these techniques are used they act as a barrier, harming
the visibility of the site and causing it to be demoted by Google and the SERP (Search Engine
Ranking Positions) to be lowered.

Although in the past this form of SEO would have helped increase the ranking of your site, it
now only serves as a hindrance and prevents the site from gaining positions on a results page.
This was as a direct effect of numerous algorithm changes brought into play by Google, the most
notable of which was the Penguin update of May 2012.

Would using Black Hat SEO provide fast results in half that time?

To put it bluntly the answer is NO! Although it used to create fast results and costs less, it
doesn’t work that way now. Google have put into place a number of tactics to prevent the
unethical practice of Black Hat SEO. The key one of these is the development of a number
of complex algorithms that prevent any kind of black hat SEO from working. This has left a
number of unreliable SEO companies unable to offer their previously exceedingly cheap deals
for places on Google.

What are the long term effects of Black Hat SEO?

What some people don’t know is the continued damaging effects black hat SEO has on a website
even though the program may have been stopped. Each individual link is logged in the back of
the website and gives the site a form of portfolio. This portfolio is vital in influencing where the
site is placed in a search engine. Black hat SEO produces an influx of poor and irreverent links
at once to this portfolio which act as a black marker each time the site is reviewed and can push
it down the rankings. This will continue to act against a website until the offending links are
removed.

What can be done to resolve it?

The long term effects of this are that a large number of the links become irremovable and have
a persistent harmful affect on your SEO. To combat and these issues and recover the site takes
a long time and a considerable amount of effort. Such quick fixes like Google’s disavow tool
shouldn’t be the first port of call. The emphasis should be placed on trying to remove theses links
manually, to learn more about the approach for resolving negative links click here.

Many people go for cheap SEO thinking they are buying a quick and easy way to help their
website, this is not the case and many businesses that go for this option are in fact purchasing
the long term damaging effects of black hat SEO. We here at Red Cow Media provide a cost
effective and long term service that will help get the most out of your website.

For more information or if you’re interested in joining us, visit our website by clicking here

Other Ways to Gain Links

Many of our clients ask about how relevant having content is to getting good quality links. Well there are ways of getting links without it, but having great content is one of the best long term ways to gain quality links which add value. Strategies not involving content tend to be less effective but some of them can still can help increase your link building. In effect, content is incredibly important, but should ideally be one component of an overall strategy.


Advertising

Big brands focus on advertising because it can make a massive impact on where they are on Google rankings. You will notice businesses advertising anywhere and everywhere online. Effectively, this advertising is content elsewhere online which tells users of their business and links back to their website. Content around the web can consist of videos, images, text and banners which relates back to the site. The primary reason to do this is because advertising both off and on site allows a larger audience to be exposed to your business. As you will see when you go on any kind of site that has video integrated advertising, you will notice that during the video, there will be advertising of services and products. A great example of this is Compare the Market having there videos, banners, text and images all over YouTube and Sky News, linking back to their website. The costs of advertising on site such as YouTube would be extensive, so this is pretty much ruled out for small to medium businesses, however, there are some good alternatives to provide this service on a smaller scale.

Ingrained Product or Service

This is a service or product that you share with others which you are able to keep coming back to. A great example of this is Pinterest, a service which allows users to share pictures with other people and then send them a link to the relevant corresponding website. The use of Pinterest for small businesses has allowed more visitors to be introduced to the website through the links given out and shared. Pinterest has an extremely high PR (Page Rank) score, which means that links coming from this are strong. This is due to people constantly coming back to the site and introducing others to it, as well as the content being refreshed constantly by its users. This makes it a prime site for small to medium business use.

Recommendations

What we mean by this, is that people talking about and recommending your business can provide excellent quality links to your site. If you have another business which you have worked with, they might be happy to advertise your site via a link on their site. You may also want to return the favour by linking back to their website in return, providing a great link opportunity for both sites. Although this is a good idea, recommendation links take a relationship with another business which can take time to build up. An example of high quality linking between sites is Microsoft and 343 Industries, both have reciprocal links that promote each other on their websites.

Community

Having a community relating to your business can cause people to generate content on your behalf. For example Stumble Upon allows people to post and interact with others, with most of its content coming from the community creating their own content for the site. Community is a powerful way to create content without the need to invest time in generating it yourself.

Blogs/Authority

Having a blog on your website is a great way to generate content and keep content fresh and updated. Blogs allow your target audience to read about things going on in your business in realtime and are also a good way of engaging with them in a less formal way than the text on the actual website. It also allows you to become an authority in your area of expertise so people will come back to your page at a later date for anything relating to your business area, eventually generating sales. You can invite guest bloggers to write for your blog, who may also promote their articles elsewhere, again providing linking opportunities as well as good content.

For more information on anything online marketing related, visit our website by clicking here.

Update on Negative SEO Attacks and Google's Disavow Tool.

