Posts Tagged ‘SEO Tips’

SEO is one of the most important things that business owners need to be aware of. It can be the biggest single factor in getting and keeping business, because without an effective SEO strategy people won’t even know that you’re out there. People often assume that succeeding at SEO is incredibly difficult, but if you know what you’re doing it doesn’t have to be. There are in fact plenty
of simple things you can do to improve your SEO endeavours without having to break out into a sweat in the process, and here are just a few of them.

• Get on the social networking bandwagon.

This can be incredibly effective at improving your SEO campaign, and it doesn’t even have to feel like work. Make sure that you’ve got accounts with all the big sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Digg, and keep your friends/followers/fans updated with regular content and posts. Of course, you always need to be providing value so they don’t get bored, and if you include links in your posts you’ve got instant backlinks that you know are going to work.

• Write, write, write.

Article writing is essential for SEO to pay off. The old saying that content is king still applies today, and if you’re giving your readers something of value then you’re more likely to gain additional business. Make sure it’s relevant and updated regularly, and always include keywords to appeal to search engines. Sneak some links in there as well, and remember that you don’t just have to post articles to your own site – often, heading to article directory sites such as Ezine can be equally as beneficial.

• Get the SEO experts to do it for you.

For those that don’t have the time or the skills to work on their SEO strategy themselves, paying for the services of a professional company (such as us here at Manual Link Building) could be just the thing. This will be incredibly simple as it completely takes the hassle out, and if you leave it to them to take charge of your SEO efforts you’re likely to see quality results incredibly quickly.

As you can see, SEO doesn’t have to be difficult if you know what you’re doing. These are just a few simple tips that you might want to try but there are many more out there too, and any one of them can make the process of succeeding at SEO far simpler than you ever thought possible.

To succeed at SEO, you have to know what you’re doing. You need to be able to spend the time to learn new techniques and tricks to get your website noticed by search engines, but some people simply don’t have the technical ability, the time or the inclination to go out and do it themselves. That’s where the experts come in.

Why should I trust SEO experts?

When you’re putting your SEO campaign in the hands of the experts you can be sure that you’re getting a service you can trust. They have all the skills and experience needed to really excel, and if you choose carefully (i.e. by seeing what they’ve done for past customers) then you can be sure that you’re going to get results.

Who can benefit from professional SEO help?

There are plenty of people that can benefit from consulting the SEO professionals, and it doesn’t just have to be those that aren’t computer geniuses. Even those that have the skills to tackle their SEO campaign may simply not have the time to devote to it, with their time often being more profitably spent elsewhere. The same can still apply even if you’ve got a team of IT experts behind you – you can outsource your SEO activities while letting your team loose on more urgent projects.

Then there are those that don’t know much about SEO so simply need a bit of help. Everyone does from time to time, and by outsourcing you’re doing the single biggest thing to help improve your business. You may need a complete strategy from start to finish or you might simply need them to take over from something that you’ve already started – whatever you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find the experts to help.

Don’t leave it to chance – outsource to see SEO results

More and more people are catching onto the idea of outsourcing as being an incredibly cost and time-efficient way of doing things. You’re freeing up your staff to work on other things and will even be saving money in the process, for the simple fact that you’re only paying an outside company for the work that they’re doing and not a full-time staff member.

So, if you need a bit of help with your SEO efforts, don’t be afraid to contact the experts. They’ll be able to have as much or as little control as you want and will give you the results that you’ve only dreamt of, so never overlook the possibility of outsourcing if you want SEO success.

All companies should have one aim – to get to the top of search results. This will lead to far more visitors and subsequent business than they’d ever be able to get otherwise, and the only way to realise that aim is to have a solid SEO strategy backing them up. But, what if you don’t have the time, skills or inclination to take on board such a project? You consult specialist SEO services instead.

What can SEO services do for me?

SEO services can do an enormous amount for your business. Not only do they have all the skills and knowledge necessary to come up with a perfectly thought-out SEO strategy to lead you to success, but they have the time available to put it into action. They’ll be able to take care of every aspect of SEO (should you wish them to) and will do everything in their power to get you to that top spot, and that can only lead to good things.

Even if you’ve got staff members in-house that know about SEO, it’s still often best to outsource. This is because you can hire them on an as-needed basis to allow your regular staff to work on other things, and that can all lead to increased profits. You may initially think that it’s counter-productive to pay for such a service, but you’ll soon find that the money you make from hiring them will more than cover their fees.

Finding the right SEO service for your needs

There are a lot of companies that claim to be trained in SEO, but don’t believe everything that you read. You need to make sure that they’ve got the skills and experience necessary to do the job properly, and they need to have plenty of happy customers behind them. They should only ever use ethical techniques and should be able to give you quick results, and if you want someone that ticks all the boxes you need to come to us here at Manual Link Building.

SEO – helping your online business thrive

As you can see, SEO services really can help your business to thrive. They can get you to the top of those search results without any hassle on your part, and will be able to everything far quicker and more effectively than you ever could on your own. Why not come and see for yourself? Come to us here at Manual Link Building and see what a professional SEO company can do for you.

When you look at setting up any time of business you probably look at marketing costs as one of the first outgoings you will need to spend out on. Whether it is advertising in local papers or getting leaflets printed up, most of us assume that we are going to need to spend something out on advertising. The situation isn’t really very different if you have a website, because you still want to make sure that you get traffic.

However advertising is usually short lived which means that although it can help do the job, it is temporary and so your ongoing costs are more or less constant. For example a local newspaper is usually weekly, so that means to keep up the advertising you probably need to pay for a weekly advert. Costs can soon mount up.

Of course you can build these costs into your overheads however that doesn’t mean that the cost is invisible.

SEO tactics – the key to online advertising success

If you are an online website you can still advertise in the same way – You can pay for banner placements and links from other websites. You can even go as far as adverting in national press if you have a national selling product. However what it shouldn’t do is over write your SEO tactics.

