Blogs, site content, social media interaction, competitions, FAQ content, video, info graphics – there are now literally countless ways for businesses to get exceptional, sharable content out there to your target market. All of which will help your business to build links and produce mass, convertible traffic.

However, too many businesses struggle to make the most of their content marketing. The reason why? They simply haven’t thought it through.

Good content is about knowing what you’re going to publish and when. It requires forward-planning and thorough delegation of the resources that are available to you.

Why Create A Calendar?

Once you begin to take your content marketing seriously, you will realise that in order to keep users engaged and coming back for more, your content needs to be relevant and up-to-date. By staying ‘on-trend’ with your content, readers are much more likely to share your content – building you links and a brand that people will come to rely on for the latest industry news.

Because of this, you’ll want to always remain one-step ahead of your content. With an editorial calendar, you can always be ready with the most relevant and entertaining content, ready to publish on-time and at the click of a ‘publish’ button. This won’t only help your staff to maintain peace of mind, but will help to ensure that all of your content is always the very best it can be and released at the most relevant time – keeping you one step ahead of your competitors. After all, you don’t want to suddenly think up a star wars piece titled ‘May The 4^th Be With You’ on the evening of May 3^rd. You want to think up, plan and execute a compelling piece of content long before the time is right to publish.

Putting Together a Content Calendar for Your Business

Putting together an editorial calendar for your business is a pretty simple process. It’s all about knowing your niche, your target market and your industry. As the business owner, you’re no doubt an expert in all three of these things, however, it’s important that you still really put in some time researching what kind of content your users and business will benefit from most.

You may solely be in charge of all content creation; however, if you work as part of a team, delegating on your calendar which content is to be completed by which team member will be best.

Overall, you may want to break up your calendar into the following areas:

Year View

–       Seasons. Are the yearly seasons relevant to your product and/or service? For example, your business may specialise in swimwear, something that will prove much more popular in the summer months. This will help you to brainstorm ideas, ahead of your busiest seasons.

–       Holidays. What generic holidays or industry-specific holidays could you base your content on (e.g. Christmas, Halloween, Ramadan, Friday 13^th etc.)? Looking ahead to big holidays throughout the year, means you won’t miss out on a big opportunity to start conversations or communicate with your audience.

–       Events. What events are expected in your industry or near you during the upcoming year? If you want to prove yourself to be the leading experts and go-to business in your industry, you have to stay on top of all upcoming news and events.

–       Product Launches. Will you be launching any products or services during the year? If so, you’ll want to use content to create a buzz around your business. Another good idea is to plan for any of your competitors’ product launches – this way you can schedule in content that’ll distract from your competitors and keep users focused on your business.

When planning your yearly calendar, you may also want to use the following as good content inspiration:

–       Product upgrades/relaunches

–       Anniversary of your business

–       Announcing new job openings

–       Industry awards/conferences/exhibitions/news

–       Widely recognised events (e.g. Ascot)

–       PR Events (e.g. ‘National Give Someone A Hug Day’)

–       Historical events – anniversaries or celebrated moments in history.

–       One-off events – the turn of a century, a Royal wedding or natural phenomenon.

–       Shop openings/book launches/new releases

Monthly View

Once you’ve inked into your calendar the big yearly events that will be fuelling your business content, your next step is to begin forward planning for the upcoming 2-3 months. This will help you to stay ahead and produce compelling, relevant, timely content that will keep users engaged and in-touch with your business.

When drawing up a content calendar to serve your business, you may want to include the following columns:

–       Title or description of content.

–       What type of content? Blog post/article/video etc.

–       Status. Is the content in progress, on hold, published?

–       Team Member. Who is responsible for the writing/editing of this content?

–       Distribution Channels. Will it be shared through social networking, a blog or streamed live?

–       Promotion. How will this content be brought to the attention of your target audience?

–       Metrics. How are you planning to measure the success of your content? Through your traffic, conversion rate or number shares?

So, now that you are brimming with ideas for content, it’s time to begin brainstorming! But remember; whilst you should be aiming to have at least 2-3 months of content pre-scheduled, there will still always be unplanned events or news stories in your industry that you’ll want to make room for in your schedule.

