I was greeted this morning by Google‘s Birthday cake. If you ask me they were pretty stingy on the old candles. One of our lead designers Adam Moss also shares Google’s special day. I’m hoping if anyone has been kind enough to buy him a real cake they bring some over for me (unsubtle hint there).

As its Google’s birthday lets have a brief look at what is has achieved so far:

Google this is your life…*

• 1995-1997: Larry met Sergey and Google.com was registered.
• 1998: Google finds it’s first investor (how I wish that was me) Google is named the “top search engine” It seems Google was a fast learner.
• 1999: Google employees it’s 11th person, receives funding from major venture capital firms and opens offices in Palo Alto.
• 2000: Google available in 10 more languages, they have indexed 1 billion pages, AdWords and Google Toolbar is available.
• 2001: Another endless list of achievements.
• 2002: Google announce a partnership with AOL, AdWords overhaul including cost-per-click pricing. Google Australia opens.
• 2003: Blogger.com is purchased. Google is now recognsed as a word and voted the most useful word in 2002.
• 2004: Larry Page inducted to the NAE (National Academy of Engineering). Office Google blog is live and Google Mail is rolled out.
• 2005: Google Maps is live and carries on to improve and develop to the present day, along with Google Earth, along with numerous other realeases, and most helpfully for SEO, Google Analytics.
• 2006: Google list 39 further developments to their services including acquiring YouTube.
• 2007: See’s a further 62 new services, the controversial Street View for Maps and Google Earth.
• 2008: Google maps for Mobiles, Iphone has Google Search, Google has indexed 1 trillion webpages, Chrome Browser is rolled out.
• 2009-2010: Google Instant and Real time search results apear.

  *To fill in the gaps on Google’s massive list of achievements over the last 12 years see Google’s Time Line (sadly the information is only supplied to 2008, maybe there was just to much to mention in the last 2 years). Please feel free to add to anything I may have missed.

  In summary Happy Birthday Google, thank you for all you have given us and keep up the good work. I would raise a toast but for all you have achieved you are still not legally allowed to drink…

If you are just starting out in the world of internet marketing there are 5 important questions you need to answer before outsourcing your SEO. It is important to have clear objectives in mind to support your businesses growth online.

• Who: Who are you targeting and what problems does this buyer have?
• What: What problems are you solving for your target market? Why are they buying from you?
• What actions would you like your buyers to take, enquire, buy, order?
• Why: Why would they chose you? Why are you different from your competitors? Can you provide proof, testimonials, guarantees, industry specific qualifications for credibility?
• Where: Where would you like to market your business, organic listings, PPC, Facebook, Twitter?
• How: How will your site reflect your companies ethos/ personality? What kind of look and feel do you want to portray to clients? How will you communicate this, e.g what type of language will you use, corporate, humerus, industry specific, casual… ? How will they find you, what keywords do you think reflect your business that clients will search for? What other marketing tactics do you think would work for your company, blogging, Twitter, newsletters etc?

If your company does not have clear goals, well defined research and product development detailing exactly what people want it doesn’t matter how successful your SEO is. As with any aspect of business you need to provide something people want, if you don’t fully comprehend what that is no amount of SEO will be able to patch that gap.

We all know by now that quality relevant links pointing to your site is an important ranking factor in search engines. When commencing a link building strategy for your chosen keywords, it is important to consider your anchor text. Anchor text is the visible text that contains the link to a web page e.g SEO. As a user you will know if you click on that link you will go to a page with information about SEO.

Historically people made the mistake of linking up their company name, or a prime example is “to find out more about SEO click here“. This link will work from a usability perspective, but a search engine would not know you want to rank for SEO, although it appears effective, there is no benefit for your rankings.

Use Anchor Text Wisely:

• Keep the user experience in mind with internal linking, make sure the link is relevant and not there for the sake of adding a link.
• Links will only add value if they are related to the page they are on.
• Links within the copy are more valuable than within the footer or another secondary area of the website.
• Vary your anchor text when carrying out external linking. To many incoming links with the same anchor text will shout that you are trying to manipulate rankings!
• Leave a snippit of code on your contact page with your desired anchor text in, that way if someone wants to add a link to your site from theirs, you are getting the most benefit.

As with all ethical SEO practices don’t abuse anchor text, anchor text is an important way of highlighting to search engines what you wish to rank for, and at the same time has help your users understand and navigate your site.

Choosing an SEO company to optimise your site is probably a likely move for most small to medium companies. There are advantages and disadvantages of carrying out your SEO in house, but for most companies the main issue is having the resources available. Realistically you don’t need to fully understand how SEO works to make a decision on which company is right for you, but you do need to have enough knowledge to know you have made an informed choice. Here is my list of questions you should find out answers to:

• Will the company outsource any of the work?
• Can I visit my SEO consultant if needed?
• How much time will be spent on my account?
• Can I call my SEO consultant when I need them during business hours?
• What is included in your budget, web changes, article marketing, link building?
• Are only rankings important to their company or keywords that provide the best return on investment, and will they adjust my campaign accordingly?
• What is the payment plan and contracts?
• How much will I have to be involved?
• How much will the company allow me to be involved?
• What are the timescales they would expect for my site to perform?

This list will give you something you can compare and gauge feedback from different SEO companies. Leaving you with the best opportunity to make a decision on which company will be most suitable for you and your business.

Structuring your content to reflect your business, include your keywords and help your SEO is tricky.

You have designed your site, you have carried out keyword research, now comes the time to sit down and write the content. If you are like me sitting here now, you are probably wondering where do I start…?

Well, I’m hoping you have your list of keywords, and you have identified a list of long tail keywords to support these. Your long-tail keywords won’t be massively competitive, and are most likely to reflect your best selling products or services, they tend to be very industry specific and will usually convert better.

I would also advise typing your keywords into Google and checking them against Google’s Wonder Wheel. This will give you a spider diagram indicating other words Google associates with your chosen keywords. It would put you in good stead to try and integrate these into your copy.

Step two is how you structure these into your content. Firstly remember your content must be written for your audience, and structured to rank higher in search engines with maximum emphasis on your chosen keywords. I will outline 5 ways you should structure your copy in an attempt to fulfill this criteria.

1.Heading tags should be structured chronologically, your h1 being the most important and should include the exact keyword you are targeting. Working down the page to include the long-tail keywords you have identified.

2.Aim to use an exact match of your keyword within the first paragraph below your heading.

3.Following on from the above, the first reference to your keyword should be in bold for maximum effect.

4.Use a variety of your keywords, long-tail keywords and other phrases you have identified from Wonder wheel naturally throughout your text.

5.Finally optimise your page title tag with your main keywords. Google has a limit to the number of characters it will display so bare this in mind.

Only you can decide what is appropriate for your site, your clients and your readers. Every site will be different (different is imperative, make use of Copyscape to ensure you have no duplicate content).

Keep it professional but don’t be afraid to use a little humor, keep your paragraphs short and concise, include images to back up your message (don’t forget to make use of alt tags). Finally ask someone to read your copy before publishing it, to check for spelling and grammar, you want your copy to flow naturally, the more you read it the more you will over look mistakes.