In order to be success you really want large amounts of ongoing traffic. Advertising will not always bring you this so you need to make sure that search engines do. By getting traffic from search engines you know that the people visiting your site already have an interest in what you are selling. This means that the likelihood of them buying from you is much higher. Once you are at the top of your game for your keyword you should find it easier to stay there, this means that you get on going traffic from the search engines with minimal effort. Unlike ‘proper’ advertising which is an ongoing cost.

So can you forget SEO just because you are paying for advertising?

Definitely not! SEO is fundamental to your businesses success and therefore should never be over looked

When it comes to running a website many people concentrate on the look and feel of the website itself. They assume that they need a slick looking website in order to attract visitors. Whilst it is true that the look of your website is vitally important, it will impress visitors when they are there but it wont be the reason they visit in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that you need to market yourself in order to let people know you are there. The simple fact is that people will more than likely not stumble across your website by accident. What you really want is to get traffic from people that are searching for what you have to offer.

Increase web traffic with SEO

Drive traffic from the Search Engines

The best way to do this is to get search engine traffic; that way you know that the people that visit your website are already interested in what you have to say. As we all know when you search for something on a search engine you invariably get more than one result. We also all know that the likely hood is that you will only click on some of the top results when you have done your search. Your ranking in the search engine will have a massive effect on the amount of traffic that search engines generate for you.

You can affect and improve the ranking of your website with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This basically is the steps you have taken to help make your website ‘liked’ by the search engines. There are several steps involved in this process including making keywords are included on your website text, making sure you have plenty of websites linking to your website and ensuring your website is kept updated.

The ongoing practice of SEO

These are just the very basic steps of SEO and there is a lot more involved in making sure your website is as optimised as possible. If you want to generate decent, natural traffic then you really need to work on the SEO of your website. It is also important to remember that your SEO steps are not a one time thing and should be continued through out the life of your website in order to make sure you stay on top.

In the current economic climate, there has never been a more important time to help improve your online presence.

With all the hype surrounding SEO, many people have yet to get involved with SEO; however, sooner or later they will have to learn about this complex subject.

This blog has been written with beginners in mind, giving them some useful SEO tips to get them started:

1. Fresh content

Keeping the content on your site is exceptionally important in order to help improve your search engine rankings. By adding new and useful information on the pages of your site regularly, this freshness adds relevancy top your website in the eyes of the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

2. Getting found in local searches

It is important that you focus on search phrases rather than single keywords. For example, include your location in your search phrases such as, “our Sheffield shoe shop” rather than, “our shoe shop”.

3. Content is king

It is important that you have good, well-written, unique content that is well balanced to attract the search engines whilst reading well for your users.

4. Using links to your site and within your site

Ensure that the links to your site and within your site contain your keyword phrase.

5. Text links

It is important that you use keywords and key phrases appropriately in text links, your domain name and image ALT attributes.

When you want your website to rank higher with the search engines, why not use a UK copywriter as a resource? A writer based in the same country and timezone means that work will be delivered during normal working hours and that your writer is easily contactable. It can often be difficult to contact foreign writers based in other countries and long distance phone calls and breakdowns in communication could become very frustrating.

The benefits of a good SEO copywriter

An SEO copywriter will take your web content and optimise it so that it reaches its intended audience and gets to the top listings on the major search engines. If you have any specific keywords in mind, these will be used throughout the content so that your page is presented when people search for these keywords or key phrases. Keywords are usually distributed using a keyword density and how deep you go with your keywords depends on various factors. A UK-based copywriter will understand the words and terms that will appeal to a UK audience and can tailor your copy so that it makes sense to those living in the UK.

The trick to good SEO is not to use spamming techniques as this could have a negative impact on your website. A good UK SEO copywriter will know the most effective keyword density to use so that your site comes across in a positive and informative way.

Quality vs Cost – The trade off with SEO Copywriting

Quality is important when choosing copy for your site and in order to encourage repeat visitors to your site you need to give them content that is worth reading and that is worth coming back for. We are proud of the services we provide and are the perfect choice if you are looking for a copywriter based in the UK.

We are extremely cost effective too. True, foreign copywriters are cheaper, but you will probably spend more time editing their work which in turn will cost you both time and money. Once you find a good UK copywriter, stick with them and they will pay dividends. We will produce some great copy for your site and you will have a resource on hand whenever you need to enhance the SEO for your site.

Contact this UK SEO Copywriter today

It has never been easier to hire a UK copywriter and we give you access to some of the best writing services available online. We work to an extremely high standard and will fulfil your requirements exactly. Simply let us know what you need and when, and we will deliver. Once you start to see the great work we produce, you will be glad that you chose us.

We will help you to attract more visitors and rank higher on the major search engines. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Call us on 0161 928 8799 or email us here.

If you are based in the UK and looking for a copywriter then it is important that you look for a UK copywriter rather than a foreign copywriter. A writer needs to understand his or her market, have great English language skills and be able to submit work during normal working hours if possible. Whilst foreign copywriters might have a good grasp on the English language, there is no substitute to choosing a writer who understands the language inside and out and also understands English punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

Use a UK website content writer

A UK content writer will understand the UK market and the words that sell within that market. If you use a foreign writer with little experience of these areas then the copy will not be as effective. Trying to keep track of your projects with a foreign copywriter can be difficult too with different time zones and language barriers getting in the way. By having a UK copywriter close at hand either at the end of the phone or over email, you can keep on top of your projects and ensure that deadlines are met, and that the copy is to your exact specification.

