Maximising revenue through effective Search Engine Optimisation: an e-book and web resource for Aedgency affiliates
About Aedgency
Headquartered in Dublin with offices in Barcelona, Aedgency offers performance-based digital marketing which offers a gateway to privileged communication channels between brands and e-buyers.
Founded in 2004 Aedgency has been growing rapidly ever since and now operates across five European markets. Aedgency’s focus is on increasing advertisers’ conversion rates and it places equal emphasis on monetising its publishing networks and independent publishers’ websites.
Aedgency offers brands access to millions of online consumers across Europe. Its bespoke analytics engine uses deep behavioural segmentation to closely target users through the communication channel that is most likely to get a result. Through Aedgency’s deep understanding of data it is able to predict exactly what a web user is looking for and offers four routes to a sale, Contextual offers, Email marketing, Affiliation cashback and Aedgency Publishing.
INTRODUCTION
You’ve already seen how effective promoting Aedgency software can be for your bottom line... but have you ever wondered how you can take it to the next level?
How can you generate even more business with little or no investment? The answer is Search Engine Optimisation; and we’d like to give you the tools and knowledge to succeed. There’s a lot of information on the web about Search Engine Optimisation – some of it is effective, some of it is not. How do you know what information is correct?
Well, here at Aedgency our in-house Strategy Adviser is the best-selling author Jon Smith who has written ten books including Get Into Bed With Google, Websites That Work and
Google Adwords That Work. He’d like to share his knowledge with you and help you master Search Engine Optimisation.
Excerpts from Get Into Bed With Google © The Infinite Ideas Company
METADATA – The foundations of
Search Engine Optimisation
Your domain Name/s
The first thing you need to think about is your domain… you want a short, snappy easy-to-remember name, that sounds good… but also, it’s a great way to reinforce a keyword which you are keen to exploit. Keywords in your domain can make the critical difference between dominating the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and not… so if you can choose a domain that includes one or more keywords, you will already be in a great position to benefit from a high position on the search results page.
Check out some of our domains:
www.recordtheradio.com www.games-attack.com
<Title>
Of all the information you can include in the header of your site, your title is by far the one that’s most effective in determining how well your site ranks. The title dictates the bit of text that appears right at the top of the page of your own or your user’s web browser – this is confirmation that they’ve arrived at the correct destination and your site has what they want… For example if your site promotes software and the primary functionality is to record online radio, make sure you explain
the product’s features clearly with relevant keywords, take a look at the image:
Meta <Keywords>
Meta keywords have lost their importance over the last few years, to the point that none of the major search engines take them into account. Why? Web developers abused this functionality by adding non-relevant or related keywords to their metadata which made it unreliable.
But keywords should still have a place in your code; they are still used by some of the smaller and specialist search engines and the best of all… they really help you to think through what your site is about, which keywords do you want your site to appear under? Adding this meta tag will force you to do some keyword research; that is to think about what words people will use to look for your company/product, and which keyword niches your competitors are not using…
Some interesting tools for this keyword research are: Google AdWords Keyword tool:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Wordtracker: www.wordtracker.com (Paid tool) Google Trends: http://www.google.co.uk/trends
Meta <Description>
A Meta description is a short, one or two sentence description of your webpage, that should also be a ‘sales message’ to potential visitors – this is what is shown next to your URL on the search results, so you have to make sure it’s written in such a way as to make Users click on your link and not your competitor’s. Strong, clean copy is the answer; a sales message, a teaser, a call to action to encourage that visitor through to you… Write a one sentence descriptive comment that describes what information and products users will find on the page – remember: be specific.
Why don’t you just tell us what to write?
It would be very easy for us to specify which keywords to use, what to put in the title, and in the description and even what to write on your webpages. Unfortunately we can’t. Google rewards originality and unique content and punishes those websites that ‘cut and paste’, therefore to make your pages truly unique we have to leave it to you to create your own metadata and body text... Sorry! Read on to find out how.
Keyword Rich Content at the top of the page
Although there’s some complicated algorithms being used (which are constantly changing) the guideline to a page that will work successfully on Google is a page that is created simply and follows this basic premise – when you (or your developer) are creating a web page, the top 25% of the page is the most important – this is not to say that everything below is ignored, far from it – but what Google wants to see is prominence given to the critical or key words and phrases for which you are looking to be ranked… therefore, don’t waste the ‘prime real estate’ or the top of page with a lengthy introduction to the topic, get in there – straight to the point, and be conscious of the prominence and relevance you give to the keywords being quoted. If you offer downloads to Go Astro – start ‘selling’ the product straight away; both to the user and to the search engines. Let them all know that you mean business.
Equally, the very bottom of the page is important – does your page taper off with a couple of links to the privacy policy and a © statement, or does it include the pertinent navigational options repeated as text-only links that will add both to the user’s ability to continue navigating your site and Google to notice yet another reference to the same download, thus helping you to rise up the rankings because of relevance and prominence?
