Poor SEO Advice – Concentrate on one, not the other…
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is fast-becoming the number one online marketing tool, with small, medium and large businesses all realising it’s vital if they are going to succeed in the online world.
SEO Advice
Have you ever worked with an SEO company that has advised you to target your website content at the major search engines? Perhaps they told you the opposite, that you should aim your website copy at the users?
If you have, you’ve been given poor SEO advice. Why?
Targeting one or the other is not the way to go, simply because you will end up alienating either the user or the search engine.
SEO focused on the user
Having professionally written content on your website is important because your users/visitors will be reading it, just the same as your website design needs to be appealing – so does your content! Using too many awkward keywords to please the search engine will result in your valued customers or visitors getting annoyed and confused!
SEO focused on the Search engine’s
The major search engines (Google, Yahoo & Bing) are best served with content that has your specific keywords mentioned a few times, but not too many!
If you stuff your website copy with content that is too keyword-rich, you’ll end up with a website that not only reads poorly, it could even be banned from the search engines for being a spam site!
The SEO strategy and solution
Work with a SEO company that provides excellent advice and links back to your site, and make sure you request quality website copy that is targeted at BOTH the user AND the search engines!
At ManualLinkBuilding.co.uk we focus on providing you with high quality back-links to your website – but we can only do our job if your website content has been correctly written and optimised…
…so get in touch with us today and see how we can help transform your websites fortunes with an SEO strategy to suit – Top quality UK written content and an SEO link building campaign.
Why do business owners and webmasters need SEO?
SEO is not an easy job
First of all, search engine optimisation is vitally important if webmasters want to get to the top of the SERP’s. Appearing in the top 6 positions on the SERP will make sure you get all the traffic from the search engines!
Difficulty of SEO
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is an extremely time-consuming process involving a lot of ‘leg work’ and research. The most difficult part of SEO is finding keywords with very little competitiveness, but high search volume. When we decide to use a keyword on our website or in our blog posts, we always use keyword research tools like Google Trends and Google AdWords to find the specific search volume and competitiveness for the keyword we want to use. As with any good SEO, we consider keywords on a daily basis and make a list of any promising ones we think of.
Having enough time to SEO your own website is very rare, but even if you do, there’s a good chance that won’t be enough to get to the top of Google. You may be able to rank yourself but to get to the very top of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo & Bing), you need to consider working with a professional SEO company.
The SEO solution
If you really want to appear on the top of the major search engines as soon as possible, then you need to consider hiring a professional SEO company to take control of your SEO campaign. Not only will they have the experience of running link building campaigns to do this, they have the time and resources to really do your site justice.
How is Personalisation of Google Results changing SEO?
If you haven’t heard about ‘Personalized Search for everyone‘ then read on, if you have then perhaps you would like to read on and discuss the change in the comments section.
Many of you, however, will have seen Google personalised search, which was created to give a more personalised results page. Since December 2009, Google has made personalisation standard, whether you’re signed in or not. If you wish to disable it, you can by clicking the “Web History” tab at the top of Google.
But what about SEO?
There are not as many actual changes as people imagine, but there are some changes that will affect SEO – below are a few ‘facts’ to consider:
* Only queries that a user has made before will be affected, resulting in a lot of possible queries being unaffected
* Positions 1-4 in Google have seen little change
* Positions 5-10 do change a little bit more than usual, but the first page is mostly unchanged.
What has changed with personalised search?
From the point of view of an SEO company, there are several new factors to adjust to, such as the fact ranking placements are not as ‘reliable’ as we thought they once were. With personalised search SEO companies now need to put even more effort in to get as many users to visit the site as possible because one ‘click’ can result in pushing the site to the top of the rankings!
Personalised search may not be the devil that a lot of people in the SEO industry seem to believe, but it will require a little bit of change, and the best SEO companies will take notice rather than ignore the personalisation of Google Results.
