Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

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May 9, 2013

Technical SEO Strategy to Change Due to Million Short Search Tool?

Author: mikegreen | Filed under: SEO

There has been quite a lot of media interest recently in the Million Short search tool (including it being featured on BBC News’ technology programme Click a few weeks ago).

Described as a ‘discovery engine’, Million Short basically allows the user to eliminate the top sites from their search (this can be the first million, hundred thousand, thousand, or hundred). The idea is that rather than just getting the popular, more predictable sites showing up, the user can come across sites that might actually be more interesting but don’t rank that highly on the search engine results due to poor SEO, or because they are new.

Given that the vast majority (it is estimated that it is over 90%) of user searches rarely go beyond the first page of results and the effort involved in actually getting to the millionth normal search result manually, the developers of Million Short feel they have something of real value to offer. Through it they believe users will be able to dig a bit deeper, find more obscure sites and get access to a side of the Internet that would otherwise go unseen.

The question is does this effectively turn the whole reason for using a search engine on its head? If Million Short became a serious rival to established search engines, then wouldn’t the time, money and effort that companies put into their SEO activities suddenly become irrelevant?

Personally I can’t see this happening. Though it is a rather quirky idea, Million Short is never likely to even come close to being a major threat to the likes of Google and Bing. Once the novelty value has worn off, people who try it will go back to the usual methods of searching for information. Though Million Short could be a bit of fun on occasions, the reality is people want to get to the most relevant material and this will never prove to be an efficient way to do that. The importance of investing in SEO is only going to heighten as the plethora of data located on the Internet increases.





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Jan 28, 2013

Choosing the Right Keywords for SEO and Pay Per Click

Author: mattclarke | Filed under: Lead Generation, PPC, SEO

Every business wants to attract more web traffic, but it should not be all about increasing the number of visitors your website receives. It may seem counter intuitive but you need to be just as concerned with the type and quality of visitors you attract as this is more significant when it comes to converting these visitors into customers.

Targeting broad, general keywords for a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign can often result in a lot of wasted time and money as this type of keyword can attract lots of irrelevant visitors. For example, at Pinnacle, we once had a client who said they wanted to be ranked for the keyword ‘Windows’. We had to explain to them that this might attract a whole host of unwanted visitors who might be more interested in UPVC and hardwood than embedding Windows in to an electronic device!

So for PPC campaigns you need focused  search terms and sometimes negative keywords.

Not only that, but from an SEO point of view this type of generic keyword is usually incredibly competitive and is much more difficult to rank for.

This is why a thorough process of keyword analysis is essential before you begin any search engine marketing campaign and it is also why it so important to understand the value of long tail keywords. A long tail keyword is generally a combination of three or more words that make up a search phrase. Whilst they tend to attract smaller volumes of traffic than more generic keywords, they are usually less competitive and they often produce better results due to their more specific nature.

Inspired by our ‘Windows’ client, this video takes a light-hearted look at why choosing the right keywords is so important.

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Jan 11, 2013

How to write a perfect technical press release

Author: lewis tonkinson | Filed under: SEO, Technical PR, Uncategorized

With so many press releases and case studies ending up online, writing for the press should both catch the eye of editors and be aimed at improving your Google rankings. Writing in the right way will ensure all your output is web-savvy as well as being suitable for use in the printed and online outlets.

First and foremost, two or three bullet points at the top of the page should be deployed to highlight the key facts about the text to follow (this enables the reader to quickly assimilate the benefits). Similarly, it’s imperative that the first 100 words of the body text contain all of the most relevant information, before the story is expanded in subsequent paragraphs.

Without compromising the integrity of the writing, always include two or three specific keywords or phrases in your text, but use keywords sparingly as keyword stuffing as an SEO tactic is ancient history. Make sure that these phrases appear in your bullet points and opening 100 words, as well as the main body text, see www.googlekeywordtool.com . If you’re still unsure as to what people might enter into the search box, check out www.google.com/trends, where you can put likely search strings to the test.

If you want to know how well you’ve done with your SEO efforts, there are web tools that can help. For instance, take a look at www.inboundwriter.com, which will give you a score from 1 to 100. It will even suggest the best terms for your document. The first eight entries per month are free after which you need to pay.

In addition you will want to include images and video as research shows that you can get up to 77% more exposure for your releases when including photos, video and other rich media

Finally, always include a maximum of two or three embedded anchor text links to your website (not the homepage please!), using key phrases as the link text, but don’t over optimise these anchor text links! That’s what Google’s Penguin over optimisation penalty was about! So the odd ‘more information’ link doesn’t go amiss these days, unlike just six months ago!

