No one would deny that Google and Bing are two of the most used sites on the web – (on Alexa Google ranks 1st Bing is 11th) – but the people that use them vary…

Google and Bing Demographics

1. Bing’s audience is older and tends to have 35+ old individuals using it, however, the 55-64 group favours it
2. Bing receives 40% of its traffic from the US and Google gets 34%.
3. Bing has an increasing number of users in China (Bing’s 2nd largest users) – and don’t forget that Google has had problems in the past with China (posted on 14th January 2010)
4. Because of point 1 above, Bing users have more children than Google’s due to the age difference. According to Alex, Google users are less likely to have children

If you’re into PPC (pay per click) then you’ll be delighted to hear that Bing users are more likely to click on PPC ads

So, when you look at Alexa’s data, Bing’s users are older, more likely to live in the US, respond better to PPC and more likely to have children.

However, Bing users will tend to be more affluent – as older individuals are more likely to be better off financially but because of they have more children it possibly means that they have less disposable income.

Why is this?

It doesn’t need a degree to understand that, probably, the main reason is that Bing is the default search engine for Internet Explorer. However, what is interesting is that people that either switch the default search engine or use a different browser generally prefer Google.

Could this then mean that Bing users are less ‘tech-savvy’ than Google users? – ‘Only Smarties have the answer…‘

And finally… should you target Bing users?

Well, if you product or service is aimed at the type of people highlighted above then taking the time to optimise your site for Bing could well be worth the time investment.

But don’t ignore Google completely! Google has the greater market share and even if the Bing user demographic ticks all your boxes you’d definitely find other relevant people using Google – it’s just that they make up a smaller percentage.

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I was having a chat with someone today and the topic of ‘how should I write for the web?’ came up so I thought I’d just make what I talked about into a quick blog…

On Page SEO Elements

Together, the following elements are known as ‘onpage’ seo – and, if your website is ‘static html’ then they are manually coded into each page by the programmer/web manager. But if you have a dynamic website i.e. Database driven where you’ll have an administration access panel to create, manage publish content then the following elements ‘should’ be created [automatically] by the system but can be manually edited if required…

The important point to remember is that each of the onpage seo elements need to be unique…!

1. Title tag – Google loves title tags, so make sure that your keyword is in here. This will also appear as the link in the search results.

2. Header tags

h1- only one of these per page. Google puts a lot of emphasis on the h1 tag – so ensure that your main keyword appears in here.

Then you can use as many of the following tags for subsequent headings: h2, h3, h4, h5 and h6. The only difference between them are their default font sizes: e.g. The h2 tag is largest font size and h6 is the smallest. However default sizes can be changed …

I personally use h2 tags for my subsequent headings and then occasionally use h3s when I need a further sub heading within a main section – if you get what I mean…

3. Bold tags, Italic tags, Underline tags – are not only great to let search engines know that your content is relevant but they are great to encourage people to keep reading – as they stand out from the rest of the copy on a page.

I use them to highlight the keyword I’m targeting on the page.

NOTE: just an aside, people only read 15-20% of the copy that is on a web page so keep it as punchy as possible and if you have to have ‘more copy’ on a page – then use the bold, italics, or underline to grab the readers attention…

4. Keyword repeat rate – after the first paragraph remember to repeat your keyword every 100 words.

5. Keyword prominence – is all about keyword balance and is where many online writers fall down. To keep it simple, ensure that you have your keyword in every paragraph that you write (and keep in mind the keyword repeat rate)

6. Meta description – this is what shows up in the search engine results – and will ultimately act as a key decision element for the searcher when deciding which search result to click.

And finally…

So just to sum up, if you’re working with a web developer, let them do the coding elements of the on page seo – but just remember to check that they are following the rules above by making all the elements unique. This then leaves you to take care of the following:

- Keyword in your title
- Keyword in 1st para
- Keyword in 2nd para (then repeat keyword every 100 words)
- Keyword in last para

Hope the above makes sense let me know if you have any questions

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There’s a lot of talk online at the moment relating to Google’s ‘Instant Search’, and I’ve received a fair few questions from clients and friends asking what the implications are from an SEO perspective; to the extent that I thought a quick blog post might be the order of the day…

What is Google Instant Search?

Google Instant Search is a form of Incremental Search – or ‘search-as-you-type‘ that starts producing ‘suggested results’ as soon as you start typing – basically it guesses/pre-empts what you’re trying to search for, which Google thinks it will deliver matching results faster.

