A/B testing is a way of testing different versions of a site or a page to work out which one achieves a particular goal at a more effective rate, with a view to rolling out the version that performs better for good or for further A/B testing.

For example, a sites home page layout can be altered by including more or less images or text and the test could be to track which results in the user visiting the contact page or actually putting an enquiry through.

It’s best to make small changes to the version you are testing, rather than many, so you can track what works and what doesn’t. If you make too many changes and you see an improvement in goals being reached it is going to be almost impossible to attribute the success to any one thing in particular.

Some changes you should consider making to your site include:

• Making the phone numbers stand out more
• Including full contact details including physical address more prominently
• Including accepted payment methods
• Adding testimonials to the site
• Trying a cleaner, more modern website design or layout
• Adding a video presenter or slideshow to the site to introduce your product or service quickly
• Moving the sidebar to the other side of the page
• Making the main navigation menu system more prominent
• Displaying prices on your pages
• Comparing your prices to well-known brands of a similar industry

There are endless small tweaks you can make to the site that may help or hinder a sites conversion rate, but with a few tests run over a period of several months you can increase your sites success and potentially your business as a whole.

If you’re a fan of Alanis Morissette, you might be interested to know that not that many things she actually sang about in that song were ironic, which is kind of annoying. But late last week I came across something that’s a little bit close to ironic; Google announcing that a recent algorithm change is designed to target and penalise ad heavy websites.

According to their blog, Google are targeting sites which have an extreme number of ads on their site – specifically though they’re talking about sites with too many ads above the fold. Their argument is that sites with lots of adverts above the fold make it difficult for users to find the useful content which Google has directed them too, thus affecting the all important user experience.

So will your site be affected? What type of sites will suffer a hit to their rankings?

Well, to get an idea of the kind of site this algorithm change might affect, imagine a site that places heavy prominence on ads above the fold. A site that optimises hundreds of pages so that each one presents ads before the more natural, useful content, and which does this to monetize and bring in as much revenue as possible. In fact, imagine Google.co.uk.

Any one of Google’s own millions of search results pages could be considered offenders under this new algorithm change, simply because of the number of ads in place. I’ve just run a general search and the resulting page has 7 ads above the fold and three organic listings.

My point is that although Google’s search results pages have lots of ads above the fold, (for now) these ads are relevant and useful, and don’t detract from helping me find what I’m looking for.

This brings us to the crux of this new change – how much is too much? Google might argue that their 7 ads above the fold are acceptable – but then how many is too many in terms of other sites?

It’s also ironic that Google have announced this algorithm change when they own and operate one of the web’s most popular ad display networks. Does this change mean that Google will begin to penalise organically those sites which use its own ad display network too religiously? Perhaps Google haven’t noticed this irony yet, or perhaps there’s provision in the algorithm which effectively ignores Google’s own display network but penalises others. In theory, this would certain help to solidify the display network’s dominance as the choice of the masses, but there are issues there in terms of fair competition.

We’re unlikely to get an answer to any of this in the short term, but it’s worth bearing in mind next time you’re placing ads. Ominously, Google suggested that this change isn’t limited to ads above the fold either. In the blog in question they seem to suggest that if a site has only a small amount of content above the fold then it could be penalised in search, regardless of whether the rest of the above fold space is taken up by ads, flash, video or anything else.

Bear this in mind if your site’s take a hit in the coming weeks.

I think you’ll all agree that it’s been a very busy month so far! With everyone in SEO working at light-speed to get their work done, it’s a surprise there hasn’t been smoke coming from the keyboards….although that would have explained the fire drill earlier….

Despite the workload, there’s still been some outstanding success within the department, so read on to hear about those who deserve a little recognition this month!

Kieran The Conqueror Masters The Blog Network

This week has been another busy one with another of our SEO stars adding a string to their bow. Special mention has to go to Kieran for his constant drive to learn new skills; at the moment he is getting his head around the ins and outs of PHP whilst also spending time building the new network of Creare Blogs, which has proved invaluable to the content crew. Many thanks Kieran, keep up the good work!

Page One, Position One – Just Another Day At The Office For Andy Allen!

SEO Ace Andy Allen, has been busy working his magic as always. This week he has been planting the seeds for success – sending London-based client Germinate Design to position one on Google with their key phrase ‘Garden Designer London’.
Also reaping the rewards of Andy’s labour this week are Edwards Davies – who have seen their phrase ‘Personal Injury Solicitors London’ reach number one in the Google rankings – a great achievement considering the volume of competition out there.

Highlight from the Highlands

New clients are what we thrive on here at Creare and we love working with forward thinking companies from across the United Kingdom. For Hannah Gibson, this happened when gaining a client from all the way up in Scotland. Trust Deed Scotland provides ‘Life after Debt’ and being a fellow Scot, Hannah is particularly excited about building a strong relationship with such an innovative company in the coming weeks and months.

A big thanks to all of this month’s contributors, and we look forward to hearing your SEO stories for February!

The SEO department here at Creare is made up of a variety of people working in a range of different roles. Each team is a vital cog in the well-oiled machine of SEO, but what part does the Content Team play in Creare’s SEO success? Read on to learn a few of our secrets as we reveal the inner workings of Article Marketing.

Who Are We?

