Yes of course it is.

When starting out in seo on your own or if you employ an agency or consultant, the first thing they should do is carry out keyword research. It is one of the most important aspects of search engine marketing. Keyword research helps you to understand the market demands, the consumer trends and the content people are searching within the web.

So how do you start?
This is nothing fancy, just ask yourself what words you would type into Google to find your site. You must of course think about the keywords relevant for your site. Will people find your site which is about holidays and cheap holiday deals if the content on the site does not contain these words? Probably not. Make sure the content reflects the keywords you want to rank for.

Paid search
Look at the paid search ads, see what advertisement is appearing against the search terms you want to rank for. If there are many search ads then it might mean it is a high value keword.

Use tools
Google Keyword tool gives you an estimate on the amount of traffic for the “exact match” of your keyword. It is a useful benchmark. If you already have a paid search campaign, I would also look at the report and the impression data and click throughs.

I also look at the competitors and see what they are doing. You may be entering into a very competitive market and it may be a very difficult and uphill struggle to rank on the first page. Use the keyword density tool from seobook to help research the competitors http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/.

Don’t forget the long tail.
I wrote a post about the long tail in June this year. As I mentioned in the post, the long tail are the words that have about very few visits per month 0 – 5 queries per month. But it represents 70-75% of the volume of all searches. The queries are more focused and more specific and can lead to higher converting keywords.

So now you know the basics, lets get cracking. I often use Google keyword tool as well as Insights for Search. I really like Insights for search as it shows you the trend of a particular keyword over time. This is particularly useful if there has been a product launch or buzz about a certain term. You can see how interest has increased over time.

People just coming into the world of digital marketing, may not fully understand the world of search engines and how they work. This post will help you with the answers.

What is a search engine?
It is a software program that searches for sites on the world wide web based on the words that you designate as search terms.

Spiders
Search engines need to crawl the web pages and they use the best path which is links. The programs that crawl the web are called “bots” or “spiders” and they index the pages. There are three types of spiders, the Googlebot (Google), Slurp (Yahoo!) and MSNBot (Bing). When these spiders craw the web, they add data to the search engine index. When a user then types in a query, for example “mobile phones”, this is then checked against the search engine’s index of all the web pages it has analyzed. The results that are returned are ranked in order with the best results at the top.

Where do the spiders start?
They start with a list of page URLs that have previously been added to their index. When it visits these pages if it finds new pages, through the links, it adds more to the index. It returns to the sites in the index regularly but no search engine will tell us how often this is. Adding a sitemap to your Google webmaster tools informs Google of your site. A sitemap is an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to the Google index.

Sometimes it takes a while for new pages or any modified pages for the spider to find and index. A web page may have been “spidered” but not yet “indexed.” Until a page is indexed which means it has been added to the index, the spidered pages will not be available to those searching with the search engine.

How does the search engine determine rank a page?
There are billions of web pages on the net and therefore it is very important to make sure your site is featured in the search engine result pages (SERPS). Each search engine has developed a set of rules and mathematical equations, called an algorithm to set the order of its rankings. Unfortunately no one knows what exactly goes into the algorithm. The seo (search engine optimisation) consultant will work with you to help improve your rankings and therefore traffic by following the on page and off page rules about seo.

The algorithm between the search engines is different which is what they give different results for the same query. It is important to not just focus on Google but make sure you rank well on the other search engines.

Google have launched a new search enhancement feature called “Instant”, this is how they describe it:

“Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.”

The next question most people are concerned with is, how will Google Instant affect seo?

Google has again changed the personalised results and is now affecting what the user sees in search – paid and natural. It is something to be aware of, but it will only affect those that are logged into Google.

1. Unique search queries
According to Google, 25% of searches are unique. Therefore if someone is offered new results in the search box, they may stop writing the rest of their search query, potentially lowering the number of unique search queries.

2. Long tail search
There may be a change in the long tail patterns of keywords as people are offered instant results. There may be a decrease in the number of long tail search queries typed into Google.

3. Brilliant basics SEO
Title tags and meta descriptions are even more important as this is what comes up in Google in the instant results. It is important keywords are in the title and description tag, encouraging users to click through.

Google Instant may just be kept as a default but there is an “off” switch and you also have to be logged in to see it. It is certainly distracting when typing in search results into Google. Google has even admitted it does not know yet how users will interact with the search results, ads and search experience. However, one thing is for sure, users should find relevant results quicker than before (Google say 2 – 5 seconds saved per search) and seo and ppc practioners will need to keep an eye on how Google Instant affects traffic to their site. The search landscape is constantly changing and the seo and ppc team are always adapting well to these modifications implementing best practice techniques to their campaigns.

A simple question, most people who are thinking of using social media as part of their campaign often ask.

But how do you actually know you are getting a good ROI for your social media campaign?

There are three ways to measure this:

1. Traffic
Before you begin the social media campaign, make sure you record the number of visits to your site. If you have Google Analytics, you can export the traffic to your site and the key terms driving the most volume. You will see an increase in the amount of traffic during and after the social media campaign has finished.

2. Rankings
Measure your rankings weekly during the campaign. You should notice an improvement in the rankings as people are talking more about your site and your product.