But before we go into the ins and outs of it, ‘search as you type‘ isn’t new, infact Yahoo did something very similar back in 2006:

And Microsoft (i.e. Bing) have been developing an enhanced search experience using HTML and Apple’s Safari 5 browser:

Google Instant Search: SEO/SEM implications

For years now, Google have been advising site owners/managers/SEOs to optimise for the longtail as that’s where conversions take place: not just for organic listings but also for Google Adwords (PPC – pay per click) so my immediate thought was that we have to go back and start optimising again for the ‘short tail’ keyword because the search results change dynamically as you’re typing!

This particularly effects PPC as the sponsored links also change and there (at least at the moment) are more sponsored links than before. What impact will this have? More revenue for Google through Adwords listings and an increase in PPC costs for advertisers as keywords bids become more competitive. But from a usability perspective, we now have to go through 5-6 times more PPC ads than we had to before in order to find the actual results that we were looking for: this is because Google Instant Search performs a new query with every time you type a different letter and changes the sponsored links to reflect this.

From an organic search result perspective, if an individual didn’t want to click on a sponsored link then they now have to scroll a lot further down to find a relevant result. But more so than before because websites will have to compete against so many more search verticals (news, shopping, video, images etc) and from a variety of different sectors…

But doesn’t this defeat the whole purpose of Google Instant?

There will undoudtedly be an increase in costs (expanentially) for companies that want to get their website to appear as early as possible within the dynamic search result listings – and this may cause a return to the days of ‘keyword stuffing‘

And finally…

I don’t think this is the best Google update we’ve ever seen – in fact I’d go as far to say that it’s a bit of a false starter… I can see Google Instant Search benefitting those people that have never used a search engine before however for the majority of us that know how to use a search engine, in my honest opinion, makes it complete a distraction.

The ‘Instant’ search results have so much more emphasis on sponsored links, which begs the question, is the the main aim of this update actually to increase Google’s Adwords revenue rather than to enhance the users search experience?

Personally, I don’t need Google to search for things that are of no interest whatsoever to me, I don’t like to be interrupted whilst I’m typing and when I use Google Instant Search it feels like Bart Simpson asking Homer, “Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair? Can we go to the fair?” …. ARGHHHHHHH!

Displaying new search results again every time a new character is definitely a Bart Simpson moment… but that is purely my subjective opinion… The good news is that Google Instant Search only works if you’re logged into your Google account and I suspect that not many people are logging into or have a google account. But this can also be turned off. Google Instant Search also doesn’t work when a person is searching directly from the browser search field…

As always, happy to be challenged and educated

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How To Make Every Keyword Count

Today keywords are almost a currency in their own right; as long as you’re in the top 3 positions on SERPs (search engine results pages) that is!

But unless you have more money and time to know what to do with it, some keywords will be out of reach i.e. keywords like ‘consultant’, ‘media consultant’, ‘mentor’, ‘marketing mentor’, ‘coach’ or ‘life coach’ etc

Keywords like these are very generic – top level – and people that use them are generally information gathering and are not really looking to make a decision…

And if you were in the top 3 positions on Google for similar keywords, you could have potentially a large amount of traffic visiting a specific page on your site, you would see a very low conversion rate.

So what’s the answer?

Longtail Keywords

If I use one of the examples from above to explain, I think the concept would be easier to grasp:

Take a ‘top level’ keyword like ‘Life Coach’ and put it into Google: there’s about 58 million results! This is an ‘approximate’ measure of the amount of sites competing globally for the same keyword…

However, change it to ‘Life coach UK’ and the number of results drops dramatically to 3,980,000 … which is better but still too much competition

But if we made the example keyword search term

‘NLP life coach Hampstead London’ the competition drops to 2,030 – much better

Now, armed with that information and the number of local people looking for that search term on a monthly basis – using Google’s Keyword Tool you’ll in a better position to get some targeted traffic.

…And finally

if you want to see how many of your competitors are optimising a page on their site for any given keyword term then use this:

allintitle:your keyword (note: no space after the ‘:’

To find the right keywords to optimise for can take time, I can easily spend a whole day finding golden nuggets for clients and cone up with about 30-40 thousand phrases, which each have approx 100 to 200 searches per day … that may not sound a lot of traffic by themselves however put all searches together and hey presto – watch the number of people visiting your site rocket ..!

But remember to use each keyword in your page title, heading tags and in your content to let the search engines know that that page is relevant to what people are searching for…

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META Description

Over the years META tags have been abused by many in order to try and manipulate search results. But in doing so many sites have been blacklisted. The importance of good META can’t be stressed enough and in this part of my mini series on SEO, I want to discuss why taking the time to write good META Descriptions in your site will help you stand out from the crowd and drive traffic to your site.