And remember – Personalised search or no personalised search – link building is still very important for a successful SEO campaign
Why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is key for any business
At Manual Link Building we know how important Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is for a business in the 21st Century. We also know that plenty of business owners not only don’t know why it’s important, they don’t even know what it is! This is a major problem…
Why is an SEO campaign a necessity to all webmasters?
An SEO campaign has one main goal; to increase the awareness of your business online.
How does an SEO Campaign work?
The most effective way is to optimise your website for the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), this includes the on page content, the links to your site and many more factors that the search engines require and look out for.
If your website appears on the first page (or one of the top 5) of Google for a keyword phrase that relates to the products or services you offer on your website, then there’s a good chance of increased traffic and hopefully sales for your business!
Think about it; when you search for a product or service (e.g. Plumber in London), how often do you go past the first few pages in the search engine you use? I bet your answer is either not many or never!
To be seen at the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)…
…is vital in today’s web-savvy world. If your business can be found organically on Google then you’re opening your company up to a whole new world of potential customers – if you’re nowhere to be seen, then you’re missing out on a lot of money!
Whether you’re setting up a new business or you’re trying to turn around the fortunes of your current company, an SEO campaign by a respectable SEO company can work wonders.
If you’re interested in getting your website ranked, throw us an email and we’ll be glad to help.
XML Sitemaps and Pinging the Search Engines
A sitemap will enable search engines like Google and Yahoo to better crawl and index your site.
The more search engines know about your web site structure, the greater chance there is of increased traffic being driven to your site. A good place to start for an overview is sitemaps.org. They provide the following definition of a sitemap:
Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.
If you want to go into more detail regarding the structure of these sitemaps then I suggest you read their protocol page.
This will give you an example of a basic XML sitemap together with an explanation of each of the tags that make up the XML sitemap file.
Submitting XML Sitemaps to the Major Search Engines
So how do you go about creating one of these XML sitemaps and submitting it to the search engines?
If you’re using WordPress then I recommend you take a look at the Google Sitemap Generator plugin.
This plug in generates an XML Sitemap of your WordPress blog. Whenever you change, edit, create or publish a post, the plug in will automatically update your sitemap and ping the new sitemap to Google.
It’s a great solution for people who want to simply install a plug in and then forget about it.
If you’re not using WordPress, or you run into problems using the plug in, then there a host of web sites which offer a free online service which will generate a sitemap for you.
The one we use can be found at XML-Sitemaps.com.
This site provides a free online sitemap generator. You simply enter your website address and then press the start button. You then wait a few minutes for it to crawl your site.
The end result is an XML file which you can then save to your computer. You then submit this XML file to Google and other search engines.
This is a perfect XML sitemap solution if your website has less than 500 pages.
They do offer a paid version for over 500 pages – $10 – so well worth it
Pinging your Sitemap to the Search Engines
Once you have your XML sitemap saved on your computer, the next step is to submit the sitemap to the major search engines. There are three main options available.
- 1. If you use Google Webmaster Tools then you can login to your Google Webmaster Tools account and add the sitemap.
- 2. You can modify your robots.txt file to include a line which specifies the location of your sitemap. This will enable crawlers to automatically find your sitemap the next time they crawl your site. More details on this procedure can be found on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.
- 3. Our preferred choice is to Submit your sitemap using an HTTP request.
Here are the links for the major search engines
- http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=
- http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.website.com/sitemap.xml
- http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/updateNotification?appid=YahooDemo&url=http://www.website.com/sitemap.xml
Simply replace http://www.website.com.sitemap.xml with your details, place in your web browser, click enter and you are done – You will be redirected to a success page once done.
XML Sitemaps and Pinging the Search Engines Summary
Sitemaps are easy to setup and maintain and we recommend you invest the time to get a sitemap setup on your web site.
If you use sitemaps in conjunction with other SEO tips then you increase the likelihood of traffic coming to your site.
