The chances are that  you ended up on this page because you type “SEO Leicester” , “SEO company Leicester” or even “Search Engine Optimisation Leicester” into a search engine such as Google or Bing.  But have you ever wondered just how SEO works or if you are like the majority of business owners I speak to you just want more business from your website and somewhere along the line you have heard that you need SEO or your website needs optimising.

Rather than go into all the “techy” mumbo jumbo that you will no doubt come across as you speak to SEO consultants I have scoured the Internet and found several videos that explain the principles of SEO and online marketing. Now these SEO videos have been made in the States but the principles are exactly the same whether you run a business in Leicester or Long Beach.

The first video is about Market Research and what keywords are and just how important they are to your success in marketing your business online and how they effect your websites rankings in the search engines.

Here’s the link for the Google Keyword Tool you will be surprised just how many people are looking for your goods or services in Leicester.

The second video explains about websites and what to look for when designing your website,on-page SEO and really the basics of SEO. I know that the majority of you will use the services of a website designer but it is important to understand the difference between an optimised website and a website that the search engines will simply ignore or give a low search engine ranking.

As I said earlier in the post these SEO Videos were created in America but they do give a very good insight into exactly what SEO is and how it is essential for profitable Online marketing. If you would like to watch all eight of these videos please drop me a line a info@searchengineoptimisationleicester.com and I will send you the links. If you would like to discuss your companies online marketing or enquire just how SEO and SEM could help your business simply use the contact form on the Contact Us page.

PS: Remember  SEO Leicester and the principles of SEO are for long term benefits and is not a quick fix.

Technorati Tags: Search engine optimisation Leicester, Search Engine Optimization Leicester, SEO Company Leicester, SEO Leicester

The rapid growth in the number of Internet searches on Mobile Phones highlights the need for businesses no matter what their size or market to have a Mobile Friendly Website Design. The Internet is continuing to advance and more and more people searching online using their mobile phones, if your business hasn’t got a mobile website, then the chances are you are losing customers to your  competition who are already onboard with the importantance of mobile web design.

Why is Mobile Web Design so necessary and what’s the impact of all of this?
In 2002 UK consumers stated that a mobile phone was the least important of the 4 main technologies they use, ranking it below the Internet, TV and the landline phone.

How-ever in 2007 just 5 years later they said the mobile phone was THE device they could not live without. 60% of all mobile phone users even take them to bed with them.

So why do you need a Mobile Website Design for your business?
Because – “local search volume” is growing larger than ever at a substantial 50% each and every year.
In 2009 there were 1 billion local searches.
In 2010 there were 1.5 billion local searches.
In 2011 it is predicted to reach 2.3 billion local searches.
2012 is predicted to exceed 3.45 billion local searches.

The number one method for obtaining local information is the Smart phone with 20.7 million users searching every month. Local searches are growing on mobile devices.

Google’s Director of Emerging Platforms Mike Steib was quoted as saying “Google has seen a 500% growth in local mobile search from 2008 to 2010 and a 67% increase in mobile queries in the last quarter alone.”

If your business is not showing in local searches with a mobile web design your business is at a distinct disadvantage.

80% of UK consumers research online before purchasing, even when they eventually purchase offline.

Easy To Read – When viewing a standard website on a mobile phone you  need to scroll up and down and left to right, and in most cases the text will be too small to read. Zooming in and out makes it difficult if not impossible to follow what you are looking at, this hardly makes for a good customer experience.

Mobile friendly websites however are purposely designed so the information is presented in an simple to display format so your customers can easily view your site using their Smartphone.

Mobile Redirect – When you add a mobile web design to your online marketing strategy, a simple piece of coding directs the visitor to the website best suited to the device that they are visiting from.

This coding will automatically detect if the user is on a mobile device or on a traditional connection and direct them accordingly to either your mobile friendly website or your standard website.This technology provides for a seamless professional experience for your customers.

