The average business owner knows all about their own industry, their competitors and where they want to be in a year’s time, but they might not quite know how to get there. Most business owners will know about internet marketing, most likely have a website, but they may be unsure how to market that website online. In this blog I will explain the various methods of internet marketing available and how they can help your business grow.

SEO

There are three main areas of internet marketing and the first to look at is SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimisation and is a method of marketing your business on the biggest search platforms available. The rapid growth of the internet now means that few people still turn to traditional methods of finding a product or service. Instead they turn to the World Wide Web to find what they are looking for.

Search engines such as Google quickly find what you are looking for when you type in keywords, providing you with a list of relevant sites. The more relevant Google deems your site the higher up it displays it on its results. SEO marketing works to make sure your site is at the top of the organic results for your relevant key words, ensuring you bring in as many customers or clients possible.

PPC

PPC is another method of marketing using search engines. PPC stands for pay per click and is paid advertising on search engines. PPC results are displayed above the organic results, so for any business this is a great place to be. PPC can be used alongside SEO or until organic results are bringing in enough traffic alone. Whilst you do have to pay every time someone clicks on your ad this is a set fee and using PPC can greatly increase your sales.

Social Media

Social media marketing is becoming increasingly popular and many businesses are choosing to use it along side traditional internet marketing methods. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have grown at an immense pace since first launching and they are now one of the best ways to promote your brand to the public. Using social media you can build your reputation, become a trusted source in your industry and communicate with your fans and followers. Social media is now a major part of PR which is all about building your brand reputation. It also helps with SEO and utilizing social marketing will help with your rankings. So it’s a win win!

Internet marketing can help almost any business grow and bring in the clients and customers they need. The three methods can be used together, or alone, depending on your needs and expectations. I hope through this blog I have gone a little way towards educating you about internet marketing, any further questions and we’d be happy to help!

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In the modern age search engines are key,
But nobody bothers with pages 2 and 3.
So in order that your website is found,
It’s time to get your SEO off the ground.

It’s all very well building your site,
But what if no one knows of its plight?
Being ranked number 1 will make them aware,
But how to do that? Just listen; I’ll share.

Title tags, keywords, descriptions in meta,
Include these on your site and it’s instantly better.
Make it look natural though; remember no stuffing,
Or Google will soon turn your rankings to nothing.

Distribute content that’s engaging and unique,
And soon you will see your rankings will peak.
Take advantage of sites like Facebook and Pinterest
And soon you will see people taking an interest.

A well-blended approach of offsite and on,
Whilst making sure all your site errors are gone,
Combined with links from authoritative sites,
Will ensure your appease the search engine sprites.

It might sound tough but it’s worth it, you know,
What good is a site without SEO?
With these tips you’ll become a Google celeb,
But why not hire Marketing By Web?

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When it comes to internet marketing the last thing SEO should be is a race. Those practicing SEO will see the best results when following the mantra ‘Slow and steady wins the race’. For many businesses it is hard to understand why SEO is something that must be done slowly. It can seem frustrating when results aren’t quick but persevere and it will really pay off.

Why Speed Isn’t Always A Good Thing

When it comes to link building Google is becoming increasingly smart. Where many companies go wrong when it comes to link building is building too many too fast. Previously in SEO link buying to link build was acceptable but this is no longer the case. With this in mind if you were to link build at a fast pace although you may see initial results this will be damaging in the long run. Google will assume you are up to something you shouldn’t be if you suddenly go from having 10 back links to 200. Unfortunately Google will then punish you for this even if you have been building links rather than buying and you will see your rankings drop.

Why Slow And Steady Works Best

Google loves nothing more than a site with age to it that boasts completely fresh and relevant content on site and has a history of consistently publishing helpful and unique content on other relevant sites.  Building your links slowly means Google will assume your link building is natural and that you are a genuine contributor of helpful content. Link building takes time, so rather than wasting your time creating lots of mediocre pieces of content on low authority sites use the time you have to focus on SEO wisely. Google favours high quality content that is highly relevant to your site on a site with a good D/A compared to lots of links on low quality sites. Take the time you usually would to write 10 pieces of content and write 2 pieces of high quality to place on highly relevant and powerful sites. This is a win win as you will be building links slowly but they will be highly powerful.

Why And When To Mix Up Anchor Text

With the idea of link building being natural anchor text must also be natural. Let’s say you are publishing four pieces of outreach content a month and you use the same anchor text each time, to Google this will seem unnatural as what are the chances of all the sites you are publishing on using the same word to link every time. Instead mix up your use of anchor text, occasionally use branding and use each of your key words as links only once every month.

Building links slowly using high quality content on high authority sites, while mixing up your key words is the best way to get the most out of your SEO efforts. It may take a while for it to pay it off, but do it the right way and you will reap the rewards. Taking the slow and steady approach to SEO is the sure way to become an authoritative site with great rankings.