Professional Article Writing and Why You Need It
Do you have your articles written by a native English copywriter? Are they based in the UK?
Why use an English based copywriter?

We only use UK SEO Copywriters
Have you ever read an article written by a non-native? If yes, then you understand the reason why native English copywriters are in high-demand. If you’re serious about achieving an excellent online presence then a native content writer with experience and qualifications is the only way to go.
The Benefits of using a native English copywriter
The benefits you’re company and website will reap from hiring a native copywriter are significant – so significant in fact that the price you pay for professional copy should be seen as an investment in your business, not “expensive compared to non-natives”.
A native UK copywriter can provide the following:
- Content that’s on time, within your time frame and time zone (based in the UK).
- Professional standard articles (at Gareth Hoyle we use a professional copywriter with a Journalism degree).
- Compelling articles – these are excellent for Search Engine Optimisation (back links!).
- Content that makes sense!
There are plenty of other benefits, but these are the main ones.
Bullet number 3 touches on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and how quality articles can benefit this – if you’re wondering how then let me explain:
A quality article from an outstanding copywriter with an advanced knowledge in Search Engine Optimisation and keyword density is vital for any online business looking to succeed.
Why does a quality UK written article help with my SEO?
When you are looking to achieve a high ranking for a particular keyword phrase, you hire an SEO company, like Gareth Hoyle Ltd, to take care of this – they then either use an in-house copywriter or they outsource their copywriting needs.
If they hire an SEO copywriter who is not up to scratch then this will be detrimental to your campaign – if they hire a quality copywriter then this can have major benefits such as:
- A quality article submitted to article directories will attract more readers, which will in-turn attract more visitors to your site through the link placed below the article.
- If the article is of sufficient quality, readers will link to it or even use it on their own websites, resulting in further back-links being created for your site!
- If the article is to be used on your website, then you need to know it reads perfectly and is in correct English! Nothing exemplifies ‘unprofessional’ more than poor quality copy!
Remember, Google loves content that is interesting and informative to the reader. If you’re looking for quality content, consider working with an SEO Link Building company like Gareth Hoyle Ltd where we use only the finest qualified UK Copywriters around
Why Link Building Benefits SEO Campaigns
There are many Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) methods, and one of the most important is link building
What is ‘link building’?
Link building in basic terms is building links back to your website – whether you post them on websites or forums, write articles with links back to your site and submit them to directories or many of the other ways in which you can gain links to your site (see below), it’s all done with one aim; to improve the ranking of your site in the search engines!
Why do we use Link Building?
Why would you want to increase the ranking of your website in the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing)? The higher your site appears for keyword phrases relating to your website, the more visitors your site will receive! No longer will you need to spend heavily on advertising or marketing projects, if you can appear on the first few pages of Google, Yahoo and Bing for a competitive keyword phrase that describes exactly what you’re offering on your site then your traffic will increase instantly!
Quality Back Links
Back links are known by many different names; inbound links, inward links, in-links and incoming links – but they all mean the same thing – a link to your site that a search engine like Google can use to find your site. Receiving quality back links from popular and highly ranked sites can directly help your own websites ranking – with different types of back links such as reciprocal links, theme-based links, three-way links, directory submission links and many more, it’s well worth your time and money contacting a professional SEO company in Manchester like Gareth Hoyle to take care of your SEO campaign.
Beware…
…sites that can get you banned. If you decide to choose a ridiculously cheap SEO company to work with, there’s a good chance they will use SEO methods that could get you banned from the major search engines! Through using a world-renowned SEO company like Gareth Hoyle you can rest in the knowledge that your site is in safe and experienced hands.
Finding The Best UK SEO Company
Search Engine Optimisation is now a necessity for all new online business and has seen a rapid growth over the last few years.
Finding the best UK SEO company to take you forward is vital – but what signs of quality should you be looking for?

