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<lastBuildDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:45:36 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<copyright>Copyright: (C) Essex SEO</copyright>
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			<title>How Do I monitor my SEO progress?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">How Do I monitor my SEO progress?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">There are lots of things to learn to conduct an SEO campaign correctly and effectively. Start with reading a couple of SEO books from the leading figures within the SEO industry like SEOmoz and follow their blogs. This should give you a good grounding to get started with your campaign.Before embarking on your SEO campaign you need to know what your goals are. What's the point in undertaking an SEO campaign if you don't know where you want it to go or what you want it to achieve. Do you just want more visitors? Do you want those visitors to do something when they get to your website? How are you going to get them to do that task? Then you need to measure your baseline; where your website is currently positioned within the search engines, number of visitors, number of sales, number of enquires etc. You'll never know if you have improved if you do not start with a baseline. With each change you make to your website you need to monitor the effects to see if you are progressing towards your goals.There are some great tools out there for measuring your website progress, either free or paid, two I would recommend is Google Analytics and SEOmoz's SEO tools.As a business owner striving to run a successful online business as well as run your office/shop, doing all the above will not be easy as it's a full time task in its self. It is always beneficial to know something about SEO before you employ an SEO company to do it on your behalf. We are an <a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">SEO company in Essex </a> and work with business all around the UK, Spain and France and have many years experience with SEO and marketing websites, please fill free to use our comments form below if you have any questions.If you do employ an SEO company you can still monitor the progress of your website by using the above mentioned SEO tools, you should also ask your SEO company to provide you with monthly reports showing the improvements to the website, always spend some time spot checking this information, the SEO company should be able to back up any of their claims.Overall, if you are seeing an increase in sales or enquires and this was not happening before you brought an SEO on broad and your sales continues to grow month on month, then you know they are doing a good job for you.If you want to find out the effectiveness of your current SEO campaign, <a href="http://www.dradept.com/contact.php" target="_blank">contact Essex SEO </a> today and speak to one of our experts.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_Do_I_monitor_my_SEO_progress?</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:45:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_Do_I_monitor_my_SEO_progress?</guid>
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			<title>Does your website have any duplicate content issues?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Does your website have any duplicate content issues?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">One of the problems that usually pop up during a website design is the information architecture. Often one or two keywords will be used throughout the entire website, known as cannibalization. This forces the search engines to pick which page within your website is most relevant. Ideally you should be planning your <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank">website design and SEO </a> around your product's and services to ensure you have a landing page for each item with unique keywords within the title tags, meta description tags, headings and unique text within the content on all pages. The search engines can then identify they are separate pages and index each one, instead of choosing only one page within your site as the important one and only indexing that.In essence, a site employing cannibalization competes with itself for rankings and dilutes the ranking power of internal anchor text, external links, and keyword relevancy. This also applies to the content on the website, if you have copied content from another website, or your blog articles are placed in several sub domains i.e EssexSEO/Blog and <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/seo_tips.php" target="_blank">EssexSEO/Does your website have any canonical URL issues? </a> You are making the search engine choose which is the original and should be shown in the search engines. One fix for this is to apply the canonical URL tag to all versions of the page to indicate which version is the original.The same holds true when you syndicate content to third parties, one fix, is to have the third party implement a link back to the original article within your website. Search engines nearly always interpret this correctly and emphasize your version of the content when you do that.The best way to avoid a canonical issue is to plan your website from the word go, how many pages do you need, what needs to go on to each page, which keywords will work best on those pages, what content needs to be on there, how will the customer and the search engine find their way around the website etc, if you ask yourself these simple question before you start designing, it will save you a lot of problems in the future.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Does_your_website_have_any_duplicate_content_issues?</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:24:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Does_your_website_have_any_duplicate_content_issues?</guid>
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			<title>How your external linking strategy can make or break your SEO success</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">How your external linking strategy can make or break your SEO success</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Linking between websites is an important factor in crawling and indexing your website. Google highly recommends internal and external linking to enable their robots to following the links and crawl website pages. Google also considers external links as votes of confidence in the website the link is pointing to.Obtaining links from companies with high Page Rank, content that is relevant to your industry and having your keywords within the link is the best link you can obtain. However, you should not ignore lower ranked pages. You will just need more of these types of links compared to getting a highly ranked site link.When on your travels around the internet, if you find content you think will be of interest to your audience, link to it, when your audience see's you are adding to their experience they will keep coming back for more.The majority of companies on the internet pay attention to who is linking to them. If they feel your website is relevant to their audience they may even link back to you.It pays to do a little bit of research before you link to a website, ensuring it looks legitimate, is not a site with adult content, a link farm site or the over all content looks like spam. Always only link to website's relevant to your industry. When a website's back links suddenly grow, it's a good bet they have paid for those links. Google claims it will soon be penalising paid links, if you attach to any of those types of websites this will have a knock on effect to your website, and you do not want your page rank or position within the search engine results knocked down because you linked to the wrong website, especially when link building is so time consuming.At Essex SEO, we have an in-depth knowledge of SEO link building, if you have any concerns about your external linking, please do not hesitate contacting us on 01268 456274.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_your_external_linking_strategy_can_make_or_break_your_SEO_success</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:06:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Link Building</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_your_external_linking_strategy_can_make_or_break_your_SEO_success</guid>
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			<title>SEO FAQs</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEO FAQs</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext"><strong>Do SEO consultants guarantee top rankings with the search engine?</strong>As stated in the Google Guidelines for webmasters, no one can guarantee search engine rankings. The search engines programme algorithms to protect the searchers from spamming websites, not to make it hard for your website to get to the front page. The aim of any SEO is to know the rules of the algorithms and help businesses achieve a good ranking for their chosen keywords. It can take up to six months before you will start seeing the benefits of your SEO campaign, and the harder any SEO has to work to help increase your businesses bottom line the higher the fee will be. <strong>How long will it take for the search engine optimisation to be successful?</strong>As stated above it could take up to six months before you start seeing results. It takes time, dedication, persistence and financial commitment to get to the top of the search engines. The end result is well worth the cost as 89% of searchers click on the business in 1st position within the search engines, falling to 33% for 2nd position then 17% for 3rd position.<strong>What factors dictate how quickly my site gets to the top of the search results?</strong>Factors to take into consideration are:<ul><li>The number of business competition for your key word phrases<li>How niche your business is. A Niche business with very few competitors should not have to undertake SEO</li><li>Sometimes age of your website can effect the result. The newer the site the longer it takes to appear.</li><li>Amount of good quality content and consistent updates.</li></ul><strong>When will I start to get leads from my website?</strong>If the product you are selling is of high demand you should start to see leads coming in shortly after SEO changes are made to your website. However, you have to remember SEO is a slow process and should be used for the long term benefit of your business not as a quick fix. If you need immediate leads then we would recommend you use PPC adverts.<strong>What will it cost me to stay at the top of the search engines?</strong>In some cases a basic SEO is all that is required and a company can maintain top position. If your competition starts actively promoting themselves on the internet you could then be knocked from the top slot. The higher your expectations for your business the higher the cost of the SEO as more time and effort will have to be put into your website.We use only ethical SEO techniques and follow the industry leaders such as Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie C. Stricchiola guidance on good SEO practices.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_FAQs</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:31:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Tips</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_FAQs</guid>