The post Search Engine Optimisation: Why Slow And Steady Always Wins The Race appeared first on Marketing by web.

Refreshing your site and its content every now and again is a good idea so that it is not in danger of being duplicated by someone else and will always display the latest information about your business. However, changing things without being aware of the consequences could result in irreparable damage to your rankings.

Try To Keep URLs The Same

Unless you are moving to a brand new domain you should always keep your websites URLs the same where possible. Changing these at this time could result in some of your backlinks being broken and you losing the link juice that you are receiving through them. If you have to change the URLs to either tidy them up or move the pages to a different domain then be sure to put permanent redirects on them pointing towards other similar pages.

Redirects

Redirects are the best way of maintaining the rankings of a page when you redesign it or move it to a new domain. The 301 redirect is a permanent redirect and will take people straight to the relevant page which should be the same or very similar to the original one. If a page is not redirected properly then a 404 error will occur which will mean that those backlinks have been lost and you have a high chance of losing the user as well.

Content

You should ideally be aware of the key search phrases that you are ranking for and the corresponding text on your site that relates to these. Therefore when you update your site you need to replicate these phrases in some way, shape or form so that they can be picked up again by the search engines. The copy doesn’t have to be the same and in fact it is a good idea to freshen it up, but always remember your keywords.

During The Design Phase

Obviously you won’t want to be without a website while you are designing your new one so the usual procedure is to host the new one on a sub domain whilst it is being designed. However, these sub domains can still be visited by the search engine robots and if they find your content and it is the same as the content on your current site it could be penalised for being duplicate. To stop this from happening you should include the disallow code within your robot.txt file.

Take A Crawl Around

Before you press the button and make your new site live it is time to act like a search engine robot and crawl your site. You can do this via webmaster tools and it will let you look around your entire site and see it from a search engine’s point of view. You can then fix any 404 errors that you might find and tie up any other loose ends before going live.

The post Important SEO Considerations When Redesigning Your Website appeared first on Marketing by web.

In the world of SEO the search engines lay down the laws of the land. It is they who decide what hoops need to be jumped through in order for a site to rank highly in the results and slaying them would result in getting your business’s website to the summit. It may feel like you are just one person against the might of a dragon such as Google but this is exactly how St. George would of felt before leaving his legendary footprint.

A Helpful Dragon

The dragons in this story are not so much fire breathing though as they are helpful. All over the world people log onto search engines every day to find the answers to their queries. Some will be seeking information, some will be seeking directions but others will be seeking a purchase; something that your business should be taking advantage of. Making sure your website can be found should be the minimum requirement for any business owner, whilst getting it to the top of the results pages will see the dragon well and truly slew and your profits sky-rocket.

So make today the day that you bear arms in the form of title tags, keywords and social media activity and take the fight to the search engine dragons. It’s time to rid your website of obscurity and give your business legendary status in your industry; just like St. George.

However, if you feel that your sword is not quite sharp enough or your shield could do with some maintenance them Marketing By Web, resident dragon slayers, are always available for hire. St. George may indeed be a mythical martyr but replicating is achievements in the digital age can be a welcome reality for your business.

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When the news of the Iron Lady’s passing first broke on April 8^th the social media site Twitter burst into action and started spreading the word across the globe and straight into the hands of over 200 million users worldwide. Within minutes the subject was trending and Hashtags were being created faster than you could say ‘budget cuts’, but it seemed that while most of us were reacting to it whatever way we saw fit; a whole generation were scratching their heads with confusion.

What’s Happened To Cher? –

One of the Hashtags that was quickly trending was #nowthatcherisdead which to most of us was a cue to comment on the passing of the first women prime minister in this country but to others it was reason to be concerned about an entirely different women. It seems that a lot of younger people who maybe hadn’t heard of Thatcher’s death, or even know who she is, were worried for the health of 90’s pop sensation Cher; reading the Hashtag as ‘now that Cher is dead’.

Confused tributes started flooding in about the American singer prompting comedian Ricky Gervais to try and put people straight with a tweet of his own. The confusion took on an even bigger twist when tributes also started appearing for former X factor contestant Cher Lloyd which proved to be another damning indictment on the ability of today’s youth to keep up with current affairs. My favourite confused tweeter has to be the person that tweeted this though: ‘RIP Cher you were loved for your titanic song’. That’s too much confusion for 140 characters.

Failing In Styles –

The melee surrounding Thatcher’s death then went a step further when One Direction lead singer and teenage heartthrob Harry Styles decided to comment on the situation. Maybe his followers can be forgiven for most displays of unenlightenment due to the fact that their heads are largely filled with catchy pop songs but the replies to his tweet of ‘RIP baroness Margaret Thatcher’ were verging on comical.

Replies included people commiserating Harry on the loss of his personal friend, people referring to Mrs Thatcher as ‘he’ and others asking who indeed Margaret Thatcher was.