From the Content Team, to Article Marketing, to “those guys in the corner”, we go by many names. But who are the Content Team? Our current team members have a mixture of English-based degrees – from Film and Television Screenwriting, to Journalism and Creative Writing – but one thing that we do share (besides our love of cake and Rugby FM) is a passion for writing.

We may have all started out with a burning ambition to become the next big thing in the world of literature or journalism, but through a variety of different routes we have all found ourselves here at Creare writing high-quality content for SEO. Our work allows us to stretch our writing muscles and get creative, whilst working with a group of fellow writers means that it is easy to gain some inspiration when writer’s block strikes.

What Do We Do?

So what can a group of frustrated novelists, poets and journalists bring to SEO? Using our writing skills we can help to create search engine-friendly content which includes those all-important keywords. It can be a tricky balancing act to write an article which incorporates the correct search terms in a natural, readable way, and it is often difficult to write interesting content which also works for SEO, but these challenges are what keep us on our toes.

Guest Blogging

As well as writing regular articles for a wide range of clients, we also turn our hand to Guest Blogging. Guest Blogging is a great way to reach new audiences with our content and generate more traffic to a website.

From industry-specific blogs for our clients, to SEO-based posts which we use to spread the word about Creare, Guest Blogging is an important and ever-growing aspect of what we do here in the Content Team.

Social Media

If you ever visit us here in the Content Team and spot us on Facebook or Twitter, then don’t think that we’re slacking. Social media is a big part of SEO, and an increasingly big focus for the Article Marketing department. Gayle is our resident expert in all things social, and it is her job to maintain the social media accounts of our clients. By posting regular updates, we can ensure that followers always have fresh content to enjoy, which in turn encourages more people to network with our clients.

We also Tweet every article we distribute via our very own Creare Content account (@CreareContent). As social signals become ever more important, this can help to give a client’s SEO a boost and drive traffic to their website: pretty impressive for 140 characters.

A Team of Many Talents

As well as all of the above, there are a few other strings to the Content Team bow. From writing some fresh site text to give an SEO campaign an added boost, to creating Press Releases to spread the word about a new development for one of our clients or Creare, if it involves writing, the Content Team have it covered.

Our next project will see us take on the responsibility of editing the Creare Communicator; our quarterly company newsletter. This is another great opportunity for us to get creative and share our words of wisdom with the whole company. This new venture, along with many other developments, means that this is an exciting time to be part of the Article Marketing department.

If you like the sound of what we get up to here in the Creare Content Team, then why not get in touch? As an ever-expanding department, we always have room for new writing talent. Read Holly’s post to learn more about what we are looking for, and if you think you’d like to join us here in Content Corner, email your CV to jenny@creare.co.uk.

It can be a case of mixed feelings when you hear the news that one of your competitors have closed down. On one hand you fear the worst – that the same might happen to your business if the demand for your products or service is slowly drying up with the current state of the economy. On the other hand, you’re feeling that this means there should be more opportunity for you to gain a bigger market share. So how do you grasp that opportunity through your online marketing?

Gain instant traffic with pay-per-click adverts

As soon as you hear the news, you could set up a new campaign in your PPC account to target those searching for the closed down company’s name. Add variations of their company name to your keyword list and create adverts that inform searchers that the company has closed down, as well as displaying your key USP. Let’s make an example, let’s say you have a website that sells football socks and your company name is ‘Red Socks United’. Your competitor that’s closed down is called ‘Blue Socks City’. Here’s the type of PPC advert I would run along with keyword variations of ‘blue socks city’ to target those searchers:

Attract traffic to your site with a blog post

To target people searching for your competitor’s brand name through organic search, you could write an article or blog post to publish the news online. Using their name in the title could help you pick up organic traffic, and with Google’s recent freshness update, your article may just appear on the first page of results for a few days after posting. Obviously you don’t want to be seen to be taking pleasure in them closing down, so keep it non-biased and informative like a proper news post. However do make sure you have a call to action of some sort at the end of the post which encourages readers to stay on your website.

Improve your organic rankings with broken link building

This is an SEO link building technique I’ve been reading about more and more recently, and is one which I feel brings a fresh lot of link opportunities for those who have become a bit stuck and are running out of ideas. The concept is basically that you find broken links on a website that you want to gain a link from, kindly tell the webmaster that you have found the broken link whilst browsing their site and just wanted to point it out to them, with the aim that they will agree to link to your site instead, since you have content which is suitable enough to replace the previous content they linked to.

Whilst doing some competitor analysis the other day, I came across various links to a site of a company which I know went into administration last year. As they would’ve been a competitor of my new start-up client, a lot of the links that they have to their (now dead) site could link to my client’s site instead as they sell the same products that their competitor did.

Gain more revenue from your existing customers

Knowing that one of your competitors have gone bust might make you re-evaluate what you’ve done to stay successful and what you’ll probably find is that an important factor is – without a doubt – your customers. Now is a better time than any to thank your customers and businesses can always do more to gain more revenue from their existing customer base. Why not send out a newsletter/email to everyone on your subscribed list and offer them a brilliant discount, free delivery or a free gift with every purchase – whatever you think your customers will appreciate, what you can afford to give away and still make a profit on.

Don’t let a competitor’s misfortune get you down, instead adopt these positive online strategies to try and increase your share of the online market. If you need any help with putting these strategies into place, call Creare on 01788 551 591.