The SEO industry is largely unregulated, which makes for a mixed bag of the services you may receive for your money. Many companies and firms promise page one listings with timescales that in my experience are unattainable by honest means. Many of these firms just set up PPC campaigns, which would be fine if they were up front about this but many of our customers have reported that these companies are not honest about the methods they use.

So, what should you look for in an SEO company if you are thinking of employing them?

1. Choose a company based on their abilities to achieve lasting results for you.
2. Don’t believe that they can manage to get your site listed on page 1 in less than three months. This is almost impossible.
3. Check their own listings – can they do what they say they can?
4. Will they make you sign a yearly contract? – As SEO cannot be guaranteed they shouldn’t tie you in to a year of services that they may not be able to deliver.
5. Don’t believe them if they say that they ‘have a special relationship with Google’ – nobody does! Google wouldn’t be as successful at what they do if they sold out in this way!
6. And finally, Check that they are promising you organic SEO and not PPC advertising.
   

Can they do it for themselves? They should be optimising their own website for the keywords: “Search Engine Optimisation”, “SEO”, and the American spelling: “Search Engine Optimization” at the very least. Where they are on Google for the main keywords is most important. This shows how good they are at their job. And remember, if they can’t do it for themselves then how can you expect them to do it for you?

You may find that the company of your choice also does Web Design, this is often the case as these two industries are so tightly intertwined, indeed I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t attempt one without the other – you need basic knowledge in coding to implement a good SEO campaign, and you shouldn’t be building websites if you don’t know how to give them at least a fighting chance in the search engines. Check the listings for “Web Design”. This is one of the most competitive keywords around, so if your SEO company is on the first page for this keyword then they really are very good at what they do and should be able to achieve similar results for you.

The Creare Group have recently released a fun music video with the release of “The SEO Song“. The purpose of this release is to raise awareness of the problems encountered by many small and medium sized businesses – The Backbone of our Economy – businesses who face an uncertain future and may be taken in by unscrupulous SEO companies. Please help us to spread this important message!

Content Marketing To Ensure Your Web Site Gets Noticed

Search Engine Optimisation contains many components that when put together create a successful campaign. One area that many people need to be made more aware of is the importance of content marketing; producing and distributing fresh content online in a variety of forms.

The basic structure of content marketing obviously begins with the text that is incorporated into the web site. It is essential that key words are apparent in the page title, within headings and of course as anchored text.

With this in mind, it is always vital that any content is new. Duplicate content has a detrimental affect on a web sites performance and can undo the hard work that has been incorporated in other areas of a campaign.

The next stage in the structure of content marketing is the writing and distributing of relevant articles. There are a whole variety of article distribution web sites that harbour different categories for relevant industries. One of the most important areas of Content Marketing is putting content where your target audience will find it.

It is important to be aware that many article distribution frown upon self-promotion. Articles need to be based around what a company does and how they do it rather than writing the article to openly promote their services. Common sense is needed when writing the article to ensure your key phrases are inserted in way that doesn’t come across as spam.

Articles should also be added to a web site through an RSS News Feed. As with many sites, not all web sites have this feature, but it is well worth investing the money in one to ensure you can easily add fresh content to your site as frequently as possible.

One aspect of Content Marketing that can not only give key phrases a well needed boost, but gets content noticed quicker that articles are Press Releases. A vital part of Content Marketing that is a little more complex than articles is the writing and distribution Press Releases online.

Press releases are to be used for up and coming news that will attract those interested in your industry and who purposely search for news related to a subject matter. You should distribute your articles to a site that will ensure your PR appears on Google News for maximum exposure.

Press Releases need to be written with a focus in mind. Unlike articles, Press Releases are meant to inform people of your business and the services you provide, but be careful not to create a sales pitch. Content needs to be based upon one piece of news that is unique to your company or related to subjects in the media that are creating attention.

Other types of Content Marketing include social networking, video blogs, and of course email marketing. As one basic rule that most Search Engine Optimisation Content Writers work by ‘Content Is King’, so ensure you get the most from your businesses by ensuring you tell everyone about it!

VIDEO SCRIPT

Hello and Welcome to Creare’s SEO Video Blog.
At the moment Nick is on holiday so I will be filling in for him this week. My name is Pete Campbell and I’m one of the Search Engine Optimisation Consultants and Web Designers here at Creare.

Twitter, the immensely popular micro-blogging website, can be an engaging resource and fantastic marketing tool for any website. It enables you to directly target and appeal to your visitors alongside effectively contributing towards building your websites brand.

Today, I’m going to talk about how to optimize your websites twitter profile so that it gains maximum exposure, gains you more followers and ultimately drives potential customers or visitors back to your website.