Twitter has proved itself time and again as being a fast and effective way to communicate news around the world but it seems that sometimes news doesn’t quite reach everyone in the same way. The fact remains though that social media is likely to remain a viable source of the latest information and this can and should be used to the advantage of your business.

Nobody quite knows why confusion hit a generation so hard when the news of Thatcher’s death first broke but perhaps it had something to do with the lack of calcium in their diets growing up.

The post How Twitter And The Iron Lady Combined To Confuse A Whole Generation appeared first on Marketing by web.

This is something that is often not taken into account when building a new website but the truth is that without thinking it through you could end up creating a website that can’t be found online. There is little point in having the most creative and exciting website is the vast majority of your prospective audience will never get to see it because of its inability to rank well in the search engines.

So before you start dreaming of your fifty floor tower structure with thousands of external links; it’s time to put the ground work in place.

404s And Other Errors –

When building your first website or switching over from an old one to a fancy newer version it is important that you make sure there are no dead ends. 404 errors are when a page can’t be found and if any search engine spiders hit one of these then they may give up indexing your site and assume there is no more to be found; which could drastically affect your SEO.

The most likely cause of a 404 error is when a new page has been created and the old one hasn’t been redirected properly. At Marketing By Web we have software that will check your site for these types of errors and then we can inform you of how to put them right.

Copy –

Yes pictures look great on website and they can be a great way of attracting interest and drawing in users, but in terms of SEO words will always speak louder. If a site is short of copy (wording) then it is difficult for the search engines to gauge what it is about and therefore they won’t be able to rank it highly.

A lack of copy will also mean that it is hard to create meaningful, relevant links from other websites. When we do link building on your behalf we use specific keywords to link back to your webpage; if these keywords are not present in your copy then the link will not be as effective.

Pictures are still great to use, especially for ecommerce sites, but just make sure that you give them alt tags so that the search engines know what they are depicting. At marketing By Web we can provide the relevant pages of your site with great, optimised content.

Title Tags –

The title tag of your web page is kind of like a bookmark that tells the search engines in a few words exactly what is on that page. A lot of people make the mistake of having all their title tags the same on every page but as Matt Cutts himself says this is as pointless as bringing out a whole collection of books that all have the same title; how are your readers supposed to know what each individual part is about?

A better tact to take is to use one or two of your keywords which specifically define what is written or pictured on that one page. This way the right pages will also be ranking for the right search terms and you won’t have users bouncing off your site because the content doesn’t relate to their search query. At Marketing By Web we can provide you with title tags that are of the correct length and that are perfectly optimised.

The post 3 Fundamental Onsite SEO Tips appeared first on Marketing by web.

Now in most situations those consequences will only be the hilarity that ensues from your pithy comment on something in the news or a wave of ‘likes’ from people loving the succinct and intelligent way you have put across some industry tips but it can so easily go so wrong. So here are a few things to check before you post to ensure disaster is averted at every turn.

Leave It A Few Minutes And Check If You Still Want To Press Send –

Most of the hot water that people manage to get themselves into on social media sites stems from the fact that they have performed a knee jerk reaction to something that has just happened. Off the cuff comments might be fine in passing conversation but they will never be viewed in the same way online. So before you tweet your reaction to what you just heard or saw, take a few moments and then see if it still seems appropriate.

Who Am I Representing? –

A lot of social media disasters have occurred because the person has posted personal opinions from a company profile. You need to make sure you don’t blur the line between what’s suitable to post from the company account and what should be left to your personal profile. In some cases, if you are always in the public eye, it may not be appropriate to post it from either account.

Have I Got All The Facts? –

There’s nothing worse than not catching the full story and only reacting to what you think you know. This could cause embarrassment if someone else responds with something you have missed leaving you to realise that you have jumped the gun. Social media is often such a spontaneous practise but it is so important to make sure you haven’t misread the situation.

Am I Giving My Community What They Want? –

With the power of being able to contact millions of people in one go at your fingertips, it is easy to just furnish them with any information that you can think of but this is a great way to lose your audience. Listening is the most important part of a successful social media strategy and if you are doing it effectively then you will be in the best position possible to provide your audience with what they want to hear. Posting without regard for your following will just drive people away.

Would I Say This Face To Face? –

Essentially anything you put on social media should be able to pass this final test. With the ability to hide behind a faceless computer when we publish our posts, a lot of people will say things to others that they wouldn’t in a face to face situation. Just because it is possible to contact people directly who you would never normally get the chance to speak to; it doesn’t mean the standard etiquette of a usual face to face conversation shouldn’t be adhered to.

The post Your Social Media Checklist: Things To Check Before You Post appeared first on Marketing by web.

