You may be wondering why keyword research is so important and why it has such an impact on your website’s success. Well, keyword research is an essential process that needs to be applied for you to promote your business properly online and to make sure the right customers find you.

There are a number of different Keyword Research Tools out there that you can use to find out your most competitive search terms and search terms that you are more likely to rank for. I recommend that you use the keyword tool called Google Adwords. It is simple to use and gives you a clear list of relevant keywords that are related to the search terms that you are looking for; it also shows you the advertiser competition for that keyword term and the search volume for the previous month and the average searches per month.  Google Adwords also allows you to download the keywords onto an Excel Spreadsheet which give you the option of managing the keywords and choosing the best keywords for you to use on your website. Therefore this is an extremely useful tool and can prove to be highly beneficial to your website.

The main objective of your website is to rank high in the major search engines; and the reason for this is to provide your business with much more online traffic which will, in turn, achieve a boost for your business. And to rank high on search engines, having the correct keywords that are most relevant to your business is of upmost importance.

There are many websites out there that have great products and content but eventually fail because of the incorrect or unpopular keywords that are used throughout the site; this means that their potential customers will struggle to find them because they would be ranking for the wrong keywords. This means that you need to do the correct research and make sure that your keywords are related to your website/business and make sure that your content is original and easy to read which will help you be found by your potential visitors on search engines.

So, in conclusion, and to answer the original question, keyword research is so important because it helps your business to succeed on the World Wide Web and helps your potential customers to find your website through the world renowned search engines.

Keyword Research is the key to success, follow these tips and you will have the online traffic your company needs for success!

Over recent weeks, Ph HQ has seen its fair share of ailments.  From Swine Flu, seasonal migraines to severe tonsillitis – which turned out to be just a sore throat (OK, yes, that was me, but it felt a lot worse at the time.) 

With flu season looming, it’s only natural that at the first sign of an niggling headache or prickly throat, that our defence mechanism kicks in and we suffer a 20 second panic that we too have succumbed to the office exposed virus.  Call in: Dr. Google.  Today, one in seven people search the web for information on illnesses. As a self-confessed Hypochondriac, this is the perfect solution for busy professionals – no time taken out of the office, waiting days for an appointment or sitting around in a waiting room full of spluttering OAP’s. We do our shopping, book holidays and even socialise on the web, so it’s common sense that we use the web to monitor our health.  And we are now never more than a few clicks away from that panic relieving diagnosis.  But are search engine health checks actually making us worse? 

Last week, throat gripped with pain and sipping despondently on a Lemsip (thanks Charlie), I found myself compelled to check out my illness for myself.  Tapping in ‘sore throat’ to a search engine, from the results that flood the screen, I have a sudden panic that Halls Soothers aren’t my answer… Throat Cancer, Swine Flu and Dengue Fever are listed on the first page.  

As a nation, we are becoming increasingly shocked by the search engine results found when searching for our self-diagnosis.  Though there may well be actually nothing wrong we opt for thinking the worst, as we trust that these sites are accurate in their findings.  Introducing… Cyberchondria.  

On further research I found that a recent study by Microsoft showed that search engine diagnosis leads us to believe that despite simply having a mild headache or a bout of sniffles, we are actually at death’s door.  In a search for ‘Headache’, rather than highlighting common causes such as tiredness or caffeine overload, 25% of results point to…Brain Tumours.   

The problem here is that search engines have no ‘probability’ filter, so serious conditions will continue to come up as often as simple complaints.  So, if we believe all we read from our online GP, headaches tell us we have brain tumours, back pain is a sign of osteoporosis and swollen glands suggest the cancer, Lymphoma.

Microsoft are planning to create a smarter search engine, which will spot a medical query and direct it to the right site. 

In the meantime (it may take a while!), for all the Cyberchondriacs out there, my advice is to stick to sites with credentials, that have been recently updated and don’t steer you with one-sided advice.  And watch out for websites sponsored by companies trying to flog you their ‘miracle products’. If you do have a brain tumour, it will take more than a £50 miracle cream, a magnetic heat pack or ‘free shipping’ herbal remedies to fix it.

