sunnyp81

Thanks for your replies ladies, Ive seen both of these highly rated on trust pilot..

I use vidahost but I can't say I thoroughly researched the alternatives before going with them - just went by some good reviews on forums.

Has she got a portfolio online?
 
Apprentiships in our industry are few and far between, and probably only the bigger agencies in bigger cities would offer them (you maybe found a few in London?).
 
I'd suggest she emails/calls/visits every design company in the area she can reasonably commute to and ask - the worst they can so is no, but if they take her contact details you never know if something may turn up, even if it's just a temporary role. Also it's worth her considering freelancing in the menatime, that way agencies could outsource work on an ad hoc basis, then if a full time job arises she will already be know and stand a better chance.
 
Then there's always networking, going to any local business meetups etc...

As above, cant find any good names for what i need in .co.uk or .com so .info is my only option. My fear is i read somewhere they pull the SEO efforts down. Is this at all true?
 
thanks

PS: I'm not suggesting people should code sloppy, I'm merely debunking one of those myths.

Seriously ?? What are you talking about? You have not even come remotely near to my question.

I don't think I've ever had a client that thinks I'm a pest. If they're spending 2/3/4/5/600 quid a month with you, they won't be happy just sitting around waiting for a report at the end of the month.
 
There are two parts to your question here:
 
 
How can I even being to write an article for a company I have no idea about.
 
and
 
How do I work social media for a company and answer questions when you don't have the knowledge they do.
 
First question. You have numerous options here and I use them all. You can either research the business. Look into what they do, the products they sell and work on an article. This works well if there isn't any indepth knowledge required. They could be selling flowers or picture frames. If you don't have the time for this, get the client to write an article. This works well with smaller budgets and people that are passionate about their business. I have some clients that prefer to do this as they have control over whats being said. Works nicely with small budgets and niches that require a much deeper understanding of the business such as financial services. One final solution is to outsource to a writer of that industry. There are tons of websites that let you search for a copywriter of a specific area. This is great if you have the budget to do so, don't have the time and the client wants you to do everything. They can then provide you with amazing articles that read perfectly.
 
You have to remember that the client isn't buying just your time. You need to factor in costs for outsourcing if needs be. I see people all the time scared to outsource because of the costs. You have to work as a business and not a freelancer in this sense.
 
With regards to social media, I use two different options here; do it all myself and manage everything OR work alongside the company and have one of their staff answer questions and I do the work of geting more followers, likes, shares etc. If you're stuck answering all questions, then you obviously charge more for research into the company. Ask for documents that explain what the company do, have them write up an FAQ as well as a brief company history. Use social media tools that alert you if there is activity on that account. If there's a question you're not sure of, ring up the company you're doing the work for.
 
Then, if all else fails just have the user contact the company directly and explain that it's a question that is best suited to a telephone call.
 
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You have to understand that any good SEO campaign will require working closely with a client. They are paying you a crap ton of money to get results and it will only scare them if you don't talk to them enough. Sure, I have clients from all over that barely speak to me simply because we have built up a relationship where they fully trust what I do and I have a great knowledge of their field. Others prefer weekly reports, daily contact and so on.
 
You seem to think that you need expert level of knowledge of a clients business. You don't. At all. You need the knowledge of their industry to better understand what they do and sell/their service but you don't need to research 24/7. If you can't manage more than a client, you won't make it in this industry I'm afraid

That's why I work 7 days a week and 'til midnight most nights.
 
But then, our service is exemplary and we're getting noticed for it.
 
If you're overburdened then hire, it's the only way out!
 
You simply cannot skip the 'getting to know you' part, it's the prerequisite to delivering quality and not just more run-of-the-mill.

That's why SEO and SMM are two completely different fields and should be treated as such. There isn't anything special that you can do with a social media presence that will boost rankings. With a website, it's links. No matter what anyone says, a website will not rank for any half-decent keyword without back links. With social media, it's interactions; retweets, follows, favourites, repins, shares, likes ect but you can't just go out there and get them.
 
I can get your website a backlink in two seconds. But I couldn't force someone to retweet a link or share a picture.
 
