Not everyone can make a major investment in search engine optimization services. When you’re trying to make the efforts of your SEO company stretch further, or you’re trying to manage your optimization work on your own, here are three things that can make your life a little easier.

1. Draw up a spreadsheet for link sorting. Having link building services on board is a boon when you’re trying to boost your link profile. However, if you’re trying to build some links on your own, there are things you can do to make your life easier. The most important is building a links spreadsheet. When you gather the data from your competitors’ link profiles, download it into a spreadsheet and set out columns for PageRank by site, rankings per page, contact details, and so on.

2. Get your social profiles sorted. Social media profiles are free, and many rank well, helping you to control your reputation. Talk to us about this at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. Register wherever you can, and decide on a couple of sites to regularly participate on. This will help with #3, below. Another spreadsheet can be handy as a reference resource to keep track of passwords and those other tricky details.

3. Work on your reputation around the net. A good SEO plan can be a huge help in getting your pages into the SERPs, but you can help by building your reputation in other areas of the net. Set aside half an hour each day to post guest articles, reply to questions and participate in social media.

A significant number of SEO advantages can be had if you’ve got the right site structure. The problem, of course, is figuring out which is the right structure for your site. Regardless of the size or purpose of your site, you’re going to have to make some choices. Among those choices is whether to split off into multiple domains or structure in some sub-domains.

Multiple domains

If you have a lot going on online, having multiple domains is an attractive option. It’s the easiest way to keep things clear. On your many domains, you can create micro sites for each of your business ventures, ensuring that customers don’t get confused about your products. Using a number of domains can be handy if you have operations in multiple countries as it allows you to target local search more effectively. Talk to us at Searchengineoptimization.co.uk for more information about this and any other related topics.

Sub-domains

Sub-domains can also be handy SEO tools. As with using multiple domains, sub-domains give you an SEO advantage in that you can grab more listings in the search pages. Sub-domains have the added bonus of economy, as they allow you to branch off from your existing site, and there’s less chance of confusion with the search engines in terms of suspiciously connected sites.

Neither

If you want the simplest option in website optimization terms, you should opt for neither sub-domains or multiple domains. In doing so, however, you may lose the link and SERP visibility advantages, not forgetting the increased effectiveness of streamlined marketing. If you’re running a complex campaign, splitting off is worth consideration.

One of the link building strategies your search engine optimization agency might talk about is guesting on someone else’s blog. Guest posting, or guest blogging, is a popular form of organic link building. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s appropriate for your campaign.

As with any SEO strategy, there are pros and cons to link building. These need to be weighed up before you invest.

Cons:
*Investment – guest posting requires a significant investment because the content provided needs to be high quality.
*Uncertain reward – there’s no guarantee that the blog’s audience will react well to your post in terms of traffic and notoriety.
*Blog quality variation – not all blogs are going to provide valuable links and the best blogs can be hard to get a guest spot on.

Pros:
*Relationship building – guest blogging consolidates relationships within your industry and with your target market.
*Direct traffic – a good post should bring traffic back to your landing page.
*Inbound links – if targeted properly, guest posts can provide some high quality links in an organic way.

As you can see, there are some solid benefits to guest blogging. If you’re keen to do it, there’s nothing really holding you back. If you’re looking into guest posting as a part of your search engine optimization services, however, you need to balance out the commitment with the reward. For some sites, it may not be worth it. Talk to your SEO company for more advice, or approach us at searchengineoptimization.co.uk.

It has been a while since site owners could expect their target audiences to come to them. Even when readers did turn up to sites in search of a good read, some effort had to be made to make that first contact. These days, first contact is not enough. Contact has to be made constantly, persistently, and with an eye to becoming part of the reader’s world. The best way to do this is to tweet like crazy.

Tweeting content updates has become a common practice. Everyone from the biggest news organisation to the smallest blog is doing it, and with good reason. Posting an update on Twitter is much like opening your window and yelling, ‘hey, we’ve got some fresh stuff!’ Failing to tweet is almost exactly like sitting in your office with the door closed. Which method do you think will get more attention?

There’s another reason to start tweeting about updates, however, and it’s related to the broader field of competition. With so many people using tweets and wall posts to advertise content, it’s become an audience expectation. For more information on using social media sites as search engine optimization tools, talk to us at searchengineoptimization.co.uk.

Although we mention Twitter here, your social exposure doesn’t have to be limited to tweeting. Not every audience is on Twitter, for a start. It’s worth considering using your Facebook wall, and even things like StumbleUpon to promote content during organic search engine optimization. Advertising updates across several social platforms only means more exposure. Talk to your SEO company about your options.

If you’re looking into the management of your reputation online, there are a few obvious areas to cover. You’ll probably keep an eye on your industry’s review sites and forums. Your SEO company will probably keep you advised of any problems within the search engine results pages, and you’ll keep your ear to the ground in social media as well. But what about the hidden factors of online reputation management?

Google’s predictive search is one of those areas you’re not likely to consider a potential reputation hazard, but it is. A searcher typing your brand name into Google will be presented with a list of predicted searches. They’re often not all positive.

It can happen easily enough. Your brand gets a bad review or two, or you become associated with something bad, and Google puts ‘[your brand] ripoff’ – a result that does come up for a startling number of brand names.

Solving this problem is not easy. The first thing you need to do is guard against negative responses when the user clicks on that search suggestion. Work on the negative keyword so that it turns up only positive results. Your second move is some search engine reputation management, working on Google’s suggestions to edge the negative response out. The second option will take longer, and it’s a good idea to consult your SEO company for advice. You can discuss this with us at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk.

Negative keywords can’t always be avoided, but negative results can be managed. Implement regular reputation management tactics to keep your reputation manageable.