Content is king in today’s marketing world. So make yours a priority, starting with a content calendar to help your business grow.

For more information or help with your business’s content strategy, why not contact SEO Essex today?

The post Fuel Your Content Marketing With A Content Calendar For 2013 appeared first on SEO Essex.

However, whilst many businesses do recognise the benefits to be had from blogging, this sometimes cannot prevent the early burnout that many eager bloggers suffer.

But why do so many businesses struggle to maintain momentum when writing for their business’s blog? Simply put – blogging can actually be quite hard work. Whilst many people maintain the idea of blogging to be a simple, yet effective way to promote your business, successful blogging requires a whole host of components.

To prevent blogging from becoming yet another unticked to-do item on your ever-growing list, follow these three steps:

Step #1 – What Are Your Resources?

One of the biggest reasons why businesses fail to maintain their site’s blog is that they drastically underestimate the time and skills involved. So, the first thing to do is take a long, hard look at the resources that are currently available to you.

Ask yourself – what skills and how much time are your business able to commit to the upkeep of your blog? For example, if you work alone you’ll probably find you have little time to dedicate solely to blogging. If you are time poor, you need to be realistic about how much time you can afford to lend your business blog. After all, with a blog it’s quality not quantity that is important. So, even if you have a few hours spare at the end of each week, use this time wisely to produce some sharable, expert content that will keep readers coming back for more.

On the other hand, if you work as part of a team you might want to look at the skills and workload of the employees around you. Is there anyone within the group particularly knowledgeable about your business subject, or known for their writing abilities?

The thing to remember is this – you need to be realistic about the resources available to you. Do this and adapt to what is available to you, and neither your blog (nor you) will suffer.

Step #2 – Create a Content Calendar

Once you know what resources you’re working with, you can begin to set up a publishing calendar. Just like you would carefully plan for every other area of your business, you should create a carefully thought out strategy for your blogging efforts. This will help to give the content creation aspects of your work more structure – helping to prevent stress and potential burnout.

When creating your publishing calendar, you should consider the following questions;

–       How often should my business publish new content? A successful business blog demands fresh, up-to-date content. For this reason you will want to ensure that you are posting at least once a week, to maintain a steady flow of visitors. Any less and people will either think your site has been abandoned or will choose to go to your competitors.

–       What topics should we cover? Research into your target market, their social media habits and your website’s analytics should give you a good idea of what kind of topics readers will be expecting from your blog. However, as an expert in your field you will already have a good idea of what to cover – whatever interests you, will interest the reader.

–       Who will be responsible for each stage of the blogging process? A typical blogging process requires someone to research and write the post, upload and then promote it – usually through a variety of social media platforms. Assigning either all tasks or specific stages of the process to people on your team, will help to keep your blogging routine efficient and problem-free.

The best way to use your content calendar is to always ensure you are working two months ahead of schedule. This means two months’ worth of planned content or even pre-loaded and scheduled posts. This will help your business to stay on top of things as well as remove some of the pressure that can contribute to that disastrous bloggers’ burnout we are looking to avoid.

Step #3 – Outsource Where Possible

Sometimes, despite having followed the previous two steps, keeping on top of your business blogging just isn’t feasible. However, if this is the situation for you, then don’t fret just yet. There are still a tonne of ways for your business to reap the rewards of blogging, even if you aren’t putting in the work yourself.

When you are unable to fulfil all of your business blogging responsibilities, why not outsource the entire content creation process? For example, here at SEO Essex we offer a fantastic copywriting service as part of our SEO packages. Countless freelancers and businesses also offer this service; this means that you can continue doing what you do best for your business, confident in the knowledge that your blog content is in the hands of the professionals.

If you do decide to outsource your blog content, then there are several obvious things you will want to consider. For example, if your business is particularly niche, you may want to find someone with some experience in your field. Alternatively, if you have the knowledge but are not confident in your writing abilities, why not produce some draft copies or ideas for potential posts and let the copywriter take it from there?

This kind of service doesn’t have to be on a strictly fixed basis; as we mentioned before, it’s about recognising the resources that are already available to you and making them work for you.

The benefits of an active, entertaining and expert business blog can be incredibly profitable for anyone growing a business. By keeping these 3 steps in mind, you’ll be able prevent any blogging burnout and instead, reap the rewards of a well-executed blogging strategy.