I think I get what you're aiming at, but not sure if you mean optimisation a facebook page for rankings or optimising it for search influence ha

With impending doom of the latest penguin update upon us, the very VERY last thing you want to be doing is ****ing around with automated directory and social submission tools.
 
Linkbuilding isn't just a case of pressing a button and you rank higher.
 
Although there are plenty of tools out there, if you want to **** your website or, and I hope to God you're not doing this, a clients website

Never heard of them but I just typed in "Helpdesk" in their keyword tool and they say it would take 12-24 months and it's too competitive. It took me 2 months to rank a website for that.
 
I've just had a look at one of the websites they're using and their backlinks worry me a little. 90% of them are links coming from pages such as domain.com/links
 
I'm not sure if it's a huge link wheel, or whether these are just websites set up to get links. A bit dodgy to me. Give it a try, I guess

For a post, there should be an option at the bottom of "Add a new post" page, where you change the title tag etc.
 
For the home page click "SEO" on the sidebar of the admin area, then Titles and Metas and then Home

Hi there
 
Does anyone know of any good SEO apps for the iPhone / iPad?
 
I currently use Analyics which is ok - im not convinced its really accurate.
 
Theres no keyword tool apps - and Googles Keyword tool page doesnt like the mobile Safari browser for whatever reason..
 
Any thoughts would be good
 
thanks

I think usability will be more of a problem than anything here. IT's easier for someone to remember a url without the hyphens, thats why I suggested one being the maximum. There isn't any SEO implications, I've ranked numerous websites with a hyphen and there might be some improved CTR from the results because it helps to distinguish the words

The natural way is the best way and it certainly isn't out of the question even in highly competitive niches. Search engines are gearing more towards high-quality, feature rich content more than ever and the old saying "content is king" is more relevant now than ever. What better way to have regular visitors sharing, liking, following and discussing your content, than great content?
 
The real question is not how to build backlinks, but how to increase exposure so that your backlinks build themselves. Think about it this way: a backlink is seen by a search engine as a sharing, or liking, of content. The whole idea of a backlink is that it gives a user the ability to navigate to your web page. Backlinks exist so that human beings may share content with one another, not for search engines. The Google algorithms are designed around this fact; Google follows users, users don't follow Google.
 
With this in mind, it's important to realise that the only reason backlinks are important is because they give a very accurate estimation to a search engine algorithm the general perception of a piece of content's quality. In other words, the more backlinks a community is giving you, the more said community must think your content is good. So, again with this in mind, the question is not how to build links yourself, but how to increase your exposure so your links build themselves.
 
There's no single answer, no magic bullet and no one-size fits all answer. Techniques range from link exchange, social networking, paid links, forum signatures, real life advertising, but most will only get you so far. Some really great techniques include:
Guest posting on other peoples' blogs to prove your worth
Interviewing - either being interviewed or interviewing someone with a reputation (this might not be free)
Social networking is very important, building relationships via FB, Twitter, Google+, etc.
Multimedia networking, i.e., YouTube videos, etc.
Competitions, where you give something away for free - always attracts people
Sponsoring others that are related to you (normally not free)
Editing Wiki-style pages with citations to your website
Flyers and business cards develop word-of-mouth promotion
Local listings, online listings and directories

There are so many ways to increase your exposure so I won't post much more than this, but really my opinion is to not focus so much on manually creating all your links and have other do it for you, the way it was meant to be.

It varies from client to client, and business to business.
 
You need to sit down with your client and talk about what they need and what the hope to achieve. Look at their business can come up with a solid keyword research along with why you've picked those keywords.
 
Then, using these, keywords look at Google and pick a competitor from the top, middle and bottom and then look into each one of these domains to determine what sort of links they have, their domain authority, number of links, number of c-class IP's blah blah.
 
With this, you can then determine what it is they actually need. So instead of going over kill and risking penaltys, you can then sit down and tailor a plan to their needs.
 