Usability and Future Proofing Your Mobile Web Design  – It is vital to make sure that your Mobile Website Design  works with all types of mobile phones and Internet browsers. There is a danger if you are attempting to build the website yourself that this becomes impossible to manage. If you opt for the DIY option you need ask yourself; what will happen next month when a the latest phones come out?

By using Mobile Website Design UK we can make sure your content is optimised in a way to cover you now and in the future. We offer a monthly service to cover all future updates.

Handy Features – Click to Call is just one example of a useful feature of a Mobile Friendly Web Design. As the name suggests, your customer can ring you straight from their mobile phone.

Local searches are  growing at a remarkable rate and your business must have the expertise to profit. Mobile website design is now essential as you can’t rely on a standard website as your customers will not stay on your website if it is not easy navigate and read. The whole point of a mobile friendly website is to give your customers an excellent user experience.

A mobile website design is a must have to ensure your customers can find you instead of your competition. So get your business a Mobile Web Design.

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Technorati Tags: mobile friendly website design, mobile friendly websites, mobile web design, mobile web design Leicester, mobile website design

Whilst we are a SEO based company many of our clients want instant traffic to their website while they are waiting for their websites to rank in the search engines.
One of the fastest methods of driving traffic to your website is to use Google advertising but we would strongly recommend that you use an agency that specialises in PPC (pay per click) as there is a very steep learning curve and mistakes caused by lack of knowledge and experience can make this a very expensive way of driving traffic to your site.

It is also important to realise that there are several different ways of Google advertising but the most popular method is Google AdWords described below.

With Google being such a large company  it often appears difficult to see how Google advertising profits the Leicester business owner. However simply because the company is huge and seems overwhelming does not mean that only big national or multi-national companies will profit by using the Google advertising program known as AdWords. The chances are when you think of Google advertising, you in all likelihood  only consider the large national chains and multi-national giants that use AdWords. The reality is the advertising programs through Google can offer a specific benefit to the Leicester business owner.

Imagine a Leicester fancy dress business that has decided to take its business online. The owner gets a website designed and online and because their website is fully automated they can  sell to anyone, anywhere at any time of the day or night. Even though their website is fully operational there is a major problem…….  no one is aware of  the website, only of the residents of Leicester where the fancy dress business is situated,  how does the fancy dress business owner justify the cost of putting the business online in the first place?

Google advertising uses the context of the websites and blogs it’s placed on to target specific types of traffic.

So when the Leicester fancy dress business uses Google for advertising, its adverts are placed on fancy dress posts, fancy dress articles and even fancy dress news reports on assorted blogs and websites where it will be seen by people who are interested in fancy dress. Contextual advertising is the main benefit for the Leicester business owner who chooses to advertise through Google. Because the ads are placed on websites where the visitors may be looking for fancy dress hire or fancy dress supplies the Leicester business owner will all of a sudden start seeing business from many different places as web surfers discover his site through his adverts on Google. Not only does contextual advertising benefit the Leicester business owner the large  all-embracing reach of a media giant like Google allows for affordable advertising plans that the business owner can control.

With the automated sales website and effective advertising the Leicester fancy dress business owner may soon discover that he takes more orders online than he does customers in the shop. Advertising online presents a dilemma for many business owners because they assume that all advertising programs are the same. This could not be farther from the truth. Most online advertising programs do not provide the targeted contextual advertising or the various advertising rates that Google does. As a matter of fact for contextual ads and a great return on your expense, advertising with Google is probably the smartest choice for any online business no matter what their size.

Google is not the only platform for this type of advertising with Yahoo and Bing offering a similar service but the up and coming player in this field is Facebook.

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Technorati Tags: advertising online Leicester, Google advertising Leicester, Google adwords Leicester, Online advertising Leicester

Facebook Marketing Facebook pages can be a huge method to interact with audiences. Facebook statistics tell us that the average user (at the time of this writing) is connected to 60 pages, groups and events. This means that aside from all the other Facebook friend activity that happens, your page is one of 60 trying to grab attention a fan’s attention.

For a more effective social media marketing program, here are ten things that you can do to turn your  business Facebook fan page into a dynamic and engaging destination for your Facebook fans.