For more information or help with your business’s content strategy, why not contact SEO Essex today?

The post Has Your Business Blog Lost Momentum? Follow These 3 Steps To Avoid Blogger’s Burnout appeared first on SEO Essex.

Similarly to every other area of your marketing strategy, your social media efforts need to be carefully planned and executed. After all, without the necessary groundwork you’re going to have difficulties allocating your team the direction and resources they need to get results.

When implemented correctly, social media can prove incredibly advantageous to your business; it can encourage a more natural link profile, help build your brand and provide a unique way of communicating with your target audience.

If you’re attempting to put together a social media strategy for the first time, or are re-evaluating your current strategy, consider these top 10 tips for improved social media efforts.

1. Increase search visibility. Search engines, such as Google, are known to factor in social sharing when awarding a website its ranking. If you want to increase your company’s search visibility, then you’ll need a good social media strategy that gets people talking about and sharing your content. If your business depends on the search engines for the majority of its leads and sales, this will prove most effective.
2. Grow brand awareness. Social media campaigns can be perfect for raising consumer awareness and building your business brand. If this too is your objective, then ensure your social media efforts really reinforce your business brand and help you stand out from the rest.
3. Be informative. Your social media efforts should always teach customers something for free. So, be sure to include some ‘how-tos’ and compelling resources to educate your customers.
4. Use up-to-date content. Producing relevant news and information that appeals to your target audience, will keep search users talking about your business brand. By keeping your pages up-to-date with fresh, exciting content you could become the go-to for high quality news and resources within your niche. This will give you the ultimate advantage over your competitors.
5.  Become a leading expert in your niche. Does your business have expertise in a unique subject matter? By making these expertise available, you’ll attract a much larger audience of people seeking your answers and advice.
6.  Showcase products. Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube – social platforms such as these will allow your business to showcase your products and services, at little cost.
7. Include customer services. A company known for its speedy responses to customer queries and issues is often admired amongst customers. So, why not integrate customer services into your social media strategy, for a more positive brand reputation?
8. Recruit new candidates.  For companies with a HR team, social media could be ideal for searching out high-quality, interested job candidates. This may not be for every company, but for companies focused on recruitment, it could be ideal.
9. Built-in commerce.  Many companies are slowly but surely working towards using social networks as a platform for quick and easy transactions. E-commerce for Facebook (or F-commerce), is a full e-commerce store built into Facebook. The benefit of this is direct, speedy sales – however, only a few major brands have begun testing this strategy.
10. Conduct market research.  Arguably one of the biggest benefits of social media is that it gives you a direct channel of communication with your target audience. Use social media to learn more about your customers. Conduct your own market research and watch out for trends in the market. The more you learn, the more you can work on and improve your current marketing strategies.

Got your social media objectives figured out? Then it’s time to begin putting what you’ve learnt into action. 

The post How To Make Social Media Worth Your While appeared first on SEO Essex.

You know if you have a good website, as you’ll have acquired a significant number of compliments. However, this doesn’t mean to say that it wouldn’t benefit from a makeover. Below you will find the 5 vital signs that mean building a new site is vital.

1) Acquiring A Newer Domain

Ok, so you’ve acquired a new domain which instantly means that a re-design is required. Could there be a greater way of publicising a new site, than redesigning it? If you have taken on a new domain or your business is selling a new product, a site re-design is essential.

2) Only A Set Number of Pages Can Be Hosted On Your Existing Site

Many people consider CMS and websites to be the same, but they vary greatly. CMS sites were built to play host to an unlimited capacity of content; text, video, podcasts etc, whilst static websites make adding content less easy. There are numerous reasons as to why SEO favours websites with many pages, rather than few pages. Could your site do with having more content?

3) Your Current Website Is Obsolete

If the theme of your website is beginning to look dated, this is a key sign that your website requires updating. The web has changed significantly over the years, which means what was classed as ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ years ago, is far from it now. If your site is challenged in the image department, it could be time to consider a redesign.

