Google’s Matt Cutts offers advice about the main aspects of SEO

If you took all the tips and hints from Matt Cutts’s blog posts over the years you would inevitably come up with an incredibly good guide on how to get your website on the much sought after page one of Google’s search results. And this would be coming from the horse’s mouth, i.e. not some SEO ‘expert’ speculating what may or may not work in order to reach page one.

During a recent video blog post, entitled Do you think that “Search Engine Optimisation” should be renamed, in answering the question Matt Cutts lists four areas that he considers “great” when it comes to optimising a website. The four tips/hints – aimed at Search Engine Optimisers – are as follows:

1. “Make the site faster”
2.  ”[Make the site] more accessible”
3. “helping people [clients] in keyword research”
4. “marketing [the site] in different ways”

It goes without saying that this is not front page news in the world of SEO. Matt Cutts in particular has mentioned these points many times before, however when he puts an emphasis on four key SEO points that he considers important it is always worth sitting up and paying attention.

He outlines these points around about the 2:00 minute mark on the below video.

The new Twitter Profile Header image is an effective way to enhance your Twitter homepage

Here’s how to do it:

Image to be used for profile header

1. Select your image. It needs to be landscape in format with an aspect ratio of 2:1 (i.e. twice as wide as it is long). Try and select an image that will create a strong contrast so that the lettering of your short bio, location and website url stands out. The image (right) works well because the bottom half is very dark, enabling the white text to stand out and therefore easy to read.
2. IMPORTANT: Twitter recommends an image size of 1252px x 626px for “optimal viewing across all platforms” (Max file size is 5MB). So, in order to be iPad/iPhone/laptop/etc friendly, go with this size. Don’t worry if your image is much smaller, however bear in mind that the minimum size is 200px x 100px.
3. Once your background image is ready to load head for the edit profile button (the cog icon) in the top right corner of your Twitter page. Choose Settings, located toward the bottom of the drop down menu.
4. In the upper left hand column click Design and then click the Change Header button (see below) which will then give you a choice of Choose Existing Image or Remove. Unless you have an existing image already in the Profile Header select Choose Existing Image and then retrieve your new photo/graphic from your computer’s hard drive. (Ignore the statement: “Recommended size 1200px x 600px”. Stick with 1252px x 626px if possible).

Your new Profile Header image will then load up, a detail of which will become visible after a few seconds, next to the Change Header button. 

One last thing…make sure you click the Save Changes button at the bottom of this page.

Not exactly a game changer, but we’ll all save ourselves that one valuable click.

AdWords, as a marketing tool, is not only becoming more and more popular with advertisers, it is also being constantly marketed by Google themselves. With an official Google AdWords qualification you will have the edge over the competition when job hunting or as a marketing agency / freelancer attracting new business.

How Do I Become AdWords Qualified?

First, sign up to the Google Certification Program

The process for achieving your qualification involves taking a minimum of two online exams: a fundamentals exam and an advanced exam. For the advanced exam you can choose from three specialist areas:

1. Reporting and Analytics
2. Search
3. Display Network.

The cost of taking the exams is £50, however you might be eligible for a free voucher through Google’s Engage For Agencies programme.

Preparing For The AdWords Exams

From experience, one problem you will encounter when revising for the exam is that some of the Certification Program Learning Center notes are outdated. Because AdWords is constantly evolving you might find some of the notes out of touch. The other problem, and probably the biggest, is that the Fundamentals exam has a high pass mark: 85%. This is not an exam you can blag your way through. You must be prepared! To do this, I recommend the following resources for your revision:

• AdWords Certification Program Learning Center - this is your main and most important revision resource.
• AdWords Help Center – a lot to read through, but worth it.
• Certification Program Resource Library
• AdWords Online Classroom + Hal Varian tutorials on YouTube

The above list is a lot to get through, however it pretty much covers all bases.

How Does The Google AdWords Exam Work?

You take the exam(s) online, at a time of your choosing. Prior to taking the online test you must sign yourself up to the Google Testing Center. The second thing you will need to do, which the Testing Center will walk you through, is to download the Google Testing Center Browser. You need to take the test using this special browser which prevents you from tabbing to other browser tabs/windows, or notes, within your computer. To put it another way, your computer is locked into the test until you complete it.