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			<title>Optimising for local search part 3</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Optimising for local search part 3</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Three weeks on and I have added some relevant content to the page I am optimising for Basildon.<a href="http://www.DrAdept.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.DrAdept.com</a> is now in first position for <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank">website design Basildon </a>I felt it was the content that helped DR Adept web designs rank better and quickly, not the title tags or page title.Still do not seem to be moving in the Essex local search but will be putting together some more good relevant content to see if there is any improvement with rankings.At the moment content seems to be king.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_local_search_part_3</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:23:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Tips</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_local_search_part_3</guid>
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			<title>Optimising for local search part 2</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Optimising for local search part 2</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Carrying on from my <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_Local_Search.php" target="_blank">Optimising for local search </a> blog yesterday.Today I have updated:-<ul><li>Title Tags</li><li>Page descriptions</li><li>H1 tags</li><li>Hcards incorporated (learn more about it at <a href="http://microformats.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">microformats.org/</a>) </li><li>Blogs geo-coded (learn more about it at <a href="http://www.feedmap.net/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.feedmap.net/</a>) </li></ul>Next I need to check local listings in directories to ensure our locations are listed correctly and have asked the web developer to insert a Google map into each website.I am testing to see which of the following websites positions improve within Google using pages and keywords:-Current existing page within website <a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php<ul><li><a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php" target="_blank">Website" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.dradept.com/web.php<ul><li><a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php" target="_blank">Website</a> design Basildon </a></li><li><a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php" target="_blank">Web designer Basildon </a></li></ul>I have added a new page for localisation for Essex within website <a href="http://www.dradept.com/dr_adept_website_design_in_essex.php<ul><li><a href="http://www.dradept.com/dr_adept_website_design_in_essex.php" target="_blank">Website" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.dradept.com/dr_adept_website_design_in_essex.php<ul><li><a href="http://www.dradept.com/dr_adept_website_design_in_essex.php" target="_blank">Website</a> design Essex </a></li><li><a href="http://www.dradept.com/dr_adept_website_design_in_essex.php" target="_blank">Web designer Essex </a></li></ul>Current existing page within website <a href="http://www.essexwebdesigns.com/<ul><li><a href="http://www.essexwebdesigns.com" target="_blank">Website" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.essexwebdesigns.com/<ul><li><a href="http://www.essexwebdesigns.com" target="_blank">Website</a> design Essex </a></li><li><a href="http://www.essexwebdesigns.com" target="_blank">Web designer Essex </a></li></ul>Part of the battle with the new page within dradept.com is indexing. I have linked to that page from within the website and will also add a link from this blog to the website to aid Google with finding it and indexing the new page.EssexWebDesigns is no where to be seen within the top 20 pages of Google for the above keywords, although it is indexed. Giving EssexWebDesigns an advantage over DrAdept.DrAdept is currently in positions 5, 4, 46 and 44 for the four chosen keywords.Again if anyone else out there has tried any of the above we would love to hear from you.<a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_local_search_part_3">Optimising for local search part 3 </a><a href="http://www.dradept.com/buy.php?id=561" target="_blank">Download FREE seo ebook </a><img src="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/images/book_seooverview.png" border="0" class="image" alt="SEO ebook" title="SEO ebook" />Written by <a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">Christina, SEO Consultant based in Basildon Essex </a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_local_search_part_2</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:36:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Tips</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_local_search_part_2</guid>
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			<title>Optimising for Local Search</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Optimising for Local Search</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">There seems to be so much conflicting information on the best ways to optimise websites for local search.I have been told to use one page satellite sites, to add another page to my main website, add a subdomain or to create a new all singing all dancing website.All of the above then come with the same advice, use them to optimise for the area I want to do business in.So I've decided to test all the advice I have been given to find out what actually works the best.I plan on using our websites <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.dradept.com</a> and <a href="http://www.EssexWebDesigns.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.EssexWebDesigns.com</a> to test our website design pages for Essex, DR Adept will have the additional page put into it whereas EssexWebDesigns.com entire website will be optimised for Essex.I will be coming back reqularly to report on my findings and would enjoy hearing from anyone else who has optimised for more than one area to hear what has worked for them.The first stage of the optimisation is to use my keywords in:-Title TagsPage descriptionsH1 tagsContent to include business name, type of business and location name.Include Google Map on siteEnsure unique text in all the above<a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_local_search_part_2">Optimising for local search part 2 </a><a href="http://www.dradept.com/buy.php?id=561" target="_blank">Download FREE seo ebook </a><img src="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/images/book_seooverview.png" border="0" class="image" alt="SEO ebook" title="SEO ebook" />Written by <a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">Christina, SEO Consultant based in Basildon Essex </a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_Local_Search</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:35:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Tips</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Optimising_for_Local_Search</guid>
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			<title>How to use pay-per-click advertising</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">How to use pay-per-click advertising</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the standard way to advertise your business website in the sponsored sections of the search engines (usually at the top of the page and to the right) and their respective content networks.On a per-click/per-user basis you pay a pre-set amount which you can cap to appear alongside organic search results or contextually-relevant content.The largest and best examples of pay-per-click advertising networks are Google Adwords (focused on search) and Google Adsense (contextual ads).<strong>What is pay-per-click advertising?</strong>Pay-per-click adverts are placed in the boxes you see above and to the right of search results in search engines such as Google and Yahoo, this box is usually displayed with a coloured background and you can usually see the words sponsored above or below this box. PPC ads are text-only, with just a heading, brief description and the URL.The two major PPC providers are Google AdWords and Yahoo's Advertising (formerly Yahoo Overture), which cover 98% of the PPC market including most other search engines. Google's AdSense distribution network also displays ads on millions of other websites.PPC ads are paid for by the advertiser, who controls where the ads are placed and who they are targeted at. When a user clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays for that click because it is bringing traffic to their website. Anyone can do this once they have set up a Google Adwords account.When you set up your PPC campaign, you will place bids on the keywords you want. You should only bid for keywords relevant to your website or the web page your PPC ad is going to bring the traffic to.