UK web Copywriting is more cost effective in the long run

Finding a UK content writer is easy and we can provide a wide range of services to help you raise the profile of your website. From writing web copy to writing pieces for article marketing, we can assist. Whilst hiring a foreign copywriter might seem to be more cost effective, once you weigh up all the pros and cons you will find that hiring a UK copywriter works out to be much cheaper. With a UK copywriter you will probably experience less need to make edits or to repeat your instructions and of course there is no need to pay for long distance telephone calls.

We are UK SEO and website copywriters

When you need to hire a UK copywriter come to us. We have a wealth of knowledge and know the words that sell. We can also assist with SEO so that your site ranks higher with the major search engines. Once you have found a good UK copywriter that you can rely on you can start to focus on the projects you want them to complete and build a strong working relationship. By using a locally based resource, you will increase your chances of completing your projects quicker and receiving perfect copy each and every time.

Whilst hiring a foreign copywriter may seem appealing at first, especially when you see the low rates some will work for, you really should consider hiring a UK copywriter instead. The cost and time savings will be apparent over a short period of time and you can be sure that your copy will be written to cater for the UK audience.

If you are looking for informative and engaging copy that comes at a cost effective price, then your best bet is to hire a UK copywriter. A writer based in the UK will set their sights on producing copy written for a specific audience and which used perfect English and grammar. Whilst it might be tempting to choose a cheaper writer based abroad, there are various risks involved that could cost you both time and money.

Advantages of UK based SEO Copywriters

Imagine you need some urgent copy written, and need to get in touch with your writer. Being in a different timezone means you will need to wait until they wake up, and then arrange a convenient time to call long distance. Once the instructions have been given, the timezone difference may mean that you don’t receive the copy until the next day. Then there could be edits and in turn these could take time.

Now imagine if you were to hire a UK copywriter for the same work. Simply call your writer up when you need them and receive your copy the very same day. If your writer is good then there will be no need for edits or rewrites saving you the frustration of waiting for copy yet again.

UK SEO Copywriters are cost effective solutions

Many companies and individuals go down the route of hiring foreign writers thinking that it will save them money. Invariably this is rarely the case unless you are looking for low quality copy. The problem with low quality copy is that it rarely generates business as people take one look at your site, find nothing of any value, and promptly leave. Why not give your visitors a reason to come back by giving them interesting content that encourages sales or repeat visits.

A good UK copywriter will have excellent English skills including spelling, grammar and punctuation and will know the words that sell. You should also hire a UK copywriter who has some SEO experience. SEO will help your website to reach higher levels in search engine rankings and help people to find you when then enter certain search terms.

Overall, a UK copywriter can provide real value to your website. Working closely together you can create some fantastic copy and keep it fresh and exciting. You will definitely find this method more cost effective than hiring an individual writer or team of writers from another country. We provide Copywriting services in the UK and can write some engaging, unique and cost effective copy that will help to raise the profile of your site. If you want your website to do well both with the search engines and with potential customers, hire a UK copywriter.

UK SEO Copywriting

If you need any Copywriting for your website, or for an article marketing campaign you are planning, do not hesitate to call us on 0161 928 8799 or email.

Link Building is an essential part of internet market, as links are what draws traffic to your website, from the website that is advertising you, although you should be aware that this will not necessarily draw in a large amount of traffic.

The best amount of traffic will be brought through from Search Engines, because having links towards your website makes you more visible so-to-speak to the search engines.

SEO Link Building Theory

The theory is that the more times a search engine “finds” your website, it comes to the conclusion that you are valuable and the higher you will be ranked.

Despite this, It is important to remember that the key to successful Link Building is not based around placing your link on every website that you can possibly think of.

For example, there is absolutely no point in asking for your link to be placed on a website that already has links to hundreds of other websites. This is because that means that your link is needlessly competing against every one of those other links, which is completely redundant, especially if the other links aren’t even directed to websites similar to yours.

Relevant Links, Tags and Categories

Also, placing links on websites that have nothing to do with what you do, or even the kind of traffic that you want to gain is a complete waste of time. You don’t just want to draw people to your website, you want them to actually stick around and see exactly what you have to offer them.

Having lots of traffic, does not necessarily mean that people are going to stick around. If your content does not match the needs of the incoming traffic, then they’ll leave. However, if you place links on relevant websites, you stand the chance of drawing in an audience with a higher possibility of sticking around, and clicking on other stuff. Remember, a page view has a lot greater credibility than site hits.

For this reason, you need to make sure that the Search Engines put you as high as possible in searches that are completely relevant to what you offer or do.

Monitoring the Competition’s SEO Link Building

If you really do not have a clue where to start attempting to place links, it is well worth scoping out the competition and finding out what kind of websites they have links on.

To find this out, try typing your competitors’ website into Yahoo’s search engine (like this: link:competitorwebsite.co.uk) and see what you find. It helps if the competitor that you check out is obviously doing well, because this means that their link building is probably working for them.

Use your judgement and decide for yourself if you should be building links on the same websites, but don’t feel that you have to completely copy their choices. You might find that it gives you ideas of other websites that you could approach, that would be more effective towards your website and its individual needs.

Remember, your competitors don’t necessarily have the same needs as you and every website’s SEO Link building requirements will be different.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and is basically steps that you must take, in order to ensure that your website is as visible as possible to all Search Engines. Because, the more visible you are, the higher the chance of being on the first page of a search, and the more traffic that will be steered in your direction.

Getting the correct ROI for your marketing spend

In fact, spending a great deal of time on SEO is probably the best investment that you could possibly put into your online business, and it will cost you barely anything, other than, potentially, a lot of your time. If, however, time is not on your side, there are many companies out there that will do the hard work for you. So, whether you choose to invest your time and money on marketing, make sure it covers SEO.

If you do decide to invest your own time into SEO, here are a few things that you should be doing:

• Think carefully about the domain name for your website.

