The message was consistently clear from Matt, Google’s advice is for webmasters to produce great sites that have excellent content. Matt specifically mentioned bookmarking and repeat visits, so it is possible that Penguin 2.0 gives greater weight to those sites that encourage repeat visiting.

He also indicated that they were working on ensuring that those sites that are authoritative on a particular subject rank better, and they will also attempt to soften any penalties that were imposed in Penguin 1.0. He mentioned sites that occupy the grey area will perhaps see a higher ranking if they have some positive signals.

those sites that currently occupy the grey area carry a softer penalty than perhaps that was dished out by Penguin 1.0.

Matt gave some goods advice regarding advertorial listings that violate Google’s quality guidelines. Google are working on tweaking their algorithm to ensure that those sites with advertorial content or paid adverts, do not pass pagerank.

Lastly, Matt shared some useful updates that are coming regarding hacked sites and malware. He indicated that Google is becoming better at detecting such sites, and with the updates, communicating with webmasters will improve. He mentioned that more help will be given to webmasters to overcome hacked sites, including a specific area in Webmaster Tools that provide useful URLs that will help webmasters diagnose problems on their sites.

The post Google Penguin 2 Update appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.

It has over 17,00 plugins available, so whatever you want your site to do, from shopping carts, to bespoke forms, it can be done with relative ease and with little cost in comparison to having a bespoke CMS built!

Because it has a CMS, even those without any programming experience can use it with ease. This is absolutely ideal for our clients who don’t really care how it works, they just want to be able to update the site as and when they require with as little effort as possible; but more importantly, they just want a good return on investment.

Here are some of our favourate plugins:

WordPress SEO by Yoast

Google XML Sitemap

SEO Rank Reporter

Simple 301 Redirects

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davidvidgen.co.uk is offering small and medium sized businesses a free SEO friendly professional website when you subscribe to their link building services for just 3 months.

United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland — Free-Press-Release.com– Dec 28, 2012 — Managing Director, David Vidgen wants to give businesses a firm foot on the ladder by ensuring that not only do they have a professional website, but it is a SEO friendly website with quality inbound links. “All too often websites are built that are not SEO friendly, and even those that are, inbound marketing is neglected and the sites never provide a return on investment as they fail to top the search engine results pages.”

Adds David: “I want to set my business apart from other web and SEO companies who just build SEO friendly websites. We all know that in order to appear top of search engine rankings websites need strong links from relevant, trustworthy and authoritative sites, including social media, news, and other sites that occupy the same marketplace. I don’t see the point building a site unless it is going to bring you new customers from the power of search, and to do this you will need to create great content and then tell everyone about it through link building.”

davidvidgen.co.uk is different. I work alone, so I don’t have a ‘specialist team’ working in the background that I’ll hand your account over to once a contract has been executed. I come from a very specialist marketing background, and have been online since 56kb dial-up. I am online everyday, year-round, doing campaigns and studying websites, link relationships, citation and link authority. I personally oversee all web builds and SEO campaigns, therefore you only get the best service.

In November 2012 Google updated its Panda Algorithm. Many websites who had spent significant sums of money on SEO have seen their positions drop overnight from the top of page 1. The update is designed to penalise had those sites who had carried out poor quality link building, with little or no variance in anchor text links. Have you been affected? If so, contact me, and I can rectify this for you.

Because I conduct natural linking strategies, all of the sites I build have maintained or improved their positions. One of my clients recently gained 25 positions overnight, because it has the right inbound marketing strategy with quality content which Google rewards.

davidvidgen.co.uk clients range from small to medium sized companies, with budgets starting from £400. Whatever the size of a client’s company or budget, because each client is personally over seen by David Vidgen they each receive the same high level of customer service that they deserve with long-term relationships.

The post Press Release : Free SEO friendly websites appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.

The update will come as a shock for many just before Christmas, but signals Google’s determination to ensure that it delivers quality search engine results pages.

Earlier in the week some of our clients experienced positive signals, as keyword rankings improved by as much as 25 places. This was timely, as we have conducted extensive work on one particular website, this included: link pruning and the use of the Disavow tool, introducing Google+, Google authorship, and making sure the site carries quality unique content.

