Archives For seo

Kill the marketing stamp

— Leave a comment

When people first start looking online for marketing advice they’re swamped with things to do: Make a Twitter! Do it on Facebook! Keep a blog! Google! Upload YouTube videos! Advertising!

It’s like someone’s created a stamp with these words carved into it and every new business that comes along gets it pressed on their forehead.

But that doesn’t fit for every business. Should a laundromat really keep a Twitter profile? Should a bailiff company create a Facebook fan page?

If you just do it because everyone says you should, then you’re missing the point and will get bad results. Having no profile is better than having a dead profile.

To know what and where to market, ask yourself these two questions:

  • Who is my target audience?
  • Where is my target audience?
When your washing machine breaks down and you need a local laundromat, will you turn to Twitter? No. When your business requires professional bailiff services, will you go to Facebook? No.
Flip your thinking and start looking through the eyes of your customer.
In Communication Is The Key , , , , , ,
permalink

Goodbye SEO, Hello Content

— 4 Comments

If you want your website on the top of Google results, stop thinking SEO and start thinking Content.

As I have explained in my Google workshops, the search engine giant has one incredible skill: The ability to learn from massive amounts of data.

It updates search algorithms up to 500 times a year and weeds out websites that try to game it. If you’ve ever read about SEO, or any sort of guide to get to the top of Google, you’ll probably be familiar with article marketing (now defunct), comment backlinking (now defunct), forum posting (about to be defunct) and link wheeling.

All these quick-win techniques either are, or will become dead soon. Why? Google has just opened its doors to receive vast amounts of data that will enable it to learn which of these websites are shit. How will it know? People are about to tell it.

For the first time, Google is allowing web-masters to tell it which links pointing to their websites are junk and should be ‘disavowed’. On the surface, its allowing web-masters to do this because lots of people have complained that competitors are creating junk links to purposefully reduce their rankings. This ‘disavow’ option is like a white flag web-masters can fly: Hey Google, ignore this link pointing at me, I don’t know who made it and it’s from a dodgy website!

Yet, think about what data Google is really receiving. Hundreds of thousands of people are telling Google which websites are dodgy, and what kind of links it should ignore. Google is being taught by the very people that tried to game it how to find false backlinks. The quick-win SEO strategies are dead.

Hello Content

So how the hell do you get to the top of Google then? The basic principles still apply: Get backlinks from credible sources such as news sites, blogs and social media. Figure out a way to create interest and get written about. This is called a ‘content-led approach’. Make something, write something, share something.

Forget the idea of creating a site, getting it to the top of Google and sitting back as the money rolls in. That never happened anyway. The web is the most competitive marketplace of all; you have to create interesting content (note – doesn’t have to be of the top quality to be successful), and distribute like mad through credible, human-edited channels.

Oddly, that sounds a lot like what PRs have been doing for the last decade.

Subscribe to Tom’s Newsletter

In Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media , , , , , , , ,
permalink

Side Income Case Study: Consulting on Gumtree

— 2 Comments

Every week, I advertise two things on Gumtree: WordPress and Google SEO expertise. Through this, I help about two people per week and earn a decent wage per hour.

This is a nice little side income that pays for a few treats, but as I’ve discovered over time it tends to lead to a lot more. Time and time again, those people call (sometimes six months later) asking for help again, or with an introduction to a friend, or for some more serious work.

Therefore creating a side-income revenue stream is not just about the money. It’s also a stream that leads to greater connections and more opportunities. For everyone you meet, keep in touch regularly (use HighRise), help them in every capacity you can, and reap the benefits slowly over time.

Advanced Insight Into Gumtree

For the more technically-capable, you’ll be interested to know that I used the Fake App to automatically create the ads on Gumtree, and used an Apple Automator Script combined with iCal events to schedule it to run. In other words, it’s 100% automated.

More Case Studies

  1. How I Saved 1500 Hours And Graduated In Half The Time
  2. Sublet Your Home: A Passive Income Case Study
  3. Side-Income Case Study: £1k+ Per Month
In Communication Is The Key, Opinion, Productivity Strategies , , , , , , , ,
permalink

Leave a Link Trail: SEO & Branding Benefits

— Leave a comment

When you get your business into the press, try to leave a link trail. This means having one article lead onto another, onto another, onto another. It has huge SEO and branding benefits that you ought to know.

For example, I recently wrote about the Kooki app on The Huffington Post,

Launched only two months ago, Kooki has already been featured in The Guardian as a ‘Winning New Business‘ and looks set to be a hit with Londoners as it partners with new shops everyday.

You can see how this is then linked to their feature in The Guardian, which in turn, was linked to their website. A link trail like this is great for search-engine-optimisation and branding.

In terms of Google, you’re helping it find more backlinks to your website, increasing your pagerank and scoring higher on the results pages.

For branding, readers immediately see greater credibility and can learn more should they choose to. It’s alright to have just one article in a newspaper or magazine, but you can’t lean on that forever. Customers become much more aware of your brand if you’re being talked about again and again.

Once you’ve racked up ten or more articles from various well-respected news outlets (university blogs are even better), consider creating a Wikipedia page. Here, you can put a reference to all of these articles, making sure that Google and readers will have access forever more.

But, a word of caution. Wikipedia volunteers are extremely strict when it comes to establishing a new Wikipedia page. It’s meant to be an encyclopedia, remember? So when you’re writing about your business or product, think about it from that point of view. As a general rule of thumb, either the product, business or story of creation must be remarkable (and proven to be so).

Have you won any awards? Been referenced by celebrities or book authors? Been mentioned in the press over ten times?

It took me a long time to figure out what gets accepted as a new Wikipedia page, so if you keep that in mind, you’ll be on the right track.

Related articles:

In Communication, Marketing, Public Relations, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

Climb the Google Ranks, a Real Case Study

— 4 Comments

Image of Google Logo

I want to help people become rich through effective communication. But before you can start communicating, your audience have to find you. And where does everyone search today? Google.

This article explains the basics of how to climb the ranks of Google and be in a position where people can find you. It is very detailed, but assumes no prior knowledge – yet although a basic guide, follow it consistently and you will get to the top.

I use a real example to help, and it is of my brother, Terry Church who manages the reputations of Dance Music DJs. He wanted to increase his own brand image (note – not increase traffic, that was an indirect result) by ranking #1 on Google for relevant search terms.

Keep reading if you want to do the same.

Continue reading “Climb the Google Ranks, a Real Case Study” »

In Marketing, Social Media , , , , ,
permalink