Search Engine Optimization SEO Blog

More SEO Tools on the way...

2010-03-02T02:52:00.000-08:00

We've recently added a range of free to use SEO Tools to our website at Critical-SEO.

We've got backlink checkers, website speed test, html optimization, page rank predictors, link value checkers and many more SEO Tools that are available without registration and free to use.

If you have the time and the patience, search engine optimization tools can be a cheap and effective means of optimizing your own website using your own methods, but they shouldn't be relied on entirely to provide the most accurate results.

At Critical-SEO we offer a comprehensive and tailored report that provides you with step by step instructions of the things you need to change to get your website climbing higher in the search engine rankings.

Our professional grade software will provide you with a comprehensive SEO Report that you can download and act upon right away.

If yo're not ready for a comprehensive report yet, then our free range of SEO Tools should be of great use to your early SEO endeavours.

SEO Course - Part 3 - The Value of Links

2010-02-26T05:18:00.000-08:00

In part 2 of our SEO taster course, we discussed on page optimization and how it's quite easy to 'overdo' your keyword density, which can ultimately look like a 'spammy' page to the search engines. Even worse, it will not read well and can put your readers off from ever visiting your website again.

It's not easy writing copy that is both interesting to the reader and also attractive to search engines and some major corporations are turning to technology, rather than professional writers, to produce their copy.

Yes, you heard correct, some major corporations such as Thomson Financial for example, have publicly admitted to using computer software or 'robots' to write the content for their web pages!

Efficient, accurate, fast and unbelievably cheap, the software can churn out ready to use news stories and articles in a fraction of a second and at a cost so low, it's just about cost free.

For reasons such as this, search engines have to look beyond content to assess the true value of a website to it's searchers.

So how do they do this?

The answer is simple - by examining the links pointing to your website.

Google use a very sophisticated link analysis as an integral part of their algorithms. It's about quality as opposed to quantity. If you've got a bunch of what Google sees as high quality websites linking to yours, then the higher Google is likely to rank your website.

It's important to note that all links are not the same and it's a pointless exercise to continually exchange links with other low ranking websites. Having hundreds of links pointing to your website from poor quality websites is likely to do your website more harm than good. It's far more productive to target your efforts on obtaining links from high quality websites.

If you can get links from .edu, .gov and relevant directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo, then you're well on your way to a high ranking website.

Google trusts websites such as these and if trusted websites are linking to your, guess what? Google passes some of that trust on to you and will reward you for it with an increasing Page Rank.

Now, that's not to say you should reject links from low ranking websites, because, who knows, that website may grow and increase in Page Rank itself and therefore benefit you more in the future. But, it is very important that the websites that link to you are 'relevant' to the theme of your website.

So, to summarize, links to your website, from other trusted and relevant websites are a very important factor in gaining a high ranking website.

Our SEO Report will show you how to do this and will highlight exactly who is linking to your main competitor's website. Moreover it will show you how to go about obtaining the same links back to your website.

We'll take another look at linking in the next part of our SEO Course and you'll discover an easy way to get high quality links to your website.

Happy SEOing!

SEO Course - Part 2 - On Page SEO

2010-02-10T01:21:00.000-08:00

Critical-SEO - Part 2 - On Page SEO

How does it feel when your website drops from position 1 on Google, to position 1,000 overnight?

Can you imagine the impact that that would have on your business? From great success to literally nothing - overnight! Your income and livelihood gone!

That's what happened to many websites back in November 2003 when Google carried out a major update to their search relevancy algorithm. This update, which since became known as the Florida update, caught tens of thousands of website owners across the world by surprise.

Before the Florida update, most succesful websites were search keyword rich, using their most relevant keywords and keyword phrases heavily throughout their web pages in order to rank highly for those words.

As always, it doesn't take Google long to catch on to any techniques that were put in place simply to improve search engine rankings, rather than being there for enhanced user experience. In other words, Google perceived the over use of keywords as 'spammy' and penalized websites for over optimizing by dropping them way down the Google index.

This was a great move for enhancing user experience of websites, which is after all what the internet is about, but it still came as a big surprise for many website owners.

So where were they going wrong?

Google identified that keyword density is not an effective measure of the website's relevancy, so excessive repetition of keywords or phrases no longer became an effective SEO strategy. Use keywords too agressively and, guess what, you're moving DOWN in the rankings.

So the use of keywords is vital, but also the way you incorporate them into your web pages is just as critical.

It's important to mix up your keyword usage to seem as natural as possible. So for example, if your page title is 'Mercedes Specialists - Maintenance and Servicing' then perhaps your page title should be something like 'Specialising in all models of Mercedes cars'.