The post Google Panda Update appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.

Sticking to one perspective perpetually

This may be good for some very opinionated blogs, but in most cases, it is going to scare off any readers. Try to tell various shades of a story and not just your point of view. Feel free to be biased if you like, but at least try to give your posts some perspective, even if you do not want to add a counter argument.

A lack of useful or detailed posts

You have to write interesting and detailed articles, especially if you are trying to be a source of confident, truthful information. If your articles are short, less detailed, very general and uninformative, it will destroy your blogs usability, credibility and SEO value.

Do not re-hash old trash

Avoid writing content that has been written and rewritten dozens of times by other blogs. Be original and offer your users information that is otherwise unobtainable (if possible). Doing this may actually lead to your blog becoming an authority website.

Ignoring your readers

You have to write articles and put the pleasure of users before yourself. Taking into account your blog post length, style, vocabulary, frequency, attitude, and humor is a good way of figuring out if your blog posts put the user first.

No useful information

If people sign into read your blog and close your blog without finding any useful information, this behavior on a blog is interpreted by Google as “low residence time,” which is a long-term SEO killer.

A lack of linked sources

Getting links to point at your blog is good, but pointing links at external sources is a good way to gain a little bit more credibility. If you make your website devoid of any outside links, you risk lowering your blogs SEO value. Linked external sources are useful for developing certain concepts.

A low return rate

If people are not returning to your blog and are not signing up for your blog, even though you have middle/high traffic numbers, you need to fix the problem. If your blog has a low return rate, its search engine ranking will soon start to fall.

Thinking the users understands you unequivocally

Do not assume that users know what you’re talking about, especially when dealing with highly technical topics. It is not easy–and you do not have to get into specifics for every point, otherwise the post would become long, confusing and tedious for those who already know the technical terms. All you need to do is to find more of a compromise in order to make your article the more understandable for a larger band of users.

Being too…….emotional?

If you use expressive foul language, your SEO value will drop. There are also filters on Google, which may preclude some viewers from ever seeing your text (although if you are using foul language, it is not a bad thing). Instead of using the old four letter Viking words such as the F and S word, why not try clever covers. For example, the less offensive Irish word of “Feck” sounds similar, but is not offensive (it is an expletive, but not a foul one). And the Urban-Afro-American word “Shizle” can replace the old misspelled Viking four letter word.

Spelling errors

The image of your website is important, so you need to pay attention to spelling errors. These days even your emails have a spell check function, so there is no excuse for accidental spelling mistakes. It is okay to make purposeful ones

To many adverts and images

These take a long time to load, they will scare off potential viewers because your website/blog takes a long time to render (pop up) and a long time to complete loading. Google monitors the amount of traffic you lose this way, by recording the activities of people using Google Chrome. If you lose too many people this way then your SEO value will drop.

Guest Author’s bio:

My name is Sonia Jackson. I represent the UK web-site http://www.royal-essays.com. We’ll help you to solve all problems with writing different essays and research papers according to the rules in the UK.

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In this article I explain how to ensure this is done, especially for those using the WordPress framework. If you are unsure about Google+ and Authorship, check out the Matt Cutts article – authorship markup and web search.

The process to obtain authorship

For authorship to work correctly Google needs to complete a circuit of verified trust between it and your published content. To do this, you must have two things:

1. A verified digital identify (email address) that is attributed to your Google+ profile. This email address needs to be on the same domain as your website i.e. yourname@yourwebsite.com
2. Your published content needs to have the correct on-page markup so Google can detect you as the author.

There are other ways of obtaining Google authorship, but the quickest and easiest method is via email verification. Let’s define these methods:

Setup a Google+ account and profile for authorship markup.

If you have any existing Google account (Gmail, Google docs, Google Webmaster Tools, etc.), then you already have at least a stub Google+ profile. Perhaps yours is already somewhat filled out. But Google authorship markup mandates specific data requirements in that profile, so let’s get it set up right.