<strong>Creating and planning your PPC campaign</strong>Before you open a PPC account, find out what your current cost per lead is. Do this by working out how much each online sale is currently costing you.Once you have established how much your current sales are costing you, set the amount you can spend on each keyword. Use your cost per lead to help you - if you generate one sale per 100 visits, your conversion rate is 1% - so work out how much you are willing to spend on that one sale per 100 visitors.Your next step will be to work out the list of keywords you will target. Use Google's Keyword Tool to work out which keywords are the most searched for by users. Don't forget, the more in demand the keyword, the more expensive the bid.When you sign up for a PPC account, you will be asked to set your maximum daily budget. If you set your budget to 100, the search engine will display your ads until you have reached this budget, at which point they will no longer be displayed until the next day. The search engine will bill you at the end of each month, payment is usually taken via your credit card or you have the option for direct debit payments.Your ad will be ranked depending on how much you bid for it, as well as how relevant your website is to the keyword you're bidding on.As with all ads there is a restriction on space, remember to keep the title to around 25 characters, and the text should be longer than 35 characters. Remember to include your keywords in both.<strong>Tracking your PPC campaign</strong>PPC providers offer you a wide array of tools to track your campaign, so you should be able to track everything your users have done, from the search terms they entered to find your site to how much that sale has cost you.Update your list of keywords regularly to get the most out of your PPC campaign. If, after a week, one of your keywords hasn't generated any leads, replace it with a different one.PPC providers also allow you to target your campaign by geographical location, which means you can limit your campaign to your local area, or even to an area you know demand for your product will be high.<strong>FAQ</strong><strong>How much should I be bidding?</strong>Don't bid any more than your profit margin - if you're making one 10 sale per 100 visitors, bid less than 10p per click to make a profit.<a href="http://www.dradept.com/buy.php?id=561" target="_blank">Download FREE seo ebook </a><img src="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/images/book_seooverview.png" border="0" class="image" alt="SEO ebook" title="SEO ebook" />Written by <a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">Christina, SEO Consultant based in Basildon Essex </a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_to_use_pay-per-click_advertising</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:58:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>PPC</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_to_use_pay-per-click_advertising</guid>
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			<title>What is Click Through Rate?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">What is Click Through Rate?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">The measurement used to work out how successful an online ad campaign is. The click-through rate, or CTR, is worked out by dividing the number of people who clicked on an ad by the number of impressions.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/What_is_Click_Through_Rate?</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:55:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>PPC</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/What_is_Click_Through_Rate?</guid>
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			<title>What is cost per click?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">What is cost per click?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">With regards to PPC: The amount advertisers pay per person who clicks on an ad.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/What_is_cost_per_click?</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:54:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>PPC</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/What_is_cost_per_click?</guid>
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			<title>With regards to PPC. What is an impression?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">With regards to PPC. What is an impression?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">In PPC, one impression counts as one view. If the ad has been displayed 10 times, it's had 10 impressions.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/With_regards_to_PPC._What_is_an_impression?</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:52:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>PPC</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/With_regards_to_PPC._What_is_an_impression?</guid>
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			<title>What is SEO?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">What is SEO?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Search engine optimisation. The process used to make websites appear as high up in search engine results as possible for your choosen market.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/What_is_SEO?</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:51:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/What_is_SEO?</guid>
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			<title>Steal this SEO FAQ: 30+ SEO Questions You Always Wanted an Answer</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Steal this SEO FAQ: 30+ SEO Questions You Always Wanted an Answer</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Recently I've read one of those awfully misguided anti-SEO posts.Visit link:<a href="http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2010/02/steal-this-seo-faq-30-seo-questions-you-always-wanted-an-answer-to.html/comment-page-1#comment-80515" target="_blank">Steal this SEO FAQ: 30+ SEO Questions You Always Wanted an Answer ... </a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Steal_this_SEO_FAQ:_30+_SEO_Questions_You_Always_Wanted_an_Answer</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:24:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Guide</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Steal_this_SEO_FAQ:_30+_SEO_Questions_You_Always_Wanted_an_Answer</guid>
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			<title>Trying to unsubscribe from a newsletter</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Trying to unsubscribe from a newsletter</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">After attending an FSB conference where I found the guest speaker to be great at motivating people I decided to subscribe to his newsletter because I wanted to hear more about what he does and if it would be of value to my company.I have never received a newsletter, but have been bombarded with emails not just from him but anyone he felt he could give my email address to. All emails using aggressive selling tactics, which I find a real turn off and wouldn't use on my own customers or any person I'm trying to convert to a customer.For several months I have been polite and asked to be removed from his mailing list as I have been unable to find any way of unsubcribing myself.Today I emailed and was a little more aggressive myself and told him to remove me.He came back and was sarcastic and abusive and treated me like I was the idiot.<ul><li>When you ask people to sign up for a newsletter, make sure they only get a newsletter.</li><li>Make it clear on your newsletter how someone can unsubscribe.</li><li>Be transparent and trustworthy.</li><li>If someone emails you direct and requests to be removed from your mailing list, remove them quickly and efficiently.</li><li>Do not give anyone wishing to leave your mailing list a hard time, you are just creating negative feelings towards your product/service</li></ul>Remember to treat others how you wish to be treated.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Trying_to_unsubscribe_from_a_newsletter</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:09:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Communicate, marketing, customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Trying_to_unsubscribe_from_a_newsletter</guid>
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			<title>SEO for car alarms in Essex</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEO for car alarms in Essex</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">We are pleased to welcome In-Car-Advancements who have asked us to work on their <a href="http://www.in-car-advancements.co.uk/alarms.html" target="_blank">car alarm </a> and <a href="http://www.in-car-advancements.co.uk/audio-multimedia.html" target="_blank">in car multimedia pages</a>.The aim of the SEO is to increase sales.If you are interested in starting your own seo campaign why not <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/download.php?id=27">Download our FREE seo guide </a>.Also see <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Social_Media_and_SEO_measurement_ideas">Social Media and SEO Measurement Ideas</a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_for_car_alarms_in_Essex</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:41:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_for_car_alarms_in_Essex</guid>
