Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

First off let me say this Flash is GREAT.

There you go I have said it. Flash is not the spawn of the devil, it is not some mad dog roaming the streets frothing at the mouth. It is a well behaved dog, that is ideal for purpose. PURPOSE, that is the keyword where flash is concerned.

A common question across forums and other resources is with regard the way Flash works with optimisation.  put simple flash SEO is it possible?

The answer as with many things SEO related is yep, possibly. The first thing to do is to make a clear distinction between full blown flash websites, and the use of flash as elements within a site. Below are the main considerations. Read the rest of this entry »

I post on a few forums, and this week came across  a real sad case.  I will keep it deliberately vague as I don’t want to identify anyone or anything.

A company that had been trading for over 20 years woke up to find their website down. they chased their supplier who told them he would sort it. He then came back and said ‘your domain is in redemption’, don’t worry, I will sort it…. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi Old Welsh Guy,

I would like to ask your advice. I work for a **identifier removed** clothing company and we have a very active and loyal customer base for the brand. We update our product range 5 times per year which means that the URLs that are indexed for those products use a redirect when a new season goes live to direct the visitor to the newer version.

On many occasions we pick up thousands of inbound links from fashion journals, social networks and social bookmarks to product pages.
 
I would like to know if there is any SEO benefits in keeping old products live on the web?

Do we lose link equity when we remove the previous season’s products? We usually have some key products each season that people love to link to so are we being penalised for removing these?

Reply.

Dear Concerned in Oxford,
The quick answer is that

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I have been getting a lot of emails asking about the merits of so called multilanguage optimisation. These are normally from so called ‘SEO’s’ who offer this service for anything from $200-500 per language.

Is it worth it OWG I get asked. Well the answer is NO… and YES

Is it worth having multilanguage pages on your site? YES if they are done well AND provided you can deal with an enquiry in that language, because f you can’t then you are going to appear like a big ole fraud to that potentially large customer. Large in the meaning of spend, not calling them fat or anything like that.

Another thing to consider is the quality of the translation. Let me tell you a story about that. A while ago someone came up with a script that exploits the translation facility of the Google toolbar and also Yahoo toolbar etc. This script was circulated around, and eventually it, or a script LIKE it was sold for a chunk of money in one of these fantastic ‘use it or lose it , the next big thing on the web’ type broadcasts.

Google has now decided that as it is against the acceptable use terms and conditions to auto-query Google, and as these scripts ARE auto-querying Google, it will block the IP of the site that is using them. So think about the implications of that for a moment if you will.

To put it simply, using these scripts is against the terms and conditions of Google and yahoo etc. While not getting your site banned (apart from for the translation side of things), it might well raise a Google flag above your site, and might gain you unwanted notice.

Most of these SEO’s offering multilanguage promotion use these tools.

So to everyone who has asked me if it is worth it, I say… Draw your own conclusions

This is a response to a question about relevance and trustrank. Hope you like it! 

Relevance and trustrank are different things. To appreciate them you have to step back!

Trust rank is a system that shores up the original back rub aglorithm. Links are STILL a good way to work out how important a site is, PROVIDING, you can work out how important the sites are in the beginning.  I have written an article about trust rank here http://www.umbrella-consultancy.co.uk/art1-trustrank.htm

So if the BBC sports site, link to my rugby site, and I link to your football site, then there is a definite sports theme going on there right? BUT, and this is the thing here  another football site might link to yours, but they have hardly any trusted links pointing to them, so even though they are more closely relevent, their link will not carry as much weight as mine!

There is a lot more to it than this though, for example……… Read the rest of this entry »

Recently there has been a pagerank (PR) update in the Google index. so, I thought now would be a good time to blog about PR and its importance.

OK firstly what does this PR update actually mean, and will it have an effect on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s)? Well what it means is simply that Google has updated the public facing PR values., will this affect rankings? Not in the least! (sorry to break hearts) WHY is this OWG ‘I hear you ask’ . well I shall explain… Read the rest of this entry »

This is the argument that many have been making for a few years now. But while all this debate has been going on, those who knew who the real king is sat, smiled, and got on with earning money. Those who knew and understood what it is all about just kept doing it, and watching the money roll in.

So if neither copy content nor links are king, then what IS? I will tell you what is king, it is…. Read the rest of this entry »

I was over at Small Business Ideas Forum where I moderate, and someone brought up cold calling on the telephone. Now cold calling is something I loved, as I did a LOT of it way back in my sales and advertising early days. I have also helped clients with their cold calling setup, so this was right up my street  

One thing that sales people and sales trainers often fail to get across is exactly what the job of the sales person is. They say it is to sell products, (which is true), but they do not sum it up properly.

You see your job as a sales person, be it teleselling, face to face selling, or selling online is the same, selling is selling no matter what medium you sell in. Your job is to ensure the person you are talking to has the information they need to make a decision. Note I said a decision not a purchase? No matter how good your product or sales methods, some people will either not be able to, or not want to buy your product.

To sell you must listen more than you speak, but you need to get the information to the client, to get that information to the client you need to know what THEY need to know. You do this in the time honoured way that any parent will know. You ask questions! Kids by the way are the best salespeople you will ever meet, they master the skill of open and closed questions with ease. How many of us have gone through this

Please can I have an xxx?
NO!
Why not?

note the use of open and closed questions there! 

I will explain the difference between an open and closed question, and explain how as a top salesman I used it shamefully to speak to pretty women without fear of rejection. (when like me you have a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, you need all the help you can get in order to not be rejected). Read the rest of this entry »

You toil over a hot keyboard fry your brain to get the words ‘just right’ and announce your writings to the world. Only to find that within a short period of time someone has stolen your hard work! What can you do about it?

Firstly I have to say that the instant you create anything, YOU own copyright to that material. Technically you own intellectual property rights on it. These are legally enforceable rights that YOU as the owner can enforce.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok I have been away from blogging for a few weeks, too busy with work and with other stuff But here is the thing. Why are people still asking ‘are frames any good for seo’? or ‘how can I optimise my frames site’? WHY BOTHER!

Once upon a time in a land far far away there was WYSIWYG software, and this stuff would build framed sites for you. The search engines couldn’t understand it, users hated it, no one could deep link to it, and users could not book mark anything but the first page. But all that has changed now hasn’t it! Hasn’t it?

 Well true spiders can spider frames sites better but still can not handle the URL’s properly, the rest has stayed the same. Technology has moved on now, and you can achieve the same effect with php etc includes or as library items in dream weaver, or as templates within Dream weaver. Front page also has these facilities.

There really is no need to use frames any more, so don’t!