UK SEO Expertise
Every SEO company claims to have a fair amount of ‘expertise’ in SEO – whether they actually have it or not, is another matter. The problem people looking for a UK SEO company face is that they need to find out who actually has the experience and knowledge required, and who the cowboys are.
Top UK SEO should possess certain characteristics –
- They should have a long list of past and current clients, and they should be happy to show you the results of the campaigns.
- The majority of the best UK SEO companies don’t do much self-promotion, they can be found through recommendations on SEO forums and through checking out the websites that appear on the first page of Google for competitive keywords such as SEO “their city” (SEO Manchester as an example).
Remember…
…check the history of any UK SEO company you are thinking about working with. You don’t want to be stuck with a guy who has no idea about SEO but thought it would be nice to get paid for 3-6 months for nothing.
We recommend Gareth Hoyle – A Manchester SEO who has a vast amount of experience when it comes to both SEO strategy and also SEO Link Building.
Article Marketing and its Benefits
One of the most commonly asked questions from business and website owners is “How can I generate more traffic to my website?”. There are plenty of potential marketing methods out there that can be used, but one of the most effective and proven methods is writing and distributing quality articles.
What are the benefits of Article Marketing?

Article Marketing For SEO
The benefits of article marketing and having a page full of keyword-rich text much outweigh the small expensive of hiring a professional copywriter/company to handle your article marketing.
1. Build Links
Search engines love links. If you create articles that have links back to your site it can help boost your search engine rankings, resulting in more traffic and hopefully more sales or subscribers!
2. Increase Rankings
This carries on from building links, as when you create articles and submit to particular directories, there is space at the end of each article to insert your contact details and website link. If you have a high quality article (see last paragraph) that plenty of people have read and passed on, then the number of links back to your site will grow immensely!
3. Attract visitors to your website
Distributing your articles to online publishers and submission sites can quite literally bring an instant growth in the number of visitors to your site. However, be aware that submitting your articles to the correct places is very difficult and time-consuming; consider hiring a professional UK link building company to do this for you.
4. Gain Trust
Gaining the trust of potential customers or clients is vital, and very hard. Through becoming an expert in your particular field you can gain the trust of thousands of people. Make sure your articles contain information that people need – through constantly having articles written for you (or written by you) you can build up a audience of followers who trust and respect your opinion, hopefully resulting in further traffic to your website.
Vital things to remember when marketing with articles
…when venturing into the world of article marketing, be sure to hire a professional company to distribute your articles, and just as importantly, a professional copywriter to write them. If you’re articles are of sufficient quality then you will reap the benefits and rewards from article marketing.
Social Bookmarking – The Future
Are you lost in all the recent talk and hype about how social bookmarking and networking is the future? You’re not alone. First of all, what is social bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is an extremely powerful tool in the arsenal of any SEO company worth their salt. Ensuring your site is bookmarked and even discussed in all the new (and let’s face it, there are a lot of new sites popping up) social bookmarking sites on your own is virtually impossible, and very time-consuming – it is, however, very important if you want to receive targeted traffic and excellent links on high PR sites.

Social Bookmarking
Time is Money
The phrase ‘time is money’ is as old as the English language, but it’s still relevant. Why would you spend weeks going through and bookmarking on sites you ‘think’ might be worth bookmarking on? – when a professional SEO company can do this for you – and they know which sites are best to choose!
Links & Traffic
Google, and the other major search engines, loves links! It doesn’t, however, love links that are not relevant to your site! This is why SEO companies’ are so valuable; they know how to correctly create deep links to your site and create targeted traffic that can turn into profit.
Through creating links on high PR (page rank) sites, the search engines will see that your site is being linked to by respectable sites and in-turn your sites page rank can increase. Whilst it’s true that some social bookmarking sites include ‘nofollow’ links, it is countered by the fact that they drive relevant traffic to your site anyway.
Social bookmarking is a bit of a minefield if you don’t know how to do it, but with the right application from a search engine optimisation company with knowledge and experience it can turn a websites fortunes around!