3. Links
With an increase in the amount of buzz from the campaign, you should also see more links to your site. Make sure you record the number of inbound links before the campaign starts, this you can do by logging into your Google Webmaster tools.

You can easily measure the effects of social media if you are just working on that area of digital. It gets more difficult to relate the change in traffic, rankings and links when you are also running paid search, affiliates and off line advertising campaigns. However, you should consider social media as part of your integrated search and seo campaign. It is a growing area of digital and the effects it can have in terms of traffic and buzz to your site and around your brand can be phenomenal.

Working in digital, you have have two options. You can either work:

1. Agency side
or
2. Client side

But how do you know which route to follow? This post will explain some of the highlights and lowlights of working in both areas.

Agency
There are three advantages:
1. Working for an agency gives you a lot of experience across a wide range of clients. You can work on up to 10 different clients across different industries, finance, retail, telecomms and entertainment meaning you gain an extensive amount of experience without having to spend years working in each of those sectors.

2. In an agency you can have a very specific role such as seo manager, ppc manager, display executive. This means you can become specialised in a shorter time than if you were client side. It also means you can then take this experience and start working freelance. You have the experience, the clients you have worked on, the good name of the agency and hey presto you are ready to roll.

3. A lot of agencies have graduate programmes which allows you to gain experience across the different departments before choosing an area such as search to work in full time. There are a lot of young people working at agencies, it is a good transition between University and working in the real world. You work hard and play hard. You socialise often with your work colleagues who end up being very good friends.

There are of course disadvantages. Working agency side can be very stressful. You sometimes get a call asking you to start and complete a task when your whole day was full anyway of other important client work. You can therefore never really plan your day, as there will always be something that drops in on your lap last minute and that has to be attended to right away.

Client
I have worked client side for 6 years and as within an agency, there are some advantages and disadvantages:

1. Your job remit client side is much broader than agency. Marketing manager means you cover not just search, but offline work as well. You can get experience working on digital – seo, ppc, display, affiliates but also print such as advertising in newspapers and magazines and out of home advertising which is posters and billboards. You have a marketing budget and can see the ROI which is not always clear when you are working agency side on one small section of the budget.

2. One of the areas I liked most client side, was working with the different agencies. As a client you are able to send out briefs to potential agencies which they then have to respond and present back to you. This way you can see how creative the different agencies are in terms of the solutions they offer. This can be particularly interesting if there is a small budget and if your product offering is new and original with very few competitors in the market place.

3. Stress free

Working client side, means you can usually plan your day. You know what work you have to do, what is outstanding when the meeting with the marketing director is and you can therefore easily prepare for these. If you need help with running reports, you can always ask your agency to do that for you, making your day less stressful.

Working for a client can also have some drawbacks. You are just focused in one industry (such as telecoms) and cannot move easily to gain experience across another area such as finance. Therefore once you have chosen the industry that you like, you tend to stay there for a while. It is fine if you enjoy it and good at it, but if you want to try something new, this will often incur a step back in terms of pay and job title.

Before you choose which area you want to work for, think about your long term goals. Where do you see yourselves in ten years? If you want to gain a lot of experience quickly in a specific field, I recommend agency. However, the work, life balance can sometimes be easier to attain client side, but then it is up to the individual on how you handle your work load. Let me know what route you decided to explore and why.

I was reading the news today and found an interesting video showing live updating results when a user types a search term into Google

What will Google think of next?

So you are looking for a new agency to help you with your digital strategy and all the people you have met are talking about delivering an “integrated search” strategy.

This is the new buzz word in search and it is here to stay. Affiliates, paid search, seo and social media working independently will not get you to the top of the search results. Paid search and seo go hand in hand. They are a match made in digital heaven and should not be treated as separately.

How do they compliment one another?
Studies have shown that if users see both a paid search ad and the natural search results, they will click on the natural search listings which is free. You are not paying for that click and if that therefore generates sales, you are lowering your cost per acquisition.

How can you integrate the two?
Communication is the key. Have regular meetings with the paid and natural search team. In this way both teams are aware of the campaigns and seo work on optimising the key landing pages the site wants to rank for making it appear higher in the search results.

Report back as one
When you are analysing the results, make sure you record how seo and ppc have complimented one another on a campaign by campaign level and then how this has led to a decrease in paid search costs overall. This way you can show to senior management and those in control of the purse strings the positive effect of integration while drilling down to the detail of the campaigns and can tweak these even further for next time.

Do you have any case studies where you have delivered an integrated search strategy that has worked well? Or perhaps you are still in the middle of working on it. Let me know, all comments welcome.

Photo is from Flickr

Sometimes working with the client’s PR team is a nightmare, they never listen to your seo recommendations and if they do, it takes weeks to get content approved. Some, despite claiming they know about seo, still upload press releases with no optimised content or links.

If you want to take this attitude, I do not blame you, but it will be harder to get your client ranking high in the search results without them.

PR and SEO should work closely together. Having a press release ranking for a key term can help your seo efforts:
1. It will appear in the top search results, therefore pushing down the competition.
2. PR will help you to appear in the news results as well.
3. By appearing high in the web and news results, you will drive more traffic to your site, the whole objective of most website owners.

