One of the interesting (for strange people like me anyway) things about search marketing is how seasonality has such a large impact on certain keywords, and how sites can plan and act on them.

A good example is the keyword ‘Wimbledon’. If we use Google Trends we can see how search volume using the term ‘Wimbledon’ spike during the tennis tournament http://www.google.com/trends?q=wimbledon. We can also see the same for the keyword ‘christmas’ http://www.google.com/trends?q=christmas and ‘mothers day’ http://www.google.com/trends?q=mothers+day&ctab=0&geo=GB&geor=all&date=all&sort=0 

By identifying those events related to your site that come around every year you can plan both your site lay out and search marketing activity in advance. If we take the example of an online store that sells flowers, straight away we can pick out two key events to plan for; Mothers day and Valentines day (http://www.google.com/trends?q=valentine).

With this knowledge we can activate keywords on the search engines in the build up to the spikes and then pause them once they end. This allows you to benefit from a period of high traffic that will have a high propencity to convert in to customers with out having them running through out the year, putting a strain on your budget. You can also amend your home page to focus on these events so that they are the lead messages and offers to draw your visitors further in to your site.

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You have your domain name, hosting package and design software and are ready to create your own website but are not quite sure where to start. We have therefore compiled a basic guide demonstrating the key factors to look out for when planning and creating your website. This article will be useful for anyone wanting to create their own website, particularly for business purposes, but will also be useful if you would like to create your personal website or enhance an existing website.

These are some of the essential factors that you should think about when planning your website, they will be key to successfully achieving the best results:
+ Usability and visibility
- Easy site navigation
- Clear communication
- Simplicity
+ Accessibility
+ Consistency
+ Reliability

The challenge to creating your own website is to have as much usability and visibility as possible, even though a trade off between the two will often be required. A great looking website alone will not deliver successfully if it is not “visible”. Similarly, if your website is poorly planned & designed, it is unlikely to be a winner however much it is promoted and marketed. Website design and its marketing are very closely linked.

Website Strategy Read the rest of this entry »

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Hopefully part one of this guide helped you to set up your account and gain an idea of the basics of PPC marketing through search engines. This section will look in more detail at researching your keywords and setting your budget.

Part 1 of the guide can be found here http://inside.123-reg.co.uk/archives/pay-per-click-guide-1/

What are keywords?
Keywords are the terms people have typed in to a search engine to look for some information. For example, if you are looking for a birthday card you may type in “Birthday cards”. When the search engine brings back the results, it also displays adverts related to that subject. Advertisers have told the search engine that they want their advert to be shown when ever their chosen keywords are searched for, in this case for Birthday cards.

Depending on what you want to advertise, your list of keywords may be anything from a dozen up to literally thousands (as is the case with the major retailers such as Amazon).

Keyword research
There are numerous keyword research tools to help you decide which terms to bid on. Some of these are free and others ask for payment. Google provide a free keyword estimator tool as part of their AdWords account, which will show predicted spend and traffic for a keyword. However, it will not create a list of keywords for you.

One of the most popular tools is Yahoo!’s free keyword selector tool, This will tell you how many times a certain term has been searched for in the past month, along with associated searches using that term. This can be found here http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion

In order to build a keyword list, start by using these tools to type in the keywords you think people will use when searching for your product or service. The keyword tools will then show you know all the combinations of alternative keywords that people use to look for your product and service. Choose the keywords that you think are most relevant to you. The more keywords that you choose, the greater the potential traffic and sales that your PPC campaign will generate.

Generally, common keywords are popular amongst many advertisers, so the cost per click you pay for these keywords are likely to be higher than longer, less frequently used keywords. It’s a good idea to include as many as possible within your account.

Read the rest of this entry »

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When we decided to offer Linux on our managed dedicated servers, we thought long and hard about which of the many Linux distributions to use, before finally choosing Ubuntu Linux — in particular Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

Plaudits are of course always welcome, but particularly so when we learn that the care and thought we put into making a decision such as this has been appreciated. So we were pleased to read Dan Lynch at Adventures in Open Source enthusing over our Ubuntu servers.

An important part of picking a web server is knowing that you can rely on it for the long term. That’s where Ubuntu 6.06 LTS comes in, because, as Dan says:

“the LTS bit stands for Long Term Support and updates are guaranteed till 2011. That’s vital for anyone looking to build a server, the main desktop edition of Ubuntu moves so fast with a new release every 6 months, no sys admin in their right mind wants to be upgrading the OS that often. Server downtime must be kept to an absolute minimum in that game.”

