Speed is a common problem nowadays. On the roads, at work and in bars when you just can`t catch the bartenders eye for a drink even after 20 minutes. However, currently speed in the SEO industry is vital in particular relation to how fast a website loads. It`s always been a bane of many peoples web browsing habits and admittedly a lot of the time it can be down to computer spec but the majority of the time it is a poorly constructed website that attributes to a slow loading time and losing customers.

We have known since April 2010 that Google uses site speeds to help determine a page rank and that Google includes this attribute when creating the ranking algorithm. Google originally noted that site speed was not as relevant as the page content on a site but we now know that it takes more notice than we first thought.
For SEO where visitor numbers are key, it is essential that we maintain and increase visitor figures each month and a fast, smooth running site will always help towards that. It is said that the average user would only wait 4-6 seconds for a website page to load before cancelling or deciding to look elsewhere and this one issue could potentially make or break a site. It is certainly something we in SEO should take notice of and ensure that our client`s website is functioning correctly. It can be a common mistake to just assume the site looks after itself as we continue to build links and run our campaigns but it is crucial that we keep an eye on the overall site performance including loading speeds.

Quality of page content is always important, as is the way a site is built and optimised but the performance speed of the site is made from those individual elements. These elements can include ensuring that CSS is used for page layouts instead of traditional Table designs which are known to slow things down. Minimising HTTP requests is another useful approach so that the site doesn`t constantly have to send requests back and forth.

There is also a common opinion which is a contentious issue regarding flash and whether it should be used as much within website designs but the argument for it is that you can transform a site into a lively, visually powerful looking site which will encourage people to visit and browse. The argument against is of course that the more Flash there is the more likely the site could be hindered by performance issues. The nature of the beast is that web users want a visually stimulating site to use but at the same time it needs to be efficient with fast load times, otherwise you could alienate your core audience.

During the SEO process a website needs to be working at it`s optimum level and we must ensure that we maintain this over the course of the campaign or suffer the loss of customers due to nothing more than slow loading times.

Wouldn`t it be disappointing if you walked into a seafood restaurant only to be given the choice of steak and chips or Mexican food? Or if you went to see a supposed hit film about a superhero and you got dull one liners and an overlong plot noone was interested in? (yes, we`re looking at you Spider Man 3).
When it comes to pleasing customers and making sales it`s all about relevance and it is the same for an SEO campaign.
One element that must always be given 100% consideration when starting an SEO campaign is keyword selection. This forms the backbone of the SEO and is vital in ensuring you get the results you want. If customers are using particular keywords to search for something and it is a popular search term for that industry or service then that must be applied to the SEO, rather than what you think is the right keyword or phrase.

The Google Adword tool is a great addition to any SEO consultant`s arsenal and can give a real insight into current trends of what people are searching for. With any campaign there will be a set of keywords that perhaps the customer would like to be worked on, after-all the likelihood is they would have probably researched into this area before coming to you and deciding SEO was the way to go so use this advice as they would understand the industry they are in more than you. On the flip side of this it is always worth checking with Adwords at the beginning to ensure these are going to be keywords that will be searched for. After all, there is no point picking keywords where there is no search volume as this isn`t going to drive any traffic to the site anyway.

Longtail phrases should not be overlooked and can help to vary the SEO during the link building. Although some would suggest using a limited number of keywords to optimise on a site, it is worth optimising for a range of keywords that are suited to the industry and it could be that perhaps there are a fair number of keywords you are using to promote the site but as long as there is a balance so that the search engines and the user are both catered for then you have achieved the basis of what is needed for a solid campaign.

Another angle you should take with your customer/client is to talk to them. It sounds so simple and yet that is because it is. There is a wealth of information you can mine from your clients and use to your advantage during the campaign such as who are their industry competitors they are aware of, target audience they appeal to, peak seasons for their business, top selling products and USP (unique selling points), these are all vital pieces of information which can help you tailor the campaign to their requirements. The trick is to apply it in the correct way to get the required results.

A successful Internet marketing campaign doesn’t just start and end with SEO.  Sometimes your SEO campaign may prove harder and more competitive than you initially anticipated.

A good internet marketing consultant would ensure that the all clients website needs are looked after from the start.

Finding out what your client wishes to achieve from their campaign is essential so you can ensure that you can meet the clients expectations in the best way possible. Once you know what your client wants to achieve you can integrate a combination of the best Internet marketing techniques to ensure that they get the best from their website.

The different areas you should cover are as follows:

SEO

SEO is ultimately the best form of Internet marketing for the long term but sometimes, the time to get to the position where you start to get the kind of return on investment expected, can be longer than you wish to wait. Once the site is at this position you will  need to maintain it by regular checks of the competitors and continual link building to quality industry specific sites.

PPC

A Pay Per Click campaign is often a solution to increase a websites sales from the very start of a campaign that can be ran alongside an SEO campaign, whilst the organic results are building. A PPC campaign is also an excellent method of finding out which keywords are the most successful for the website in question.

Email Marketing

Depending on your client and the products or services on offer an Email marketing campaign could be the solution to increasing sales for the client. This method will use the companies database of existing customers and will encourage them to return to the site to make additional purchases often with offers and benefits. It is easier to sell to existing customers than to generate new ones!