1. Browse to https://profiles.google.com/.
2. Sign in to your Google account (or create one if necessary).
3. When prompted, upload a clear facial, head shot photo to the profile. No abstract art, no cartoons, etc.

1. Click Set as Profile Photo .
2. Click Edit Profile.
3. Click +1’s, select the Show this tab on your profile checkbox, and then click Save.

1. Click About, click Other profiles, click Add custom link, and then add labels and URLs for each of your other social media account profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, etc. Click Save when done.

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In fairness, Google has always promoted the need for good and unique content, which in turn will generate organic links. Up until recently, they simply ignored low quality links to websites, without penalty. But now, sites are being penalised for having such link profiles.

Can these penalities be overturned? To start with, those sites that are affected should obtain a complete list of their link profiles. Websites link opensiteexplorer will help those obtain such data. Once this has been obtained, very careful analysis should be undertaken and attempts to identify those links that perhaps are causing the penalty. Great care and attention needs to be taken at this stage, because what you don’t want to do is remove links that are not the root cause.

Once you are sure you have best identified those sites that are at fault, you should then start to contact them and ask them to remove the links. Good practice is to be polite, and simply request that the link be removed to avoid both sites being penalised by search engines. By indicating that both are at risk, this will get their attention!

Unfortunately, some website owners will feel it necessary to want to charge you for link removal, particularly if you paid for the link in the first instance. While you may feel you are being held hostage, the reality is the website owners are well within their right to ask for such fees, however its questionable whether this is ethical. For sure, never pay such fees, there are other means.

Google recently introduced the disavow tool for Webmasters. This allows you to notify Google of which links to ignore. This however, is not a tool that should be used lightheartedly, and it’s certainly not an alternative for not contacting the website owners and request link removal.

To use the disavow tool you will first need to download from Google webmaster all links from to your site:

1. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want.
2. On the Dashboard, click Traffic, and then click Links to Your Site.
3. Click Download.

You’ll then download a .csv file containing all the pages linking to your site. Use this to create a .txt file containing only the links you want to disavow—one link per line, like this:

http://www.linkspam.com/

It is unlikely that you will want Google to ignore all the links to your site. Do not upload the entire list of links to your site: the .txt file that you upload should only contain is the list of links you want Google to ignore.

The post The Aftermath of Penguin & Panda – How to Remove Poor Quality Links appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.

In today’s climate of 24/7 connectivity, good online content is an essential tool if you are to turn visitors into customers. You might be promoting the next big thing, but without the right kind of content you’ll struggle to keep your visitors coming back. Content that’s interesting and engaging, and promotes and explains your business as well as it can, will pay you back tenfold; so it’s well worth investing your time in creating excellent content.

5 Good Reasons to Invest in Great Content

The following points make great reasons for transforming your content, and making your site a more enticing place to stop by and read on:

1. Get Keywords Working for You

Identify those words or phrases that are specific to what you are promoting, and use them wisely. The golden rule of using keywords is to use each one only once or twice per 90-100 words as this will keep your content search engine friendly. Don’t fall into the trap of overdosing on keywords; it will make your content difficult to read and digest, and your audience will go elsewhere.

2. Show and Tell

If you can’t explain what you’re about in an engaging and interesting way, your visitors won’t waste time reading your content. It doesn’t matter how great your product or business is. If you can’t bring it to life in your content, then consider hiring someone who can write it and present it in the best possible way. However, it’s important not to slack off on quality or become complacent if you see your visitor numbers increase; maintaining a consistently high standard of quality content is an on-going task.

3. It’s Not All About the Text

Great content can be further enhanced by the use of video. Using video clips to talk to your audience about what your business has to offer will give your content a more human feel and can provide a welcome break from constantly reading text.

4. Keep it Brief

Nowadays, everyone is looking for quick and concise information that sticks neatly to the point and doesn’t go off on a tangent. By all means, include those all important facts and attributes about your business, but don’t venture off topic if you want your content to be read in full. Present particular facts and points of interest in a uniform fashion; and don’t be tempted to make long winded sentences out of short points.

