This is a question we get asked all the time, telephone calls come into the office asking how a business get get higher in Google or how they can come up for various searches. Well the answer is not simple, but following a few simple step can help.

Start off by  . .

Keeping your domain name registered. Sounds simple but often is neglected and put on the long finger as its only a few euros and can end up costing you thousands in a marketing spend to get listed again.

Why?

Because search engines do not wish to display old or expired websites, therefore as part of their algorithm they exclude expired domain names. Think about it, with the amount of businesses gone out of business in the past 3 years in Ireland, if they didn’t every-time we did a search we would get an error “Page not found”. The web would come to a halt.

Pushed Out of Google !

We have found that it can take as little as 4 to 5 days for Google to remove a business from it’s listing! So if you have a business and are looking to get ranked higher, do the simple things, renew your domain name!

For more helpful tips on how to grow your business online call Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd 053 9430748

For those of you out there who are into the web and SEO etc, do you know if Google have decreased the emphasis on the title Meta Tag as they are no longer displaying the website title in their browser “Google Chrome.

Just wondering if anyone has read up about this ?

Thanks

Dave

I was at a business meeting this morning and I allowed give a quick presentation about the Internet and so I talked about an interesting part of the web industry called “Link Building” as part of a Search Engine Optimisation campaign. I started by trying to make a similarity of a link on a website to a verbal referral from a business colleague.

The more of my business colleagues that let their friends and staff know that we have worked on their website the more people who are likely to let others know about ourselves. In Internet terms, it’s whereby you, your website address to be exact is named on another website. So if you are a garage repair service and you are members of SIMI. Do they list you as a member? By doing so they telling Google and the world that you are related to them in a business sense. Search engines count these “Links” and use it as part of their Algorithm to judge the benefit of your website to the world.

If your site is informative about your products and services, if it’s up to date, and is the best documentation that the search engine can find, then your sites “Page Rank” is increased.

How to get people to link to you?

Some companies will try to tell you they can do it for you and indeed they may be able to get you a few links, but are the links of any good. Good links I would suggest are from relevant and respected sites. Dodgy sites that are “Link Farms” (sites that could have a 1000 links on one page) are not recommended. Using these types of links can often be categorised a Black Hat* tricks by search engines

* Black Hat methods of SEO are sneaky tricks like, putting your key phrase in white text at the top of the page to add extra key phrases.

Sites that are respected by search engines are generally sites that you yourself would recommend, Use a spoonful of cop on when choosing sites to get linked from. Getting back to that Car garage, if he was offered a link from a Circus website, do you think that link would be of any use. . . . Me Neither. . .  I doubt Google would too.

So, I would recommend that you contact your suppliers in your industry and ask them to put a link to your website from their website. I could try to do it but they are more likely to do it for you rather than a stranger these days. Once that is in place make sure you put a link from your website back to them. This is called a reciprocal link.

To start a Link Building Campaign for your business today contact Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd, Tel: 053 9430748

Google’s listing, How do they work?

We have had a number of inquiries from companies this week asking us to help them get on top of Google.  It’s interesting to see how the “recession in the building trade” has pushed into many other aspects of life in Ireland.

One inquiry today asked if we could create a script to refresh a website so that I will appear higher in Google? Is this true If I write a script to refresh the page it will increase it Page Ranking in Google?

I don’t think so, is the simple answer.

Google has a complex algorithm that now consists of over 200 criteria that it rates a website. Google changes and alter this algorithm each day. Google is not a script that is the same each and every week. Google evolves, think of it like the stock exchange, it adapts to trends in the world and sometimes there are more focus on certain area’s than other.

In years gone by it could have been many things such as :

• your domain name
• your image content
• your video content
• the amount of links that pointed to you
• the amount of internal links
• the amount of good copy you have written on the site
• the amount of times the website was updated
• spelling
• grammar

Often business owners have their own idea of how Google works, but it is not always as simple as they think. We also has one company marketing director ask about changing the company domain name to AAsometing.ie as they assumed that Google lists is websites alphabetically.

Interesting so see how different businesses assume so much about how a search engines work and yet all be so far from the truth. Search Engine are a science, not rocket science but never the less a science, It’s called “Computer Science”

Many people are afraid to ask for help in business these days, we have found that if people let us work on the area of expertise that we specialise in we can help grow their business and grow their company.

Let Cada Media Ltd take your hand through the complex world of Search Engine Optimisation and put your business ahead of the rest. Call Dave Jordan on 053 9430748 for more information.