1. Be unique

There’s nothing worse than a bland Facebook page. Think long and hard about how your page can be different. Remember, your page is one of at least 60 things that an average Facebook user is giving attention to. It’s insanely important that your page is unique and stands out from the rest.

Design is a major part of being unique on Facebook. Check out these excellent examples of creative Facebook fan pages for inspiration. You can never go wrong investing time and resources into a great design for your Facebook page.

Think creatively about how you can add value to Facebook users. Can you give them something? Can you provide them with help, or resources? These are the things that will get people joining your Facebook page and keep them coming back.

2. Don’t use a generic landing page

Facebook allows you to customise what page different types of users land on. You can show people who have never been to your page before a completely different message than people who are already fans on your page. It’s a great idea to show potential users a page specifically tailored for them. It might give a little background about your company or site, and would give them a great reason for joining.

Never let new users land on your Wall. The Wall doesn’t really tell anything about your brand, and it won’t have much impact on new visitors.

3. Give something away quickly

Your die-hard followers won’t need any reason for joining your fan page. But if you’re trying to really grow your Facebook presence, consider giving resources back to your community and niche. This allows you to reach other potential fans within your niche that might not have known about your Facebook page.

4. Use a large profile picture

People on Facebook want to see photos. After all, Facebook is far and away the biggest photo sharing site on the web. So make sure your page has a large photo of your company or brand as the profile picture. This helps with branding and adds trust to your profile.

5. Tag fans in photos

This is a great tip if you’re a brick and mortar business. If you’re somehow able to take pictures of your customers, tag them within the picture. Many people have Facebook notifications that alert them when they’ve been tagged in photos, and this will bring them back to your page.

Your fans also have the ability to upload photos as well. (This might require some moderation on your part. As with anything user generated, you might get some spam, etc.) Allowing fans to upload and tag themselves and friends in your pages automatically adds a nice social “hook” to your page.

Not only are you giving back by adding photos, you’re also keeping your brand planted firmly in the fan’s mind.

6. Use contests

Contests are a great way to make your fan page more engaging, and they also give incentive for potential fans to join. Contests that include giveaways can be excellent marketing tools if they’re done properly.

7. Integrate multiple social networks

You can use multiple Facebook applications to pull in your other already existing accounts from other social networking sites. With the help of some nifty applications, you can pull in Twitter, Flickr, and many others fairly quickly.

8. Thank people for becoming your fans

When someone becomes a fan on Facebook, immediately thank them! Give them something in return, like an ebook or coupon, or at the very least send them a quick “thanks!” message.

This small gesture can be huge in spreading goodwill about your page and brand. It might even give users more incentive to share your contests and resources on your fan page.

9. Don’t treat your fans like children

In case you haven’t noticed, Facebook has grown up a lot in the past few years. What used to be a place for college students and younger is now a place for everyone. According to this report from istrategy labs, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook in 2009 was adults aged 55 and over. The largest overall demographic on Facebook is ages 35-54, which makes up 29% of all Facebook users.

So don’t write for an audience of teenagers. Everyone is now on Facebook. Sure, your brand might dictate the writing style for your target audience. (Seventeen magazine sounds quite different than AARP.) But don’t make the mistake that the only people visiting and joining Facebook Fan pages are teenagers and college kids.

10. Keep at it

Often people will create their pages and leave them. Facebook pages are breeding grounds for excellent feedback and engagement. Many people are starting to find that Facebook pages have excellent discussions and high interaction rates, oftentimes higher than Twitter and other social networks. Photos and contests are great interaction tools, and posting stories and articles also add lots of value to the community.

There are plenty of ways to stay involved with Facebook fan pages. Growing a fan base on Facebook for your page requires work, but engaging with your community on Facebook pays huge dividends.