What's the difference you may ask? Well, there's a big difference in using your keywords in a varied and natural manner, rather than construction your sentences simply to contain the phrase 'Mercedes Specialists' over and over again. Google will recognize this as spamming and penalise you for it.

Remember, you can use singular and plural forms of your keywords, change the order of the keyword phrases, use synonyms and generally change words and phrases to appear more natural.

Of course, if you're constructing a genuine and useful website, this will come naturally as you put your words on the page.

Our SEO Report gets right down to the nitty gritty of the keywords on your website and will show you exactly where you are going wrong and where you are doing things right.

In the next part, we'll look at how Google makes it's decisions on who's going to be number one in it's index.

Happy SEOing!

SEO Course - Keywords

2010-02-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

Critical-SEO - Day 1 - Keywords

Search engine marketing never ceases to amaze me and must be considered as one of the most amazing business opportunities of recent times. It's the simple reason that Google is worth over a hundred billion dollars.

When a single click of a mouse, hovered over a Google AdWords advert can net Google as much as $50, it's easy to see why.

One click from one user - Google gets $50 !

When you consider all the millions of internet users throughout the world, it's no wonder Google has such a profitable business model.

Search engine marketing is a world apart from traditional advertising, such as TV commercials, newspaper adverts, leaflets etc., due to one unique fact. Whereas traditional advertising uses a sledgehammer to crack a nut, search engine marketing is highly targeted to specific search keywords.

For example, if your business sells 'pink giraffes', when a searcher searches the internet, (usually via Google) for 'pink giraffes', lo and behold up pop's your advert for 'pink giraffes' right in front of the searchers eyes! Brilliant!

You're not doing a leaflet drop of 5,000 homes hoping 0.5% of the residents will actually be looking for a pink giraffe, your prospective customer has actually made a specific effort to find you and if you are amongst the first few results for the keywords 'pink giraffes' on Google, there's no doubt that you are going to pick up a majority share in whatever business for pink giraffes is out there.

SEO allows you to tap into the value of search - it's a whole lot easier when customers come hunting for you, rather than you having to hunt for them, especially when you can provide exactly what they're looking for.

Reverting back to the $50 click I mentioned earlier, it's easy to see why getting to the top of the search engines naturally (rather than having to pay) is far more profitable than paid advertising.

It's why we developed SEO Report, to provide the exact information that is needed for the ordinary person/business owner etc. to be able to compete with the big boys when it comes to optimizing websites. It doesn't matter if you're running your business out of a spare bedroom at your house - if you're amongst the first results on Google for your relevant keywords, then you can possibly generate as much business as some of the leading players in your field.

SEO is not rocket science, but you do need to tread very carefully. One simple change can lead to success or disaster, so it's important that you know what you are doing. If you get it exactly right, then it's no false claim to say that keywords can make millionaires.

So, identify your keywords, optimize your website, keep track of your progress and within a relatively short amount of time, you should be profiting from SEO.

In Part 2 of our SEO Course we'll take a look at on-page optimization and discover how it's so easy to accidentally be seen as 'spammy'.

Happy SEOing,

Bryan Morris
http://www.Critical-SEO.com

Lifting the Lid Off SEO

2010-02-08T03:09:00.000-08:00

Well, we finally thought it's time that somebody lifted the lid off the secret world of SEO.

OK, SEO isn't strictly a secret world, in fact there's lots of great information out there (not least from Google themselves) on how to optimise your website to best effect, but putting into practice all the information that you read can be a daunting task. That's why we started Critical SEO.

As we've been using the latest SEO techniques very successfully for many years, it suddenly dawned on us that there's so many people out there who have their own websites and would love to get them to the best possible position on the major search engines, but without paying thousands of pounds to SEO companies.

You've got the ability to change and edit your website, but may not have the knowledge to understand and make the correct changes that so critically affect the search engine positioning of your website. So, if we can provide you with the exact changes you need to make to your website, leave it up to you to make those changes, then I believe we've got a recipe for success.

Our SEO report tells you what to do - you do it - your website moves up the rankings, perfect!

Not only that, you may just like to know what the main competitors to your website are up to. We'll reveal full details of your competitors also and show you how you can leave them in your wake.

We're very excited about Critical SEO, there's not many SEO companies out there who are prepared to divulge the SEO techniquest they use and we think that's unfair. Having learnt the hard way ourselves, we're on your side and we'd love to help get your website on the first page of Google and I'm sure so would you.

Happy SEOing!