BUILD A COMPREHENSIVE PROFILE
Firstly, ensure your profile appropriately represents your business or website. If you haven’t already, set your name, website address, one line biography and your location within the settings panel.
Next, customise your profile design by navigating to the ‘Design’ tab. Twitter allows you to set any custom background image, alongside the individual styles and HTML colours for each element.

Branding is an important element of any website, and within Twitter you can carry yours across quite simply.

SYNC YOUR RSS FEED
Using Twitterfeed, you can sync up your websites RSS feed so that it automatically updates your Twitter profile everytime you make a news update.

Twitterfeed is a free service and is available at:
http://www.twitterfeed.com/

All you have to do is register and provide Twitterfeed with your Twitter Account & RSS Feed details. In true Blue Peter fashion, here is an account I setup earlier.

In your account you can customize the ways in which your RSS updates will be published to your Twitter profile.
We’d suggest setting your post content to publish the news titles and a frequency of one hour to ensure your profile is always up-to-date. You can also set prefixs, suffixs and even a keyword filter.

ADD A TWITTER WIDGET TO YOUR WEBSITE
Twitter offers several types of widgets or ‘badges’ that allow you to easily display & embed your latest tweets onto your own website.

Find these by logging into your Twitter account and navigating to the ‘Goodies’ link within the footer. Choose the option called ‘Widget’ and select the type of Widget you are looking for, in our case, you first need to pick ‘My Website’ option and then ‘Profile Widget’ option.

Within here, you will find an easy-to-use wizard that allows you to customize and define the look and feel of your chosen Twitter widget and also give you instructions on how you can simply embed it within your website.

For a more in-depth tutorial on how to add Twitter to your Website, check out my recent blog post on the Creare Design website, which I’ve linked to in the YouTube description.

TWEETING TIPS
Lastly, here are some tips on how you can maintain an engaging and resourceful Twitter profile.

• Encourage Conversation: Pose questions to your followers, this will gain you @ tweets back and drive attention to your profile
• Offer Unique Insights: Show you’re the expert of your industry, offers tips of the trade. On the Creare Group Twitter we often update with Web Design & SEO tips for example.
• Follow Influential People in your Industry: This will help gain you more followers, tweet the people you follow, say hello and they may even tweet back, giving your account even more exposure.

Overall, if you have a Twitter profile, you should be encouraged to use it as an active resource to gain feedback off your visitors or customers. Simply put, you should consider it as a vital extension of your website, business or brand.

Feel free to visit and follow our Twitter Profile at:
http://www.twitter.com/crearegroup

Thanks for watching!

Blogging To Gain More Connections

There are those companies that post to their blog daily, who crave to get readers’ attention and relentlessly find ways of posting anything relevant to their industry.

This is a good use of blogging, but one factor that many people miss is the connection with others who are using exactly the same technique as they are.

We’re aware of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and understand the importance of social networking. But many people are missing the vital element of getting in touch directly with bloggers and there are those who are looking for something fresh, a new take on their industry.

In our case this would be Search Engine Optimisation and Web Design. With so many blogs written on this subject there are those that look for other likeminded people to contribute. Having connections opens up vast opportunities for you as a company, as well as giving those full time bloggers a chance to expand their blog with new content.

For Search Engine Optimisation purposes it is important to gain links and exposure via different blogs, however many people abuse this and leave pointless comments such as ‘Nice post’ and ‘Good work’. The point of blogging is to be interested in what others are saying and it provides a great opportunity to build relationships.

Connecting with people who are bloggers within the same industry as you ensures that you are kept informed as to recent innovations, ideas and progress. With so many different blogs available to read, it is a great way to network to not only create more exposure for yourself but also for those willing to accept your content.

With the much-anticipated release earlier this week of Creare’s “SEO song” on YouTube and our own blogs I wanted to check out the competition. So after a morning searching the net and YouTube for SEO songs I have complied my top 5.

Link Building Rap

The sound isn’t great quality on this one but the lyrics make up for that! The song actually gives a lot of information about link building, so it’s worth listening to.

Paid Search 101 rap

This is by the same guy who did the Link Building Rap. The sound quality on this one is much better and again he provides the lyrics to help us understand what he’s rapping about.

SEO Gangsta Rap

This one is hilarious. The fact that they don’t take themselves too seriously is great. They provide the lyrics, which is really useful as they give away some great tips in there

We Like SEO

This is a parody of D.I.S.C.O by Ottawan. The video is really funny and I love the 1970s hairdos! We Like SEO, We Like SEO….

Google V Yahoo!

We’ve mentioned this here before, but it cracks me up every time I hear it!

Of course my favourite SEO song is always going to be Michael Angrave’s wonderful SEO Song, written especially for Creare.