Building up relationships is one of the most valuable things you can do during organic search engine optimization. By making connections with other site owners and via your social media optimization campaigns, you’re doing the ground work for organic linking. Find the right buttons to push, and your contacts turn into easy inbound links.

Here are three methods to use when you want the links to flow in:

*Forum stalking. Participating in industry forums is an old method of networking, but one that’s still very effective. Forums are valuable for online networking because they allow you to establish your reputation. Make use of this by selecting a couple of forums that are frequented by site owners you’d like a link from. Participate in their threads, and you’re well on the way to building relationship that might result in a link. Your participation also helps with online reputation management.

*Research via link bait. Everyone loves free publicity. This is the principle behind the classic piece of link bait, the ‘top X blogs’ article. However, if you’re going to write up such an article, it’s best to know which bloggers you can rely on for a link. Find this out by looking at other ‘top X’ articles and seeing which bloggers have linked back. Name those bloggers in your piece, and let them know where they’re featured.

These are just two of the many ways you can work on links through relationships, and you can discuss further methods with us at www.SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk.

Keyword selection is not an absolute thing. In fact, it comes in many stages. There’s the initial stage, which involves a lot of research, comparison and finally selection. Then there’s the second stage, which also involves a lot of research, comparison, and a little reselection. In fact, your keyword list should be under constant scrutiny.

It’s a good idea to have a protocol for assessment of your keywords. Your search engine optimization agency can help you to determine what factors count in your keyword assessment, and you can discuss this with us at www.SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. This protocol should be followed during periodical reassessment as part of your SEO maintenance.

Creating your own ranking for your keyword list will help with content planning and even social media strategies:

*Rank by conversions. This really should be the guiding factor for your keyword list. Many businesses target competitive keywords, assuming that the traffic they bring will convert, but this doesn’t always happen.

*Rank by relevance. The search engines do it, and so should you. Every keyword list has a hierarchy of relevance, but this shifts over time. It’s important every so often to compare your keywords with the list of top-ranking results on Google and Bing. This allows you to see if the way your target market is searching has changed.

*Don’t overlook trends. Ranking your existing list is important, but it’s also important to be open to trending keywords as they come up. Keep up with your keyword and SEO tools for the maintenance of your rankings.

One of the most frustrating things about organic SEO is that so many tiny things can go wrong. This makes it almost impossible to detect the issue on your pages that is holding back your rankings. Knowing where to look is half the battle.

A keyword list is a prime place to look. Even here, though, there are tiny problems that might escape a site owner’s notice. Some are so tiny even a search engine marketing company can overlook them. Here are just three:

1. Use of the plural. Using plural words instead of singular may not seem like a big deal, but it can cut off a whole chunk of searches. Internet users do occasionally use plural keywords, searching for widgets instead of a widget, but the singular form covers more ground. As the singular keyword is generally included in any plural search, it’s a smart idea to leave the ’s’ off your keyword strings.

2. Overlooking the exact match. This is a mistake that can be made in the keyword research stage. When looking at keyword popularity, lack of an exact match query can mean you get muddied or falsely inflated results. Some search engine optimisation tools aren’t exact, so it’s important to cross-check. You can discuss SEO tools with our experts at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk.

3. Being too broad. Appearing on the first page of the SERPs isn’t going to help – or last – if your page has the wrong focus. Broad-ranging keywords may get more traffic, but may not suit the specific needs of your site.

A little while ago, SEOs started trying to get more out of rankings with a method called sculpting. Using no follow code, this method aimed to direct existing PageRank from low-importance pages to those in more desperate need. The method was once one of the more popular search engine optimization tools. These days, though, there are a number of website optimization experts who look down on the technique. The question remains: should you try to sculpt the flow of PageRank, or leave well alone?

To judge this, you need to analyse the pros and cons of PageRank sculpting.

Pro: PageRank sculpting can direct PageRank to the pages that need it.
Con: There’s a danger it won’t work.
Although the use of nofollows enables you to direct Google’s attention away from areas and links on your site, there are times when Google takes notice of the nofollowed pages. If the page is already in the index, for example, then trying to sculpt around it won’t help, at least at first.

Pro: PageRank sculpting is easier and quicker than redesigning architecture.
Con: Sculpting still involves the rewriting of code for multiple pages.
Sculpting still involves hard work, and much of this work is hidden in code. This means the sculpting process can be hard to keep track of.

Leaving page rankings as they are is never a good answer for a search engine optimization company, so obviously there’s a third option. Google’s Matt Cutts advises site owners to use site architecture to direct attention, rather than creating a fake attention path.

There has been a lot of pondering about what place the social media is likely to take on the internet. Businesses, in particular, have kept a sharp eye out for ways to turn social attention into business currency. Google has made this path easier by bringing social activity into the search realm. For the last couple of years, it has become increasingly clear that social media sites have begun to act more like search engines, too. One of the areas of similarity is in the importance of reputation.

Reputation has always been at the heart of search engine optimization, and you can discuss this with us at www.SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. If a site doesn’t seem to have a good reputation, its rankings are unlikely to soar. At the moment, social reputation management isn’t as important as search engine reputation management, but this may soon change.

There is some evidence that social reputation impacts on search rankings. It is known that Google and Bing both look at social participation in assessing online presence. With the way things are travelling, though, reputation in the social media is likely to be as important for itself as it is now for search rankings.

It’s been pretty clear from the start that social media sites hold sway over internet users. It is now clear that they hold sway over businesses, too. Social media optimization is no longer something you can afford to put to the side during website optimization. If you haven’t got your social reputation in hand, it’s time to talk to your SEO company.