Don’t use the same META Description for everypage

I see so many websites using the same Meta Description on every single page, and the only reason I can think of why they do this is to save time. But if you wrote the same Twitter post everyday – with same wording – but the only thing that you changed was the link, would you click it? The time it takes to create good META Description isn’t the important factor here. The important point is that if you don’t create good META Descriptions people won’t click through to your site! And if that happens then you’ve wasted all that time writing excellent content…

Don’t be tempted by thinking “Any META description is better than nothing at all” – it’s not…! Why? Because the search result for every page on your site will come out looking the same. This is definately not what you want – you want your site to cover a range of topics and search phrases, and having a zillion pages that look the same is just asking for Google to treat them as duplicate content!

If you can’t create a unique META Description for every single page leave it blank and let the search engines create it from your page content. This isn’t all that bad as search engines do an ok job of creating relevant snippets. So you should only replace this snippet if you are going to be improving it.

META Descriptions are vital

Why? Because if you have ‘relevant’ META Descriptions for each page of your site or blog then search engines like Google will use this within the search results rather than creatingtheir own from your page content. Try to see it like Twitter (micro-content): in about 140 characters can you sum up what your page is about enough to convince the person reading it that the link to your page will give them all the information they need?

Search Phrase

In order to encourage search engines to use your META Description you’ll need to include the search phrase that people are using in there. Write first and foremost for the searcher so remember you’re trying to get them interested enough to click through to your website.

…And finally

What the above is all about is don’t give your site visitors a reason to leave your site before they actually get there in the first place!

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Page <title> & how it helps increase search engine visibility

This is part 3 of 8 of my mini series on SEO. Currently, people use search engines the most to discover websites that contain the most relevant content that they’re looking for. And the ‘Search’ function is also the most used ways site visitors navigate around individual websites. So what is surprising is that page titles are in fact one of the main ‘tools’ to attract new visitors from search engine results and help your site visitors find the exact pages that they need.

The page <title> tag is an HTML code and is almost always used as the clickable headline for listings on search engine result pages (SERPs). It’s sometimes called ‘microcontent’ as search engines typically only show the first 66 characters or so of it. Yet, along with the META Description content, it’s one of key factors that visitors use when deciding whether to click it or not…!

What does a page title look like?

Using Google as an example, the word ‘Google’ at the top is a page title i.e. the wording that appears at the very top of your browser when you’re viewing a website:

But what is important is how you display them on subsequent pages. Remember this, your site or company name is not important to the site visitor – only its content is! So subsequent page titles should first show what the page content is then your site/company name… not the other way around. Again if we use Google as an example, after I enter the search term ‘milk a chicken’, see how the page title changes to ‘milk a chicken – Google Search’

(NOTE: Page titles are also used as the default entry in the Favorites when users bookmark a site. For your homepage only, begin with your/company name, followed by a brief description of the site. Don’t start with words like “The” or “Welcome to” unless you want to be alphabetized under “T” or “W.”)

For all other pages, start the <title> with a few of the most salient information-carrying words that describe the specifics of what users will find on that page – but don’t spam it! Since the page title is used as the window title in the browser, it’s also used as the label for that window in the taskbar, meaning that advanced users will move between multiple windows under the guidance of the first one or two words of each page title. So if all your page titles start with the same words, you’ll reduce usability for your ‘multi-windowing’ users.

If you’re working in a programme like Dreamweaver, then you can set the Page Title by including the following between the <head> </head> section of code:

<title>Enter the title of your page here</title>

But if your using wordpress, for example, then by installing the Platinum SEO plugin you’ll be able to control not only the page title but other key areas on a post by post basis.

That’s it for today… come back tomorrow for part 4 of ‘SEO: No animals were harmed in creating this website’ and I’ll go through META Description

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URLs (Uniform Resource Locator)

Yesterday I wrote the intro to this 8 part mini series on SEO. So without further a do, let’s get stuck straight in.

Firstly, this isn’t a discussion on what static or dynamic URLs are. (If you want to know to the difference then take a look at this aritcle although reading it is not a prerequisite for this post )

What this post is about is how we name our web page URLs can improve our search engine ranking positions.

For example, I’m sure you’ve seen web pages with something like this http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/gen.pl?id=4&view=basic in the address bar… When you look at it you can probably only remember the

a) example.com bit
b) or maybe at a push the /cgi-binbit that comes after

…but then it becomes a bit fuzzy…

Wouldn’t it be easier to remember if it was something like this http://www.example.com/product-info or http://www.example.com/exactly-what-you-eneterd-into-google …?

