Archive for the ‘Natural Search (SEO)’ Category

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Buying or Selling SEO Links? Look at the trouble you’re causing

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

piggy_bank_pound_coinsI’ve been musing for a while now over the irreversible chain reaction commercial dynamics behind search engines using media hyperlinks to determine authority and order search results.  Search engines, Media owners and brands all have their part to play in this merry dance, but ultimately it is media owners and backward thinking SEO approaches will be left without a chair when the music stops.

Google maintains a map of all internet links and uses it to determine webpage authority.  I explore the reasons why this is flawed and how it will have to change in my recent econsultancy blog post: “buying or selling links? Look at the trouble you’re causing.”

…Have a read and why not post your thoughts here or on econsultancy.

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Posted in Natural Search (SEO) | 1 Comment »

New gTLDs on the horizon: So what are the possible SEO implications?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

domainsCurrently the internet is served by 21 gTLDs (Generic Top Level Domains) including .com, .org and .net to name a few. But 2010 sees ICANN (the not-for-profit organisation tasked with coordinating the internet’s naming system) opening up the internet naming system further with the introduction of new TLDs. So in theory, soon you will be able to have .anythingyoulike.

The reason for making this change, as stated in a recent press release on ICANN’s website, is to promote and encourage innovation and offer people more choice. And it seems support online is growing for new TLDs with sites like www.supportnewtlds.com set up supporting ICANN’s 2010 plans.

I’m sure most people reading this have at some point in their lives spent countless hours trying to come up with a clever and easy to remember .com or .co.uk URL that reflects your business, blog or website, which hasn’t already been snapped up years ago.

.Com domain names often come at a premium and many of the more popular ones were registered many moons ago by some savvy individuals and they can exchange hands for colossal amounts of money. The world’s most expensive domain is reported to be Sex.com which allegedly sold for $14 million dollars in 2006. Business.com went for $7.5 million and Beer.com for $7.0 million, so domain names are certainly big business.

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Posted in Natural Search (SEO) | No Comments »

The PageRank sculpting and rel=nofollow debate rages on

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

follow_meOver recent weeks, the SEO community has been commenting furiously at Matt Cutts’ revelations on the relationship between nofollow attributes and PageRank sculpting with regard to SEO strategy. At the SMX conference, Cutts proclaimed the notion that sculpting internal link structure using the rel=nofollow attribute causes PageRank to evaporate.

To illustrate this principle, in Matt’s blog, he uses the example of a page with 10 ‘PageRank points”, and 10 outgoing links, with 5 of these nofollowed. Originally the 5 followed links would receive 2 points each. This has now changed, Cutts explains “More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the 5 links without nofollow would flow 1 point of PageRank each.”

The upshot of this has meant widespread confusion, with an entire community of professionals divided on what to make of this news. We see posts from SEOs explaining frantic removal of nofollow attributes in fear of frittering away PageRank, and others expressing outright disagreement with this principle.

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Posted in Natural Search (SEO) | 5 Comments »

10 quick SEO wins

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

questionmarkIt’s a myth that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is ridiculously difficult and for the professionals only. Anyone who can build a website has the ability to implement basic SEO recommendations to make sure their site is optimised for both the search engines, as well as for site visitors from a usability point of view.

Below are 10 recommendations which should be given some thought when building a website; however it’s surprising how many of these basic recommendations are ignored despite many of them simply being best practice for making a website as user-friendly as possible.

1)    Title tags and meta descriptions

Every page on the site should have its own unique title tag set which accurately describe the page’s content using the most relevant keywords (ideally those that you want the page to rank for). The meta description tag also gives you the chance to write a longer summary, and while search engine ranking algorithms pay little attention to this, it is still shown in the search results and therefore needs to be relevant to entice potential visitors to the site (just the same as with your paid search ads).

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Posted in Natural Search (SEO), Reputation Management, Top Tips | 1 Comment »

Useful tools to help kick start your search marketing campaigns

Friday, April 17th, 2009

search_marketingWhether your search marketing campaigns are managed in-house or outsourced to a specialist agency, there are many useful tools you should be aware of, some of which I will be exploring in this post.

Keyword research is the most important element to get right in your search strategy, way before looking at website architecture, internal linking or URL structure. Keywords are the foundation of your paid search campaign and key to natural search.

Below is a list of some keyword research tools you should be considering.

Keyword research tools

Google UK keyword research tool

Useful for determining the traffic volume for your target keywords, helping you decide which keywords to target. It also gives approximate search volumes for broad, phrase and exact match searches, volume trends and advertiser competition.

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Posted in Natural Search (SEO), Paid Search (PPC) | No Comments »

Another great piece of online PR coverage for King & Allen on ‘how to dress in a recession’

Friday, March 20th, 2009

mens_suitPropellernet’s super-duper online PR team has done it again with another great piece of online PR work for one of our clients King & Allen (bespoke suit makers).

Seeing as the doom and gloom of the recession is all everyone is talking about at the moment, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to put a positive spin on it with an article and video interview appearing on the Telegraph’s online Business & Finance section about ‘how to dress for the recession’.

You no longer need to trek down to Savile Row for a bespoke suit which could cost you in excess of £2,000 when you could make your way down to King & Allen and get yourself a top quality, made to measure suit at a more affordable price.

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Posted in Natural Search (SEO), Online PR, Paid Search (PPC), Propellernet | No Comments »

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