If you want your business to benefit from a  custom designed Facebook fanpage contact me Now, prices start from as little as £80.00. or for further information about  online marketing goto www.howtomarketyourlocalbusiness.co.uk

Many thanks to Glen at www.toprankblog.com

Technorati Tags: advertise your local business, Facebook fanpages, Facebook marketing, Leicester small businesses

Every small business owner in Leicester who uses online marketing needs to know the best ways to get high search engine ranking optimisation for their website. Everyone who owns a business website in Leicester, including restaurants, dentists,pubs and nightclubs hope for high amount of traffic.

To date, there are so many business websites. Probably millions or billions of websites on the internet. So how can you build a site and stand out amongst all these websites? High search engine ranking optimisation helps a web site to be found by visitors who are interested in your products or services.

How does SEO work? There are two factors to how it works, and these two factors are on page SEO and off page SEO.

Point #1 – On Page Search Engine Optimisation

This refers to the SEO methods used when your web site is already launched and is now live on the internet. Search engines like Google,Yahoo and Bing will need to know what your web site is all about so that they will direct suitable visitors to it.

When the search engines visit your website, they take a look at the textual content and the HTML code as a way to resolve what every web page of your website is about. To get high search engine ranking optimisation, you will need to make use of keywords when adding pages to your site. Two things you should learn is how you can use meta data and the layout of your site.

Point #2 – Off Page Search Engine Optimisation

The way that the search engines discover your web site in the first place is through hyperlinks of your website address on other sites that they’ve already know about. Search engines have bots that are always crawling the web and are on the lookout for newly launched sites or newly established pages on websites, so as to index the information of the website.

One of the ways that these search engines use to determine if a website is important is by the total number of inbound hyperlinks that it has, these are known as backlinks. Off page SEO ensures that you get a high search engine ranking optimisation. Therefore, I reccomend that you concentrate mainly on building backlinks to your web site from other sites that are relevant to your business.

There are lots of ways do off page SEO. I’ll be honest; most of these are quite time-consuming, but worth every bit of effort.

Here is a  huge variety of off page SEO techniques;

Technique #1 – Submit To Article Directories

Write articles together with a link to your site, and submit these articles to hundreds of article directories. Most importantly, remember to include links of your site to the articles.

Technique #2 – Use Free Sites

Create pages with backlinks to your website. You can utilise free sites. For instance, Blogger, Squidoo, Hubpages,Wordpress etc.These types of “free sites” are known as Web 2.0 sites.

Technique #3 – Leave Comments

Leave comments on sites with “comments” sections. For instance, blogs and Squidoo lenses. Do note that the content you put onto theses sites must be related to the subject material of that of your website’s and the subject the author of the site has posted .

Technique #4 – Social Media

Include your links to your websites on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.Social media is a great way to interact with your customers and potential customers. Facebook now receives more traffic than Google so I would highly recommend creating a Facebook fanpage for your company or product.

Technique #5 – ‘Bookmark’ Your Websites

Make sure to bookmark your web site onto sites like Digg. These are sites where people enter the details or URLs of internet sites that they like or find are helpful.

Technique #6 – Submit Your Site’s RSS Feeds

If you’ve have blogs and sites that have RSS fees, make sure that you submit them to RSS aggregators.

If all of these sound too advanced, you need to think about hiring a SEO consultant to do it for you. There are various SEO companies that provides these services. If you have your own a commercial website, this is worthwhile and can be very profitable when your site gets high search engine ranking optimisation.

All the techniques above are tried and tested methods for getting your websites higher in the search engines rankings and hopefully onto the first page for your keyword or keywords but in this post I have simply given a brief outline to each SEO method, if you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

The sole purpose of search engine optimisation and marketing online is to get your website in front of the people who are typing your keywords into the search engines, but what happens when these people find your site? Does your site have a call to action such as  “call now” or “enter your email address for further information”? Unless you are giving away free information you need the visitors to your business website to either call you for an appointment, visit your business premises or you need to be able to send them information about your business, special offers etc. when you wish. A business website without a “call to action” is a waste of prime virtual space.

To find out how to get your potential clients to keep in touch with you and return to your site time after time contact me NOW and book a free 1/2 hour consultation where I can show you how to increase your ROI from your website.