Google Testing Center sign-up page

The Fundamentals is the first exam you will take and as mentioned has an eye watering pass mark of 85%. You have 120 minutes to answer 120 questions. For each question you are given four answer options.  Generally the questions pose a wide variety of scenarios from which you have to select the correct, or in some cases most relevant answer, from the four options.

EXAM TIP #1 – I would highly recommend taking this test in exam conditions as if at school/college, i.e. no distractions and no interruptions. Don’t be complacent. You want an environment where you can concentrate 100%.

EXAM TIP #2 – There is a right click option on your mouse whereby you can cross out answer options you deem irrelevant as you answer each question. This tool is particularly helpful on hard questions where initially more than one answer appears correct. By process of elimination – i.e. crossing out the most irrelevant answers – it is easier to  establish the most relevant answer.

EXAM TIP #3 – There is a tick box option that allows you to highlight a question that you might want to return to at the end of the test and review. This is particularly useful with the more tricky, thought provoking questions. Do not let these questions eat up all the time on the clock. Tick the box and return to it later once you have answered all of the questions.

EXAM TIP #4 –  Carefully read the instructions at the very beginning of the test. They include the two previous tips I have mentioned. During the exam it is very useful that you know how to later return to questions that you were not 100% sure about and it is useful to know about crossing out wrong answers when trying to drill down to the correct, most relevant one.

EXAM TIP #5 – READ THE QUESTIONS VERY CAREFULLY – I know, this is stating the obvious, however sometimes it is easy to rush an easy question. Do not be over confident. Some of the questions in the test are quite difficult, so it’s important to answer all of the easy questions correctly, especially with such a high pass mark at stake.

EXAM TIP #6 - My final tip, and one overriding piece of advice, is to be prepared. Revise as much as possible. Don’t cut corners and don’t leave anything to chance. Did I mention anything about a high pass mark?

Both the Fundamentals exam and the Advanced exams are equally challenging. Once you have completed your Advanced exam, which you can take at a later date, you will then become a Qualified Individual and the accreditation is valid for two years.

You can find out more by visiting Google AdWords Certification Program Help

Good luck!

Should I Follow Back on Twitter?

As Twitter continues to grow with more and more users everyday, Tweeters, but old and new, constantly find themselves facing the daily dilemma of who to follow back. This post is not about finding new followers, but more about if you are followed by someone on Twitter, should you follow them back? There is much debate about the answer to this question however from my own point of view the simple answer is…it depends.

Factors To Take Into Consideration

People who follow you on Twitter can be pigeon-holed into three categories:

1. Your new follower has discovered you on Twitter, seen your posts or bio and are genuinely interested in what you have to say.
2. Your new follower is expanding their network and are constantly following new Tweeters and if you/they follow back it is a nice bonus for them.
3. They are a serial unfollower, and there are many on Twitter. They follow you in the hope that you follow them back. Wether you follow them back or not, they will unfollow you after a number of days and move onto a new batch of unsuspecting Tweeters. Harmful yet annoying.

So, taking these three categories into account, who should you follow back? Definitely the ones who come under category 1. They might be in a similar profession to you, or they might be from the same community (village, city, county, state, etc). You are not in any way obliged to follow them back, however in this particular instance it is courteous and positive networking. Following them back sends ‘warm fuzzes’ back their way and they are more likely to integrate with your tweets, either by starting a conversation or re-tweeting you message to their followers.

Category 2 is a bit more tricky to decide on. Again, it is courteous to follow someone back but never an obligation. The way I look at is: why not? If I follow this person back it is not only expanding my own network but they might even re-tweet some of my messages. Who am I to judge them? Having said that I do tend to draw the line at porn and profanity. Another consideration is whether their tweets are automated by a robot or a human. Are there a load of repetitive, random quotes or is there evidence of genuine interaction and conversations amongst their tweets? The profile picture and bios always give off strong clues.

