Your choice of web host has an affect on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign. This post looks at what factors matter for SEO when you choose a host, and how you can use this information to find a host that’s right for you.
Why does hosting matter?
Search engines look at a number of factors when they rank websites, and these are aimed at making sure:
- the right information is delivered
- it’s reliable
- it’s relevant to the user
- it’s delivered quickly
Hosting directly impacts the last three points. Also, in order to setup your website in the best possible way for SEO you need to be able to access some key features that are not available on all hosting platforms.
Reliability and Speed
The first thing to ensure is that your web host is able to deliver pages quickly and reliably. If pages are slow to load up you will be penalised – Google wants to make sure its users get to content quickly.
Geographic Location
Where your site is hosted has an impact on how well you will rank for certain terms and geographical searches. For example, if your server is in Germany and you are optimising for the keyphrase "pizza delivery nottingham", you are less likely to be relevant to the search engine spiders as a company that hosts their website in the UK.
Where your site is hosted within the country is less important, just make sure that if you are offering a service specific to one location, you are better off hosting in the country where you provide that service.
Server Options
Finally, make sure your host allows for the following:
- 301 and 302 redirects
- Custom .htaccess files
- Custom 404 error pages
- mod_rewrite and mod_alias directives
- Access to raw logs
The key thing when choosing a hosting platform is to test all of the above during your trial period or within the first fourteen days. If you find it doesn’t meet your needs, swapping early will save you costs down the road.
Ben
Posted in: Hosting, Marketing, Programming, SEO, Software
In our 4th Article, we look at how Google Adwords Campaigns can compliment your Search Engine Optimisation.
Here’s an except:
The complimentary way of getting Adwords and SEO to work together:
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Plan to start your Google Adwords campaign a month before your SEO campaign.
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The data you get during this month will inform how you focus your SEO campaign:
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Your highest converting keywords become the keywords you focus on for SEO.
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Your best headlines become page titles and headings.
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Your best body text becomes your META description tag (a bit of code that describes your page to search engine robots and other websites). Whilst META descriptions no longer have much bearing on Google, they are often used when other sites link to you. By using text you know works in your META description tag, you ensure a better quality of traffic from these links.
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Geographic results will give you a good idea of how popular your website is in specific regions. Use this data to focus local SEO on the regions where you are selling well.
For the full article, get your copy of TV Bay Magazine at http://www.tv-bay.com/subscribe
Posted in: Google Adwords, SEO
Our third article is about to be published in TV Bay Magainze (www.tv-bay.com)
In this issue, I conclude our three part series on developing a web strategy. In previous issues we looked at how to plan a campaign, and how to go about building your website. In this article, I show you how to analyse if your website is working correctly. Starting with SEO, I show you how to judge if your campaign is working effectively. I then give an overview on how to use Google’s free traffic monitoring tool, Google Analytics, to track visits to your site.
To get the latest issue, visit the TV Bay Website and subscribe: http://www.tv-bay.com/subscribe
To view previous articles, you can use the TV Bay’s interactive 3D viewer on the above link too.
We are always happy to hear feedback from readers, please leave your comments below.
Ben
Posted in: Analysis, SEO
September22
By: Ben Kelly
Inbound links are good. Google sees them, and ranks your site higher, the more inbound links it finds to your site. Some links are better than others. A link from a site that Google ranks highly, will be seen as more important than a link from a site that Google gives a low rank to.
Directories rank high.
They offer free links to your website.
It’s really a no brainer. But where to advertise? Simple. Use FireFox with the Google Toolbar to view your competitors websites. Make a list of the ones that have a high Page Rank. For each of these that rank higher than your site currently does, search for "link:http://www.yourcompetition.com" to find out all the sites Google is aware of that link to them.
Trawl through the inbound links looking for directories. Add your site to them.
This is simpler than child’s play, and you can achieve a lot in under an hour. There are no excuses not to.
Ben
Posted in: SEO
September10
By: Ben Kelly
Search engines look for descriptive words throughout your site. They place emphasis on words in certain areas. One of the most important are "alt" tags for your images.