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			<title>Social Media and SEO measurement ideas</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Social Media and SEO measurement ideas</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Some measurement Ideas for your Social Media and Search Engine Optimization Campaigns.Measurement depends on the aims of the campaign. Here are some measurements I use, and apply to social media as well as other marketing channels. They may not all be appropriate, or achievable, but should help get you started.<strong>1. Increased Revenue</strong>This measurement is the easiest and most straightforward. What was the level of business you or your client was achieving before the search engine optimization (seo) campaign started, and what is the level they are achieving afterwards? Has it gone down, up or stayed the same.<strong>2. Increased Visitor Numbers</strong>Are there more visitors now than before the seo campaign started? Make sure you break down the channels the visitors are coming in from. Who are they? Where are they from? Are they the right demographic?We have been working with <a href="http://www.JackOfAllGames.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.JackOfAllGames.co.uk</a> since July and can see since the seo campaign started there has been a 155% increase in visitor numbers.<img src="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/images/joag_visitor_numbers.jpg" border="0" class="image" alt="Measuring Visitor Numbers" title="Measuring Visitor Numbers" />It does not have to be complicated, a simple graph gives you or your client an immediate visual understanding of the impact your campaign is having.<strong>3. Reach/Spreading the word</strong>This is one of the most difficult aspects to measure. Google Trends can be used to pinpoint spikes in attention across the net. Are you being mentioned more than your competitors? Are you mentioned more across blogs, Twitter, Facebook, mainstream media? <strong>4. Search Activity</strong>Are more people searching your brand after your social media campaign? <strong>5. Links</strong>Have you received more links since your social media campaign? This is one of the huge values of social media, when combined with SEO. Social media can be such a powerful link building method. <strong>Why should you measure?</strong>The end result shows you whether all your time, effort and money is paying off. Your clients are more likely to spend more money with you if you show them it is working.Why not download our <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/shop.php">FREE seo guide </a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Social_Media_and_SEO_measurement_ideas</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Social_Media_and_SEO_measurement_ideas</guid>
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			<title>Social Media Marketing &amp; SEO</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Social Media Marketing &amp; SEO</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">So the Google-Twitter-Bing Deal has happened. Only, it's a bigger deal than that. Facebook has joined the party and made it a foursome. What do these developments mean for you?In short, the worlds of social media and search have collided. But, in summary: <ol><li>Search traffic to social media sites will make Twitter and Facebook even more ubiquitous. Expect social media to be as indispensible as the phone. It already is for many. With a flood of traffic from Search Engines, it'll be impossible for web users to avoid social networks. </li><li>Search will eventually become personalized to each user based on their social media activity and friends' activities. All of the basics of SEO will still be important, but your social media presence will be a critical part of securing your search traffic. </li></ol>Social media will most likely become just as important as content creation and inbound links for priming the SEO pump. <strong>Google &amp; Bing Announce Real Time Search Deals With Twitter </strong>Marissa Mayer announces that Google has reached an agreement with Twitter to include Twitter updates in Google's search results. It will be interesting to see how real time events will change search. Say I wanted to know what the weather is like at Niagra-on-the-lake, Canada right now. Hopefully if I search for that information someone will have twittered about it.Maybe I want to pop out and do some Christmas shopping but don't want to be there with the crowds.Google announced they have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for the US searchers to play with.Microsoft has pulled off a similar deal with Facebook, which has six times as many users as Twitter. <strong>What Does This Mean For SEOs?</strong>Go where the search engines do. Link to your content from Twitter. Publish excerpts and link-backs. Monitor real-time search trends, using Google's Hot Trends and trend data tools, such as TweetStats. Supply content to match demand.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Social_Media_Marketing_&amp;_SEO</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:16:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Social_Media_Marketing_&amp;_SEO</guid>
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			<title>Seven Things to Consider Prior to Launching Your Business Blog</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Seven Things to Consider Prior to Launching Your Business Blog</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext"><strong>Here are seven things to consider prior to launching your business blog: </strong><strong>1. Set aside time</strong>Blogs often fail because businesses can not keep up with them. Start simple and blog once a month, then twice a month until you are at least blogging once a week. Believe me it gets easier the more you do it. <strong>2. Build a network</strong>The larger your network of followers the better. Start building this network before your blog goes live, then you have people who will already be interested in following your blog and may link to it.<strong>3. Keyword research</strong>Creating great content will bring more traffic to your site. Do some research on relevant keywords for your product/service and use them in your blog.<strong>4. Queue up articles</strong>Set aside time for your blog. I find it handy to make notes during the week and keep them in a word document until I am ready to start writing the blog. If I'm on a role I can write more than one blog, giving me articles I can post at a later date. This way I do not run out of blog material.<strong>5. Create calls-to-action</strong>If you want to derive business value from your blog in the form of leads and sales you need good, relevant offers to go along with your content. Think about what calls to action should go into your blog.<strong>6 Set up RSS/Subscriber feeds</strong>If you want to grow your business blog you need to build a subscriber base. Think about how to position your RSS feeds or email opt-in on your blog and your website to maximize subscriptions. <strong>7. Ways to promote it </strong>How are you going to promote your blog? Will you use tweeter, your company newsletter, Facebook or LinkedIn? How often should you promote your blog? Spend some time putting together a plan on how and where you plan to promote your blog.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Seven_Things_to_Consider_Prior_to_Launching_Your_Business_Blog</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:13:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Blog Tips</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Seven_Things_to_Consider_Prior_to_Launching_Your_Business_Blog</guid>
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			<title>Is SEO a Scam?</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Is SEO a Scam?</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Derek Powazek - I have never heard of him, neither has my website design partner, David who has been in the business for 11 years. Folio Magazine reported he is one of the top 40 industry influencers of 2007 and has worked the web since 1995 at sites such as HotWired, Blogger and Technorati.He doesn't like SEO and obviously does not understand the value SEO can add to a business.<strong>SEO is a con and you should not be charged for it.</strong>The same could be said about web designers, who come up with pointless designs and charge a fortune for them. There are web designers out their who come up with functional websites which do the right job for their customers, likewise there are SEO's out there who know how to use SEO to market a website to the right audience.Unfortunately, Derek thinks the entire SEO industry is a con. That's like saying all people who come from Basildon are morons, yet Basildon is used by London workers as a cheap place to live and commute to the city. Lets hope all the city bankers don't live here... moving on quicklyLike any con man, if they offer you the world, then you know it's a scam.A good SEO can take a site and get it ranking under appropriate keywords, placing your website where your customers are looking. This takes lots of research and knowledge which we happily incorporate into your site. A web designer wouldn't do this, they are too happy coming up with pretty pictures and swirls.The only thing coming out of Derek's mouth which is true:-Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.SEOs help make sure the search engines don't miss greatness. Derek seems to think SEO is about crawling and hacking. Yeah crawling is part of SEO, but hacking has never been or ever will be part of SEO. SEO is about keywords and how to use them throughout your website and the marketing strategy. This is something web designers don't always understand.SEO publish content for user's and search engines, the content has to interest the user and be of use to them, otherwise search engines would fail as a business. If you don't provide what the user wants they go elsewhere.Here's a quote Derek made: Also, I didn't call SEO people &quot;fucktards&quot; because that wouldn't be fair to actual retarded people. Could the same be said about some web designers?I am so grateful I work with a brilliant web designer. David helps me understand how to communicate with other web designers when I require SEO changes to a clients website, although he doesn't know a great deal about SEO and wouldn't claim to, he knows I get his clients sites seen, which means his designs are also seen and hopefully the traffic coming to his clients sites may just like his design and in turn visit his website and turn into a customer. Also he understands web design and SEO go together, like a good marriage, they have to work together for it to last and be successful.As an SEO I'm normally brought in at the beginning of a web design, so I am involved at the beginning of the design process, where I can give advice about what needs to be done to a website for marketing purposes. During this process I learn about the design process and the designers are learning about the SEO process.We all agree on one thing, what is the point in creating a great looking website, or a great business idea, if no one ever finds it.Then again Derek is only in the top 40 and I only follow the top 10 :)<a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Benefits_of_Search_Engine_Optimization_and_SEO_Marketing">Benefits of SEO </a></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Is_SEO_a_Scam?</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Benefits, SEO, SEM</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Is_SEO_a_Scam?</guid>
