We've had a number of interesting conversations with both clients and potential clients recently about how to maximise sales through international SEO.   So here's an attempt to massively simplify what is a complex area that can make or break a business! Assuming that you already have an English language .com site, there are a number of things that you need to consider before making the international plunge, outside of the extremely obvious such as the appeal of your products to an international audience.   If you're a retail business, then you'll need to consider: Whether the size of your business and the potential opportunity justifies a local language site Changes probably required to your customer database to take into account international addresses Local hosting of foreign language sites Whether you have or need an in-market sales/marketing team and whether you work to a centralised search strategy Multi-lingual customer service queries Consistency of...

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A brief history of link buying From the very beginning of the web links have had an inherent value, driving visits and raising awareness to increase revenue and deliver improved branding. It's only been in the Age of Google that their true impact on search engine rankings has been better understood. Simply put, links (and particularly targeted anchor text links) can have a major impact on rankings. It's no surprise that a marketplace for links emerged with those sites with deep enough pockets paying to artificially boost their presence on search engines. Google quickly realised that the level playing field it had created could be 'gamed' by buying links en masse via trading sites or by dealing directly, so it changed its quality guidelines to advise against buying links, reserving the right to penalise those blatantly selling or buying. It also began proactively discounting the value of obviously bought links and its web spam team focused on improving the algorithm to reduce...

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This month Propellernet will be exhibiting at Internet World from 27th – 29th April, where we are set to challenge people’s perceptions of Online PR. Our team will be sharing some of its valuable SEO, creative link development and online PR expertise with Internet World visitors, on-stand and at two talks by members of the team. We will invite people to ‘explore the vast galaxy of SEO-PR’ and challenge visitors on their perceptions of Online PR. Read the rest of this entry...

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