Last month we launched a toned and buff new website design for USN Ultimate Sport Nutrition, one of the UK’s leaders in sports nutrition and supplements.

The back story

The dotCommerce team had already migrated USN’s previous website over to the dotCommerce platform in November 2009.

The priority was to get USN’s ecommerce site onto a stable, flexible platform that could support their business needs and customer demands – exactly what dotCommerce does so well.

Once they had a flexible ecommerce solution they could rely on and grow with their business, the next step for USN was to focus on their search engine optimisation, in order to drive quality traffic.

dotSEO – our sister SEO agency – began working closely with USN to optimise their website in November 2009. By March this year Lee Mcardle, USN’s Marketing Manager, was tracking impressive traffic developments.

“Since we signed up with dotSEO in November 2009” says Lee, “we’ve seen our daily website traffic volume double, with an increase in organic search traffic of over 40% in the first 2 months of 2010 alone, successfully adding 16 keywords to our page 1 rankings and tripling our traffic from social media in a very short time.”

SEO drives website design

There are many components that make up a solid SEO strategy, but one that is often overlooked is the design of the site itself.

Earlier this year, after carrying out a complete audit of the site and its target search keywords, the dotSEO team recommended that USN undertake a revamp of their website design, to maximise the ROI on their effective new search marketing strategy.

dotCommerce won the project and set out to radically redesign key elements of the USN site to increase the site’s ability to attract, engage, convert and re-attract high quality visitors.

In particular, we focused on:

* Radically improving the checkout process and experience
* Completely redesigning the navigation for both SEO and user journey
* Creating a contemporary, fresh, brand enhancing look and feel

The results

Since the new site launched in July last month, the early results have been impressive:

* 7% increase in visits
* 71% increase in pages viewed
* 7% increase in time spent on the site
* 27% reduction in bounce rates

By taking a holistic approach to their online selling, and incorporating highly effective ecommerce site design with professional SEO and targeted email marketing, USN are showing how each element of the digital marketing mix can help to drive and enhance another.

As inevitable as the summer season in England only lasting four days, Google has changed their Trademark policy in the UK to align with the US.

From 14th September 2010, advertisers will be able to use third party trademarks in their paid ad text, even if they don’t own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it. So if you were selling smartphones, for example, you could put ‘Buy the iPhone here’ in your ad text.

But why did Google decide to make this change in the first place?

“We believe that this change has helped both our users and advertisers by improving the usefulness of text ads on Google.com and across partner sites in the U.S,” explained Google Product Manager, Dan Stokeley, in an official blog post.

But is there another reason behind this change?

“For example, resellers of jeans have been able to highlight the actual brands they sell in their ad text making their ads even more specific and relevant for users,” said Stokeley.

Yes, as Dan suggests, adverts will become more relevant, but in addition, everyone will be bidding for that brand name, which means the price will rise and Google will make a larger margin.

Any restrictions?

However Google isn’t completely opening the field and this policy change does have some restrictions.

For example, you can only bid against a trademark name on the basis that your site is actually selling the item, components of the item, offers to repair the item, or is an informational site about the item.

If you’re concerned about this policy change, the SEO agency team here ar dotSEO suggests the following:

1.    Monitor your brand terms now. If your CTR starts to decrease you will be easily able to detect the impact of this change on your brand.

2.    For direct retailers, keep open communication with your resellers to keep them happy and so as not to increase the cost of your brand terms.

3.    Have a chat with your search team or SEO agency; they should be aware of this change and can advise accordingly.

4.    Don’t panic! The new policy changes don’t apply to competitors. So, with some persistent enforcement, you will still be protected.

So, in summary, yes Google is allowing ads to be more targeted, but it is also increasing the cost of trademarked terms and putting more money in its pocket!

If you want to find out more about these changes then give the dotSEO team a call!

picture credit

At dotSEO, our approach to SEO has always been straightforward – we aim to demonstrate to our clients exactly why SEO is important for them, and to show how intensive on-site and off-site SEO activities can dramatically affect their Google rankings and really have a major business impact.

But we’ve always felt that the SEO industry itself isn’t helping to educate businesses. Too often SEO agencies shroud their techniques in mystery as a dark art, not within the reach of ordinary marketers.

Today we’ve released the findings of a major new SEO survey revealing the attitudes and opinions of marketers at small and medium sized business (SMEs) and it really backs up our findings.

Download your free copy here.