5. Keep a Friendly Tone

You want your content to professional, but it’s important to not make your visitors feel like you’re talking down to them. Your content should be warm in a professional way, and be inviting to anyone stumbling across it for the first time so that they’ll want to come back again and again to read what you have to say.

Making the Best of What You Have to Work With

Whatever you have to say about your business, investing time in quality content is key to driving traffic numbers up and watching your business flourish. Engage with your own content regularly to identify any areas that need work, and implement whatever changes are necessary to keep your content fresh and relevant.

About The Author:

Amy Harris is a writer for Expert Market which offers a free service to businesses, offering a sourcing tool for finding office equipment and other services. She enjoys giving businesses marketing tips and helping them recognise areas of growth.

The post Why You Should Invest Time in Excellent Content appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.

What are the best Link Bait Strategies?

Links from websites that occupy the same or similar market space, is much more valuable in the search engines eyes. This means that the content you create has to inspire and engage the market you occupy, this in turn will attract links that helps publicise your great new content. These links will come from industry related news sites, even your competitors et al.

For example, let’s say you work in the SEO industry (if you’re reading this article, you probably are)… Why does SEOmoz and Majestic SEO occupy good rankings in the SEO field? Simple, they have developed some really great SEO tools that individuals in this market need.  So is this link bait? I say it’s just good old fashioned content that users really want.

For me then the best link bait strategies are those that evolve around producing great content that is unique, fresh, and not available elsewhere.

This brief article was written by David Vidgen

The post Link Bait Strategies or Just Good Content? appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.

To begin with, an internet site must be consumer friendly, thus visible and with easy navigation. There is little point in building a website that cannot be located because SEO has not been considered, you find it difficult to navigate, and/or the desired target keyphrases have not been applied to relevant pages.

Google displays it search engine results pages (SERPS) based on Relevance + Pagerank. Relevance is determined by displaying pages that include the search terms in the content of a page, particularly terms that feature in the title and description tags, plus keyword repeated on the page.

Pagerank is determined by the number of quality and relevant inbound sites to that site. Quality is determined by relevance and the number of outbound links from that particular linking page. E.g., a BMW cars website that has a link from another BMW related website will carry greater relevance, than if the linking site was about say ‘offices for rent’. If the BMW car website was also the only outbound link on that page – even better. The more outbound links (particularly to other BMW car websites), the less weight is given to each, thus Pagerank would then be divided by the number of outbound links.

If the linking site has itself secured good pagerank, then that will benefit the BMW cars website… A simple explanation for this is to search ‘pagerank’ in Google and view the wikipedia site.

The key to Relevance then is to ensure that your ‘on-page’ SEO is given serious thought when constructing your website. Choosing the right keywords and phrases that are relevant and on-topic. Plus, to gain trust and authority (Pagerank), try to establish links from quality and websites relevant to your industry by producing compelling and rich content that people want to link to and share.

On-page SEO begins with you identifying and assigning quality keyphrases to individual pages; ensuring that important SEO HTML title and description tags are assigned, and search engine indexing limits are maintained. If you can also ensure that the URL for each page reflects the assigned keywords for that given page, that is ideal – but keep them short. Important: only assign one keyphrases to any given page to avoid keyword cannibalisation.

No SEO company can guarantee your site being number#1 in Google or any search engine, because it depends on how competitive the keyphrases or words you assign to your site. For example, if the current number #1 website for ‘BMW Cars’ has over 50,000 highly relevant and quality inbound links, it will take considerable time for you to gain this number of inbound links to your site.  And, this assumes that the website that is currently ranked number#1 stops building natural links from even more quality domains. It really depends on how competitive your chosen keyphrases are and whether your competitors stop strengthening their link position. The broader the keyphrases, then in general the more competitive they are. Narrow keywords, also known as ‘long tail’ can often be easier to rank number #1, and although they may bring less visitors, they are often the most profitable. E.g. Broad keyword: ‘BMW X5′ – Narrow keyword: ‘Buy BMW X5 London’.

The post Beginners Guide to SEO appeared first on SEO Specialists in Birmingham and London | SEO Friendly Websites.