<H> TAGS
H Tags are useful and important. H tags are the way you tell the search engines that this ‘H’, or ‘header’, is worth paying attention to – it’s like making a sentence bold – it gets noticed. Whilst you may have physically altered the text to be bold, or
italic or presented in a
larger
point size, Google ignores this, as it’s cosmetic. It’s looking for H tags, and your job is to list them in order of relevance.If there are four main focuses to your web page then you’re well within your rights to label each new focus, or topic, with an H tag, ideally listed in ranking order – H1, H2, H3 and so on. Do not label each different topic with H1 this will be penalised. Equally, if there’s only one major topic or ‘point’ to the page, add your H1 tag, but don’t be tempted to add others for the sake of it.
If you are still to employ H tags on your webpage, then reassess your web pages and assign them to the pertinent points on each page. If you are already using H tags, check that they are being utilised correctly; are the relevant? Do they ‘add’ to the page? Will they help or hinder the site being ranked? Don’t use anymore that six on a single page.
Keyword Proximity
Good Web writing is not like writing a book – you don’t need a nice easy introduction, a middle and an end... it’s all about shouting about what’s on offer – what the user and the search engines can find on your page and answering their very basic question… Who are you? And, do you provide the information or product that I am looking for? If you can answer this in the first paragraph you’re well on your way to operating a successful webpage.
Writing like a web professional
It’s great to have the best content on your site, but is it in the right place? Webpages can be very long, sometimes this is good and sometimes this is bad, but don’t be too concerned with length of text, focus your attention on where on the page the keywords and phrases that you’ve spent so long researching are being utilised in the most effective way possible.
We’ve seen that the search engines favour keywords and phrases appearing right at the top of the page. You need to start strong. A definitive statement that summarises what is contained on that page. Rich in keywords and phrases, direct, clear and constantly calling the user to action. Use the rest of the text to explain and qualify your statements. Not the other way round.
And remember, there is no point appearing high on the search engines if users click through to poorly written website text –
yes, include keywords in your text for the spiders but make sure that the quality of the written content makes sense to your human users and fulfils expectations. This will encourage other websites to link through to your site and attract user’s attention and get them to follow your ‘call to action’.
Bots & Spiders
Although it is the human user you must ultimately appeal to if the webpage is going to be effective, the Googlebot and other search engine spiders must also be at the forefront of your mind when creating copy for your web pages. So what can you do to keep both the Googlebot and human users happy? The answer is known as keyword density. If you flood your text with keywords it won’t make sense to your end user and this will mean they abandon the site. Therefore, you should be looking for a density of about 4% - 7%, which means for every one hundred words of text on your page, you should mention your keyword four to seven times. Stick with this rule and the spiders, the bots, the crawlers and even the human users will regard your content as strong.
With regard to your Aedgency software product page - take a good look at the text. Have you mentioned everything, at least once, that was hinted at in the META data? Have you placed the most important keywords and phrases (including the name of the software) within the first and second paragraph of text? Can the user/Search Engine click on some or all of these keywords to learn more? If not, start re-working the text so that it appeals to both the human user and Search Engines.
INDEXABILITY… SORRY WHAT?
Indexability refers to the ability of websites to be accessed by crawlers and bots. Crawlers and bots are special creatures and they are ‘picky’ about what they like, they follow links and devour all the content that they can find. So, first rule, in order to have a page indexed or listed on the search engines, that page should have a link pointing to it.
But crawlers get ‘indigestion’ with javascript, flash and forms… sorry but they don’t like them. It’s ‘rich food’ and they have a simple palette. We are not saying that you can’t use those technologies… what we mean is that you have to be careful. For example, if your links to relevant sections of your website are reached by javascript, flash technologies (check with your developers if you don’t know those technologies) or users need to complete a form, you have a problem as crawlers won’t follow those links and therefore access your content. And if your relevant content is created using javascript or AJAX, search engines won’t see it.
So be careful and try to provide alternative content and links if you are using those not very search engine friendly technologies.
Tip: if you want to see how many pages of your website a search engine has indexed use this google command:
Site:www.yourwebsite.com
If you see that lots of pages are not appearing… you have an indexability problem.
USING IMAGES CORRECTLY
Don’t forget - Search Engines can’t see images. It can only see the filename of the image and if that says 01234567890.jpg and this is a wasted opportunity.
If, for example, on your webpage you show screenshots of
Deenero then be sure to name the image using proper words within the ALT IMG Text.
i.e.: deenero-cashback.jpg
Not only is this Search Engine friendly, it made it a lot easier for you to find a specific image within the images folder and when you are carrying hundreds if not thousands of images, you’ll be pleased you spent a few extra seconds naming each image file correctly. Remember the text that makes up the image name is adding to the keywords being found on the page – you’ve mentioned the product a couple of times in your copy, there’s a navigational link and it’s reinforced within the file name of
the image…Google’s beginning to realise how important this keyword is on your page and that means a good positioning on the search results.