The survey shows that nearly a quarter of marketers still don’t know much about search engine optimisation (SEO), despite Google being the first port of call for most of us when surfing the web.

There are lots of eye-opening stats in the report, along with over 30 tips and practical guidelines for improving your SEO, and we’ll be pulling these out in future blog posts, but I thought I’d highlight some of the key findings here as well.

Along with our survey findings, the report includes the results of a new SEO benchmark study we conducted. We took the 50 fastest growing SMEs in the UK and analysed their websites to see how effectively they were optimised for Google natural search.

SMEs avoiding the simple SEO steps

The dotSEO benchmark study found that the majority of SMEs are failing to take simple steps on their sites to improve search engine rankings

SMEs were generally getting the more basic SEO on-site requirements right with, for example, 76% using heading tags in titles on their homepage and 64% using meta descriptions to give a good summary of the site.

But in other crucial areas the results were poor, with only 28% using relevant keywords on their site, just 22% of page titles beginning with a keyword and only 44% having a clearly visible sitemap.

Win six months free SEO worth over £7,500!

As part of our ‘Naked SEO’ campaign to demystify natural search marketing, we’re giving every firm that downloads the report the chance to be entered into a prize draw. The winning firm will get six months free SEO with a dotSEO Professional SEO agency package worth over £7,500.

We’ll openly chart the progress of the winning company on the dotDigital Blog to help demystify the SEO process even further. To enter the prize draw, just download the report from http://www.dotseo.co.uk/nakedseo

Look like Mr T when drinking tea!

Win this ever so slightly bling sovereign ring mug, just by answering today’s dotFoolery quiz question correctly.

The A Team movie is released this week. None of us here is old enough to remember the original TV show, least of all myself (sic), but today’s question is:

What does A in The A Team stand for?

Tweet your answer to #dotfoolery by 3pm on Monday Aug 2nd.

Yes – we love it when a quiz comes together!

Why do you use one search engine over another? Is it by chance, by choice or do you change on a regular basis?

In 2008, Google reported a turnover of £2 billion generated purely from clicks on Adwords adverts, but what about Bing and Yahoo?

The graph below is fascinating. It shows search engine usage according to how technologically advanced the user is. There’s no surprise that Google wins the ‘Middle Majority’ with a greater overall percentage, but Bing and Yahoo are also leaders amongst certain other demographics.

So when you are developing your online advertising strategy it’s important to understand your audience; how and where they search. Different searchers (and therefore search engines) have different characteristics that will benefit some brands more than others.

Every search engine displays different results, some more relevant than others, but all with the goal of satisfying consumer needs. If it achieves this than that search engine has a greater appeal to that particular customer, leading to a longer relationship. Some search engines will do this better than others depending on what they are looking for.

It’s pretty easy to look at the impact of this on your bottom line too. Looking at your web analytics, you can see whether traffic from certain search engines actually converts at a better rate than others. For example, a client of ours receives only 1% of web traffic from Bing and Yahoo, but the conversion rate from these is 42%, a whole 131% better than the site’s average conversion rate. What does this tell us about users of Bing and Yahoo? Are people that use these search engines more likely to buy from our client?

So before committing online spend, it is worth spending some time properly understanding your prospects in order to spend your money wisely. If you want a bit of a helping hand, get in touch with the guys at dotSEO who will be happy to assist!

We’re all inundated with wonderful and often colourful spam. So I decided to take a closer look to see if any mileage could be gained by giving a random SEO spam email a chance. It hit my inbox yesterday.

Initially I was asked, “Does your site rank low? Is it optimized?” And of course, “Are you aware that we have a 98.95% success rate in achieving top page rankings?” Answers: “No”, “No” and “No”. So let’s get cracking…

With no company name anywhere in the email, and a salutation that just said “Dear Sir/Madam”, the only reference I had to anything resembling a company was the return path which pointed to an internet data centre in India. I responded highlighting my interest and asking for additional information.

Within 10 minutes I had my response, details of the company and a name of the person who contacted me. Not bad.

Then came what I’ll call THE FLOOD.

I was bombarded with facts, figures and hooks to try to capture my attention. I was told they were a company of significant reputation, 75 staff and a successful track record of providing up to 5,000 natural links every month. Top 10 rankings would be achieved in the first 6 months and best of all, my traffic was going to grow by 120% in 26 weeks! Supporting this was the fact they had over 240 clients in the USA and UK. Brilliant. The email directed me to their website which presented 65 task options for SEO (all practical and required for rankings). Sadly, to the uninitiated, this could look impressive, and the prices, amazing!