We are please to announce the launch of a new website for the “Small Job” around the house that everyone has and are looking for tradesmen online to come and work on. The type of jobs that wouldn’t be looked at a year or two ago are now the main bread and butter for many in Trades such as carpenters and plumbers etc.

We have worked with our client Paul on creating a directory style website that he can manage himself in terms of content and ECommerce payment facilities the site incorporates. The site allows tradesmen from all over Ireland insert a small advert for their services in a County or town they wish to apply for. It will also allow for miltiple listings if required.

Tradesmen nagigate to the area they wish to be listed in, they click on “Add Listing” and fill in the form and follow the steps. The site then links them to a payment option and they can get listed virtually immediately. The owner of the site “Paul” then checks their listing for approval.

The site has the following features:

• Search Engine Friendly Directory
• Printer Friendly
• Downloads Fast
• ECommerce facility
• Content Management Software
• Online Advertising Management

Services carried out were

• Domain Management
• Consultancy
• Web Development
• Training
• Web Marketing

This is a common issues with websites, trying to keep them fresh, you can look at the following

1. Read your website and each page to see if it makes sense to you as , a newbie or as an experienced user looking for information. Do you cater for both
2. Make sure you have good meta tags on every page, the description and keywords match each page.
3. Look at your competitors sites and see if they have something you may have overlooked.
4. Check other search engines to see how you rank try www.google.co.uk and search for your products and services there for example if you cater for the UK market.
5. Are you linked from enough sites, are their suppliers who should have a link to you? Link building is very important, get all of them to link to you.
6. Start a Social Media Networking campaign, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter etc for your business
7. Get involved in posting articles on forums say on Boards.ie etc

This is just a sample of how you can keep your site and information online about your business fresh for more call Dave Jordan on 053 9430748

Dave Speaks at IIA Seminar in Waterford

Dave Jordan has been asked to speak at the half day seminar organised by the IIA and Waterford City Enterprise Board Today at Dooley’s Hotel, The Quay, Waterford.

This half day seminar is designed for businesses to get more from their websites and is run in conjunction with the Marketing Institute of Ireland.

Dave will be speaking at 2.20pm on  Web Design for Business Success

We wish him all the best at the event.

from the Staff at Cada Media Ltd

Google has changed.

Yes, Google have changed their algorithm as we have been writing about since last year. It seems that many people came back to work this week to find their website gone from it’s usual place in the search engine.

Expect more of this in 2009 as “Rich Media” plays a bigger role in getting listed in Google.

See :

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/2008/11/google-changing/

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/2008/11/google-algorithm-changes-all-the-time/

http://blog.cadamedia.ie/2008/11/matt-cutts-from-google-interviewed/

Matt Cutts from Google was interviewed in Las Vagas at the PubCon show recently and he pointed out a number of changes that are going to be happening in Google in the new year.

He talked about the user experience gaining in priority and that a move towards personalisation is very important. Meaning that the website content for searches must be geared towards the users and not just writing for search engines. Google basically will look at the content and examine it to see if it reads well or is just a string of key phrases thrown into a paragraph.

Localisation was touched on again by Matt pointing out that Geo Targeting your search results will become more to the front in 2009. Basically depending where you are will show results for your geographical location.

On the question on is “Page Rank Dead?” he pointed out again that basically Yes they are moving away from displaying sites with a high page rank and giving priority to sites with good website content. He also said that they are going to be looking more at companies that use “White Hat Solutions” and “Black Hat Solutions“. These are methods of creating web pages that fool a search engine into showing it first, like loading it with H1 tags in displaying content or “Keyword Stuffing” pages with key phrases what people might use, but when you actually sit down to read the page it’s crap. Just a load of phrases and no “Real Content” to understand what that page is about.

So to all our clients, get your thinking cap on and start coming up with good web copy and starting writing for your audience.

We have mentioned about google changing its algorithm over 450 times last year and having over 200 criteria for their page rank but now it seems that from early 2009 they will be pushing for Geo-Targeting search results, meaning that depending on where you are it will display different results. We have carried our a few simultaneous searches in our Wexford offices here and our Dublin office as well as a colleague in the Uk and found that we all have got different results depending on our location.

Great you say  . . .  but what has this got to do with me and my website. Well you must now starting taking this into consideration when writing your website content. Google is starting to look at wheat searches you are carrying out and is return results to suit you. This will happen even if you have a google account or not. They are looking at search trends and what an IP address for instance looks for.

This means that page rank could be a thing of the past as they change the way they look upon information around the world and how they index it.

We are predicting that people will start seeing their website jumpin Google’s listings from early 2009.