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Expert Voices #3 Search Engine Optimisation Mini Tips (Part 2)

Expert Voices is the Teimlo blog entry series dedicated to sourcing expert knowledge for our readers and customers. Please read, enjoy, share and comment.

Search Engine Optimisation Mini Tips (Part 2) is part of an introduction to SEO from expert Joel Hughes of Jo-Jet, a leading Web developer and online marketing expert. It follows from Part 1.

Google ain't stupid...

If something sounds stupid then it probably is...

If someone says to you “if you add lots of these links in to your website, you'll get to the top of
Google, guaranteed!!” then a knee jerk reaction will be “wahooo! Top of Google here I come!” but,
with a calmer assessment, it quickly becomes obvious that such a claim does not make sense.
Google aren't stupid. They want to return relevant search results to their users.

...but they can get angry!

If Google think you are trying to gain unfair advantage (e.g. vast tracks of hidden text on your
website in a vain aim to show one set of content to search engines and one set to regular visitors)
then Google can penalise you. Don't believe me? Ask BMW!

Again Google are very clear on their policy and guidelines here:

"Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users,
which is commonly referred to as 'cloaking'," Google says

Trying to pull the wool over Google's eye is a wasted effort. They are smarter than you and me – we
guarantee that! Your best bet is to concentrate your effort on producing really killer content which
your users will engage with. Hire the services of a reputable web design company who really want
to engage with your target audience and know how to follow the Google guidelines.

Thanks Joel

Yes we are human - new gallery

Teimlo is pleased to announce that it's staff, customers, suppliers and friends are human beings, not just cogs in a web-site wheel.

"When I grow up I want to..." is something we all dream about. In our new gallery, our friends and community share their dreams, from wanting to marry Brad Pitt, to wanting to be a rock star. Keep in touch as the gallery grows and feel free to comment.

Expert Voices #2 Search Engine Optimisation Mini Tips (Part 1)

Expert Voices is the Teimlo blog entry series dedicated to sourcing expert knowledge for our readers and customers. Please read, enjoy, share and comment.

Search Engine Optimisation Mini Tips (Part 1) is part of an introduction to SEO from expert Joel Hughes of Jo-Jet, a leading Web developer and online marketing expert.

Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO for short) is one of those many topics surrounding computers
and the Internet which is shrouded in mystery and intrigue!

People who own websites typically want to "get to the top of Google" and, therefore, there is a hot
market for businesses selling services attempting to fulfil that need. Some services are good but,
unfortunately, more often than not the service is ineffective at best and down right damaging at
worst. To understand why we need a quick five minute boot camp on how search engines (such as
Google) work...

Search Engine Boot Camp

If you type "south wales locksmith" into Google, it will return listings of websites in reverse order
with the most relevant first. How Google define "relevant" is obviously secret as, if it were public
knowledge, spammers would use it to try to gain unfair advantage in the listings.

Some shady outfits even try to second guess or "reverse engineer" how a search engine decides
what is relevant in an effort to uncover a hidden gem which they can make money on – the ultimate
irony here is that Google already disclose the low down on what you need to do!

Google's Guidelines

Google publish a set of common sense guidelines.

A very brief summary of the guidelines would be: produce engaging and interesting content which
people will find of value or, in Google's words:

"Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your
content."

Everything starts from the content - if it's not interesting or relevant in the first place then no
amount of trickery or other techniques will make up for that.

Another killer piece of advice from Google is:
“Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually
includes those words within it.”

It sounds completely obvious and common sense (and, in truth, most good SEO is basically
common sense) but you would be amazed how many times this advice is not followed. To put it
simply, if you have a website which sells “air conditioning units for hotels” then your website copy
(the text) needs to reflect this. However, avoid the urge to repeat such phrases so often that the copy,
when read out loud, doesn't really flow – Google can easily see through such tricks!

Following on from this Google say:
“Make sure that your <title> elements and alt attributes are descriptive and accurate”
The person who writes your pages will know how to alter this – this is a killer place on your
webpage in terms of SEO. Following on from our previous example this could be “Whamo Ltd Air
conditioning – servicing air conditiong units for hotels, restaurants and gyms all over South Wales
including Cardiff, Newport and Swansea”.

Keep watching as Part 2 will be published shortly.

Cool Stuff #9 Bubbl.us

Cool stuff is Teimlo’s blog series to help you out by telling you about useful websites and applications that can help you and your business.

Bubbl.us (bubbl.us) is a free online brainstorming tool that lets you create quick and easy mindmap type diagrams. These can be embedded in blogs and websites, exported as pictures, shared with friends and emailed.

Joel uses bubbl.us to create sitemaps quickly without all of the complexity of the more specialist programmes.  Great idea.

Teimlo derives no financial benefit from featuring Bubbl.us in this series. If Bubbl.us is useful to you please comment and/or share this entry.

Cool Stuff #8 Sprout

Cool stuff is Teimlo’s blog series to help you out by telling you about useful websites and applications that can help you and your business.

Sprout (sproutbuilder.com) is the quick and easy way for anyone to build, publish, and manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more. Any size, any number of pages. Include video, audio, images and newsfeeds and choose from dozens of pre-built components and web services. You can embed your sprouts on any Website or leading social media sites, including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Friendster, Blogger, Typepad and more.

Sprout is currently in Beta – but boy is it cool.

Teimlo derives no financial benefit from featuring Sprout in this series. If Sprout is useful to you please comment and/or share this entry.

Cool Stuff #7 Animoto

Cool stuff is Teimlo’s blog series to help you out by telling you about useful websites and applications that can help you and your business.

Animoto (animoto.com) allows you to upload pictures from your computer or from Facebook or Flickr, pick a backing track that either you own or from their free library and Animoto will turn it into a video for you. This is an automated process that can be done in minutes, with the resulting video being exportable to YouTube, emailable, etc. To download costs $3 per video or $30/year.

Free, but a small charge for  building over 30 second videos or commercial ones.

Teimlo derives no financial benefit from featuring Animoto in this series. If Animoto is useful to you please comment and/or share this entry.

Cool Stuff #6 Scrapblog

Cool stuff is Teimlo’s blog series to help you out by telling you about useful websites and applications that can help you and your business.

Scrapblog (scrapblog.com) allows you to create personalised scrapbooks from photos and video direct from your desktop or social networking sites and combine them in a very customizable manner and then share with friends or post back to popular sites. Scrapblog functionality is free.

You can also have your scrapbook printed from as little as $9.99 plus shipping.

Teimlo derives no financial benefit from featuring Scrapblog in this series. If Scrapblog is useful to you please comment and/or share this entry.