The majority of companies have their company name as their domain name, so it might be worth sitting down and deciding what your company name says about your business. If, for example, you are a web design company called Flower Designs, you have to question whether Search Engines will send you web design clients, or clients with something more floral in mind. Try to think of a name using the keywords that describe your company, because it is these keywords that people will search by.

• Make sure that your website has a lot of relevant content.

This could be articles, or blogs. And make sure that all of your content is rich in keywords. This doesn’t mean writing primarily to be found by specific searches. It means making your content completely relevant to your clients. Put yourself in their shoes. What do they want to know?

• If you already have a lot of content on your websites, it might be worth going back and reading through it.

From here you should judge whether it is worth re-writing some of it, placing relevant keywords in wherever possible and/or needed.

• Make sure that all of your links work.

Error messages do not bode well with search engines, or potential clients. So, make sure you give your website a regular health check, by making sure that web addresses haven’t changed, or linked products haven’t been removed.

• Have a friend that you trust proof read everything that you write.

Sometimes we find it hard to “fine-comb” our work for mistakes, because we become very protective. So, make sure that your website is 100% free of mistakes by having a reliable friend point out any typos, or even bad links.

All of us as website owners and search engine marketers have always wanted to know “How exactly Google sees our website”.

This information can be found in Google support tries to help webmasters diagnose errors and enhance their website’s search engine visibility.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google webmaster tools lists the preferences on how website listings are handled.

Before you can start with any of these you will to sign up for your Google account. After signing up log into the following page https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Verification of Ownership

You will have to verify your ownership of your website that you would like to control using Google webmaster tools. You will have to enter the URL of your website and follow the instructions provided to verify the ownership of your website.

This can be done in two ways, one is by uploading a blank HTML file with a specified name and the second method is by pasting a Meta tag provided by Google webmaster tools in the Header part of your homepage. Once you upload your blank HTML page or add the Meta tag, click verify.

This will allow Google to verify quickly that you are the authentic owner of the website that you are trying to control using Google webmaster tools.

The Overview

Once verified, you will be able to see your website’s profile in the Google webmaster tools control panel. You just need to click on the URL of your website whose profile you would like to view under the Manage section.

This will take you to the overview page. You will find highly crucial information on your website that will give you great insights into the nature of your website’s traffic. You will also find links to specific webmaster tools in this section.

Diagnostics Tools

The function of these tools is to tell you whether there are any errors in your website as seen by Google when it crawled your website. You will normally find errors such as 404 errors, pages not indexed by Google robots.txt and other indexing issues.

Some of the common types of errors can be listed under the headings such as HTTP errors, URLs not followed, URLs disallowed by robots.txt, not found, URLs timed out, and Unreachable URLs. To ensure that your website is without any error, you must regularly check your diagnostics reports.

Statistical Tools

Google has amazing statistical tools that you can use to improve your marketing efforts. Google webmaster statistical tools include the following:

Top Search Queries

Every webmaster would like to know the top search query through which visitors get in to their website using Google Search. You will be able to see list of keywords for which the highest number of visitors came to your website.

One of the most important pieces of information that you will find here is that your position in the SERPs for a particular keyword. There may be minor variation in the indicated number and actual position however, this will get better with time.

What Googlebot sees

This is one of the best ways of learning how other websites link to your website . You can find three sections here.

• Phrases used in external links to your website
• Keywords in your site’s content
• The actual content on your website in terms of keyword density

Crawl Stats

Here you will be able to learn about your website’s pagerank strength. You can see your pages categorized in terms of low, medium, high and not yet assigned. Most often you will find your pages categorized under low but do not get discouraged.

Another useful piece of information here is pagerank information of specific pages, which is updated on monthly basis. This is one of the best ways of measuring the effectiveness of your specific Link Building efforts.

Index Stats

Here you can find advanced Google queries on your website that used some search operators. This includes the following operators site:, link:, cache:, info:, related:, etc.

Subscriber Stats

This particular tool will help you find the status on your RSS feed subscribers. This is one of the new additions to the toolbox and is certainly useful when you are using feed management systems.

Links

This is where you can learn about your website’s internal and external link popularity status. Though this tool is a very limited in terms of the information provided, it will certainly be helpful information when you are trying to work on your website’s online exposure.

Google Sitemaps

This is one of the basic and oldest Google webmaster tools. In fact all the Google webmaster tools were built around Google sitemaps tool.

This will help you to manage your sitemap files that are Google specific. You will be able to upload XML files, which will help Google to crawl your website completely.

Tools

The tools area in Google Webmaster Tools is the most resourceful sections. You can find the following tools under this section:

Analyse robots.txt

Robots.txt is a protocol meant for googlebot, which will tell Google how they should go about crawling your website. You can give instructions to googlebot in this file. You can control the crawling of Googlebot to the desired parts of your website as well as block the search engines from crawling certain parts of your website.

Analyse robots.txt tool will help you check the validity of your robots.txt file. Even a small mistake in this file can cost your website’s ranking dearly. So better take advantage of this tool to ensure that everything is in place.

Site Verification Management

This section will help you change the options on your site verification. You will also be able to secure your website. This is highly helpful when you are using a SEO company to handle your webmaster tools. Once you terminate their services with them, your information will still be available to them. Using this site verification area, you can block unauthorised entries to your website.

Crawl Rate

Here you will be able to get Google’s activity on your website and their indexing frequency. If you really want to benefit from this section, you will have to select adjust crawling speed feature. Here are few useful tips on how you can benefit from the activity graphs.

You will have to remember here that info will be limited to a 90 day span. You can see variations in the graph based on your website update frequency. Check the graphs closely and compare it with your website activity. You will also be able to measure the effectiveness of your Link Building efforts. You can see spikes in the graph if your link building efforts have really been effective. The aim here is to make sure that Google is visiting your website frequently and interacting with your website actively. This is important to get new content in your website indexed fast.