Well you can do it… and not only is it memorable for the person using it but search engines like Google reference your efforts in the search results.

For example, let’s say I was searching Google for information on dynamic and static URLs, I might enter into Google ‘dynamic static URL‘. This produces quite a few results but the first one displays the following:

Notice the web address in green and the words which are in Green B old www.webconfs.com/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls-article-3.php – Talk about relevancy

This is called SEF or search engine friendly URLs – but how is it done?

Well if your website is an open source CMS (content managed site/system) then you can pretty much bet that someone has written an SEF plugin for it that will take care of business for you. Here are a few links to get you started:

• WordPress
• Joomla
• Drupal

There are others and you need to follow installation or how to instructions when implementing them – but the instructions on what to do are easy enough to follow. However, if in doubt… DON’T DO ANYTHING and ASK

If you have a static website that you’ve created using something like Adobe Dreamweaver – then you don’t need to worry about components or plugins – just save the page you’re working on based on the content of that particular page e.g. http://www.example.com/how-to-milk-a-chicken.html – if milking chickens is your thing… ! Just remember not to use spaces or punctuation between the words use a ‘ - ‘ (dash) to separate them.

Note: This is also better than using an ‘ _ ‘ (underscore) because these can’t be seen when the URL becomes clickable and could be incorrectly written down if your site has links that put an underline beneaththem when the mouse hovers over it e.g. this_is_just_a_test_link

But for whichever type of site you have, if you’re really up on your game, make the URL include what people are actually searching for… which I’ll go over that in Part 4…

See you tomorrow for Part 3 of ‘SEO: No animals were harmed in creating this website‘ – Page Titles

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How many websites do you think are out there that underperform? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Answer… far too many! This is where I tell you about one of my hobbies: I like testing sites to see how they perform against their competitors. I know … I’m a bit sad and I need to get out more – but if you met anyone who knows me they’ll tell you that I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff. Some people read, watch TV… I, err do stuff like this.

Now, the problem is because so many websites fail to attract the right visitors they fail to sell the product or service that they were initially designed to do, so are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard! They sit there in ‘webspace’ like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens – waiting in cryo hoping to be found – basically doing absolutely nothing!

But it doesn’t have to be like that. If the website content is written from the perspective of the person who is looking for it rather than the company’s perspective then you have a visitor magnet…

If you analyse your website, the market space you’re in and your main competitors you’ll be able to tell whether your search engine rankings can be improved. And I put a Cadbury’s Cream Egg on it that they can

If you use organic SEO (search engine optimisation), which involves two different techniques – on-page and off-page – then you’ll find that your site will naturally rise up the search engine rankings.

On-page SEO

This involves optimising the ‘on-page elements’ of a website such as:

• URLs
• Page Titles
• Keywords
• Descriptions
• Headline tags
• Content
• Hyperlink text

Off-page SEO

This involves link building i.e. the number of back links or links back to the website from other ‘relevant’ websites. The higher your link popularity, the higher your page rank (PR) will be and the higher your site will appear in the search engine results.

From an On-Page SEO perspective, websites and their content that are developed from a user perspective (using Organic SEO techniques) are favoured by the search engines like Google because they match what people are searching for and are given a higher priority – as they are seen as being created naturally (not tested on animals).

So for the next 7 days I’m going to review each of the seven areas of On-Page search engine optimisation so you can see what you need to do. Now, it might be that you don’t have the time to personally undertake your own SEO – but then you can use this as a guide to what needs to be done before you contact an SEO specialist (and that wasn’t meant to be a hint…)

So, see you tomorrow for the 2nd part of ‘SEO: No animals were harmed in creating this website – part 2′ …

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Effective search engine optimisation involves many factors. And trying to rank highly within search engine result pages (SERPs) is about providing content that is both relevant and informative; with proper page layout and coding. The coding side is generally taken care of by web developers, however, a lot of consideration should be given to your page headings or specifically the use of heading tags: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6.

Today, I want to focus just on the H1 tag. Although the others can be used to reflect the document structure:

H1 = Chapter Heading
H2 = Section Heading
H3 = Paragraph Heading

(Using this analogy, I suppose I would use H4, H5 and H6 in a cited block of text that contained headings of its own.