If you do not want to go ahead and book a meeting simply send me the URL of your business website and I will send you a video appraisal of your site and recommedations any improvements you might need to make.

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Technorati Tags: Facebook fanpage, Facebook fanpages, Leicester small businesses, SEO

This amusing Social Media Count shows you in real time just how important the Internet is to your business and how by using Social Media such as  Twitter, Facebook,YouTube etc can help you drive traffic to your site and interact with your customers.

SOCIAL MEDIA, MOBILE and GAME STATISTICS.

• Social/mobile – 2 million iPads sold in first 2 months June 2010 Guardian
• Social – One new member of LinkedIn every second June 2010 MktCharts
• mobile – iPad shipments running at 9 million global shipments in the first 12 months. May 2010 Morgan Stanley
• 1.4 billion music tracks sold on iTunes between Sep 09 & Feb 10 Wikipedia iTunes tracking
• 300 000 new twitter users per day Apr 2010 TechRadar
• 247 billions emails per day and 18% growth in internet users (of 1.75bn) Jan 2010 Royal Pingdom ‘Internet 2009 in Numbers’
• 280 mill iPhone apps per month Jan 2010 GigaOm
• 3.5 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook each week and 2.5 billion photo uploads to Facebook per month Feb 2010 eConsultancy
• Facebook 635mill in ad revenue & $75 mill in gifts Mar 2010 InsideFacebook
• Facebook 25 million new members each month Feb 2010 Mashable
• 50 million Tweets per day Feb 2010 - eConsultancy
• YouTube 1Billion watched per day Dec 2009 SMH

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Search Engine Optimisation, Search engine optimisation Leicester, SEO, Social Media, Twitter

SMEs failing at SEO

An interesting summary of a recent ‘State of UK Business Websites 2010′ study has been posted on the excellent Econsultancy blog, which highlights that most SMEs are failing when it comes to SEO.

The study, commissioned by Thomson Local, was carried out by Analytics SEO and looked at 1,001 SME websites to review them against a range of SEO criteria.

In many ways,we are not surprised by the general findings but there are some interesting specific points:

A correlation between organisation size and level of search engine optimisation (notably, 70% of companies with less than 50 employees having minimal or no evidence of search optimisation) : perhaps unsurprising, but we have seen a growing amount of small / new businesses that do totally ‘get’ online and know how important search can be. Equally, there are still many old-school businesses (thinking specifically about legal firms) who continue to amaze us for their reticence to embrace digital, so it is likely that the size factor may be less important over the coming years in our humble opinion.

12% of business websites are not indexed at all : this is obviously crippling to the value of having a website at all – if a search engine doesn’t know your site is there, it will never send any traffic to it.

82% of SME websites do not have an html sitemap and 75% do not have an XML sitemap : Both these figures are alarmingly high, as it is very easy to create a sitemap, but it is surprising to see that there are more sites with XML sitemaps than html sitemaps.
It is an interesting study and one that would be good to see each year, to see how SMEs use of the online channel evolves.

To those involved at the coalface of online marketing, it seems incredible to think that many businesses are still not taking online very seriously, but it is easy to forget that setting up a business is demanding and business owners are pulled in a lot of different directions.

Whilst battling with the innevitable business issues / hurdles that are thrown at you, it can be easy to put the website on a low priority list and any thoughts of SEO will probably be put on the ‘only do if the world has stopped spinning’ list, so it is not really very surprising to see the results of the study.

We should also remember that search marketing is still a relatively new phenomenon and businesses have survived and prospered without it before. It would be foolish to suggest that you should ignore it, but it would be equally foolish to write off a business simply because it doesn’t have an html sitemap.

I work with companies both large and small and always enjoy the challenge of SEO for SMEs, so please feel free to contact me today if you feel that you belong to the 47% of SMEs that are currently not engaging with SEO.

Technorati Tags: Business websites, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO

Building backlinks to a website is an off page optimisation method that is widely used by search engine optimisation consultants,web designers and owners as a way of increasing traffic to a website. The importance of backlinking has grown to become one of the leading SEO strategies in web marketing. Given the vastness of the internet, website operators have realised the need to embed their URLs on as many sites as possible to increase the likelihood that their sites will be visited by web users.