Again, taking the example above, logo.jpg is not doing you any favours. Reinforce your brand; the product/s; your purpose:
Basic Rules
There are always exceptions to every rule but generally aim for at least 250-300 words per page, less than this and you’re going to struggle with effective keyword density (no more than 7%) and run the risk of ‘spamming’ the page with a long list of keywords that won’t make sense to human users.
Support the text with images – this will help break up the page for users and offers you a chance to drop keywords into the HTML through the naming of the images.
Update your web pages regularly – Add content whenever and wherever you can, this can be alterations or additions to the body copy, or, the inclusion of downloadable files such as a PDF or Word document – note that the search engines won’t index the copy within these files, so make sure the best stuff is on the website.
Get your users to add to your content – offering users the chance to review products, or post on a forum will do wonders for your site – if the search engines see new content every time it pays a visit, you’ll be rewarded with a higher ranking.
One Message/Product Per Page
Create a separate and distinct page for every keyword or Aedgency software product that you are promoting. For example, if you are promoting Computers or Travel then you’ll need to put the links and the information on separate pages and each page should be optimised for one single product using the density rule of about 4%. By optimising each page for one product you are giving the search engines a clear indication that each page has a clear and distinct message and that results in individual pages enjoying their own rank on the search results page. Remember, keyword density and proximity and the symbiotic relationship between your meta data and your body copy…
CLEAN CODE
For your site to rank highly on the search engines you need to ensure that your code is clear and clean. Google has a short overview on this, which can be found here:
http://www.google.co.uk/support/webmasters/bin/topic. py?topic=8522
Clear and uncompromising instructions on what Google’s expecting from your site; basically Google prefers you to present your code in a logical manner – and that logic is clear delineation between the showy presentation components of the page and the core content. Google’s early visits to your site will be glancing at best, if your code is presented logically, Google will be inclined to return, if your code is long and complicated, the Googlebot will get bored sifting through the flotsam and jetsam and move on… less is more.
Code Positioning
Now this might upset your developer, but it is worth broaching the subject with them about the layout of the code that makes up your site – if at all possible what you are looking for is almost a reversal of how things are normally done. For example, the classic, and I suppose the logical way to build a webpage has the same principles as building a house – you start with the foundations, build the walls, put on a roof and at the last stage deal with putting in some furniture…. but bearing in mind the importance Google places on content (read furniture) you might want to give this more importance earlier on in the build. Therefore, in an ideal world after the header information, you want to be straight into content (including keywords, H tags, Alt tags etc) and then the architecture (or the showy presentation bit) follows afterwards.
Label Everything
Labelling is everything as far as Google is concerned – the Googlebot is looking for flags that accurately represent and showcase the body copy you’ve used on the page. Tell Google how you’ve organised the page and what importance you place on certain sections – H or Header tags work if you prioritise correctly along with good use of ALT tags on your images. Rather than splitting text with a simple break (<BR>) command, use a paragraph marker (<P>) and highlight to Google where it should be looking and what the focus should be.
A ‘Sticky’ Site
If possible, make your users feel happy spending time on your webpages and give them a reason to come back again and again.
If you can create a community feeling on your site, you will reap the rewards in terms of numbers of visitors and therefore the number of consumers downloading Aedgency software. The search engines will notice this activity and will also note the many mentions of keywords related to your market being mentioned on a daily basis
– every time the Googlebot visits, there’s lots of relevant, new and original content…. guess what’s going to happen to your ranking and your revenues?
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is one of the hottest web topics right now… and it works perfectly with SEO.
Social media is great because it offers you additional places where you can distribute your content; you can allow other people to write content for you and at the same time it’s a great opportunity to get some new content for your site that adds value to your offering.
Before starting, be careful, social media is opening new communication channels and letting users express their feelings and opinions and in some cases they can be negative… so you have to be sure you are able to manage them.
One thing you can do with no previous experience is to create a a blog, it is said that BLOG stand for ‘Better Listing On Google’. Blogs are easy to update and allow others to comment about your posts. A great way to create backlinks and to keep users up to date about your products and services. Forums are another great option… but very time consuming.
If you do decide that you’d like to add a forum to your website, there are lots of open source solutions – probably the best one is:
http://www.phpbb.com/
Compare the specifications, especially the ability to customise, appearance (if any) of 3rd party advertisers and any issues regarding users having to download a plug-in to take part on the message board. Assuming you have found some suitable software, look to adding it on to the site – at first, this could be left hidden from public view, until you have configured it, tested the functionality and filled it with ‘legitimate’ messages from your customer base.