4) If Your Site Is Not Mobile-Friendly

According to a recent survey, as much as 12% if the current global traffic online is through mobile traffic. Many people choose to look sites up via their phone, than their desktop – it’s quick, it’s easy and it’s fast. You can get WordPress plug-ins that effectively mimic a mobile site, so why not clasp mobile entirely by making a responsive theme part of your site design or upgrading your current theme to a mobile friendly one, to ensure you’re one step ahead of the game.

5) If Your Site Performance Is Suffering

If you have noticed the performance of your website has been suffering in recent times, a re-design is more than likely needed. If you have too many images and plug-ins, the performance can be effected dramatically. By opting for a new development framework, such as Twitter Bootstrap makes life so much easier in terms of web development with the use of lots of cool and clever features.

With times, websites age… this is something we all need to face up to. So, have a think about your site in comparison of your competition? Can you match their efforts or do you need to up your game?

The post Five Warnings It’s Time Your Site Had A Redesign appeared first on SEO Essex.

We’re not saying that SEO’s time has come and gone, but that un-optimised is the new optimised. This does not mean to say that no optimisation is required. What we’re basically trying to say is that your website should not be over-optimised, nor should it be under-optimised.  It needs to be as Goldilocks would say, “just right”.

Before you begin undoing all the valuable SEO work completed over the years, we have compiled a list of tips to ensure that your website remains just right in terms of SEO – not too much SEO and not too little.

Your Site Needs To Remain User-Friendly

There is a reason why Google keeps a close eye on sites that overdo their SEO techniques. If a site has a lot of SEO – to the point of spam – it begins to focus on search engines at the exclusion of it’s users.

With such a FOG (Fear of Google) arising, there’s a chance that you’ll amend all of your strategies only to find you’re making the same mistake. In simple terms, be sure to take actions that are about the user and not about Google.

For instance, let’s take a look at the variety of ways you could code a hyperlink (these aren’t real links)

As a reader, each choice of anchor text, leads me to make assumptions about where the link leads. Link 1 looks like it should lead to Dr Hodgson’s website. Link 2 looks like it should lead to a page about fruit and vegetables. Whilst Link 3 and 4 features are more difficult to ascertain, the ‘Click here’ anchor says nothing about the nature of the destination page, whilst the naked link is less than helpful too.

With this in mind, it can look and appear natural to want to feature generic anchor text and naked links in your link profile. Avoid forcing them in, if they don’t fit. Anchor text can be an effective way to subtly tell viewers where the link will take them, so try to use it as intended. For this reason, avoid using the precise same anchor text each time you link to a page.
Prior to doing anything due to the FOG, ask yourself if your site will become less useable for your readers as a result.

Avoid Link Removal Services

In 2012, Google sent out a large horde of warning emails via Webmaster Tools informing site owners that potentially harmful unnatural links had been detected in their link profiles and required immediate action. The warnings were not only a little scary, but also rather confusing. It seemed nearly everyone in the SEO industry received the email.

The Penguin update, one of the countless algorithms put in place to target web spam, targets websites whose link profiles are questionable. As panic began to take over, a wide selection of businesses began offering ‘link removal services’ where they offered to remove nasty links in order for you to get back in Google’s good books.

The truth is… you shouldn’t need to pay a company offering shady services to fix the problem. If you happen to have unnatural links pointing to your site, you should know about it, due to the reasons below:

• You purchased the links yourself
• The SEO company you hired did it
• An error of some kind has arisen
• You’ve been a victim of a negative SEO attack

It’s up to you to figure out which links are causing the problem and to remove these links only. Be sure to target the problematic links only, otherwise you could begin killing off the high-quality natural links that are still relevant.

Don’t Defensively De-Optimise

If you have noticed a few pages of your website receiving a dip in traffic, or if you have noticed your site has sustained damage, you may be fooled into thinking that every page of that site needs to be fixed, to prevent future dips in traffic and rankings. However, at this point, we would advise against this. Unless you know for sure that a particular tactic is damaging your site, do not start making drastic changes to pages that could be performing perfectly well.

You can never be sure of Google, it is completely unpredictable. You may notice changes occur and this could be due to testing or sheer randomness. By racing around making changes to pages that do not require amendments, you could be undoing the actions that help them rank in the first place. For this reason, we’d advise that you wait until you know which pages are causing the problem before trying to address the issue.