Building  backlinks or inbound links is a way that this task can be achieved. Apart from increasing the probability that your site will be found, search engines also use the number of backlinks that website have as a criteria to rank the site. The more backlinks  implies that the site is more popular and important to web users. However, care must be taken to ensure that these backlinks are from reputable sites and not just from junk sites. If you have backlinks to too many junk sites, Google will penalise your website by placing it into the “sandbox”.

Backlinks may be created in several ways some of which are shown below:

• Create a Hubpage or Squidoo lens
• Forum marketing
• Blogs

Hubpages is a user generated content website that allows users to post material to the site where this web material is contained in a separate web page. The web material on the hubpages are submitted in the form of a magazine, and hubbers benefit by having their URL attached to this posting. This is a good way of obtaining a backlinking to your website and the use of hubpages is growing on the web.

Squidoo lens is similar to Hubpages in its basic design in that Squidoo lens is also a user generated content website. User, in this case the lensmaster, uses lenses to write extensively about a subject of their choice. The site allows lensmaster to earn income from link referral that are included on their lenses. By participating on Squidoo as a lensmaster, you may create backlinks for your website and increase traffic.

When you take part in online forums, you can boost the visibility of your website and promote your products. Because forums are specialised groups of person sharing a common interest, this is a sure fire way to gain traction by including your URL in the comments that you post to these discussions.

You can gain access to blogs that discuss matters relating to the goods or services that you offer and post your comments there. By so doing, you will be able to create one way backlinks to your website for visitors of this blog.

The importance of backlinking originates from the emphasis that search engines place on the popularity of websites. Search engines have algorithms that count the number of quality backlinks that a website has and use this count as a way of assigning that site’s pagerank. Backlinking is also about getting quality links for your site.  Given the importance of backlinking, you should employ an experienced search engine optimisation consultant to carry out this task for you. Getting too many backlinks from the wrong places can mean trouble for your Leicester business website.

UPDATE JULY 2011

There has been a major update within Google which has affected many websites and their rankings. This update known as “The Panda Update” is intended to ensure that sites that provide good quality original content and have  backlinks from relevant websites rather than “spammy” profile type links.

This update will stop poor quality websites (such as autoblogs) and affiliate sites (that have very little content) that have 1000,s of low quality backlinks dominating the top positions and will give the searcher the information they are searching for.

There has never been a more critical time to make sure that your seo consultant or whoever is doing the serch engine optimisation for your website takes notice of this update and follows Googles guide lines.

 
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Technorati Tags: Backlinking, Backlinks, Forums, Hubpages, Inbound Links, Leicester Business Websites, Search Engine Optimisation Consultant, Squidoo

Search engine submission is the process of sending your website’s URL to search engines. Submitting your Leicester business website to search engines may be carried out automatically or manually.

Automatic submissions, however, are on the decline, and some of the major search engines, namely Google, have warned users against the use of unauthorized software to submit URLs.  Some search engines treat automated submission as spams. Despite this, some automatic URL submission service providers have devised ingenious methods to attract users to utilize their products.

Some of these methods include free meta tag checking and offering to do a complete review of websites in order to improve site ranking. In these instances, website owners are given the promise that their site will be submitted to many top search engines.

The real challenge of the automatic submission is the proof that the work was actually done. Because indexing on search engines can take a while, providers of automatic submission services may use this fact to avoid proving that your website was really submitted. When using automatic software, the different requirements of the various search engines are not acknowledged. Consequently, mass submission software may not achieve the objectives of the submission.

If you want to ensure that you’re properly submitted, it is recommended that you do so manually. The major search engines have specific formats that must be followed to guarantee that your URL is accepted and indexed. There are tools on the market with direct links to the search engine submission pages and allow you to quickly go to the “add URL” page. Additionally, you could use the services of a manual submission service to save the time and effort of doing this yourself.