NAMING PAGES
It is essential that you use the name of your webpages to your advantage – rather than using code numbers on your pages such as www.mydomain.com/012345, use the opportunity to reinforce the name of the software you want to promote. If you are promoting computers then the page should be called www. mydomain.com/computers or something similar.
So, if someone searches for ‘computer’, or ‘computers’ on a search engine they will be presented with a list of search results. If you’ve named your page with a code number then the chances of www.mydomain.com/F22451 being returned on page #1 are pretty slim. However, if you’ve named your page www.mydomain.com/computers then it’s got a far better chance of being shown to that potential user, which means revenue!
Don’t forget about the other Search Engines
Although Google is by far the most popular, the other search engines are not to be ignored – it’s all very well being #1 on Google, but truth be told, although 80% of the search market is Google-led, that still leaves a massive 1 in 5 of Internet searchers who choose not to use Google, for whatever reason….
Are you just as high on Live.com, Yahoo!, MSN as well as your ‘local’ country specific search engines? If not, work on why not. Theoretically, if you rank highly on Google, you also rank highly on the others – but this isn’t always the case.
SEO SUMMARY
The German company Sistrix took it upon themselves to analyse web page elements of the top ranked pages in Google to find out which elements lead to high Google rankings. They analyzed 10,000 random keywords, and for every keyword, they analyzed the top 100 Google search results.1
Which web page elements lead to high
Google rankings?
Sistrix analyzed the influence of the following web-page elements: web page title, web page body, headline tags, bold and strong tags, image file names, images alt text, domain name, path, parameters, file size, inbound links and PageRank. Keywords in the title tag seem to be important for high rankings on Google. It is also important that the targeted keywords are mentioned in the body tag, although the title tag seems to be more important.
Keywords in H2-H6 headline tags seem to have an influence on the rankings while keywords in H1 headline tags don’t seem to have an effect.
Using keywords in bold or strong tags seems to have a slight effect on the top rankings. Web pages that used the keywords in image file names often had higher rankings. The same seems to be true for keywords in image alt attributes.
Websites that use the targeted keyword in the domain name often had high rankings. It might be that these sites get many inbound links with the domain name as the link text.
Keywords in the file path don’t seem to have a positive effect on the Google rankings of the analyzed web sites. Web pages that use very few parameters in the URL (?id=123, etc.) or no parameters at all tend to get higher rankings than URLs that contain many parameters.
The file size doesn’t seem to influence the ranking of a web page on Google although smaller sites tend to have slightly higher rankings.
It’s no surprise that the number of in-bound links and the PageRank had a large influence on the page rankings on Google. The top result on Google has usually about four times as many links as result number 11.
A Word of Warning
So, by implementing these changes you manage to achieve the number #1 spot… Congratulations. Does it end there? Sadly not.... rest assured someone else covets that space and they’re going to be looking for ways to beat you down. Do not lose sight of your goals, ever. The Web is constantly changing. New sites pop up every day and old sites drop off, but the number #1 spot is the most coveted and your competitors want it with as much, as you did all those weeks or months ago. Equally, search engine optimisation takes time. This is not a ‘quick-fix’ overnight tweak that means, come tomorrow morning, your website is more popular than ebay, or Amazon, or YouTube… For a start it’s going to take a few weeks for Google to send the Googlebot to your site (whether you request it or not;) there are millions of sites out there craving the attention of Google et al, and the process takes time. Don’t lose heart. If you play by the rules, increase the number of inbound links from relevant sites and keep your site updated and relevant and constantly monitor, measure and react; your site will rank highly. Patience, in business, is something we all lack.
Yesterday my website was on page 1, today
it’s on page 13!
Google, and to a lesser extent all of the other search engines are also tweaking their service, constantly. It is very clear that Google alter their algorithm regularly – five years ago it was very popular to get as many reciprocal links as you could – now, Google is only interested in Inbound or backwards links. In six months the algorithm will alter again, and all we can do is adapt and try to keep up. The important thing here is that all of the ideas contained in this book will help you rank highly on Google and all of the other search engines and continue to do so in the years to come. It is your responsibility as a web owner to keep up to date with what’s hot and what’s not...
About Jon Smith
Jon Smith was part of the launch team of Amazon.co.uk, Kitbag.com and The Florist Exchange. As a consultant for the venture capital firm Chase Episode 1, he researched and improved business plans submitted by technology companies looking for investment. He was co-founder of and subsequently sold Toytopia, an online specialist toyshop, and was managing director of Inpress, an organisation that provides sales, marketing and technical support to independent publishers. Before becoming Head of Aedgency Cashback, Jon was Managing Director of Espressio, a photo-book company based in the UK and Egypt. Jon has written extensively about web marketing including the books Web Sites That Work, Get Into Bed With Google and Google Adwords That Work.