Article Marketing

Writng articles about the products and services offered by the website is a great way for you to really build a reputation and a relationship with the  potential customers. You can support the SEO campaign here by using long tail versions of the keywords for the article titles and linking the articles back to the site. Articles are a way of building trust in your clients website  with the potential customers which is invaluable when it comes to getting new customers to make purchases.

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Finally the look and feel of your website has to be optimised and set out in a way that works well and in a way that encourages visitors to the website to make a purchase or complete and enquiry. This can be in the way of a quick contact form or a clearly visible contact number.

Ensuring you get the customers message clear on the homepage and make sure that the visitor can find out the answers to what they require from the site easily and without having to search to hard. Make sure that e-commerce sites have a clear and easy payment system and that the best methods are used to encourage people to buy are used,  for example it has been found that  “buy it now” buttons produce better conversions with higher total sales if they say “add to cart” . This is less forceful and the visitors believe  more a free will choice and will respond better to this kind of button. These points should all be thought about considering the view from the visitor of the site as the most important part.

If you ensure that you consider all of these aspects when working either on a clients website or on your own, you will achieve the end result of increasing sales to  a much higher capacity.

Every SEO knows the importance of links. Links are the ‘currancy’ of the web. External links are great to get your site found, spidered and indexed by the Search Engines, but can be difficult to obtain, manage and control. So, your site should have two types of links, some pointing to it ie external and some pointing to other pages on your site ie internal links. The best thing about internal links is that you have control over them, you get to decide the anchor text, you get to decide the placement of them and you get to decide how many you’re going to have on a page, or pointing to a page.

Internal links don’t cost anything. They can be targeted, from within relevant text, to relevant pages, making them stronger and more valid. You can increase the PageRank of a page with internal links. You homepage usually has the highest PageRank of your site, so create an internal link from your homepage to the page that you want to pass the PageRank on to (ie a page where you’re optimising a competitive keyword that doesn’t fit on the homepage). Use descriptive anchor text. Use the keywords that the linked-to page is about, this will help the search engines and your users to know what the link goes to. You can use this technique to help your internal pages attain higher rankings

You should have several different types of internal links on your site.

1. Navigation Links – Always ensure that if you use JavaScript or image based navigation that you provide a html version as well to help the search engines spider your site effectively.
2. Footer Navigation – this is different to the main navigation, and should always be written in a list format. Use your most competitive keywords as the anchor text.
3. Inline Text Links – These are some of the most important links on the page. Why? Because you can surround them with relevant text to increase their ‘worth’ to the search engines. You can also use them to direct users around your site, and hopefully eventually towards a conversion.
4. Sitemap links – by providing a sitemap you are giving the search engines a valuable list or ‘contents page’ of all the page’s within your website. This is useful for both the search engines and your visitors, especially if you have a large site with a lot of pages to visit.

You should use internal linking as part of your SEO campaign. You may well find that by creating a few targeted inline text links that your site starts to climb the listings. Obviously this isn’t the only SEO technique that will make a difference to your campaign, but when integrated with well written copy, good site architecture, and of course a great external linking strategy, you will find your listings are higher, your pages stronger and your visitor numbers increase.

There are many, many lists of “101 free SEO tools that you must try” but who wants to try 101 of them? I know I don’t have time to test 101 tools, however useful they may be to others. So, I’m giving you a list of the free tools I use every day to test the performance of web sites. I use these 5 every single day. Of course I have other paid tools that I use as well.

1. Google Analytics
   Without this excellent tool I know I can’t measure successes (or failures). If you don’t install Google Analytics on your website you’ve got no way of knowing how well your site is doing. How can you tell if that new page you added is bringing in the visitors? Or if your new contact form is user-friendly enough for your visitors? Well you check your analytics of course!
2. Google Webmaster Tools
   Google have fairly recently updated their webmaster tools and now they are even better than before. Webmaster Tools give you so much information about your site, like how they crawled it, if error pages came up, if they encounter any deadlinks etc. You can also submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, which is helpful in getting your site indexed, I recommend updating the xml sitemap every time you add a page to your site, then resubmitting it through Webmaster Tools. I would highly recommend this tool.
3. XML Sitemap Generator
   This leads me into the next free tool that we use every day here are Creare. The xml sitemap generator does exactly what it says on the tin. XML sitemaps are useful for the search engine spiders because it gives them the information they need to crawl the site effectively. We set the priority to “Automatic Priority” this gives the index page a higher priority than internal pages. Once you’ve generated your sitemap, upload it to your server and tell Google that it exists (see previous point above)
4. Google Adwords Keyword Tool
   We use this free tool to help us decide where to place keywords on a site. The search volume results tell us which keywords re more competitive and therefore need more effort in terms of both internal optimisation and external optimisation.
5. Yahoo! Site Explorer
   This tells us how many links our competitors have and the value of those links. This is extremely important for getting links because we can target sites where we know they give out links quickly and easily. Of course this isn’t the be all and end all of our link building campaigns, but it certainly helps us a great deal.

So, this is my top 5 free Search Engine Optimisation tools, every single one of these is incredibly useful and I can’t imagine doing my job without them.

What tools do you use to help with your search engine optimisation?

Have you tried all of these tools? If not, will you?