The exception to this is blatant black-hat tricks and techniques which are a clear violation of Google’s web master guidelines.

Effective SEO Summary

Sharing his recent predictions, Eric Enge recently explained which signals are dying and which are to become more commonly used this year. Like our team at SEO Essex, he knows that “steering anchor texts in links is bad.” Additionally, he thinks keyword research, on-page optimisation, social promotion and landing page quality will continue to become more and more important. It therefore seems the direction is clear.

Google are – whether they are succeeding or not – in attempting to favour higher-quality pages in the search results. You may find it somewhat tempting to try tricking Google into thinking that you’re not trying to trick them… or the better choice could be to instead reduce your dependence on trickery.

The post Destroy the FOG (Fear of Google) With These Effective SEO Tips appeared first on SEO Essex.

Despite the essential skill of a developer, you should never under estimate the power of a good writer. You’ll be surprised just how much value a writer can bring to your company. Many businesses that are just starting out will allocate a writing task to the staff member that is most competent at writing. Yet, the companies with a little more funding are beginning to hire professional writers, as they have come to realise that an excellent writer can bring a hugely positive impact to their business.  Dependant on the level of written work that requires completion will depend on whether you require a writer on a full time or part time basis. Regardless of the hours required, it is worth seeking out a writer who understands the industry in which you work and cares about the future of the company.

Enhancing Your Website

It’s important to acknowledge the sheer importance of your website. Your website is the face of your company, which is why it simply must be up to scratch. In order to design, build and create a successful website the following four occupations are required; a designer, a developer, a SEO technician and a writer.

Finding someone with all four of these skills would be amazing, but unlikely. If you can afford to, having a professional in each field would be more beneficial than having someone who can do all four, but who’s limited. Whatever you do, try not to hold back on the writing talent. One of the main reasons for this being that you will require a vast amount of copy to rank in the search engines and the copy included should be clear and concise, whilst being professional and full of personality and of course, adding value.

Boosting Your Blog

Once your website is up and running, you should begin thinking about your blog. A blog is a superb way in which to bring traffic, leads and links to boost your domain’s SEO value. When writing blogs, be sure to have a regular publishing schedule and make sure your blog has a positive influence on your brand. In order to have a blog written to its highest possible potential, you should employ a professional writer who understands your industry and is familiar with existing blogs in your niche. The blog content must be both valuable and original. Without regular updates, your blogs will be pretty useless.

High Value Content for Lead Generation

If you’re looking for a positive and effective form of lead generation, content marketing is hugely effective. By having a professional writer to write and submit regular posts for your blogs as well as other articles, they can create an effective awareness of your brand. A writer can create a range of effective materials, such as e-books, e-guides and further marketing material in order to help generate leads. This will allow you to gain top end cliental of who are in the information-seeking stage and who can be nurtured further via email campaigns.

Raising Your Profile

A further effective way in which to raise your profile is to enter your business into a selection of different awards. No matter how small or large the awards may be, if it results in winning an award that can help you to boost your company, this is great publicity for your business. Awards are a superb vote of confidence to bring to investors, whilst allowing you the perfect opportunity to show off your site as a symbol of trust.

Effective Email Campaigns

Email campaigns are still an effective form of marketing, yet their effectiveness still depends on the quality of the writing. Featuring strong subject lines will grab your readers’ attention, whilst having a call to action will help to drive clicks and conversions. Just find a writer who believes in good marketing through using testing and analytics, as good writing works with your audience.

The post Five Reasons Why Working With SEO Essex Will Give You A Competitive Edge appeared first on SEO Essex.

With February 14^th just days away, billions of us will be visiting the shops in hope of finding a loving gift or card for our special someone.

Despite in being such a momentous day, the origins of Valentine’s Day are unknown by many. Yet, with over 1 billion cards sent every year, Valentine’s Day is the second most popular card selling holiday, with Christmas being the first.

With so many wonderful ideas of how to make Valentine’s Day fun and exciting for you and your partner, why stop there? Why not consider ways to keep the online presence of your business fresh and exciting too?

