Oxford Web SEO Seminar Thursday 27th January

Oxford Web SEO held a special invite only event last week to launch the start of Oxford Web SEO and deliver a seminar that focused on the question of 'So you want to learn how to improve your website Google rankings?'

Our seminar delivered a range of core hints and tips to get organisations thinking about the way they approach their website. Search engine optimisation is all about increasing the visibility of your website in search engines, in order to make it easy for people to find your offerings and services.

Our approach is getting you to think more carefully about how people will find you. What words are they likely to use in a search engine like Google or Bing to associate with your organisation? They may not be the 'everyday' words that you use within your organisation - perhaps jargon terms that won't be understood on the outside.

So think more carefully about the words and phrases that will help get you found in search engine results listings.

Take a look at some of the photo's on our Oxford Web SEO Facebook Page.

If you would like to find out more about our services and how we can help make your website more visible in an increasingly competitive market, then please visit our Oxford Web SEO website for more information on search engine optimisation, or email us at tracy@oxfordwebseo.co.uk or call us on 01865 920121.

What purpose does your website currently serve?

SEO is all about making your website visibility strong in the major search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. However, the key point to remember is that in order for search engine optimisation to work and benefit your website, it has to have a direction and a strategy.

So, what role does your website currently play in your organisation's marketing strategy? Is its aim to sell your products and services online; or is it there for brand and corporate awareness? Attracting more visitors to your website is all about knowing your intended market and you can only optimise your website once you know what is.

Try out some initial benchmarking to see where your website currently sits in search engine rankings. You need to measure and monitor your website visibility in order to continue to improve it.

Similarly, you can't target your website at people, if you don't know what they may be looking or searching for. You need to research the keywords and phrases that your your potential customers and clients will use to find your organisations services.

You also need to stay ahead of your competition and find out what they're up to. Check their search engine ranking listings in Google and Bing - take a look around their websites.

You don't have to do all of this alone. If you'd like our advice on how to optimise your current website, or want to learn more for yourself, then visit us at Oxford Web SEO to take a look at our SEO services and training courses.

Consider using Facebook as a marketing tool

It'll be surprising to learn that a recent survey, carried out by Hitwise, admitted that Facebook had accrued more hits than Google Search in October this year. So, with that in mind, should more of us be thinking about honing in on the power of Facebook and using it as a key marketing tool. An additional way to generate awareness of our brands, products and services?

Think about setting up a Fan Page for your organisation. Make it a clear path to your orgnanisation, make sure the Page title is clear and describes who you are. Include a strong logo, or visual representation of your organisation.

Your 'Fan Information Page' is like creating a landing page within a Facebook tab. You can choose this page as the tab that people first access on visiting your page. It's essential to include as much information on here about your organisation as possible. The more relevant information you include, the more likely that people will find you whilst searching.

Also take full advantage of the small 'About Us' box on the left-hand side of main Fan, to succintly describe your services and organisation. Include keywords and phrases that people will use to find you in the search.

Key to the prominency of your Fan page, is getting as many people as possible to 'Like' you. As in standard SEO practices, links to your Fan page are 'votes' for your page. The more votes, the more points for your page. So you'll also need to advertise your Facebook page from your website and promote it as much as possible.

Facebook allows you to create a 'Find Us on Facebook' badge, or embed a 'Like' Box on your website for maximum visibility.

If you need some help with harnessing the marketing potential of Facebook, then please do get in contact with us at Oxford Web SEO. We can review your current website marketing plan and advise on ways you can include social media optimisation into your strategy.

What's so good about organic SEO?

When it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO), many people are confused and baffled by what SEO is and what it actually means for their organisations' website.

Search engine optimisation is the process of improving the volume of traffic to a website from search engines, typically via ‘organic’ or ‘natural’ search results.

Many see it as some kind of alchemism - the casting of a magical spell to get your website to the number one spot on Google. But be very wary of anyone who claims that they can get your website to the number one spot on Google. Unless obviously they are wearing a wizards' hat or brandishing a magic wand!

Unfortunately, there is no magic involved, only lots of hard work to try and get your website visible to your potential clients, members and customers. Effective SEO is about organising and presenting your website to search engines to ensure relevancy, creditably and accessibility.

Organic search engine optimisation techniques employ the use of natural ranking methods of search engines to generate traffic to a website. It means that you don’t have to use paid advertising to draw traffic to your site. Our strategy at Oxford Web SEO is based on using keywords and phrases that match your organisation and ultilising those throughout your website.

You may think paid-for-advertising is a quick win, but it requires constant investment and a large budget – especially in a competitive market. Organic SEO is a one time initial investment, but is ongoing and requires hard work to maintain. Also consider that since Google began auctioning popular keywords to the highest bidder, paid for advertising is no longer viable for small to medium sized businesses.

Organic SEO is good because:

• Typically organic SEO encourages more traffic to your website than paid for advertising.
• Organic SEO techniques hone in on relevant content for a website and not flash advertising gimmicks.
• Search engine users are often wary of adverts and typically they follow links to websites within the actual search results. If your site is displayed in amongst the top search engine results, then people are more likely to trust you.

The organic SEO services we provide at Oxford Web SEO is combined with our overall strategy for your website. The techniques and standards that we adopt are applied to every aspect of our SEO services.

If you would like us to take a look at your website and provide you with a review of how we can improve your search engine rankings, then please get in contact with Tracy Walker on 01865 920121, or at info@oxfordwebseo.co.uk.

Apparently There's No New Twitter 'ShoutOut' Service

Yesterday blogger Louis Gray speculated about how 'ShoutOuts' could be a new Twitter service that will allow users to effectively ‘endorse’ other users, similar to the way the ‘Follow Friday’ tradition works. See the story at - http://bit.ly/bVIU33

Today Twitter have released an official statement saying that 'ShoutOut' is an internal service for employees - see the very funny statement at http://bit.ly/9I1fy1

Oxford Web SEO Launches New Blog

Hey there... We're Oxford Web SEO - a division of The Big Oxford Computer Co. Ltd. Welcome to our new blog...

We're going to be updating you with all of the latest SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) news and views on a regular basis. Giving you hints and tips on how to stay ahead in organic SEO and how to keep your website search engine visible in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

For starters, why not read this article from SEO Chat about 'Google Search Engine Optimization Tips'. Do you ever wish you had an SEO checklist of tips from Google on what you should and should not be doing with your website? This three part series covers the SEO Site Review given at Google I/O 2010 in May 2010.

You'll be amazed at some of the things you can simply do to your website to help improve your search results ranking. You don't need a huge budget to get the basics right, just time and patience; as well as an eye for detail and the knowledge of your organisation.

Give us a call on 01865 717770 if you'd like to have a chat about Oxford Web SEO and how we can improve your website rankings naturally.