I have previously written an article about the top SEO hints and tips you should implement into your search engine strategy to rank high in search engines amongst your competitors. Now I am about to tell you the major “don’ts” of SEO so you can avoid those crucial mistakes so your website can carry on succeeding in the world of search engine optimization.

• Firstly, do not leave SEO from your website for too long. You should always be considering your SEO strategy from the beginning of your website development. SEO plays one of the most important parts in your website and needs to be thought about from the start.
• Do not waste your time submitting your website to countless search engines. Crawler-based search engines will find your website more quickly as soon as you get a link from another website that is already being crawled. Search engine submission is a thing of the past.
• Never make your website un-crawlable. You should always make sure that your website can be crawled by search engine spiders, because if it cannot be crawled then the search engines will not find you. An un-crawlable website can be due to having a convoluted navigation menu that spiders can’t follow, developing an all flash site, or even simply too many variables in your domain name.
• Make sure you don’t target keywords that are too ‘general’. If you want the best chance to rank high, then don’t target keywords that are crowded with competition. You need to do keyword research on your website and find out the best keywords, with a fair amount of competition, this will give you a chance of ranking for number one!
• Don’t ignore usability. You should always make your website user friendly and efficient for users and search engine spiders. This can be achieved with proper site structure, local navigation and sitemaps. So avoid over complicating your website and making it harder to use and navigate.
• You should never give up on creating good content for your website. As I have said before, content is key. The less content you have, then the less chance you have to fill your website with keywords which gives you less chance of being linked to by search engines. That is why the more content you have, the more search engines will link to you because your website would be more relevant because of more keywords. Simple.
• Never spam to help your website get found. This will NOT work. Search engines disapprove of websites that use spam to rank higher, so this will not work to improve your rank on search engines. So you should avoid posting your link on blog comments, guestbook’s ECT, stuffing META tags with keywords and also putting keywords into your footer with lightly coloured or hidden text.
• Patience is a virtue; don’t give up on SEO once started. SEO is a long, time-consuming process and demands time, attention and commitment. You need to be patient when doing SEO work on your website, because it may take months to see the results.

Well there you have it. I have just told you what NOT to do if you wish to succeed in the search engine world. If you read my previous blog then you will also know what you SHOULD do if you want to succeed. Thank you for reading; I hope I helped you understand the fundamentals of SEO success!

If you would like more information about SEO success, please read my other blog.

Top SEO Hints and Tips

The National Legal Trade Exhibition came to the BT Convention Centre last week, and Ph.Creative were of course one of the top local businesses to join the action.

This was a great opportunity to showcase our distinctive brand, the expertise of our ingenious creative team, and get out there and network with the people!

 

Always one for challenging the norm, and in true Ph-style, never being partial to a table-clothed trestle table, a few leaflets and branded biros, I donned my creative cap and got to thinking outside the box.  Over a coffee-fuelled brainstorm with the team, we pondered over a concept for our exhibition that would really make us stand out from the crowd.

 

As a surprisingly enthusiastic response was drawn from the childlike cartoon sketch of my exhibition stand vision…  

 

 

 

Ph.Creative Surgery was born...

Free IT Health Checks for those sick and tired of ineffective SEO and suffering aches and pains with online marketing strategies.

As the exhibition visitors filtered in, Ph.Creative Surgery was in full flow, consulting and advising on website effectiveness and prescribing remedies for the ailments of unsuccessful online marketing tools to the masses.

Bryan Adams presented yet another outstanding seminar on Online Marketing Tactics, which further prompted some technophobic patients to bob along for a check-up.  And if one mastermind lecture wasn’t enough, the medical team took a mid-afternoon respite to attend Sales Guru - Andy Bounds’ enlightening seminar, which was nothing short of inspirational team-building.

Diagnosis: Another great day at the office!

Having made a memorable impact (be that positive or negative!? You decide) Ph.Fever was certainly in the air!

If you missed out on your check-up this time, fear not... it won’t be long before the Doctor is back in town! (Or in case of an epidemic, give us a call!)

Over the last few months there has been more and more chatter in the industry about Google being broken. Could it be true and could this be the break that the newly formed Yahoo / Microsoft partnership are looking for to break into the UK?