An example of the H1 tag in use is the heading I’ve used on this page: “One for your toolbox: Get it into your Head“, used to define the overall content of the page, and for proper layout. to check it click ‘View’ in the browser links at the top of your screen then click Source/Page Source depending on which browser you’re using.)

Although there is no “sure-fire” way to get to the top of search engine results, by understanding the importance of using H1 tags it will go some way to improve your sites visibility within the search engine results.

Firstly, I see a lot of sites that don’t use the H1 tag – as the font size is large, and because of this many site developers compromise site content for aesthetics. However, although, it’s great to have a site that looks the ‘mutt’s nuts’ but if no-one see’s it then … well, you get the idea… And if it’s not seen then your site won’t benefit you or your audience.

Now, just to clarify things, most of what is shown within the search engine result pages (SERPs) is actually indexed by a by a computer, otherwise known as a “robot”, “spider”, or “crawler”. These are only computers that use what you tell them to build a a list of relevant information and display it as results based on what people are requesting. So, if you don’t tell them the right things how can they display the information correctly?

H1 tags inform the robots that it is the top level heading of your page. Try to think of it as a heading in a newspaper or article – it’s the first thing you see right? And when you read it you decide whether it’s of interest to you now or whether you’ll comeback to it later or not at all! If a heading article doesn’t tell you what it’s about within the first few words, you’ll generally turn the page…

This is no different to a search engine spider, in that if the content isn’t engaging, and it doesn’t state exactly why it is there, then it regards it as being of ‘no benefit’ to include it within high ranking search engine results pages (SERPs).

Most search engines, including Google, allow the words used/found within the H1 tag to boost a page’s relevance, so because of this it’s a valuable tool for improving search engine placement.

If you are using wordpress, typepad, posterous, movable type joomla, drupal, E107, plone etc – just to name a few – to manage your websites’ content, then you can select the H1 tag from the drop down menu contained within the post/article editor.

So, if you haven’t been using H1 tags, it’s time to start doing so…

Note: Heading tags represent only a small portion of search engine optimisation and Website usability.

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You’ve written an excellent post, checked it for grammar and spelling errors and now you’re all ready to publish… but STOP… will what you’ve written get listed on the SERPs (search engine results pages? A recurring issue I see, when discussing website content, is that people tend to write from their perspective – not from their audiences!

E.g. if you needed a hip riplacement would you search for ‘hip replacement‘ which produces search results of about 2,420,000 and is clearly aimed at everyday people, or search for ‘innominate replacement‘ which produces search results of about 99,800 clearly aimed at doctors or academics…? Hmmmm……

Identifying the right keywords or search terms that your audience uses takes time, but you should be reviewing them on an on-going basis. You’ll find the process invaluable, provides further understanding of your market and is a key part of SEO (search engine optimisation).

So to help you get started, the following six step process will help you begin to identify what search terms your audience uses:

Keyword six step selection:

1. Mind-Mapping Keywords
   Have a think about all the potential keywords users would/could use when searching for your products or services.
   • Are there unique words or phrases people identify with your brand or market?
   • Remember different markets may have words with different spellings (i.e. optimisation or the American spelling optimization.
   • Add these words and phrases to a list in a spreadsheet

   Note: If you need mind map software you can download ‘Free Mind’ for free – Mac and PC versions

2. Review your competitors
   Think about who your competitors are – either from your knowledge or by entering a keyword on Google, Yahoo or MSN. Then find their websites and add the words they are targeting to the list. You do this by looking at page Titles (which appear right at the top of your browser) and the Meta tags (by viewing the ‘Page Source‘) then add these search terms to your spreadsheet
3. Finding alternative keywords
   Google has a great tool called AdWords Keyword Tool that’s really easy to use. Either enter one keyword or search term or multiple (one per line), select ‘use synonyms’ and enter the CAPTCHA code, then click the big ‘Get Keyword Ideas’. Very quickly you’re presented with a long list of possible keywords
4. Identifying how popular each keyword or key phrase is
   The results are then ordered by popularity by clicking ‘Avg Search Volume’ and downloaded to an excel spreadsheet
5. Analysis
   Remove any keyword search terms that aren’t relevant. TIP: Selecting a not so popular search term may bring valuable business for you, especially if it addresses a niche market
6. …and finally
   Incorporate these keywords into your site content.But don’t overuse them as Search Engines will think that your spamming… But I’ll write a post in the not so distant future to help you on that.

Hope the above helps. But please note that this post is not a decisive list – instead it is intended as an introduction only. There is so much more that can be/must be done but if you have any questions post them in the comments below and I’ll be happy to help out

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