Want to find out more download Pinnacle’s Perfect Press Release Template.








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Jan 7, 2013

Penguin 2.0. Everything is Changing Again – Or is it?

Author: mattclarke | Filed under: Lead Generation, SEO

Matt Cutts has said that Penguin 2.0 will be “jarring and jolting!” (some commentators say it has already been implemented and that nothing actually happened). And that, of course, is on top of the 17 Panda content updates and Penguin 1.0, as we should now call it.

In addition there was the exact match URL update, which makes urls less important for SEO (although a good URL still has the advantage of being very easy to remember), as well as around 500  other changes to the algorithm in 2012!

The fact is that Google is constantly ‘perfecting’ its algorithm to deliver the best results for ‘people’ – but the thing to remember is that whatever it does two things will never change:

  • Long tail keywords
    • Although broad keywords might get you traffic, achieving and maintaining good rankings can be hard work. Longer tail keywords are generally easier to rank for and you are far more likely to get sales from them. Not only that, almost every analysis shows that most sales come from less than 5% of your keywords. So pick industry-relevant keywords and get to work!
  • Great content
    • The amazing thing is that none of our clients have really been hit by all these updates. Why is that? It’s actually quite simple! The reason Google is making all these changes is so that a person reading the website sees more relevant results. So if the content you produce is deeply technical, well written and of value then not only do your customers and prospects love it so does Google! Hence, as a group of engineers producing quality content for clients all these Google changes have done is to boost ranking results! One client saw a 40% increase in daily traffic (over 4,000 extra visitors a day) – and all for targeted, relevant keywords!

So will the changes continue? Yes. Should you be worried that your web traffic might suddenly drop off a ranking cliff? Well not if are producing great, sharable technical content. And if you’re are not doing that, employ someone to do it for you!

To find out more about how Google has changed download our whitepaper.


Don’t think you need SEO? then read the whitepaper Why Does My Business Need SEO?





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Dec 10, 2012

PPC pt 3: Getting the most from your e commerce site

Author: admin | Filed under: Lead Generation, Renewable Energy, SEO, Technical Magazines

In the third part of his article on PPC , Ian Jarrett, Account Director at Pinnacle looks at setting up an e commerce site

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Have a relevant page within your e commerce site

This is probably the best area to drop them to if you want customers to self-serve and delivers the best ROI on a campaign.

For example customers may search for D type connectors, and your advert is displayed.  You then take the searcher to the relevant section in your e commerce site. From there they see what they need and buy (live search needs instant information.

The other option here is to consider bidding on part numbers.  This works very well for distributors who have competitors that have the same franchises.  You want to ensure that you get the enquiry and the order so this should be considered.  Look for parts that you know sell very well or have the potential to and have high margins. Then bid for them. When clicked drop them into the e commerce page for that part number.

If it has to be the company site make it a relevant area:

This is self-explanatory but we do too often see PPC clicks going to an irrelevant home page.  Jump the visitor into the right section, or put landing pages within your site. Just with a few simple tweaks to your CMS you can create strong call to actions on the pages.

Conclusion:

Ultimately with PPC you will need to change a certain amount of the culture within your business to ensure that it’s fully embedded within your sales teams. However with focus and drive you will see how PPC can deliver awesome ROI for what in reality is a small advertising investment.

 

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Dec 3, 2012

PPC pt 2: Dynamic landing pages

Author: admin | Filed under: SEO, Social Media, Technical PR

In the second part of this article on PPC , Ian Jarrett, Account Director at Pinnacle looks at dynamic landing pages.

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Dedicated dynamic landing pages:

When you journey anywhere you want to ensure that you land in the right place, it’s exactly the same with PPC.  Once the searcher has clicked you need to take them to the place you want them to go to and they want to go to, you basically drive them there.  This is your opportunity to really optimise the campaign with relevant content that matches exactly what the searcher is looking for.  Its all about being relevant and prompting the viewer to take action based on the content.

Of course landing pages cannot be generic they need to be dynamically generated to match the search phrase or the conversion phrase.

For example if your customer is looking for Electrolytic capacitors then the landing page needs to be generated to be relevant to this term. Images and text associated with the search needs to be shown.

Once on your landing page what then?

Now that you have got their interest you need the viewer to take action.  That’s why we would always recommend strong call to actions. Buy now, speak to us, enquire here are all phrases that convert well.

On the landing page include a form that a viewer feels inspired to fill in, give them something for free for filling it in eg: a whitepaper, a catalogue, whatever in reality will wet the viewers appetite.  Once the form has been filled make the email it pops to dedicated to this campaign, but a champion in the office that looks after this and follow up quickly within normal business hours. Remember these people are looking now not in 24 hours!