When we think about social media we immediately think of social media giant Facebook, or perhaps Twitter, maybe even Instagram but try to think of many more and most of us would struggle. Whilst a few other sites may come to mind such as Pinterest and LinkedIn many of us are unfamiliar with the various other social media sites available. In SEO it is essential to utilize social media and it is worth checking out the less known but still very popular sites. Here are five popular social media sites that you probably haven’t heard of-

Ning

Many of you may never have heard of Ning but this is an incredibly popular social networking site with an estimated 12,000,000 monthly visitors and 2 million communities built on the site. Ning allows their users to create their own social networks, posting their own content and interacting with their readers and has been up and running since 2005. Using Ning you can create your own community website using the design studio adding your blog, photos, forums and other social network sites. Use Ning to create your own community around your business and publish your content.

 Live Journal

Live journal is a social networking platform where users can post their own blog or ‘journal’ so that their readers can keep up to date. Live journal is one of the first ever blogging sites and was launched in 1999. Live journal is not strict on the type of content you publish, so you can use it to publish blogs, diaries or even just your thoughts. Live journal boasts 20,500,000 monthly views so it’s definitely worth looking at for publishing on and gaining brand awareness.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt has an impressive 26 million members and over 252 million original pieces of art to explore. Launched in August 2000, DeviantArt allows its members to upload photos of their own unique art work for others to view and comment on. You can also use DeviantArt to upload Infographics, which are very popular in the SEO world!

Tagged

‘Tagged’ is described as a ‘social discovery site’ where members can browse profiles and play social networking games online. Tagged is a little like Facebook but is aimed more at being fun and for enjoyment over communication. Tagged has 100 million members and 19,500,000 monthly visitors from across the globe so is worth checking out.

Digg

Digg is a site where you can share news stories from across the web. What goes on Digg is chosen by the users and you can browse and share news stories via Digg. Users can vote whether they like content or not so it’s a great way to share your engaging and unique content!

Getting involved with social media is certainly important in SEO and internet marketing. Although Facebook and Twitter will always be the big dogs of social media it is always worth looking into the smaller but still popular social media sites to boost your efforts.

The post The Five Social Media Sites You Didn’t Know Existed appeared first on Marketing by web.

However, there are a few things that you may not know Google can do but that will keep you amused for many hours. Incidentally, if you ever have a spare 5 minutes to trawl through the many funny suggestions that Google provides to a wide array of our chosen search terms then it’s definitely worth a look. Here are just a few of the many things Google can do that proves search engines have a sense of humour.

Nessie In The Night –

Anybody that has visited the iGoogle page will know that it allows you to personalise your home page to provide you with all the desired information you are interested in. It also lets you choose from a variety of backgrounds for your desktop which, depending on which one you choose, could provide you with a bit of entertainment. You’ll have to get up pretty early to see then though as they all seem to happen at precisely 3.14. If you choose the beach landscape then the Loch Ness monster will greet you, the city scape background is high-jacked by UFOs and the northern lights grace the Christmas one.

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor –

Fans of the popular Lord of the Rings film series will love this one as Google shows that it has cultural awareness as well as a sense of humour. If you go to Google Maps and set your travel parameters from ‘The Shire’ to ‘Mordor’  and click on the walking icon you will be met with a caution and the above quote from the films. The films would have definitely been a lot shorter if Frodo had access to a smartphone and Google maps.

Humorous Home Pages –

Although Google regularly keeps us entertained with its constantly changing home pages to commemorate famous birthdays or events, there are a few that you can find on any day you please. These include the Elmer Fudd home page where all ‘r’s and ‘l’s are replaced with ‘w’s, the Google Loco page which resembles everyone’s favourite font from school ‘Wingdings’ and a Gothic Google page if you are feeling a little emotional and dark inside during your internet surfing. Just search for them and you’ll see.

Calculate The Fun To Be Had –

Google has many tools within its homepage which include the Google dictionary; to be found by typing ‘define’ and the word you wish to know the meaning of, Google time zone; to be found by typing in ‘time’ and then the city you wish to know the time in and Google calculator. This calculator is more than just a number cruncher though as there are several things hidden within it that let you use words to create a number answer.

For example if you search for ‘the loneliest number’ without the quotation marks it will bring back the number one and the same will happen if you search ‘the number of horns on a unicorn’. Perhaps the best one though is a reference to the novel ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ where if you type in ‘the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything’ the calculator will display 42.

On The Street Where They Live –

Google spent many years sending cars around the world taking pictures to use for Google maps and so when it came to depicting the road in Mountain View, California where the Google headquarters is found, they decided to celebrate by lining the streets with flags and banners. Type in ‘1648 Charleston Rd Mountain View, CA 94043, USA’ to find it.

Of course though, the most powerful thing that Google can do is increase the exposure of your business and put your company in front of millions of people. For more information on how you can find this ‘hidden’ feature of Google; give the team at Marketing By Web a call.

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