Set Preferred Domain

If you do not want your page rank and the effectiveness of your link building efforts diluted between www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com, you need to tell Google which will be your canonical URL or which will be your preferred URL.

This will have definitive impact on your website’s ranking. Google will display the right URLs based on what you have instructed it in this section. Never ignore this section; not many people realize the importance of this section.

Enhanced Image Search

One of the ways of enhancing your website’s online presence is by getting yourself included in the image search. When you select enhanced image search you will be able to gain control on labeling images in your website. You can also make use of Google image labeler to help improve image relevancy.

You can find Google image labeler at http://images.google.com/imagelabeler.

Remove URLs

If there are pages removed in your website in your latest update, you should remove those pages from Google indexing. You will be able to do this easily using the remove URLs tool.

To conclude

When you invest enough time understanding each of the tools available in Google webmaster tools, you will certainly be able to benefit a great deal. All these tools after all are FREE for use.

Google even allows users to download important information regarding their website. You can set automatic download schedules to have your statistics downloaded. The best download schedule suggested is once in 60 days as Google provides information once in 90 days. When you set 60 days download, you will have overlapping data to interpret the information better.

The data gathered here can be used in multiple ways to gain valuable insights regarding your website’s online performance.

If you need any further advice on Google webmaster tools and the way it can help you interpret your site data please do not hesitiate to contact us via email or call on 0161 928 8799. We are Manchester SEO and Manchester Web Design specialists

Many people start off trying to do their own SEO but often no matter how hard they try, their sites do not rank well or the sites rank well but SEO takes all their time and all their other jobs are neglected

If this is the case with you, maybe it is better to consider employing a SEO company to do the work for you. With so many SEO companies out there, you can’t complain that you have no choice. Or is it the opposite – so many companies but very few reliable and transparent?

It is wrong to say there are no reliable SEO companies. Yes, there might be many scam SEO companies but if you know what to look for when selecting a SEO company, the risk of employing scam companies is reduced.

here is a list with some points to watch for when choosing a good SEO company:

Do they promise to guarantee a number 1 ranking?

If they do, you have a serious reason to doubt their abilities. It is a well known fact that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking in Google, all we can do is follow the principles of SEO and use our experience of working within your industry.

Get recommendation from friends, business partners, etc. Word of mouth is very important for the credibility of a company.

Google the company name.

If the company is a known scammer, chances are that you will find a lot of information about it on the web. However, lack of negative publicity does not mean that the company is great, nor do some subjective negative opinions mean that the company is a scam

Ask for examples of sites they have optimised.

Happy customers are the best form of promotion, so feel free to ask your potential SEO company about sites they have optimised and references from clients. If you get a rejection because of confidentiality reasons, this must ring a bell about the credibility of the SEO company – former customers are not supposed to be a secret.

Check the PageRank of their own site.

If they can’t optimise their site well enough to get a good PR (over 3+), they are not worth hiring.

Ask them what keywords their site ranks for.

Similarly to the page rank factor, if they don’t rank well for the keywords of their choice, they are hardly as professional as they are pretending to be.

Do they use automated submissions?

If they do, stay away from them. Automated submissions can get you banned from search engines.

Do they use any black hat SEO tricks?

You need to know in advance what black hat SEO is in order to judge them, so getting familiar with the most important black hat SEO tricks is worth before you go and start cross-examining them.

Where do they collect back links from?

Back links are very, very important for SEO success but if they come from link farms and other similar sites, this can cause a lot of trouble. So, make sure the SEO firm collects links from reputable sites only.

High price does not guarantee high quality.

If you are eager to pay more, this does not mean that you will get more. Just because a firm costs more DOES NOT make them better SEO’s. There are many reasons for high prices and high quality is only one of them. For instance, the company might work inefficiently and this is the reason for their ridiculously high costs, not the quality of their work.

Cheap is more expensive.

This is also true. If you think you can pay peanuts for a professional SEO campaign, then you need to think again. Professional SEO companies offer realistic prices.

Do they offer subscription services?

SEO is a constant process and if you want to rank well and keep on like that, efforts are necessary all the time. Because of this, it is better to select a company that includes post-optimization maintenance, than get a company that pushes your site towards the top and then leaves you in the wild on your own.

We have tried to mention some of the most important issues in selecting a SEO company. Of course, there are many other factors to consider and each case is different, so give it some thought, before you sign the contract for employing a SEO company.

Our UK SEO Company offer full transparency on all elements of SEO and we also do not tie you into a minimum term contract

You cannot say fairer than that – Our results do the talking – not our sales people

HTML 5 is still being finalised at time of writing but any SEO company worth their salt (or your money) will be looking ahead at how HTML 5 will impact SEO.

We have been monitoring the progress and development closely and feel comfortable enough to publish some interesting points we have found.

HTML5 and the implications for SEO

Whilst it is true that the changes and the new features in HTML 5 will impact our web developers and designers more than the SEO, HTML 5 will still mean changes in the SEO techniques and strategies we use.

What’s New in HTML 5?

HTML 5 follows the way the WWW has evolved in the last 5-10 years and includes many useful tags and elements. At first glance, it might look as if HTML 5 is going in the direction of a programming language but actually it isnt – it is still an XML-based presentation language.

HTML 5 is not very different from HTML 4. One of the basic ideas in the development of HTML 5 was to ensure backward compatibility and because of this, HTML 5 is not a complete revamp of the HTML specification. Fear not – you will not need to start learning a new language from scratch, merely expand the scope of your current skills.

How the Changes in HTML 5 Will Affect SEO?

As SEO geeks, we are interested mainly in the changes in the HTML 5 specification, which will affect our work directly. Here are some of them:

• Improved page segmentation.

Search engines are getting smarter and there are many reasons to believe that even now they are applying page segmentation. Basically, page segmentation means that a page is divided into several separate parts (i.e. main content, menus, headers, footers, links sections, etc.) and these parts are treated as separate entries.