Let’s be fair it’s going to take a lot to dislodge Google as the dominant force in the UK. Google breaking could well be a real opportunity.

Over the last few months we have begun to see Google return strange results that include a multitude of irrelevant overseas websites. Take for example the search term ‘rent a tennis court’. We see not only a Singapore listing at position 2 but a gaggle of US based apartment websites taking up the top 10 positions.

Is it only that UK companies have not optimised their websites to appear on such a term? In the past .co.uk domains and websites hosted in the UK have taken precedence over .com’s and foreign websites.

So how can we account for the change – or is Google just broken?

Could it have anything to do with the Vince Update?

Around the beginning of March SEO’s and web masters began to see significant changes in how Google were rerunning results for certain sets of keywords. The industry felt that big brands were getting a push in the rankings. However Google’s Matt Cutts was quick to head off speculation over a major change in Google’s SEO rational.

Matt said the change was not necessarily an update but rather what they would call a minor change. One of hundreds made every year.  In fact, Matt told us a Googler named Vince created this change and it had been dubbed the Vince change. This was not about pushing big brands but about factoring more trust into the algorithm on generic search phrases, having little effect on long tail search results.

The answer could be as simple as the fact that no UK based websites have the relevancy or authority to rank well. The US pages returned certainly were from higher page rank sites in much more competitive sectors. 

If we also remember of course that Google results come from well over 100 different data centres on different IP addresses, it’s not surprising that glitches and instability come from updates being made. Tennis courts are far from a core revenue earner for Google and in the UK Tennis is not exactly in the league of Football. So if a small, insignificant section of Google is not returning the same A1 standard we have some to expect, is that really an issue??

Have you seen any more drastic examples?

Be Relevant and Engage users with your Google AdWords Campaign

Along with targeting and drilling down on specific keywords and phrases. Your advert copy is a fundamental success factor for a successful campaign. You need to be relevant to user searching for what you offer.

You must be creative in designing your ad copy. Engage and encourage the user to ‘click’ your AdWords advert rather than your competitors.

3 lines of 25, 35, 35 characters and a display URL. Make sure you use them to the best effect. Things to consider:

• Keyword in the title
• Talk about features
• Clear call to action
• Always ensure the ad copy is relevant to the specific keyword ‘theme
• >Be creative in your approach

You also have the possibility to ‘split test your AdWords adverts for any given ad group. This is something you must do to continuously to improve your AdWords account performance and improve your ROI.

What’s more if you’re ‘seen’ by Google to be relevant (your click through rate or CTR is one way that Google recognises this), Google AdWords will reward you for it with improved positioning on the search results page while you’ll receive a better return on your budget.

However, Google a system that measures advertisers relevancy which is 'Google Quality Score'.  You must learn how to master this system in order to get them most from your pay per click advertising campaigns

Find out mroe by joing our Ph University.

How you organise, set up and tailor your AdWords account affects the success of your PPC advertising. Whilst having your AdWords account organised through ‘best practice’ structure will keep things simple and help you manage performance.

You can target your AdWords account to specific countries, regions and even radius based to specific locations. Set up your campaign to a ‘core’ area and theme. Then set up a number of ad groups to target variations around specific keywords and phrases.

• Organise AdWords Campaigns byTopic
• Target the right Locations
• Create Highly Specific Ad groups
• Avoid Duplicate Keywords across Ad Groups

Take time to plan and map out your cam,apign will protect your budget, google quality score...ensuring you improve your ROI and make your budget go further.

Google AdWords Quality Score (GQS) - What is it?

Google’s mission is to provide the most relevant and useful information to the user based on what they have searched for. They ensure this through having systems that measure relevancy and more importantly for you… reward the smart advertisers for being relevant.

Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google. The AdWords system works best for everybody—advertisers, users, publishers and Google too—when the ads that they display match users' needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position and bring you the most success.

By using best practice techniques in your Google AdWords campaign i.e. methodical keyword analysis, best practice set up, along with other ‘optimisation’ techniques you can achieve a strong quality score.

The benefits you through in improved Google AdWords rankings (ahead of your competition) whilst helping your Pay Per Click advertising budget go further.