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			<title>How to attract more views to each of your blog posts.</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">How to attract more views to each of your blog posts.</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext"><strong>NUMBER OF POSTS READ = NUMBER OF VISITS * NUMBER OF POSTS READ ON EACH VISIT</strong> Rather than just trying to get more people to your site, you should spend some time thinking about the number of posts read by each visitor.There's a whole bunch of techniques to increase page views without increasing the number of your posts which are read. As an example: you can publish each article over a number of pages, and make people click 'next' buttons - each single read of a post now generates three page views. This will cause a spike in CPM advertising revenue, but could cause irritation for your visitors.One technique to consider is that of linking to related posts or content.Throughout your article link to other relevant articles, but don't over do it. Also add a link at the bottom of your blog, if you have managed to engage a reader to this point they probably want to be told what to do next.Variety is the spice of life. Shake up your style of posting and try some different formats that aren't just text. Add regular videos, downloadable PDF resources, list posts, slide shows, etc. The majority of your blogs should be positive. Reading a blog with posts that are consistently negative or miserable is tiring. It's like talking to that guy who always sees the worst and moans about everything - you can't wait to get away. If your posts make the reader smile a little, then they'll be more likely to linger in the 'happy place' you have created for them.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_to_attract_more_views_to_each_of_your_blog_posts.</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:20:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Blog Tips</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/How_to_attract_more_views_to_each_of_your_blog_posts.</guid>
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			<title>Communicating effectively</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Communicating effectively</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">What sets you apart from the competition is your ability to connect. Here are a few simple tips.<ul><li><strong>Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that reads, &quot;Make me feel important&quot;.</strong></li><li><strong>Seek out a common interest.</strong> People want others to be like them. </li><li><strong>Don't work from a script.</strong> I personally find a natural conversation works better; One script does not fit all.</li><li><strong>Remember the remarkable.</strong> I find it quite easy to remember most things my clients talk about. However, it often helps jotting down their comments, so next time I talk to them I can ask &quot;How did the holiday in Canada go? Was the Prince Of Wales as good as you thought?&quot; This not only makes my clients feel important, it shows I'm listening to them.</li><li><strong>Cultivate curiosity.</strong> Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions. Do you actually stop talking and just sit back and listen. It can be a real eye opener.</li><li><strong>Act like a good listener.</strong> Make sure your body language portrays someone who is open and receiving. Remember your face gives away a lot.</li><li><strong>Resist the urge to be a one-upper.</strong> We all do it, intentionally or not.</li><li><strong>Ask effective questions.</strong> Think about what you're hoping to learn, and remember that an open-ended question is almost always more effective than one that elicits a simple Yes or No answer.</li></ul></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Communicating_effectively</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:50:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Communicate, marketing, customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Communicating_effectively</guid>
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			<title>SEO Fee's</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEO Fee's</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">The hardest part of SEO seems to be giving a quote then spending hours having to justifying why I charge that fee.I like to be reasonable with my <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/about_seo.php">seo quotes </a>because I do not want to price small businesses out of the market, and the internet should be an even playing field.SEO takes months of work for some sites, would you ask anyone to work for 7 months for &pound;150. My brothers children get more pocket money than this, just for being his kids. Any other SEO's out there being asked to do work for peanuts.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_Fee's</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:40:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_Fee's</guid>
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			<title>SEO makes work worth it</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEO makes work worth it</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">I charge SEO prices based on the amount of hours I think a project will last. Depending on a clients budget, that project may have to be worked on over a number of months instead of what could take weeks.I have to remind myself to keep to the hours I set aside and to try and not go over them, which then makes me worry, am I doing enough for my clients, are they getting to the top quick enough, am I generating sales for them?It makes Monday mornings worth while when I receive emails like these.Hi Christina :Excellent work I am liking it, keep up the good work !Thanks a millionTal<a href="http://www.jackofallgames.co.uk" target="_blank">Game accessories &amp; audio video specialists </a>Jack Of All Games</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_makes_work_worth_it</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:37:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO Pricing</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_makes_work_worth_it</guid>
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			<title>Jack Of All Games part 3</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Jack Of All Games part 3</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">We are continuing with the SEO campaign for <a href="http://www.jackofallgames.co.uk.We" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.jackofallgames.co.uk.We</a> have just handed over the title tags and keywords to their web developer <a href="http://www.perfectdesigning.net.Developments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.perfectdesigning.net.Developments</a> with Yahoo! and Bing mean keyword meta tags may not be that important anymore, but we like to use them in case.We are glad to report we are still seeing an increase in traffic.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Jack_Of_All_Games_part_3</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:32:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Jack_Of_All_Games_part_3</guid>
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			<title>DR Adept</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">DR Adept</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Its amazing how quickly a <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank">website </a> can fall down the rankings in search engines once an <a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">seo </a>campaign has stopped.We are revisting one of our clients who are a <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank">website design company in Basildon Essex </a>.New competition has surfaced within the search engines and the <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank">web site </a> is undergoing a new <a href="http://www.dradept.com" target="_blank">design </a>; both of which will effect rankings.We are currently monitoring their position within the major search engines and checking the keywords choosen for the site are still relevant.We are please to see DR Adept are now employing a continuous <a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">seo and marketing campaigns </a>.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/DR_Adept</link>
			<pubDate>Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:03:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/DR_Adept</guid>
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			<title>Jack Of All Games part 2</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Jack Of All Games part 2</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">It was great to have a positive conversation with <a href="http://www.JackOfAllGames.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.JackOfAllGames.co.uk</a> this morning.They are reporting an increase in traffic and sales already, and we have only been working with them since July.The only changes to the website so far have been adding their telephone number to every page, making sure their business address is easy to find and also facing all their PPC ads to their own pages so we can monitor how well they are performing.We also asked their web developer to make the title tags search engine friendly as they were full of numbers and question marks which the search engines do not recognise.We have been working on social marketing for Jack Of All Games, while the keyword and competition research is progressing in the back ground.Its very satisify when customer's see an increase in their sales.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Jack_Of_All_Games_part_2</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:29:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Jack_Of_All_Games_part_2</guid>