Dan’s spot on here. Installing the latest and greatest cutting-edge Linux releases is great fun, experimenting with the new features … but it’s something best done on a spare computer (or your desktop, if you’re feeling brave), far away from live systems like your web server. In a web server what you want is boring predictability and stability, knowing that you can trust it to keep serving your website for years to come.

And with Ubuntu and 123-reg that’s what you get: we look after your server and apply all the security updates, so that you can concentrate on what it is you do best.

There are lots of other good Linux distributions out there too; Fedora, Suse, Mandriva, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Centos were among those we considered. But overall Ubuntu had the edge, with its winning combination of long-term support and being free to download, so that you can run the same OS on your computers as on your 123-reg dedicated server.

Thanks for the feedback, Dan.

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Below is a selection of the blogs I regularly read to keep up to date with the latest on search marketing along with some ideas and tips for our own sites:

www.seobook.com
Written by one of the industry’s leading figure heads Aaron Wall, this blog is primarily focused on SEO. It has been running for some time, so the post topics are quite advanced now, but a search of earlier posts can prove fruitful for beginners.

www.seomoz.com/blog
A really good read, with regular updates along with some original ideas and interesting commentary on industry developments.

adwords.blogspot.com
The official Google AdWords blog. Keep up to date with new product launches, scheduled down time, ideas to maximise your adverts and a like.

adcenterblog.spaces.live.com
The official Microsoft adCenter blog

www.mattcutts.com/blog
Matt Cutts is head of Google’s Webspam team and writes abourt search marketing from an insider’s perspective.

blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog
If you are serious about search marketing you should regularly check both this blog and the main site www.searchenginewatch.com with news, ideas and how to guides, it is a mine of information. If you are just starting to dabble in all of this, here’s a good search marketing guide.

If you have any more you would like to share feel free to add them in the comments box

Matt

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One of the curses of working in online marketing is that you can’t enjoy a website for it’s own sake, or just look at a pay per click advert or banner with out critiquing it, and this includes the domain name.

Some domain names are so long no one stands a chance of remembering it, others are acronyms that leave no idea of what the site is about and a few are even misspelled. One of the key variables a search engine will look at when ranking your site is your domain name, and those containing a search keyword will get a nice ranking boost, so it is important you choose wisely.

Magic dreamers
If we use the example of a fictional greeting card company called ‘magic dreamers’ it may seem obvious to go with (this is an example, not a genuine domain name) www.magicdreamers.co.uk, and whilst this would rank highly for people searching for the keywords ‘magic’ and ‘dreamers’ most customers looking for a greeting card would search for something like:

• ‘Greeting cards’
• ‘Birthday cards’
• ‘Mothers day card’
• Etc…

The domain name ‘magicdreamers.co.uk’, doesn’t let the search engine know what the site is about is in any way. Any domain name with those keywords (e.g. www.greetingcard.com) will score highly, because it describes the site’s purpose perfectly and is therefore more relevant in the search engine’s eyes.

To help you research which domain name to register, one of the most useful free online tools for keyword analysis is Yahoo’s Overture keyword selector site: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. Just type in a word or phrase related to your website, e.g. ‘greeting card’, and the program will show you how many searches were conducted containing that word or phrase during the previous month.

It is worth noting that having an excellent domain name alone won’t do the trick, but if it is coupled with keyword loaded content, in bound links and strong page titles, it could be the edge you need to make it to the top 10.

A quick check list for choosing your domain name:

• Keep it short
• Keep it descriptive
• Keep it memorable

Simple!

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Research and new media company e-Consultancy has produced a list of 12 Reasons why businesses aren’t blogging. Chris Lake doesn’t pull any punches, blaming risk-averse CEOs and PR companies for being reluctant to take the plunge.

I can see why businesses think it’s a big deal letting staff loose on a company blog and considering the approval processes that most have for issuing press releases, amending websites or producing company literature, I’m not surprised that companies are thinking carefully before setting up their own blog.

But despite the reasons why many companies hold back, we are seeing more dip their toes in the warm waters of the blogosphere. And when you consider how quickly things have moved in the past couple of years, the fact that there are 84 million blogs worldwide - many of them businesses - is a sign that they’re here to stay.

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