Put a large customer service number on the page that the viewers cant miss. Give it a dedicated phone number for the campaign and when it rings answer it quickly, here is an ideal opportunity to close a deal. The time is now not 24 hours (I will repeat this often).  Once you have the customer don’t bounce them around your sales department, listen to their enquiry, give the information and always ask for the order (don’t forget cross sell/ upsell opportunities here as this is an ideal opportunity to add more value to each individual lead)

Always conduct split tests with landing pages, change the position of the pictures the number the form etc. See what works well and flex to accommodate.

 

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Nov 26, 2012

PPC pt 1: Why don’t companies fully understand Pay Per Click (PPC)?

Author: admin | Filed under: SEO, Social Media, Technical PR

In the first part of this article, Ian Jarrett, Account Director at Pinnacle asks why more companies don’t fully understand Pay Per Click (PPC) on Google and how they could improve results from PPC.

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PPC the customer journey: driving for instant or more effective conversions.

There can be no doubting the success Google ad words campaigns can deliver.  For companies who want to feature high on Google and capture live search leads, it is proving a very profitable way of cost effectively advertising and capturing sales leads for instant conversion.  However a large majority of companies that undertake campaigns are not seeing the ROI that they desire from this. So why is this? Well it boils down to the fact that only half of the customer journey with PPC is being completed.  Basically the customer starts out on the journey but gets dumped into the ocean and is lost forever. To many companies forget about a vital link on the road to generating a decent return on investment with PPC campaigns.

 

The opportunity

With PPC the opportunity to instantly convert clicks to sales is huge.  The searcher is what we call live, actively looking for information.  They are basically sitting in front of a browser looking for information or for a product. This is a prime opportunity to make a rapid sale.

 

Common made mistakes:

It is extremely important that the back end process of conducting a PPC campaign needs to be focused and tightly managed.  In reality most companies put lots of effort into ensuring that the bids are managed properly, campaigns appear, and that  ad text is correct, this is an essential part of the process.  However its only 50% of the story!  You cannot simply expect an ad to deliver sales just by being there and displaying high on the 1st page of Google. Organisations need to look at the beginning to end journey of PPC.  The other 50% is what you do with the customer or potential customer once the ad is being clicked.

Perhaps the most common mistake is to take visitors to your company homepage that contains no relevancy to the searchers request.  When people are looking via a search engine they are looking for a reason, they usually have a live requirement. What they don’t want to do once they have clicked is to conduct further searches on a home page.  They will usually click away or press the back button on the browser at this point.  This is a dead end, you have lost them! So the advice here is unless your home page is spot on relevant to the campaign DON’T do this!

So what should you do to avoid this mistake, here is what we recommend:

  • Dedicated relevant dynamically generated landing pages with large call to actions
  • The relevant page within your e commerce site
  • If it has to be the company site make it a relevant area

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Nov 5, 2012

Want more leads? Your business needs SEO

Author: admin | Filed under: SEO

Pinnacle Marketing has recently written a paper entitled ‘Why does my business need SEO?’. This shows how SEO works, what are the most significant issues around link building and how does this help achieve top search engine positions. If you want more leads get the ebook.






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Oct 29, 2012

How to get the most value from your industry exhibitions – Pt 3

Author: admin | Filed under: Business, Events, Exhibitions, Inbound Marcom, Lead Generation, SEO, Technical PR

In the final part of this blog, Marcel Kay, talks about the benefit of blogging and why you may need more than just print advertising to drive traffic onto your stand at the exhibitions your company attends.

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Facebook these days is becoming more of a business tool. Especially as LinkedIn (the de facto digital business networking platform) has just removed it’s automatic links to Twitter and replaced them with links to Facebook.  Facebook’s daily user count is now equivalent to the total number of people using the Internet eight years ago.  So, if your business doesn’t have a Facebook page then it’s missing digital networking opportunities with your customers.   Remember to engage with Facebook users in a more social fashion though. It won’t take the sort of writing you’d include in your annual report or even in your press releases. On the page should go your pictures and videos from the Trade Shows you’ve attended this year. Why not use that iPhone or iPad to shoot footage while at Electronica this year? There is no need for high-end video production with most social media channels.

If you are going to properly use Facebook and YouTube then make sure you email links to prospective and current clients and also embed the video on your website or blog and try and set up backlinks from other commentators and blogs out there that cover the industry and your competitors. This way it will get found by Google and by including the show name and great keywords in the video title you’ll also get anyone searching for the trade exhibition to find your company as well at the same time. The search engine optimisation (SEO) rankings on Google for your company will also improve this way.