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			<title>SEO vs PPC</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEO vs PPC</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">As a provider of online marketing services, maximising a clients return on investment is paramount. After finally recognising the need to establish an online presence and investing heavily in an impressive <a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php" target="_blank">new website</a>, the focus tends to shift towards recouping costs, and fast; this means directing new visitors to the site in the quickest and most cost-effective way. As 90% of <a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php" target="_blank">websites </a> are found via search, there's no doubt that search engines are the most important channel to consider. This is where <a href="http://www.dradept.com/SeO.php" target="_blank">Pay-Per-Click advertising </a> <a href="http://www.dradept.com/SEO.php" target="_blank">(PPC) </a> becomes an attractive option as there is generally no initial investment, the results are immediate and you can work with a budget of any size. Now more than ever cost is an important factor and the flexibility this system allows cannot be ignored. In comparison, <a href="http://www.dradept.com/SEO.php" target="_blank">Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) </a> requires a bigger investment, in time and money. However, there are some important points to take into account.SEO begins at the initial build of a website, by ensuring that content and architecture is not only fully accessible to search engines, but organised into 'keyword themes' to match what is offered by your site with what your target audience is searching for. In my opinion a website designed without SEO in mind is not reaching its full potential. Without taking steps to ensure it is as easy as possible for search engines to rank a website within the top results, you are restricting your potential profit. If the purpose of your website is to drive sales or enquiries then that only serves to highlight the issue. SEO is an ongoing process and there's no getting over the fact that it takes time to produce results. We monitor the use of specific search terms and make ongoing changes to content, internal structure and design, and use organic link building to maximise visitor traffic. The link building side of SEO is fundamental - search engines see links from other websites as 'votes' indicating importance. The more high quality the 'vote' that you manage to achieve from relevant sites, the more Google will regard you with rankings.PPC achieves immediate visibility by allowing advertisers to bid on search terms relevant to their target market, paying an agreed fee for every time a visitor physically clicks on a link that leads to your website. This is a relatively straight forward process, which is ideal for raising visibility within a short space of time. It is also a reliable way to begin directing traffic to a website in the interim, before SEO starts producing real, lasting results.However, research indicates that visitors are much more inclined to click on an organic link rather than a paid one. In one such study, Oneupweb found that search users are up to six times more likely to click on the first few organic results than choose any of the paid results. This seems to come down to two main reasons; firstly there is the issue of trust, research carried out by eMarketer found that only 14% of searchers actually trusted paid listings. The second is the point of relevance, a study into search engine user attitudes by iProspect showed that 72.3% of Google users felt that organic results were more relevant to them, while 27.7% of users rated paid results as more relevant.The other issue with PPC that in particularly competitive markets, popular search terms are in high demand and this can get very expensive. The cost of bidding is also affected by the exchange rate, which currently favours the US dollar and the Euro over the British pound. A recent study for the Econsultancy UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report 2009 showed that 41% of respondents see cost of keywords as a barrier to successful paid search campaigns. A study by the IPA's Search Group shows that the average CPC (cost per click) shot up from 69p to 29p on brand terms between January 2008 and March 2009, while click-through rates declined from around 40 per cent to 20 per cent during the same period.Another aspect closely related to SEO considers what happens after someone visits the site. A shopping cart abandoned halfway through the checkout process, for example, tells us that we need to make some serious changes to ensure we make it as easy as possible for visitors to make a purchase, therefore maximising the number of sales, or conversions.Using PPC can ensure a certain number of people visit the site but if the website is confusing and difficult to navigate you pretty much guarantee that many visitors will not be coming back a second time. According to the Econsultancy report, 38% of respondents saying that lower conversion rates were having a negative impact on paid search ROI. According to the Forbes 2009 Advertising Effectiveness Survey, SEO is seen as the most effective tool for generating conversions.In the SEO world the terms 'accessibility' and 'usability' are mentioned in pretty much every other sentence, but that is because these issues are so important! A website should be easy for search engines to find and easy for visitors to use, if your website doesn't make the grade then this can have a negative repercussions when it comes to justifying investment.PPC is great for a short-term fix to get a website off the ground and works well alongside SEO if the target market's not to competitive, but can't be relied upon alone to achieve lasting results, particularly where the goal is to encourage conversions. In an ideal world I would recommend that you work with both SEO and PPC for the biggest impact and return on investment, the combination of which should be carefully tailored according to your budget and target market. Ultimately, though, monitoring the success of a campaign comes down to tracking conversions; that knowledge allows you to tweak your campaign to deliver maximum effectiveness.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_vs_PPC</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:24:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>PPC</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_vs_PPC</guid>
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		<item>
			<title>Jack Of All Games</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Jack Of All Games</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">The usual catch 22 when running a small business. The SME needs to see money coming in to be able to afford a budget for SEO work, preferring to put their money in advertising.At least with SEO, the cost can be spread over a period of time and once completed it will only need reviewing every now and again, once sales start to drop off then further seo work is required. This actually keeps the costs low compared to other forms of advertising and marketing.The ROI is also high compared to other forms of advertising and marketing. With SEO you can target the search traffic you want to come to your website, if it isn't working you are able to make the necessary changes immediately.Jack Of All Games is a 116 page <a href="http://www.dradept.com/web.php" target="_blank">website </a> selling <a href="http://www.jackofallgames.co.uk" target="_blank">xbox, playstation, wii and Nintendo accessories</a> and offering a repair service. To keep the cost down we are simply using Google Adwords to obtain keywords, as this is free, we are doing the usual and looking into what others are using for their keywords in the same industry and also dumping those into our keyword file.We are now on to the trickier part, making the keyword decision for each page. Bearing in mind we want keywords with high popularity, high relevance but low in competition. As you can imagine the competition for these types of products are very high, and taking on Nintendo and Game is going to be costly.We have currently spent 25 hours on the above process and still have 97 pages to go!</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Jack_Of_All_Games</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:48:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Projects</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Jack_Of_All_Games</guid>
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			<title>Web Analytics Getting Started</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Web Analytics Getting Started</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">If you do not have a budget for an analytics consultant, you can always start checking your own website analytics by opening a Google account, which allows you to use their analytics tool for free!Useful reports to get you going:<strong>Top Referring URLs</strong>Your goal here is to understand where you are getting traffic from. Most businesses create their website and undertake some outreach activities to drive traffic, but many do nothing and cross their fingers and pray they will be found. This report will help you understand where traffic is coming from.As you look at the referring URLs, do you see any that are interesting or surprising? Do you have marketing relationships with them? If not, should you? It is effective to understand where people come from, and from that understand to learn what kinds of traffic you are getting.Over time, it will help you weed out some of your weaker performing partners and invest in those that do better. If there is a source that you think should work better, go back to the source website and ensure that your messages and calls to action are accurate.<strong>Top Key Phrases from Search Engines</strong>After a while you will notice your number one referrer of traffic will probably be a search engine. Probably Google, though it could also be Yahoo! or Bing. The second report you should look at is the top keywords or key phrases that are being searched in the search engines that are sending traffic to your website.Reading search key phrases can be like reading the minds of your visitors. Are they searching for something that relates to your business but you hadn't considered selling?If the key phrases that define your business don't show up in the report, you have a valuable opportunity to do some basic search engine optimization.