Too good to be true! Where do I sign?

Not just yet… I asked for proof of rankings and some client examples and I was returned a spreadsheet showing terms, rankings and clients’ websites.

Not surprisingly, these websites were obscure and in one case redirected from an international top level domain to an Indian domain name of a completely different company. Despite the spreadsheet rankings being accurate, the terms in many cases had limited or no search volume. Few sites had any contact information so I had no way to check if these companies even used the one in question. The one with contact information I tried to call but couldn’t be connected.

Ignoring these obvious warning signs, I emailed back and asked how long my NEW site would take to rank for the terms ‘camera’ and ‘digital camera’. These are searched for 368,000 and 450,000 times a month respectively in the UK. To their credit they came back and said “these could take some time to rank.” Some time? Correct! Probably an infinite amount of time!

The lesson here is to be careful that you check how long your own competitive terms will take to rank, rather than simply absorbing at face value a term that you are provided. These terms could be branded, non-competitive or have no search volume. Rankings can look impressive but they will do little for your ROI.

Now the implosion:

It is always a good test of quality to assess the SEO of an SEO agency – ie the company’s own website. If they can rank and perform well themselves, the likelihood is that they can do it for you. Our critique on the site in question found that not one of their own terms ranked in the Top 100 of Google in the UK, USA or India, and the site failed miserably across every SEO check and lacked the most basic on & off-site elements for any site. They also had no Page Rank.

Google’s Page Rank is the premise for Google rankings. Page Rank is a measure of strength, authority and relevancy and is scored between 0 to 10.  A new site or site that can’t be indexed is often referred to as un-ranked. To check a site’s Page Rank yourself, download the Google Toolbar and hover over this symbol.

Now don’t forget those links; they promised me 5000 natural links a month, but like the other checks we performed we found that their own site had under 20 links! These had no anchor text, their primary source quality was horrendous, and many were simply broken. Would I want them link building for me? No way! If they can’t do it for themselves the likelihood of them doing it for you is slim at best.

As for their 75 staff, their Facebook page had a grand total of 1 employee!

So all in all my response has to be: “Dear Sir/Madam… your email has been deleted.”

Firstly: Google’s Local Business Centre is now called Google Places.

Here’s something all SMEs should know… Google Places is a fantastic opportunity to present your business in  the organic sections of a SERP.

You may already have noticed when making your own searches that more and more local business results are appearing in search engine results pages (SERPS).

Just try searching for “barber” in Google, to see what I mean.

So how effective are these links?  Would you, for example, be happy to select from a business listing when conducting an online search?

If the answer’s yes then you’re like millions of other web users worldwide who use local search to find what they are looking for. Yet this is often a forgotten element of an SEO agency’s search strategy or and SME’s plan for SEO.

As always, search results are based on relevancy so take the time to add some relevancy to your listing.

Optimising your Google Places listing might just provide the quick-win, page 1 visibility you want and help you to propel from a lost ranking position to smack bang in front of your customer. This is especially true for businesses with significant marketplace competitiveness. (The example term of “barber,” used for this blog, was searched for 74,00 times in May 2010 alone!)

Here are my 15 tips for your ‘maxing’ traffic from Google Place listings:

1. If you haven’t claimed a listing and it exists, you should claim it.

2. If you’re setting up a listing for the first time, critique and select your business category carefully.

3. Include a keyword relevant to your business in addition to the business name shown in the listing.

4. Wherever possible don’t have multiple businesses name variations under the one address.

5. It is recommended that your primary phone number listed is a land line.

6. Business proximity to the phone number’s area code can be important. E.g. (0161 Manchester)

7. Avoid using post boxes as the primary business address for the listing.

8. Include your company website.

9. If you have a suitable email address for customers to contact you, then add it in.

10. Post a relevant and unique description that succinctly explains your business’s purpose.

11. Shortly within the UK you will be able to tag your listing allowing special coupons to be offered within your listing. This is great for smart phone users. As they scrolls over the tag your business coupon appears. (See C)

12. Google is paying significant attention to reviews these days so ask your customers to write some genuine reviews.

13. Try to include hours of operation, public transport information and methods for payment.

14. Make sure you post several photos. Even try adding video. (Remember Google runs You Tube).

15. Users may change location within a SERP result, so adopt some or all of these options to maximise your opportunity for accepting the local results traffic. See below for the (change location) example or try it yourself.