At present, there is no way for a webmaster to tell search engines how to segment a page but this is bound to change in HTML 5.

• A new <article> tag.

The new <article> tag is probably the best addition from a SEO point of view. The <article> tag allows to mark separate entries in an online publication, such as a blog or a magazine. It is expected that when articles are marked with the <article> tag, this will make the HTML code cleaner because it will reduce the need to use <div> tags. Also, probably search engines will put more weight on the text inside the <article> tag as compared to the contents on the other parts of the page.

• A new <section> tag.

The new <section> tag can be used to identify separate sections on a page, chapter, book. The advantage is that each section can have its separate HTML heading. As with the <article> tag, it can be presumed that search engines will pay more attention to the contents of separate sections. For instance, if the words of a search string are found in one section, this implies higher relevance as compared to when these words are found all across the page or in separate sections.

• A new <header> tag.

The new <header> tag (which is different from the head element) is a blessing for SEO experts because it gives a lot of flexibility. The <header> tag is very similar to the <H1> tag but the difference is that it can contain a lot of stuff, such as H1, H2, H3 elements, whole paragraphs of text, hard-coded links (and this is really precious for SEO), and any other kind of info you feel relevant to include.

• A new <footer> tag.

The <footer> tag might not be as useful as the <header> one but still it allows to include important information there and it can be used for SEO purposes as well. The <header> and <footer> tags can be used many times on one page – i.e. you can have a separate header/footer for each section and this gives really a lot of flexibility.

• A new <nav> tag.

Navigation is one of the important factors for SEO and everything that eases navigation is welcome. The new <nav> tag can be used to identify a collection of links to other pages.

As you see, the new tags follow the common structure of a standard page and each of the parts (i.e. header, footer, main section) has a separate tag. The tags we described here, are just some (but certainly not all) of the new tags in HTML 5, which will affect SEO in some way.

For instance, <audio>, <video> or <dialogue> tags are also part of the HTML 5 standard and they will allow to further separate the content into the adequate categories. There are many other tags but they are of lower importance from an SEO point of view and that is why they are not discussed here.

Currently HTML 5 is still an emerging technology. When more pages become HTML 5-compliant, search engines will pay more attention to HTML 5. Only then it will be possible to know how exactly search engines will treat HTML 5 pages.

The mass adoption of HTML 5 won’t happen soon and it is a safe bet to say that for now you can keep to HTML 4 and have no concerns. Additionally, it will take some time for browsers to adjust to HTML 5, which further delays the moment when HTML 5 will be everywhere.

Once HTML 5 is accepted and put to use, it will be the dominating standard for many years to come and that is why you might want to keep an eye on what other webmasters are doing, just to make sure that you will not miss the boat when HTML 5 becomes the de-facto standard for HTML and SEO web design.

A 301 redirect is the most search engine friendly method of moving a web page or website from one location to another. It’s not that hard to do and should preserve your search engine rankings for particular pages and search terms.

If you have to change file names or move pages around through an architecture change, a 301 redirect is the safest option. The code “301″ is read as “moved permanently” by all search engines.

A useful guide of 301 Redirect methods

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection using a 301 redirect

PHP 301 Redirect

<?
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk ” );
?>

ASP 301 Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<% Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently” Response.AddHeader “Location”,”http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk /” %>

ASP .NET 301 Redirect

<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”,”http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk “);
}
</script>

IIS 301 Redirect

• In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect

• Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”.

• Enter the redirection page

• Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”

• Click on ‘Apply’

ColdFusion 301 Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<.cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk “>

JSP (Java) 301 Redirect

<% response.setStatus(301); response.setHeader( “Location”, “http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk /” ); response.setHeader( “Connection”, “close” ); %>

CGI PERL 301 Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(“http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk /”);

Ruby on Rails 301 Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk /”
end

Redirecting an old domain to a new domain.

To redirect from one domain to another we use the .htaccess method.

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all your directories and pages of your old domain will get correctly redirected to your new domain.

The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mynewdomain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

REMEMBER – replace www.mynewdomain.co.uk in the above code with your actual domain name.

Two important point to note are

• the .htaccess method of 301 redirects works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite module enabled.

• Your FTP client may not show the .htaccess file as it is treated as a system file. You will need to use the file manager section of your server control panel to delete the file if required.

Redirect to www (.htaccess 301 redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code and it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com.

The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website ( the same directory where your index or default file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^mydomain.co.uk [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.co.uk/$1 [r=301,nc]
Please REPLACE mydomain.co.uk and www.mydomain.co.uk with your actual domain name.
Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

How to perform 301 Redirects on HTML pages

If you need to redirect HTML web pages, the techniques used depend on the server you are hosting on.

If your site is hosted on a Linux Server, use the .htaccess method described above.

If you host on a Windows server, use the IIS Redirect method mentioned above.

If you need any onpage SEO advice or web design assistance please do not hesitate to contact the team at Gareth Hoyle SEO and Web Design – Web Design Manchester and Manchester SEO

I’m sure you are already know about SEO!

There is nothing more thrilling than outdoing your competitors but you must be careful in doing so. If you have been left scratching your head as to why your opposition might be slipping ahead, it could be down to the number of backlinks your site has.

Quality Links

Traditionally, it was believed that the more links you have to your site, the higher your rankings on the major search engines. To a certain degree this is still the case but you mustn’t do a job half-heartedly! It is often the case that websites with 10 backlinks are appearing higher on the search engines than those with 1000 links. The reason being is it’s all about the quality of the links you use.

If you take time to study sites that rank on the first page, you will soon realise that the links they use are relevant or more trusted, and seem to be directed from the right place meaning industry related sites. Like a Cheetah, you will start the race by quickly accelerating but will soon burn out. It is important that you don’t get hooked on a “number game” and get caught in a trap.