Help Your Customers To Find What They’re Looking For

The old tradition of sending a Valentine card is that you keep it anonymous. So, rather than signing the card with your name, instead sign it with the words ‘From Your Valentine’. This romantic gesture is the perfect way to express your interest, whilst the object of your affection will be left guessing who their secret admirer could be.

On the other hand, if your business remains anonymous online and your customers can not find you, your customers will never be able to love you for the business or server that you are.

If you want to be at the top of the search engine results, it’s essential that your keyword selection is chosen carefully. When deciding upon your keywords, be sure to consider the terms your customers are most likely to enter into the search engine. Additionally, use facilities such as Google Adwords or Analytics to discover the best search terms – both local and global.

Learn To Trust In Quality

Throughout the Valentine’s Day hype, masses of boyfriends, fiancés and husbands will stampede to the shops in search of the perfect gift for their other half. As a word of warning, flowers from the local petrol station is not advised. In actual fact, Valentine’s gifts for your lady should be given some serious thought, as a shocking statistic recently revealed that 53 per cent of females would end their relationship if their partner didn’t buy them a present.

Trust and respect are vital signs of any relationship, without them, you could be in trouble. The same applies to the customers of your business. Bearing this in mind, why not think of an effective way for you to reach out to your customers with the use of some strategic SEO techniques. Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are now valued tools in any business campaign. This is for two reasons;

1. Social platforms will enable you to get your business name known both locally and further afield
2. Provides the opportunity to make your business more personal to customers, enabling their trust for your business to rise significantly.

Send Me A Message

If we said you could learn something from the Valentine’s sugary sweets ‘Love Hearts’ made by the Swizzel company, you’d be surprised. But it’s true! As you probably know already, each sweet features its own unique message. The company strive to ensure the messages are changed or amended to make sure they remain up-to-date in the world we’re living in. The few simple words featured are short and sweet, yet form a powerful and personal message.

Making sure that you too keep an eye of changing times and trends, as this is a further factor that should be incorporated into your SEO campaign.

Google regularly have algorithm updates, which means sites that are ranking on page one could be moved to page three or vice versa, sites ranking on page six could be changed to page two. The reason for these changes will depend on a variety of factors, but it’s up to Google who they place where and why. Your SEO expert will be able to provide more reasoning for this, so it is certainly worth asking for their advice.

With Valentine’s Day approaching fast, it’s definitely time to inject some love into your business website with quality SEO and link building services. Even if you are reading this at 2am, don’t be shy, get in touch and we can talk.

Love From SEOEssex.co.uk x

P.S. Here are some fun SEO Valentines Day e-cards we made 🙂

The post Roses Are Red, Text Links Are Blue… appeared first on SEO Essex.

As the image indicates (as shown above) – Jessops are blaming Amazon and the general public for their demise. Yet, with so many online stores providing high quality goods at cheaper rates than high street retailers, can the general public be blamed for choosing the internet over high street stores?

So far, 2013 has seen the closure of Jessops, shortly followed by music store HMV going into administration. This has led many to believe that further high street retailers will continue to close until no shops remain, but what do you think?

Andrew Ellis says: “The high street isn’t dying, it’s just a case of natural selection, adapt or die, those that adapt to serve their community will survive, those that are too arrogant or foolhardy to change won’t.”

Does this mean that there is hope for high street stores after all? That with the right adaptions, even the more traditional stores can stay afloat as long as they are willing to move with the times?

Paul Dolan says: “It’s the Government’s fault for not closing the loopholes. Why pay more when you can get it cheaper online, the average wage doesn’t give you that luxury to go with your heart.”

The comments on Sevenstreets’ timeline photo indicate there is a strong consensus that the core of Jessop’s failure is due to:

a) the general public no longer needing digital cameras
b) the Government needing to make price cuts in high street stores
c) savvy consumers looking to cut costs where possible

Further changes in order to save the Great British high streets were advised also, as Martyn Thompson explained ‘There must be nothing to prevent people visiting towns’ and factors such as cheaper or free parking may help to entice shoppers back to high street consumerism.

For now, many high street shoppers have to contend with traffic, congestion and extortionate car parking prices (some towns charge up to £9.00 a day to park). This is perhaps one of the many reasons consumers are choosing to shop online.

Whether you operate your business online or offline, you need to be savvy by staying ahead of your competitors.