At Pinnacle Marketing, we are content creation specialists for the technical industries like engineering and electronics. So, we blog about everything. You need to find out who are your industry wide bloggers or if there aren’t any then consider starting one. Improved Google website SEO rankings are no longer just about embedded keyword tagging on your website but more about the useful information the website provides the Internet community via keywords from your blog. If there’s no blog linked to your website then you’re not likely to be creating regular and useful content, so Google ranks you lower than a company that does blog. Over half of all websites are created with blogging software nowadays.  Blogs are easier to set and are really low cost.  The company’s blog can be the base site for all promotional activity at your exhibitions this year.

Just a few years back, trade magazine adverts were the main method for any company in a B2B industry to reach its audience at a trade exhibition. That was until inbound digital marketing became much more effective. The negative side of this was the magazines that lost advertising revenue also then reduced the number of journalists that they employed.  However trade blogs are shooting up an enormous rate and their low cost means bloggers are taking the place of trade magazine writers in some industries with the difference being that blogging doesn’t need to be independent views, it can also be the views of your company.  To find out whom your industry bloggers really are have a look at http://www.google.com/blogsearch.

By following a few of our tips, you’ll have a much better chance of securing media coverage for your exhibitions and maximising the ROI from the cost of your company attending and designing your stand. Media coverage, whether in print or online, will not just drive potential purchasing decisions for your products or service, but also raise your company’s profile, build brand recognition and credibility and promote you on a wider international scale than perhaps you have ever done previously. If your news does get published online, then you’ll also be improving your SEO efforts in the process.

If you want to find out more please contact me on marcel@pinnaclemarcom.com and I’ll tell you more about how we ‘mess with the normal’ when it comes to new digital B2B techniques for PR and Marketing.

 

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Oct 24, 2012

How to get the most value from your industry exhibitions – Pt 2

Author: admin | Filed under: Business, Events, Exhibitions, Inbound Marcom, Lead Generation, SEO, Social Media, Technical PR

In the second part of this blog, Marcel Kay explains how Twitter is no longer the sole domain of Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton and why your company may want to use it at this year’s Electronica.

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You will probably want to send a press release to publicise your involvement at an exhibition and will send it by email to the media, but there are other ways now of reaching them as well. However, if you do email then get the subject line right and make the title catchy. If it sounds irrelevant or uninspiring then who’s going to open it, despite your legal and compliance teams having spent a week approving it?

 

We’ll always email the press release to the media, but how do you get the press release picked up by the media otherwise? Well the answer these days is more often Twitter. Set up a Twitter account for your company then follow the media that are relevant to your industry. They’ll more than likely follow you. You then post a Tweet on the news in your press release and a link to the press release in full that you’ve posted on your website. Media will pick it up and write about it.

If you have product photos then make them at least 360dpi resolution and offer a link to a website such as Flickr and allow the media to download them from this. If it’s a company video or product video then Pinnacle’s advice is to place it on YouTube or Vimeo with a link from the press release. Don’t make them downloadable only by password. The media won’t have the time or energy to access information that’s hard to get.

Before you send out the press release, or if you don’t have any breaking news this year, then why not Tweet some reasons to visit your trade stand?  As Twitter is largely seen as a plaything of the footballer and X-Factor set it is often overlooked.  But with nearly 500 million accounts and around 5% of the world reading Tweets, even if they don’t Tweet themselves, then it is no to be taken lightly. In terms of content, just use the information you’re including in your direct mail campaigns to prospective customers, using on the phone or in the product brochure. Are there certain employees on the stand this year, will there be a product demo, a giveaway or competition, is your company holding a drinks reception? A few messages a week for the month or two leading up to the show will build presence above and beyond what you spend on display stands and plasma screens.

At Pinnacle, we also pre-schedule Tweets. There’s no way you need to be logging in all day Tweeting, so just use Hootsuite.com or Tweetdeck.com to allow you to pre-schedule your tweets so you can send them anywhere in the world and in any time zone you choose.  Each trade exhibition will have a Hashtag (#) e.g.  #electronica or #electronics.  The hash symbol “#” turns that word into a hyperlink that allows Twitter users to view any recent messages with that same hashtag.  So having the hashtags for your exhibition in your Tweets you’ll be seen by even more potential attendees.  Also, why not have a look at www.tweet-show.com. This allows you to be at an exhibition and display on your plasma screen any # words that are trending about your company or the exhibition itself in real time while you are on the booth.

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