Business owners who strive for a high volume traffic site think that by buying bulk volumes of links that they are magically going to rocket up the search engines. This is simply not the case! They are often getting links for non-trusted sites that are not doing them any favours. Use real sites where you can get your links on real pages not SEO’d sites.

Manuallinkbuilding.co.uk have been working with clients in the UK and internationally for the last 4 years on successful link building campaigns. We have the experience of working with many Link Building partners across the world, allowing us to distinguish between the good ones and bad ones, saving you the nightmare. we are now the Link Building partner of choice for many of the UK’s largest SEO companies.

So if you are looking for assistance with your Link Building campaign and need someone who can give you sound advice, try using manuallinkbuilding.co.uk where you can choose from the range of packages and services we offer to suit your business needs!

Businesses recognise the importance of their website ranking high on the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing in order to increase traffic volume and therefore the number of potential customers.

Employing an SEO copywriter can help majorly with the content of your site, ensuring that it is conveying the right message to the search engines. They have the knowledge when it comes to the central message and search engine algorithms to assist with the ranking of your site using relevant keywords that individuals are searching for when looking for a business like yours.

Search engine ranking

As you are probably already aware, the major search engines send out crawlers on a daily basis to search the Internet and index your web pages for the relevant keywords. In order for your business to have a successful presence online, you need lots of traffic form as many search engines as possible.

Getting ranked on the first page of the search engines is no big deal; the important thing is that you have got there because of the right keywords used in your site. By choosing a well-trained SEO copywriter, you can be ensured that your website will not be loaded with needless keywords that are not going to help it be found on the search engines.

Quality content

There needs to be a balance between producing good content for both human visitors and for the search engines. Compelling content on your website is likely to sell your business to visitors however, if particular focus is paid only to the content of search engine algorithms then this will generate very little traffic and business for you. Both need to be equally catered for and if you want your business to be successful on the Internet, you need to choose a SEO copywriter, not just a copywriter.

Looking for a quality SEO Copywriter?

Here at manuallinkbuilding.co.uk, we employ native English SEO copywriters with journalism degrees and years of experience in writing compelling content for clients’ websites.

It is important to trust your SEO copywriter and you can be sure that we can provide you with a quality service.

If you would like more information on our SEO Copywriting and SEO link building services, please contact us and we will be happy to provide you with the information you need.

The key to the success of your website and business is getting your site to rank high in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Google now accounts for 70% of online searches so it is important to consider how search engine optimisation and Link Building can help your website rank highly.

Google doesn’t rank whole websites; it ranks the pages that it knows. Many business people put a huge amount of effort into promoting their homepage and this is the reason why so many homepages are ranked highly. The two most important factors to consider when raising the profile of your website are:

• 1. The content of the webpage and how relevant it is to what the individual is searching for

• 2. The inbound links that are being used to direct traffic to your website from other places on the Internet and how relevant they are.

Relevant search results

Google’s object is to provide search results that relevant to what the individual is searching for. It is therefore vital that you make it clear what your website is selling and who your target audience is for Google to understand this. In order to do this, you need to carefully design the web pages of your site to include the search terms that people would use when looking for a business like yours.

Once you have completed the content of your site, the next step is to promote it. Many business fail when it comes to promoting their websites, after putting in a lot of hard work and effort into the content and design work, therefore it ranks poorly. As with many entrepreneurs, they think that once they start a business, hundreds of people will come flocking and will buy what they are selling.

In reality this does not happen. Promoting and marketing the business, play a vital role in how successful the business will be.

A website can be seen as a shop front, and shop owners do their best to attract passing trade. View your website as a shop front and do your best to promote your services so you will rank high on the search engines for search terms related to your business. This will be the difference between gained a steady stream of customers and wondering why you have received no interest at all!

SEO Link Building

Another key to the success of your website is Link Building for search engine optimisation. As previously mentioned, the inbound links that are being used to direct traffic to your website can dictate the volume of the traffic that visits. These links need to be of high quality and be relevant to the nature of your business. The more links that you have to your site, the more traffic you will receive and a really simple way of building links is to get friends, family or colleagues to add a link for your website to their site or blog. In addition, you can also use social bookmarking, and produce articles and press releases to be submitted to online directories to boost numbers.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the method used to rank a website highly on the major Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Considering the size of the World Wide Web (WWW), it may seem an impossible task to have your website ranked above those of your competitors.

SEO is a time consuming strategy however, with a lot of work and commitment, your website can be ranked highly on the Search Engines. The higher that your site is ranked, the more traffic that will be routed to it, therefore increasing the number of potential customers you will have.

SEO is a complex strategy and there are many different factors that are crucial in raising the profile of your website. Broken down simply, there are two main processes to SEO:

• 1. On Page Optimisation

The first is on-page optimisation which is the process used to optimise the website itself, and secondly off-page optimisation.

• 2. Off Page Optimisation

The second is the strategy concerned with the external environment of the website such as building links through manual Directory Submission.

Manual Directory Submission is vitally important if you want the ‘Crawlers’ or ‘Spiders’ of the major Search Engines to find your website and rank it highly above your competitors. These are sent out on a daily basis to find new websites or websites with fresh content, and work by finding the inbound links to your website.

Web directories are free to submit your website on so the more that you submit to, the more chance your website has of being highly visible for your chosen keywords of phrases related to the nature of your business.

If you’re interested in dramatically increasing the visibility and online presence of your company, get in touch with us today and ask about our SEO services.

If you want a cost effective solution to raise the rankings of your website on the major Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing, it is vital that you submit your website to as many web directories as possible.

Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo! send out “Crawlers” or “Spiders” on a daily basis to search the Internet for new website content. If you have a new website and want it to be found by the Search Engines, it is important that its links are being found through SEO friendly directory sites.