The post Say Goodbye To High Street Retailer ‘Jessops’ appeared first on SEO Essex.

Without knowing what Google’s next move is, it’s difficult to ascertain what you can do to avoid being targeted, but one things for sure, there is certainly more to come. So, what can you do to protect your hard-earned efforts of 2012 in 2013?

Here, at SEO Essex, we have thought of 5 helpful tips to put in place for 2013. Firstly, if you’re thinking about single-tactic approaches, you’re already making a big mistake. Single-tactic approaches are only effective in the short term, which is why it’s essential you utilise a variety of tactics in order for your site to be a success in 2013. See our five pointers crucial to the SEO success of your website, below;

1.) Anchor Text

Since the Penguin update, we have recognised that aggressive inbound link anchor text is asking for trouble. For example, if your website sells perfume and the links on your site reads ‘buy designer Perfume cheap Perfume today’, this looks like spam. The sentence is not grammatically correct, nor is it natural. In order to make your anchor text look natural, stop over-thinking your strategy. Instead, a solid link profile is going to naturally utilise text that is relevant and will appear in context.

2. Links

Taking advantage of link-building tactics can cause detrimental effects to your website. Reading tips about how guest posts can create respectable links has resulted in many people publishing the same slapped-together rubbish, yet on a higher volume of websites. Yet, doing such a thing will only lead to your rankings dropping significantly.

If you want to do well in 2013, we recommend that you employ more than one tactic and that the tactics you employ take up at least a little brain power. Investigate where your links came from throughout 2012 and think about trying something a little different. By diversifying your profile, your direct risk will be reduced.

3. Traffic Sources

By relying on Google, you could be risking your livelihood. Many of us are dependent on Google for traffic, so what would you do if something changed overnight? Declaring that all your tactics are white-hat and that you follow the rules exactly is great, but do you understand the rules that Google set 100% and what would you do if the rules changed at a moment’s notice?

Even by following the rules precisely, your website traffic could drop at the click of a finger, then what would you do? So, for 2013, it’s vital that you think beyond Google. This may be a difficult concept and it’s likely to require both time and money, but in the long-term, it will be worth it.

4. Marketing

Considering your marketing in broader terms has begun to be a positive trend in recent months. Rather than considering ways in which to fool people into liking you, you can instead build-up a better way to entice your customers. Everything you do is marketing if you create something good and believe in it. Yet, if you create rubbish and you know that its rubbish, you are going to have difficulty in gaining customers for life.

Rather than taking shortcuts, think hard about what you do and why you do it, to ensure the things that you do are adding value, rather than detracting value. If you need assistance, speak to an SEO and marketing expert (here at SEO Essex, we’re always happy to help). Discover what your company does that’s exciting, unique and that rings true with your customers, then maximise your profits by incorporating these factors into your marketing.

5. Point of View

For those of you who say your industry is boring… think how your customers must feel? If you find that you’re only thinking negatively about your work and your website, it’s important that you take time out, in order to assess things differently.

Why not get an employee to give you a tour of your office, as though you’ve never seen it before or walk around your local town as though it’s the first time you’ve ever visited? By doing so, you’ll observe finer details, things that you would miss on a normal, day-to-day basis. Additionally, get some of your friends to take a look at your website, in order to gain constructive feedback for a newer, crisper perspective.

It’s important to generate original and unique ideas for your website, in order to keep it fresh and innovative. With a new year just beginning, this couldn’t be a better time to gain a new perspective on things and to start a fresh. By having a passion for the subject that you’re selling, your customers will too.

The post How To Protect Your Website With SEO In 2013 appeared first on SEO Essex.

With the holidays approaching and Christmas spirit filling the air, our team at SEO Essex would like to take the opportunity to wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We would also like to say a big thank you to everyone we have worked with this year. It has been a pleasure working with you and we hope to continue working with you in the future.

To ensure that your business continues to thrive in the New Year, take a look at our video below.

For more information on the expert SEO techniques that we can apply to your business, contact our friendly team at SEO Essex today.

We would like to wish you a New Year filled with good health, prosperity, and happiness…

Happy Holidays,
The SEO Essex Team

The post Merry Christmas From SEO Essex appeared first on SEO Essex.