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Here you will find products, services and step-by-step processes that will cut through the jargon and help you to grow a profitable Internet Marketing business.
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Articles on SEO
This is a series of articles on Search Engine Optimisation.
I don’t spend hours sweating the infinite details of Search Engine Optimisation, and I don’t analyse every algorithm change that comes out and rush off to re-calibrate my sites.
But there are basic, common sense SEO steps you can take, both on-site and off-site, that will greatly improve your sites’ performance in the search engines. That’s what these articles focus on.
Click the headline to read the full article.
by Martin on 13 July, 2010
in SEO
With Google now including site load times in the factors it uses to rank sites for the natural search results, a recent article on the SEOmoz blog giving 7 ways to speed things up caught my attention. Some of them I was already using but one that I wasn’t was Gzip compression, so I dived [...]
by Martin on 8 June, 2010
in SEO
A while ago I wrote about hitting Google page 1 out of 192,000,000 results for the search term ‘online home business tips’. Having hit that target I confidently waited for my traffic to start kicking up. But it remained pretty much unchanged. Digging a bit further revealed that although there were around 200,000,000 results for [...]
by Martin on 20 May, 2010
in SEO
Last week I wrote about some key points that came out of a website review I completed recently (see it here) One of the things I delivered as part of that review was a set of META tags for each page on the site, so I figured I’d explain how I went about that. A [...]
by Martin on 11 May, 2010
in SEO
I’m just completing an SEO review on the website of a local business, and I thought it may be helpful to talk generally about some of the major points that came out. Don’t fret – total confidentiality is guaranteed! First thing to keep in mind: Search Engine Optimisation is a dynamic environment. The search engines [...]
by Martin on 20 April, 2010
in SEO
Interesting thread in the Third Tribe forum today: don’t ignore the SEO. It was started by someone who’d taken the ‘write for people, don’t write for the search engines’ mantra literally – and not done any SEO work on their site. Now, I’ve repeated the ‘write for people …’ theme many times on this site [...]
by Martin on 15 April, 2010
in SEO
I’ve had two occasions recently to be shocked at what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) consultants charge versus what they actually deliver. And angry, because (in one case) it was daylight robbery. So here’s a tip if you’re struggling with optimizing your site for the search engines: Get your self a free Google account (if you [...]
by Martin on 16 February, 2010
in SEO
It may not be a big deal to you but it is to me. After 2 years of work this site is finally on the first page of Google, out of 192,000,000 results, for the search term Online Home Business Tips. And here’s the picture to prove it. OK, I’m only at number 10, but [...]
by Martin on 22 July, 2009
in SEO
I’m often amazed when I look at the source code of web pages, because creating a page that’s optimised for the search engines is so straightforward – yet so seldom done. I’ve said repeatedly: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not a black art, so don’t let anyone tell you it is. All you need to [...]
by Martin on 27 May, 2009
in SEO
I read a post recently in a forum that argued quite strongly that META tags are a waste of time. The argument was that they don’t serve a useful purpose any more, with the exception of the Title and Description tags. I disagreed quite strongly with that position. Here’s why:
by Martin on 18 March, 2009
in SEO
I received a question through my Dear Martin page the other day from someone who was asking how backlinks affected page rank, and how the ‘nofollow’ tag affected backlinks, therefore affecting page rank. Here’s the response I offered: The first thing I’d say is don’t get hung up on Page Rank and all that other [...]
by Martin on 18 December, 2008
in SEO
Here’s a question I saw in a forum this week: is it better to have a good page rank or lots of visitors to your site. The person in question had a site which was focused on design and design services, so my opening response was that what they really wanted was lots of visitors [...]
by Martin on 14 December, 2008
in SEO
Here’s a list of the top 10 SEO activities I do for a new site. I…: Complete my META tags for each page of my site. I complete all available META tags and I complete them individually for each page.
by Martin on 10 December, 2008
in SEO
Here’s another question I saw in a forum this week: what’s the difference between Search Engine Optimisation and Social Marketing, or are they the same thing. Here’s the reply I offered: They are different things but Social Marketing will help your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts, if you do it properly.
by Martin on 9 November, 2008
in SEO
I wrote an article a couple of days ago on the 10 steps I follow when setting up a new website so that it will bring me consistent numbers of visitors. Today I went looking for what other people are doing to build up the number of visitors to their sites. Here are 3 articles. [...]
by Martin on 7 November, 2008
in SEO
I read a post today from someone who’s experienced the frustration of focusing on the Search Engines for their website traffic. The problem is – the search engines keep changing their algorithms in order to improve the relevance of their results and to block loopholes the black-hatters find. And this can really blow your search [...]
by Martin on 27 October, 2008
in SEO
I saw another question on how to use META tags today, specifically on the use of Title, Description, Keywords and Footer. Here’s a copy of my response: The Title tag is what appears in the blue bar at the very top of your browser window. Google currently appears to place a lot of emphasis on [...]