The majority of web directories provide one-way links that help with the SEO aspects of your website. How well your site is ranked on the Search Engines depends on the number of inbound links it has. Unlike two-way links that are exchanged with other sites, one-way links are more valued by the Search Engines when ranking it for a given position.

Web directories can help majorly when it comes to using specific keywords or phrases for your website to be found. This is not an easy task but directories allow you to provide these keywords to help Search Engines favour your site over others with similar search terms.

The common misconception is that people believe by submitting their website to many directories they will receive plenty of traffic to their site. There are some directories that are able to provide traffic; however, it is for certain categories.

Important Factors with Web Directory Submissions

The most important factor of submitting your website to web directories is that it is a cost effective solution. As it is free to submit your site, it makes sense to submit to as many directories as possible, therefore increasing your chances of being ranked highly on the Search Engines.

The problem is; it’s a time-consuming process! This is why it’s worth considering the outstanding manual submission services that we have to offer, saving you the time and trouble. We employ a team of dedicated and experienced professionals to ensure that your website is submitted to all the top quality SEO friendly directories.

Do you know how many people visit your website each day? Is it tens, hundreds, or even thousands?

Whatever the number, there are many different methods you can use to increase it.

Advertising is probably the most important thing you can do for your website, but…

What are the best advertising methods and how do you go about using them?

Well, imagine a TV advert. The advert has cost thousands of pounds to create, but there isn’t a spare TV slot in which to present it. How do people get to hear about the product? The chances are that they won’t. And this is the same for your website. You have put in all the effort of creating an eye-catching and engaging site, but if people don’t know about it they will never visit.

The importance of SEO to your website

SEO is a big thing right now and looks set to stay. With so many websites struggling to rank highly on the search engines, search engine optimisation is key for making sure you stay ahead of the crowd.

There are numerous methods you can use to keep your website ranking high on Google and other search engines, but you do need to work hard and keep your content and SEO methods up to date and fresh. As a website owner you are responsible for making sure that web traffic continues to flow and at an increased rate. The only way you can do this is by employing several clever SEO methods.

For example, you could promote your site by writing articles that focus on your particular niche. By imparting invaluable and informative information to your readers you will have more chance of them wanting to know more by visiting your site. All you need to do is supply a link to your site within the article and you have your audience right there.

Other SEO Techniques

Other methods of SEO include link building and social networking. Link Building involves the link to your site being added to other like-minded websites. This usually works in a mutually beneficial way by you also placing the other party’s link on your site. After a while you can build up many hundreds of websites that contain your link. However, you need to be selective and only choose high quality sites that are relevant to your site’s content.

Implementing SEO on your website

SEO doesn’t need to be taxing and you can even choose to employ SEO experts to assist you in this area. This is sometimes a good idea if you like to focus on the business whilst somebody else handles the administration and advertising.

The most important thing is that you do something and with so much competition out there, you need to do it well. Keep ahead of the latest SEO Manchester trends and employ some of them for your website and you are doing something positive that will help to generate that extra traffic.

Using Google Maps to Market your Business

It used to be that when people wanted a local business or service provider they grabbed the
yellow pages.

Well not any more… over 65% use the internet – are you missing out?

REMEMBER this service will work for any business even if you do not have a website.

• No business address is required

• No Pagerank

• No SEO

• No PPC

• No Back links

For marketers and businesses, Google Maps is an extension of SEO.

For businesses targeting a local customer base, Google Maps may be a more important source of traffic than traditional organic SEO or pay per click marketing.

Lawyers, doctors, hotels and restaurants are all examples of businesses that need a presence on Google Maps to stay competitive.

What is Google Maps Advertising?

Google maps attempts to identify businesses close in location to the searcher. If I need a lawyer and search for “lawyer” or I want a pizza and I search for “pizza”, and I am based in Manchester, it is likely that a business down the road will be much more relevant than a lawyer in London or America!! For certain searches, local results are better.

How does Google know I want a Local Business?

There seems to be at least two conditions that need to be satisfied for Google Maps to be triggered:

• The search phrase must contain a city name

e.g, London Lawyer, Doctor in Manchester, etc.

• The search is for a business-related item.

You can’t just search for “Manchester X” or “X Manchester”. X has to match a database of words. Lawyer, surgeon, pizza, hotels are all business-related, so Google Maps triggers if you enter one of these phrases. “Manchester Cityscape” does not trigger Google Maps.

What Does This Have to do With My Business?

Submitting your business to Google Maps can help you gain visibility when people perform these “local searches”.
If people see you on Google Maps, they could click through to your website and end up as customers.

This has to be the easiest search optimisation technique to use to help market your business. Obviously, the “trick” is to do it right.

Your business here - Just like this one

You only get seen if you are in positions A-J (the top 10).

The Problem with Google Maps Advertising

Google is resigned to the fact that Google maps are the domain of marketers. As such, they have enforced very strict rules against attempts to optimise Google Maps.

More than any other area of search marketing, it is better for you to be conservative – no keyword stuffing, no capitals

Submit a map, or employ us to submit a Google Map for you.

If you still desire more visibility, and wish to be aggressive in your marketing, look into altering your SEO and PPC efforts.
We recommend you employ us to ensure your Google Maps advertising is done correctly. We know all the tips and tricks required to ensure you are in the top 10 of the Google Maps listings.

What we need from you

First of all, we need you to purchase this product. We charge just £49.99 + VAT per Google Maps submission and we can do a few in different areas (we can cover this with you post purchase)
You can buy the Google Maps Advertising package by clicking here

We will then need the following information via email –

• Full name and address

• Name of business / website

• Mobile or landline number we can use to get listing verified

• Location you wish to be promoted in. City / Town etc.

• Key words or phrases you associate with your business

Once we have all these details we can submit the details to Google and start driving traffic to your website.

Any questions, give us a call on 0161 928 8799 or email us here

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.

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.