Before you hurry off to submit your Leicester business website to search engines, here are a few items you must consider:

•  Ensure that your web pages are thoroughly and professionally done
• Include a site map to assist web robots with crawling
• Avoid websites that offer to do manual submission cheaply – manual submission is time intensive and does not come cheaply

The submission of an incomplete website just to quickly “get something out there” may result in your site not featuring highly on the search engine results pages. Additionally, visitors to an incomplete website may develop a feeling of distrust and may be reluctant to do business with you. Remember, you do not get a second chance to make a first impression, so do things right the first time and get your website done professionally with original content and relevant keywords.

Site maps are a good way of informing Google and other major search engines about all the pages listed on your website. Site maps can be designed to provide information about specialised web content such as video and geographical location.

The critical benefit of submitting your Leicester business website is to get noticed on the internet. Submitting your business website to search engines must be taken seriously to ensure that your site does not get treated as spam. If a site gets labeled as spam, it could spell the end of the site on the web. Therefore, you should use a trusted professional to submit your website to the major search engines.

For further information on submitting your Leicester business website to all the major search engines contact Search Engine Optimisation Leicester using the contact form or email  info@searchengineoptimisationleicester.com

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Technorati Tags: automatic submission, Google, Leicester business website, manual submission, meta tag check, searc h engine submission, site map

Off page optimisation is an SEO technique that deals with activities off the page of a website that can maximize the site’s performance in the search engines, in particular for target keywords related to the on page content and keywords in off page direct links. In other words, what can you do apart from using the website’s content to attract traffic to your site?  There are, in fact, a number of things that you can do to get more traffic to your Leicester business website in addition to relying on the quality and content of your web pages.

Some of these activities are:

• Article writing and submission
• Directory submission
• Using Web 2.0
• Forum marketing
• Social book marking
• Backlinking

This post will outline the importance of off page optimisation to getting more targeted traffic to your website, and will briefly describe the off page techniques listed above.

Some of the most effective methods to get noticed online include submission of articles to directories, the writing and publishing of online press releases, participating in forums and blogging. The submission of articles has proven to be an effective and economical way to achieve market reach and increase traffic flow to any website. When you submit articles to different directories, you have created inbound links to your Leicester business website as your site is just a click away. With high quality articles, readers may be enticed to visit your website for more details.

After writing your articles it is important that you get them submitted to the most important directories so that they are accessible by web users. In this case, you may need to conduct a survey to determine which directories to target. Doing this exercise yourself can be tedious and it is recommended that you use the services of an experienced directory submission professional. In this way you will be able to benefit from the links that the expert already has.

Web 2.0 offers users the opportunity to instantly interact with a website in ways not commonly seen before. As an off page optimisation strategy, Web 2.0 gives visitors the means to contribute the content of the site as opposed to just viewing it. This interactive capability can be very appealing to viewers, and users sometimes take ownership of the direction that the development of a site is going. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook rely on the Web 2.0 technology to drive them.

A forum is a group of people with a common interest who cluster together to discuss that interest. If you are promoting a particular commodity, joining a forum will quickly get you connected to the group of persons who have an interest in your product. Usually, you need to follow the forum’s protocol before you may post messages on the site that are promoting your goods. Once you have made the posting, your URL will be available to the group and this can enhance your site traffic.

Backlinking is a powerful off page optimisation method; the term is used to describe how many other web nodes are pointing to a particular site. It may be used as a measure of how popular a website is. The more backlinks you have is an indication that many other website are interested in your site. Backlinking, if carried out by an experienced web professional, can significantly increase the traffic to your website.

The benefits and importance of off page optimisation cannot be underestimated, and you, too, can enjoy these rewards. However, to maximize these benefits you should consult with an SEO consultant  in Leicester who will guide you through the complexities of this web technique.

For further information on Off page optimization for your Leicester business website or a free, no obligation consultation and report regarding your website contact Search Engine Optimisation Leicester using the simple contact form.

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Technorati Tags: Article directories, Directory submission, Forum Marketing, Leicester Business Websites, OFF PAGE OPTIMISATION, Web 2.0