In the last article when we talked about the effects of Negative SEO, we made a point that there was no real way to prevent or stop link attacks if you were being targeted by negative SEO. We gave a few tricks of the trade to introduce ways to prevent or stem an attack by combating the links directly and releasing great and regularly updated content which would link back to your site. However, having done some further research on negative SEO and with Google taking active steps to combat it, we have been experimenting with the new Disavow Links tool.

On the 16/10/2012 Google announced the arrival of this new tool to assist with the problem of negative SEO. In a nutshell, the disavow tool helps by erasing the connection between the offending website and your own site, allowing poor quality links to be discounted when Google indexes. 

However, Google is not simply offering a quick fix to those wanting to reverse the effects of poor link building practices in the past, as they have made it clear that all possible action needs to be taken before the disavow tool is used. In essence, it is a last resort. The website owner should try and remove the links manually in the first instance, as it has been mentioned that notes are needed when using the disavow tool and evidence of removal attempts must be seen. It is only when Google can see that the account holder is trying to act upon the link removals that it will allow the request for the Disavow tool to be implemented.

At this point in time nobody fully knows the effectiveness of the disavow tool but we recommend that everyone wanting to jump on the band wagon doesn’t at this stage. The potential effects it could have on the removal of links mean that it may well cause damage to your SEO if not used properly, or if you become particularly 'trigger happy' with the tool. For the time being, we would only recommend that you use the tool if:

- You’re a victim of negative SEO and have evidence enough to support this
- You have received a Google Warning for breaching their guidelines
- You have used poor link building practices previously and you have been hit by the Penguin Update

If your website has been affected by one of these scenarios then you may find that using the tool will improve the state of the SEO. But be warned! With it being a new tool, it should be used with caution!

For more information on the Google Disavow Links tool, or alternative ways to remove bad links feel free to get in touch with a member of our team at www.redcowmedia.co.uk

You can also check out our other articles at:

http://redcowmediaseo.blogspot.co.uk/

5 ways to enhance your online marketing

Firstly who are we? We are Red Cow Media an Online Marketing Agency that provides different services to increase the chance of an audience finding you and using your services. We have over 20 years’ experience in this field and seen how rapidly online marketing can change.  Here are ways in which you can enhance your online marketing:

Web Design

One fundamental way to enhance your online marketing is the attractiveness and professionalism of your website; in today’s internet-led world, your website is your main tool to reflect your company, making it a key way to improve your online marketing. A website should always suit the business, including enough detail of what it does, and should provide valid information related to the business, as well as being visually appealing.

The vast majority of consumers will now look to websites when looking for a service online, checking the website out first before investing their money. Consumers are also influenced by different aspects of the site, including:

• Loading Time
• Attractiveness
• Professionalism
• Quality and Quantity of Information

All these aspect should be taken into consideration when looking to enhance the chances of customers choosing your site over the hundreds of other competitors.

SEO

A massive problem with online marketing is that a business has a fantastic looking website, which they may have paid a large amount of money for, but no business coming from it. It essential to have customers going to your website and this can be done through SEO, or “Search Engine Optimisation”.

There are two different types of SEO, off page and on page optimisation, in a nutshell, it helps potential customers find your website and gets it in front of a wider audience.

The on page optimisation deals with what is on the website and in the website code, and what could be improved to help the search engines identify that your site is exactly what the customer is looking for in their search. Off page optimisation comes from quality link building, through a variety of techniques including content generation, articles and reciprocal linking to relevant sites.

Link Building

This is a huge part of the SEO process which needs to be an ongoing effort. It comes under off page optimisation and uses different techniques to help increase the chance of the customers finding your website.  Link building is like a voting system, every link accounts for one vote and this allows search engines to find which page are important and the most popular. 

Over time link building has changed with different algorithms, making it a fighting battle to keep up with the latest techniques in link building. What link building essentially does is create more interest in the site and increases its visibility, opening up doors to a wider audience.

Social Media

One commonly missed part of online marketing is social media, which allows the user to keep a connection with the customer and, again, be used for getting to a wider audience.  Social Media is accessible to anyone and can be customised, it now takes up a huge proportion of online presence and it is seen as a weakness to a business if they haven’t got a social presence. It also allows a business to engage with the target audience on a more personal, accessible level.

One of the main features with Social Media is that is can be seen or accessed almost anywhere, allowing people to see what the business is providing at any time and increasing the chance of the customer picking your company.

It is a myth that for successful Social Media Marketing you need to spend hours each week on the various different pages, it’s all about targeting the right people.

E Marketing

All businesses keep records, email addresses from current customers, old customers and potential customers. They are the easiest record of data to capture and can prove an essential tool in your online marketing arsenal. The most important way of using this data is through e-mail marketing.

Sending the right information at the right time cannot only improve visits to your site but also turn those potential clients into actual clients.

If you found this article interesting, you can check out “Make It, Find It,Share It” where we explain what we mean by the phrase and how it may help you. Alternatively, you can find more information about us on our website by clicking here.