en-gbCopyright: (C) Webigence, see http://www.yourseoconsultant.com/privacy.aspx for terms and conditions of reusehttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com//images/logo.jpghttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/Mon, 24 May 2010 20:05:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_diy_robots_sitemap_seo.aspxWhen performing a full SEO audit of your small business website, you'll want to ensure that you give the search engines as much chance as possible, of finding and indexing all of the pages on your site.  There are 2 files that you should think about histing, on your site, in order to "tell" the search engines where your pages are located. In the fifth and final video in our series "DIY SEO for Small Business", we look out how you can quickly and easily create a robots.txt file, and a simple sitemap, to do just this. Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:04:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_google_webmaster_tools.aspxOK, so there was a bit of a gap between videos 3 and 4, but here it is!  The fourth in our series of videos, helping Small Business Owners to do their own SEO, focuses on Google Webmaster Tools, and how you can use this free tool to assess your website's chances of ranking in Google, as well as the other crawler-based search engines. I promise not to leave it so long next time.  Enjoy!Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:11:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_diy_page_optimisation.aspxIn the third of our series of video's helping Small Business owners to do their own basic SEO, we cover the subject of page optimisation.  There are a few simple changes you can make TODAY, that will have far-reaching ramifications for your ability to attract more, targeted visitors to your website, and to get them converting! Any questions?  Add you comments below, and we'll do our best to respond.  Let's make promoting your business as easy as possible.Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:18:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_diy_keyword_research.aspxThis is the equivalent of researching your market online.  Think you know what your customers are typing into the search engines in order to find your products and services?  You might be surprised!  Either way, why not take 5 minutes out of your busy schedule, to find out how to do your own Keyword Research?  You might just some popular, non-competitive terms, that you can use to bring targeted, pre-qualified visitors to your site. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:14:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_how_search_engines_work.aspxThis is the Slideshow presentation of our first DIY SEO Guide for Small Businesses.  We'll be providing more information about this at the Ricmond Expo, where we'll be exhibiting on this coming Tuesday, 2nd March.  Come and see us at Stand 17, for some fun and games, and the chance to win some great prizes and discounts off your next SEO campaign. How Search Engines Work View more presentations from Your SEO Consultant. We'll be posting the next 4 guides in the coming weeks, so check back here for more tips and tricks to get your business more success online. Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:18:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_referral_vs_search_traffic.aspxI recently involved myself on a discussion with some like-minded (and not-so-like-minded) Online Marketing exponents on Linkedin, when the question was raised "Is there a need for SEO, now that Social Media has arrived".  I took the stance that Social Media allows the potential to create an online presence, without the need for your own business website, and in that respect, SEO is less important than it once was (shooting oneself in the foot?). It got me thinking, though, about how I utilise Social Media for my own business gains.  A look at my Analytics shows that traffic from referring sites; mostly Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Ecademy and The Best of Richmond, comprises more than 50% of non-direct traffic.  That's great in itself, but there's more to consider.  It's fair to assume that only a fraction of people who view your Social Profiles and Pages will click through to your website.  Therefore, in the case of my own online presence, there are a great deal more people finding out about me from the Social Networks than my own Website!  You could argue that this behaviour comes from the position of my being an SEO Consultant, residing in a super-competitive Search environment.  Whilst that's a factor, I'm sure, there is evidently a great deal of promise in Social Media as a Business generation toolset. Social networks allow you to be more targeted about who you connect with; your ideal clients and partners can be found with relative ease, and providing you're willing to nurture the relationship, your efforts should be rewarded with paid work.  Treat your online networking in the same way as you do your real-world networking, and you can't go far wrong, whatever your chosen industry. What have been your own experiences of Social Media for generating new business?Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:00:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_animoto_promo_business_video.aspxWe've been toying around with Animoto for a few days now, and finally got around to pulling together a short promotional video for our work in harnessing Social Media for our Clients.  The results for less than 15 minutes work are really very impressive.For those who haven't crossed paths with Animoto, the benefits are in the technology.  You simply upload a number of images or short video clips, intersperse with some textual snippets, and let their rendering engine do the rest!  With web video helping to raise conversion rates for online businesses, this service could be an invaluable tool.  The devil is in the detail, and you'll want to get some good stock photo's or personalised shots first.  Talk to our friend, John Frye for some really professional-looking portraits, then get your Animoto account and start making professional-looking videos in minutes.For something even more professional looking, contact us, or visit our friends at Media Wisdom. And after all that, talk to us about getting more eyes on your promotional videos.Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:00:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_google_realtime_latest_results.aspxWith the new year comes another new addition to the Google Search Engine Ranking Pages.  Freshness has been a focus of Google's for some time now, with results deserving freshness being given a certain level of prominence, some times in preference to long-established, but less recent pages.After partnering with a number of Social Media and newsfeed sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, MySpace, Friendfeed and Identi.ca, Google has added a scrollable box, part way down the first page, showing related "real time" posts and content.  Here's how it looks, headed "Latest results for snow day" with keyword shown bold: Our opinion is that the ramifications are 2-fold.  Firstly, the organic results in positions 4+ are likely to get pushed further from the searcher's eye.  We already knew that position #1 was important; now even more so!Secondly, it re-emphasises the importance that is being placed on Social Media for the most up-to-date and still-relevant content on the web.  Businesses that want to improve their brand exposure, whilst expanding their reach at the same time, are increasingly turning to Facebook, Twitter, and the Social Network sites, such as Linkedin, Plaxo and Ecademy.  Perhaps the day is not far away, when owning your own domain and website is nothing more than a needless expense.Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:12:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_facebook_christmas_number_one.aspxYesterday, Hitwise tweeted the news that Facebook took Number 1 spot as the US's top-visited site for 2 days over Christmas.  This is the first time Facebook has ever been the #1 visited site in the US, and it overtook Google.com (web search only) on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, taking more than a 7.5% market share on both occasions.The news comes just days after Facebook hit the headlines in the UK, for helping the mosh-pit favourite "Killing in the name" by Rage Against the Machine, to hold off this year's X-Factor winner, for the #1 spot in the UK Singles Chart.  A campaign, centering around a Group set up on Facebook that became viral to an unexpected and unprecedented scale, was set up in an effort to upset the formbook for the first time in 4 years of X-Factor Dominance.The success that followed allegedly resulted in a job offer for the Group Organisers by none other than Simon Cowell himself, and it should be noted, also raised in the region of £100k for homeless charity "Shelter".Facebook and Twitter are now surely battling it out to be the outright King of Social Media sites, and more so a tool for business to showcase their talents.  Through the use of Fan Pages, Events promotion and one of the most-targeted advertising systems on the web, can any business afford to ignore Facebook when it comes to Social Media Marketing?Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:12:00 GMThttp://www.yourseoconsultant.com/blog/blog_bni_howling_good_christmas.aspxA couple of weeks back, yours truly and the rest of Richmond's greatest BNI Chapter brought panto to breakfast networking, and made the baffling decision to capture it all on video.  What follows is the first draft of our entry into the BNI "YouTweet" Challenge:Please give our entry your honest rating (or if it's below 5 stars, then feel free to be as dishonest as you like!).  If you're mad enough to want to join us for breakfast, and grab a share of the business referrals we pass to each other every Tuesday morning, then please get in touch.From Your SEO Consultant, have a very Merry Christmas!