An "alt" tag is simply an alternative text message, that you would display should the image not be required – for example in a text based browser or on a mobile phone. Within this alt tag, you can add key words and phrases that you are keen to focus on.
For example, if I sell flowers and use this image:
My alt tag could be:
"Picture of a bunch of daffodils"
Or, it could be:
"Buy bunch of fresh daffodils, delivered free in Surrey"
Which do you think is more helpful? Which do you think will impact your SEO the best?
Ben
Posted in: SEO
Ever wondered about how many people are searching for your offering online? Is it an increasing or decreasing market? Should you be focused on the same keywords now as you were six months ago?
Try this: Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends
Ben
Posted in: SEO
If you haven’t done it yet, get yourself added to Google Local Businesses. It takes five minutes, it’s free, and it will help your search engine optimisation massively – (after all these results are placed very high on the google results page).
Find out more here: http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?gl=GB&hl=en-US
Just one note of caution.
Don’t try and do it in Google Chrome. Google’s software doesn’t seem to do a very good job of running Google’s website. Hmm…
Ben
Posted in: SEO
Do you track where your leads come from?
Tracking the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns is vital to making them work. Until you know which approach works best, you won’t know how to adapt and evolve your marketing properly. Find out from your leads by asking them, or better still, by sending them to your organisation via a filter of some kind:
- A different phone number
- A PO Box mailing address
- A 5% discount if they mention a promotional code
And of course online it’s even easier. Create different versions of the same page and use tools like Google Analytics to work out which page has the better reaction. Better still, with good tracking software you can find out where your visitors came from, how long they stayed on the page, and what they did next. Comparing two campaigns online is quick to do, and gives you instant results. Best of all – it’s free. No new line rental, no new PO Box service subscription, no reduction in profit in exchange for finding out how people found you. All it takes is a little thought and setup and you’ll have a brilliantly effective measurement tool at your disposal.
Ben
Posted in: Analysis, SEO
Breadcrumbs are very easy to add to a website. They very simply tell the user where they are in relation to the other pages of a site. i.e.
Home > Products > Awesome Product 1
It’s very easy to forget that people come to your site from a variety of means and angles. It’s rare that all your visitors will end up on your "home page", especially if they find you in a search engine. Adding the extra layer of help adds tremendous value.
From tales of Hansel and Gretel to the Minotaur, people use breadcrumbs because they hate being lost. Show your visitors where they are at all times.
Ben
Posted in: SEO, Usability
Google Analytics is an awesomely powerful tool. In this very brief guide, I’ll explain why you should have it, and then show you how to get it up and running (it really is simple).
What is Google Analytics?
It is a tool for logging and reporting on how visitors interact with your site. You can find out how visitors came to your site, and what they did when they arrived on your home page. For instance, you can find out what search phrases resulted in your website being found, and where your visitors are coming from geographically. You can then track the progression of visitors through your site, finding out which pages they found the most interesting, and if any pages caused them to give up in frustration – thus leaving the site.
Best of all, it’s free. And it’s quick to setup.
Getting started
If you are moderately comfortable with HTML, uploading files to your server and have a static website, then this guide is for you. For anyone else, Google have some excellent tutorials here. Here the process in 10 easy steps:
- Go to www.google.com/analytics
- Below the "Access Analytics" button, click "Sign Up Now". You can skip this step if you have a google account already (i.e. for Ad Words or Gmail).
- Once you are logged in, click "Add Website Profile".
- Enter your URL and hit submit.
- This is the only technical step. You’ll be given a "tracking code", in a text box. Select it all and copy it to your clipboard.
- Download your index.html file from your server. Make a backup (just in case), and then open it with Notepad.
- Scroll down the very end and the last two lines should be</body> </html> You need to add a line just before these, paste the tracking code in and save the file.
- Upload it to your server, and check it works.
- Well done. Google Analytics is set up.
- Now return to the Analytics site, and the status symbol should be a green tick.
Provided all that works, you are ready to go. You’ll have to wait a while to get any information, and once you have it you can click on View report to start seeing how your site works. After this, it’s all quite intuitive.
Understanding how your visitors interact with your website is essential to making your website work. It’s quick and easy to setup. A wealth of information awaits.
Ben
Posted in: Analysis, SEO