So how can you work closely with PR so that they like and respect your seo efforts?

1. Educate
Speak to them about how important seo is and by working together you are complimenting their efforts.
2. Optimise signed off press releases
You will not be able to change the copy of most press releases, that is pretty much guaranteed., but what you can do is add in links to key terms the site should be ranking for.
3. Results
You will get the PR team on board quicker if you can show them results from working with previous clients.
4. Quick turn around
Make sure when you have a press release, you optimise it and send it back to the team quickly.

PR and SEO should work closely together so they can compliment one another’s efforts. A solid partnership with bring long lasting results which will benefit the agency and the client.

Yes of course you can.

To make a good facebook page, optimised for both customers and seo, you need to get your fans talking about the brand and the experience.

The page needs to be kept fresh, full of relevant content and be kept active.

Here are a few tips:

• Relevant and timely content
• Special offers/ promo codes unique to facebook fans
• Ask your fans when you have a question – feedback is important
• Multimedia: add photos, videos, events
• Use facebook ads to drive new fans to your page
• Advertise by targeting your competitor’s fans
• Make it conversational, not salesy or spammy
• Use Facebook to build relationships with current customers, not to get new customers.

Optimising for seo

1.Choose the best name for your Facebook Page and stick to it.

Don’t put too many keywords in the title as it will be seen as spammy and will stop the viral growth of your Page.
Don’t make the facebook page too generic. Facebook want all pages to authentically represent business, brands or celebrity.

Use your business’s real name as the name of the Page.

2. Select the best URL (Facebook username) for your Facebook Page

The URL is one of the most important SEO opportunities on Facebook.
When you choose a Facebook username for your Page, your Page’s URL becomes www.facebook.com/YourUsernameHere. Facebook recently launched the ability to choose the vanity URL.

Once a username and URL is selected for your page, it cannot be changed, so choose wisely, use the business name with generic keywords which represent your company.

Facebook requires that your Page have at least 100 fans before it becomes eligible to select a username.

3. Use the “About” text box to place keyword-dense prose near the top of your Page

Place keyword-dense prose as close to the top of the Page as possible. There is a limit of 250 characters.

4. Include important keywords, priority links on the “Info” tab

Complete all the fields on the Info tab with keywords and links to other parts of the site. Make sure you also include your company address, company overview as this will all help to increase the content score of your Facebook Page for many types of Google searches.

Address, City, County, Post code are important fields for local searches

Company Overview, Mission, and Products are important fields for product searches

Make sure you choose the category that best suits your business as the different fields are dependent on the category.

5. Post direct links to your website (or other relevant sites) in your Page’s stream

Status updates are a great way to place direct links at the top of your Page’s structure and it can boost your Facebook Page’s link score.

There are two ways to put post links into your Page’s stream:

– Include the raw URL in the text of the status update itself

– Use the “attach link” feature in the Facebook publisher

6. Add photos with captions, events with descriptions, and a discussion forum

Always share interesting content on your Facebook Page.
Make sure that all photos and videos have titles and captions
When you post events, include text and keywords in the event description. Add a discussion forum to your Page.

7. Get more inbound links to your Facebook Page from the web

Post links to your Facebook Page on all your websites

The more inbound links you have to your Facebook Page, the more it will boost its PageRank.. You can do this with anchor text links and the “Find Us On Facebook” badge which it encourages Page owners to use.

8. Get more intra-Facebook inbound links from your fans

Facebook places links to Facebook Pages on the default version of Facebook users’ profile pages.
These links are visibile to search engines which is great for seo. The more fans you get, the more links you will have to your Page within Facebook.

And there you have it, a few tips to make sure you are top of the facebook search results and Google.

London Girl Geek dinner celebrated their fifth birthday on Wednesday and what an event it was.

Hosted at the lovely Google UK headquarters with sponsors from Dinastia Vivanco, Green & Blacks and Juniper Networks, there were a lot of girl geeks.

It kicked off around 6:30 and then we were welcomed by Sarah Gordon from Google who gave a presentation about the growth of the smartphone market. It is amazing how much the mobile phone has changed over the past decade and sometimes I wonder what the market will be like in the next ten years.

This was one of the best networking events I have attended. Maybe because there were so many women in the same room all into “geeky things” and the fact that it was at Google and there were interesting talks about mobile and by Sue Black who discussed how social media helped her raise the profile of Bletchley Park. It was a great event and I am so pleased I got to attend, there were over 300 people that applied for a ticket, but only 80 people got to go.

There was a raffle at the event and there were a lot of cool prizes to be won. Sadly I did not win, but all the money raised through the raffle went to charity. London Girl Geek dinners is working on getting charitable status, so if you would like to help, get in touch with them. It would be fantastic if they could get charitable status as they raise a lot of money already.

I look forward to the next Girl Geek Dinners, I was amazed at how much they have grown over the past five years, from just 33 members in 2005 to over 27,000 now. They have girl geek dinners all round the world including Europe, Canada and Australia. You will never be far from a girl geek.