<strong>Site Content Popularity</strong>Visitors only take in around 20% of your sites content. Knowing what content they are taking in is important.Sometimes this list validates that visitors are doing the &quot;right&quot; things, but more often it shows that visitors are doing all these other things on your site that you didn't anticipate. You have the ability to turn these to your advantage. You can use this information to determine what you should promote on your website that will appeal to your visitors. You can also do little things that can have a big impact, such as running your most compelling promotions on your top 10 most popular pages to ensure that a maximum number of site visitors see them.<strong>Percentage of Visitors Who Visit the Home Page</strong>About 90 percent of website owners spend too much time perfecting their home page. In reality, about half of less of the site's traffic sees the home page. Do you know what this number is for your website?Understanding the key home page statistics will help you understand how valuable the home page is. How many people are viewing the home page? How many exit from the home page? What is the bounce rate?You will be able to assign resources optimally and focus on other pages on your website. And now that you have such a great understanding of how to analyze your home page, you can move on to repeat the same analysis on pages you saw in your list of most popular pages viewed.<strong>Click Density, or Site Overlay</strong>The site overlay report is great at revealing how your real customers are experiencing your website. There is nothing simpler for any website owner to start with. Web analytics comes to life as you can &quot;see&quot; the clicks and relate to visitors in a new and more profound way.If you see interesting click density behaviour, you can use that as an inspiration to optimize the website through simple experiments with layout, content, and navigation. For example, if you notice that no one is clicking on the blinking text link on the left of the page, maybe it is time that you tried a link that did not blink and had a different call to action. This would be easy to do, and the next day you could go back and see the results of your change.<strong>Site Bounce Rate</strong>The bounce rate report reveals the number of visitors who stayed just a few seconds (or in the case of some tools, only saw one page on your website). These are the people who came to your site but didn't engage, for whatever reason. Different web analytics tools define bounce rates differently, but usually it is visitors who stayed on the website for only five or ten seconds.You can combine the referring URLs reports with high bounce rates reports to see which sites are referring useful traffic to your site. Are you being linked to in a way that doesn't accurately reflect your site? Why are visitors from this referring URL so disappointed when they land on your page? All of these are opportunities for optimization.By creating six extremely simple and easy to find reports, you will, in just a couple of weeks, get a solid understanding of the following:<ul><li>Where visitors come to your website from</li><li>What search engines and keywords are driving them to your site</li><li>What content (web pages) visitors are interested in</li><li>How valuable your home page is and what you can fix there</li><li>How visitors behave on the top pages of your website, and whether content on these pages is working (especially links)</li><li>Your website's first impression, and where the most valuable traffic to your website comes from</li></ul></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Web_Analytics_Getting_Started</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:21:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Analytics, Getting Started</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Web_Analytics_Getting_Started</guid>
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			<title>Link Building Tips</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Link Building Tips</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext"><strong>Link Building Tip 1</strong>Do not forget your internal links! Breadcrumbs, for example, are a great internal linking tool. Use them for usability and anchor text differentiation.<strong>Link Building Tip 2</strong>Set up a campaign in Google AdWords' content network, to determine which (relevant)websites generate traffic and conversions. Contact those websites directly and try to get a link.<strong>Link Building Tip 3</strong>The most important link building related question is 'Why?'.Before you start building links, you will have to ask yourself &quot;Why would someone link to our site?&quot;. If you have trouble answering this question, you will probably be better off building remarkable, link worthy content first.<strong>Link Building Tip 4</strong>Testimonials! Offer to write testimonials or a quote to your suppliers, if they are willing to link back to your site in or near this testimonial. Also, you can ask clients to write testimonials about your product or service that they publish on their website, in exchange for a discount or something similar.<strong>Link Building Tip 5</strong>Optimise your existing links. Contact the webmasters of prominent websites that link to you and ask them to change 'click here' to an anchor text that contains relevant keywords, an anchor text that encourages clicking through, or - ideally - a combination of both.<a href="http://www.dradept.com/seo.php" target="_blank">Link building services</a> available at DR Adept.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Link_Building_Tips</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:11:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Link Building</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Link_Building_Tips</guid>
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		<item>
			<title>SEM</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEM</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext"><strong>1. Domain Name</strong>Purchase a domain name that is easy to remember, tells the customer what you do and can be expanded in the future along with your business and location.Others maybe able to copy your PPC advert but they can not use your domain name.<strong>2. Direct Search Traffic</strong>Ensure your advert links to the landing page relevant to your advert and not just to your home page.This ensures the searcher goes straight to your product or service, the less clicks they have to go through to purchase or find your product the better.<strong>3. Link Building</strong>To rank well within the search engines you have to link build. Use the free tools from firefox and look at the links your competition have. You will need to obtain around as many as they have.Use your keywords to back link to your site. Don't just stick to your main keywords use other relevant variants.Again do not link just to your home page, each page on your site should be used in full to sell your products making it easier for the searcher to find what they want.Create good copy which people will want to link to and market it to the right audience, enabling you to pull in natural anchor text.<strong>4. Directory Submissions</strong>Do you link to thousands upon thousands of free web directories, they will probably be of low quality which will drag your own websites ranking down with it.If your website is new go for quality linking, later on you can start putting a few lower quality links in but only a few.<strong>5. Multiple AdWords campaigns</strong>Do not rely on one advert to achieve all of your sites goals. Create individual adverts linking directly to Seasonal offers, events, special offers, downloads etc.<strong>6. Site Structure</strong>Have a strong site structure which is easy to navigate.Set up site categories and sub-categories that use keywords people are searching for.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEM</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:28:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEM</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEM</guid>
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		<item>
			<title>Benefits of Search Engine Optimization and SEO Marketing</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Benefits of Search Engine Optimization and SEO Marketing</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">The success rate of search engine marketing is higher than any other form of marketing and advertising as you are using targeted keywords directed at users who are already out there looking for your product or service.Search Engine Optimization is a slow process and a high targeted keyword could still take a year to get your website seen at the top of the searches. However, using niche terms will help you get there quicker.At least while waiting for your website to reach the top you are able to take advantage of adsense and adwords advertising, and Yahoo! Paid marketing. All of these avenues will place your website in the sponsored sections within the search engines within a couple of days.Once your website is at the top you can either stop your ad or target it at another audience. You can also stop or reduce your search engine optimization campaign. I wouldn't say you will never have to pay out for marketing again because there are plenty of companies out there wanting that top slot, but once there you should only have to do a bit of maintenance every now and again.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Benefits_of_Search_Engine_Optimization_and_SEO_Marketing</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:05:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Benefits, SEO, SEM</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Benefits_of_Search_Engine_Optimization_and_SEO_Marketing</guid>
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		<item>
			<title>Communicate with your customers</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Communicate with your customers</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">One of the best ways to communicate with your customers is via a newsletter.It is a great way of telling your customer about your services and letting your customers know how to get hold of you.I've found <a href="http://www.madrats.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.madrats.com</a> one of the easiest system's to use, I didn't even have to read the instructions.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Communicate_with_your_customers</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:31:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Communicate, marketing, customers</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Communicate_with_your_customers</guid>