With all that information about each competitor, their links, where their from and, if you want to go deeper, look at what links their links are getting. This way you can uncover if there is anything fishy going. It's alright if their website is only getting 5 links, but those five pages might each have 5,000 links pointing to them,
 
Now you can either do exactly what your competitors are donig and then add your own spin on things or, if it's a mess of a backlink campaign, look at getting something more powerful together.
 
Link baiting, guest blogging, content creation, social media, directory submissions etc etc

I don't personally think they're looking at keyword-specific links. More, the mix of anchors you have in your backlink portfolio. They have an insanely huge index of websites and an even bigger understanding of how websites how linked together. With that information they will be able to have a general idea of how a "natural" backlink portfolio looks. It's all down to having a mix of anchors in there. Gone are the days of simply buying 1,000 links with your keyword in.
 
Look at getting your brand in there, some random anchors like "read more" and "more info". THEN look at getting your keywords in there. People still link using keywords and so you won't be punished. You just have to be natural. Think how people will link to you and just don't go silly.
 
Tiered links? You mean link wheels etc?
 
They can be a powerful tool, if done correctly and are a great way of acting as a buffer for your website

Did you got for quantity over quality? A link is a link is a link, I agree and no matter what people say, every link has a value. Albeit some of them have a minuscule, wouldn't-make-a-damn-difference value, but a value none the less.
 
Thats why some people spam the crap out of backlinking, much like using dynamite to dig a hole for a plant, and every once in a while they'll hit upon a link that has a good, juicy value and gives them that boost. So out of the thousands of links you see for a competitor, I'd say on a handful of them are of any use. The rest have a value so small, it's not worth the electricity to place it on a website.
 
I wish I could sit here and say how bad black hat is, how bad it is for websites and so on. But, for now, it works for certain websites. Google rolled our their algo changes and saw huge changes in SERPs but it will take a while for it to filter down the masses and have a real affect on other websites.
 
The very best bit of linkbuilding advice I can give? Go for the lucrative, high domain authority websites that will be a real difference to your website rankings.
 
When you take the scatter gun approach and start looking at it as a high numbers game, you'll then have to start considering anchor text diversity, backlink growth figures and all the nitty-gritty stuff that comes with it. I have to do it after websites have been slapped across the face by Google and they've come to me for help.
 
Again, it's on a client to client basis. A PR company with a higher budget can afford press releases, will benefit from an exciting and powerful social media campaign as opposed to a local mechanic who can only really tweet about "Yay 5 MOT's done today*".
 
I hope you see where I'm going with this one?
 
 
*There might be some awesome mechanic social networkers out there, it's just a lame example

There are plenty of tactics that people us and it varies from client to client. Sometimes, submitting your website to yell etc could be enough. Or you might find you have to take a heavier approach and look at new ways of doing things.
 
Don't think about the number of links you're getting, look at the quality. Guest blogging, forum posting and all that is great, but your link building needs to be able to scale up. Look at getting social signals from twitter and facebook. Create an exciting, interact and powerful social presence. I did some work for a client and something as simple as allowing people to tag pictures on their facebook lead to a jump in rankings (and bookings too)
 
If it's a new product your client is offering, look at getting product reviews from people in the blogsphere. I know it's something Google dislikes, but a review and a link can do wonders.
 
Create some good linkbait. It depends on the sort of website it is, but memes and infographics can gain a few 100 links. Blog posting can do wonders. If your clients website has a blog on there, look at getting them to post 2 or 3 times a week.
 
Like I said, don't look at getting links, look at promoting your clients website

Ditch AIOSEO, it's crap. Use this instead.

Open Site Explorer.

I stumbled across this old page from SEOmoz and its a really good read considering how much value Google is putting into backlinks these days. Still relevant (proberbly more now than ever) and well worth a read: Link
 
Look at section 8. It shows that links found on the footer or sides are not worth nearly as much as those in the main content (ie the center of the web page).

I think you approach the problem from the wrong side. Instead of analysing your own site you need to look at top ranked sites in your niche. For that you can use any keyword density tool. I recommend http://keyworda.com

Check out Skellies great post on attracting traffic: http://www.skelliewag.org/how-to-get-piles...omments-273.htm

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