Download dotSEO’s free guide to local search, here.

Good luck!!

In last week’s “Third Sector” magazine, I read a case study on the Salvation Army’s 2008 and 2009 Christmas fundraising campaigns.

The article reported that the return on their investment, which included TV, direct mail, inserts, radio adverts, online campaigns and search engine optimisation, went from £3.12 for every £1 spent in 2008, to £16 in 2009.

The spokeswoman for the Salvation Army said the increase was mainly due to the search engine optimisation – a convincing argument for any charity to look at SEO!

Our CEO Peter Simmonds has announced that Netcallidus – a fast growing and innovative search marketing agency – has joined the dotDigital Group to sit alongside our existing SEO agency brand, dotSEO.

“The focus for our customers across the entire dotDigital Group is on acquiring traffic rather than buying data,” says Peter.

“SEO fits neatly alongside email marketing as a cost effective way for brands of all sizes to get targeted traffic to online destinations. We aim to dispel the myths that surround the practice of SEO, offering our customers a transparent and trustworthy approach.”

Netcallidus was founded in 2002 by Stuart Haining and Mark Furber and now provides premium search marketing services to enterprise organisations throughout the UK.

“We’ve seen unbelievable interest in SEO since the launch of dotSEO” says Peter. “Netcallidus allows us to manage this huge demand and continue to offer first class, transparent and ethical SEO services.”

Mark Furber, MD of Netcallidus adds, “As a combined entity, it is our ambition to become the leading provider of search marketing services in the UK.”

RESULTS OR YOUR MONEY BACK!

GUARANTEED TOP 10 SEARCH TERMS!

1ST PAGE LISTING!

GUARANTEED PAGE 1 RESULTS FOR YOUR KEY TERMS!

Can’t wait to read more…..

Then this blogs for you!

Unfortunately, but ever increasingly, we are all getting flooded with these types of promises. Let me save you the suspense and expense, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

“If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is” and search is no different.

Within a search engine results page (SERP) there are two sections for results. Firstly, the paid advertisements identified by the words Sponsored Link and secondly the organic or natural listings.

Paid listings are only displayed because they are paid advertisements. Results within the organic listings pay nothing and compete in an open market for position.

GOOGLE - PAID v ORGANIC

By understanding this concept you are now in a far better position to start filtering fact from fiction.

Often when a company promises these types of search guarantees they are also banking on the fact that their prospect won’t do their research.

Be vigilant and diligent when selecting whom to partner with as an error can not only damage your online reputation, it can also have your site de-listed completely.

To avoid being burnt by unrealistic promises consider and define if the offer relates to SEO or PPC (Organic V Paid). If it’s PPC you could do that yourself; it is a paid service. Professional consultancy helps with the campaigns performance not simply position. If the offer is that results are guaranteed for page 1 results within the organic listings, then find out on which search engines the guarantee applies (MSN, Yahoo, Google or Other). Remember Google has around 80% market share.

If the answer to the above is Google, find out if that’s Google in your country of choice and appropriate to your audience?

If it’s still checking out, then dig deeper. Find out what sort of key terms they will guarantee. More often than not it will be obscure, long-tail-terms, branded terms, non-competitive terms or non-searched for terms. There’s no point being number 1 for a term with no searches, and you’ll still be out of pocket.

Timelines are also critical. The aim of improving SEO is to remain visible to your audience and attract converting traffic to maximise return on investment. Being page 1 for a limited time is a waste of time. It must be sustainable and measurable. The last thing you need is to be charged for a fleeting visit to page 1. Determine what a realistic timeline is in order to obtain page 1 rankings or alternatively if it’s even possible for your site. If you are told anything that resembles “Instantaneous Results” before they’ve done their research, be very wary and check their not referring to PPC.

If you’re still planning to give this a go, please open Google and check out their supposed results and follow that up with a check on search traffic volumes. Use exact match not broad match types.

Search engine results take time unless they are paid for results (PPC). Organic results shouldn’t ever be guaranteed. A timeline for them can be estimated, but even then that timeline can change as the organic results are based on a continually changing search engine algorithm.

If there were truly a quick fix created through some mystical solution, then every company in the world would easily be able to position their selected key terms on page 1.

Unfortunately it’s not that easy….