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			<title>Benefits of Having a Website</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Benefits of Having a Website</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext"><strong>Why you need a website professionally designed. </strong>Websites allow you to show much more of your information than a printed brochure, advertisement, leaflet. More information is key, very likely potential clients will choose your business if they can learn everything from your website at their own pace. <strong>You never get a second chance to make a first impression. </strong>Your potential customers won't get past the home page unless it is well designed, informative, stand out and offer benefits to them. The website design should make it easy for them to quickly navigate to the information they want. Most visitors know what they're looking for before they arrive at your website. Websites help you to establish a credible, professional image giving an opportunity for a small-business' to portray itself as a large business. Would you buy from a company with a poorly designed website? If your customers can't find you online, they will find your competitors. If a potential customer can find your product / service with ease online but cannot find your competitors' website, you now have an additional edge and the potential to generate more revenue. This is why you should consider search engine optimisation before or during the design process. <strong>Keeping costs down </strong>Do you spend a lot of time answering customer requests for information on a particular product or service? Do you answer the same questions, send out the same print based material? Websites will help you reduce your phone bill, postage costs, print and most of all labour costs by having information available on your website. Your website never sleeps, it can take orders any time, day or night, when you are on holiday, ill or away on business. You can publish information with up to the minute accuracy. If you notice a mistake or typo it can easily be changed not like print based material, saving you money. <strong>Why wouldn't you want a website? </strong>All business large or small are expected to have a website, if you don't, your potential customers will certainly think: Is your business old-fashioned? Is it a back street organisation? Can't you afford a website?Visit <a href="http://www.dradept.com</span" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.dradept.com</span</a>> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Benefits_of_Having_a_Website</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:43:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Benefits, websites</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Benefits_of_Having_a_Website</guid>
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			<title>Basic SEO Tips</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Basic SEO Tips</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">Search engine optimisation and search engine marketing are becoming more and more important as a marketing tool.SEO allows even small and medium size companies with smaller budgets to appear along side those with bigger budgets in the search engines.It takes a lot of hard work, but at least you can see results making it all worth while.Below are some handy tips to get you started:-<ul><li>Use unique keywords for each page.</li><li>Make sure the keywords are relevant to the page they will be used on.</li><li>Use two keywords terms and your brand - SEO Essex | Search Engine Optimisation | DR Adept</li><li>Use Google keyword tool, its free! Move onto paid services such as wordtracker when you have a bigger budget.</li><li>Use niche keywords for your products/services where possible.<li>You need keywords which are high in popularity, have low competition but high relevance to your website</li><li>It helps placing your keyword within your on page text, but never put the search engine before your customers needs. Make sure the text flows and gives your customer a good experience.</li><li>Use keywords in your h1 tag but remember to think about your customer again, does your h1 tag make sense to them.</li><li>Use your meta description, it not only helps the search engine find you, but that small advertising space needs to be used wisely because its the first thing your customer will read before choosing to enter your website.</li><li>Use your meta keywords, keep it simple - company name, location and a couple of keywords, don't waste to much time here.</li><li>Search engines cannot read images, so use html code in the alt and title tags.</li><li>Ensure you make full use of your keyword within internal links</li><li>Create an XML site map and submit it to the Google webmaster tools, making it easier for the search engine to move throughout your website. </li></ul></span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Basic_SEO_Tips</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:55:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Tips</category>
			<url>http://www.essexseo.co.uk</url>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Basic_SEO_Tips</guid>
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			<title>SEO Guide</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">SEO Guide</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">We have worked very hard to bring you a free guide giving back ground information about SEO, and a further guide giving simple steps about carrying out an SEO campaign.The second <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/shop.php" target="_blank">seo guide</a> will give you some great advice and free services you can sign upto on the web.The <a href="http://www.essexseo.co.uk/shop.php" target="_blank">seo guide</a> is aimed at business owner's who want to try out search engine optimisation for themselves.Hopefully this guide when carried out in full will prove to you seo works and maybe you will ask us to take the burden from you and let us increase your sales.</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_Guide</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:42:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Guide</category>
			<url>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/shop.php</url>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/SEO_Guide</guid>
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			<title>Current SEO Projects</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Current SEO Projects</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">We are working with Fancy Dress To Go with the redesign and search engine optimisation of their website. We are pleased to report they have seen an increase in sales since the optimisation started just over a month ago. Simple changes to keywords within page titles and page descriptions, coding and ensuring all products have better fuller descriptions have greatly aided this process.We are making sure their entire site is indexed within Google, Yahoo and MSN and monitoring their websites performance to enable us to determine if the search engine optimisation is working for them and the next steps needed to be taking to get them to the top of the search pages.We are now working on building back links to their website, via social media, writing articles and approaching other website owners to link to <a href="http://www.FancyDressToGo.com.If" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.FancyDressToGo.com.If</a> any of you are thinking about holding a fancy dress party please do not hesitate using <a href="http://www.FancyDressToGo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.FancyDressToGo.com</a>, they offer a very personal service, and I'm not just saying that because they are paying me to.We have also been trying to help Frasers and Ashdales reach the top of the search engines with their joint website <a href="http://www.hotels-basildon.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.hotels-basildon.com</a> although Ashdales was quick to reach the top position, Frasers has been much slower and is crawling at a snails pace but there are lots of things that can be done to improve their position. Unfortunately, hotels in Basildon is a very competitive keyword and can only be expected to take time getting there. A large search engine optimisation company actually refused to work with that keyword term.If anyone wants to stay in Battlesbridge at lovely 4 star accommodations please do not hesitate visiting their website. I'm not being paid to say this!</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Current_SEO_Projects</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:32:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>SEO, Projects</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Current_SEO_Projects</guid>
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			<title>Our new blog</title>
			<description><![CDATA[<span class="rss_bheading">Our new blog</span> <br />
<span class="rss_btext">We have been working on Essex SEO for a few weeks now and it is time, we thought, for a blog system to be put in place.Well here it is. This will allow us to post news and views about the SEO market and let our clients and other visitors know what is happening with our services.For instance we now include full SEO with any Dr Adept web design services so if you need a new website then now is the time to get it done.Get a <a href="http://www.dradept.com/quotation.php" target="_blank">web design quote</a> from Dr Adept now at <a href="http://www.DrAdept.comStay" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.DrAdept.comStay</a> tuned for more service updates and tips and how to guides...</span> <br />
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			<link>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Our_new_blog</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:47:00 GMT</pubDate>
			<category>Launch</category>
			<guid>http://www.essexseo.co.uk/Our_new_blog</guid>
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