So, should you follow back someone from Category 3: the serial unfollower? Probably not. One way to look at it is why would an RnB rapper wh0′s following 50 people and has 11,000 followers want to follow my tweets about search engine optimisation? It’s a bit of a no-brainer. Their Following/Followers statistics are always the give away: Let’s say they are following 5,000 people but have 21,000 followers. If they have more followers than they are following why are they out following new Tweeters? They are following you for a reason: in the hope that you follow back and bump up their followers total. Call it vanity, call it insecurity. I call it annoying.

You can see if someone follows you back on Twitter by viewing their profile page.

You can tell if someone you followed in the past has unfollowed you two ways:
1. Individually – visit their Twitter page. Next to their username will be a “FOLLOWS YOU” label. This area will be blank if they are not following you back.

2. In bulk – visit friendorfollow.com. Punch in your Twitter username (you do not need to submit your password) to find out all the accounts not following you back.

The followback debate – to follow or not to follow – will continue to rage on for a long, long time, however hopefully this post will help you when making your choice. Another way to look at it is thinking of a follow as a compliment. Do you want to return the compliment? The decision is yours.

Find me on Twitter at @W4SB. Should you choose to follow me there is a very strong likelihood that I will follow you back!

Tip #1 – Use keywords that are 2 to 3 words long

Just having one work, like “holidays”, will attract lots of traffic, but is it the right traffic? Something more descriptive, such as “budget holidays” or even better: “budget holidays in Devon”.

Tip #2 – Use negative keywords

It is a waste of clicks if your ads start appearing for someone doing a keyword search like:  ”luxury holidays in Devon“. To add negative keywords: select the right Ad Group, click on the keyword tab and at the bottom you will find the negative keyword section. For this example we would simply enter the word luxury.

Tip#3 – Use the Keyword Tool

Located under the Tools And Analysis tab. With the AdWords Keywords Tool you can discover new keywords relating to your business, along with negative keywords.

Author: George Brewer

This tutorial is particularly relevant to .pdf files that are to be uploaded onto a website as downloads.

One way of adding meta data to a pdf can be achieved with Adobe Acrobat, however this post deals with how to achieve the same result with Adobe InDesign.

Why Add A Title Meta Tag To A PDF?

While search engine robots have the ability to scan text on a .pdf document they also have the ability to pick up on meta tag data as well, such as the all important Title, and even the Description. In SEO terms these are very important ingredients. It is also more user friendly to have a .pdf document with a strong title that appears in the search results rather than the default Untitled tag.

An example of what a .pdf looks like in Google's organic search with the default "Untitled" tag. The file name is there, but less noticeable.

Using Adobe InDesign, the way to include relevant information on a .pdf file, including a new meta title tag, is to open your .indd document and on the top menu go to File > File Info. This will bring up the File Info box where you can add information under the Description tab.

InDesign's File Info box for adding crucial meta data, e.g. title tags, to a .pdf file. Note the new title tag that I am giving this document.

A few days later the newly uploaded page was re-crawled by the Google bots and the title was picked up, making the .pdf more user friendly and more SEO friendly. Previously it was know to Google merely as “Untitled”. Now it is called the “Bovey Tracey Business Association Member Directory.”

The .pdf, now with a new title tag, is picked up by Google and gives a clear indication in organic search as to what the document is about.

Using the File Info setting for additional information on both Adobe’s InDesign and Acrobat makes a document stand out in organic search and inevitably adds SEO brownie points to your website.

Google can be so informative with tips, advice and guidelines that sometimes you cannot see the wood for trees. With this in mind, some of their most useful Adwords advice for best practices, though in an incredibly obvious place, is often overlooked.

Within your Google Adwords account, a simple click on the Opportunities tab will reveal Google’s “key tips for successful campaigns”. They are as follows:

1. Organise Your Campaign By Theme

“In each campaign, create separate ad groups for each of your products, brands or types of services you offer. Each ad group can then have a highly related set of keywords and ads that match the specific theme. By doing this, your ads can highlight exactly what a customer is searching for.”

2. Choose Your Keywords Carefully

“Use specific keywords that directly relate to the theme of your ad group and landing page. Keywords that are too broad can lower your performance by generating many ad impressions but few clicks. One-word keywords are likely to be too generic, so try using two- or three-word phrases. Use the Keyword Tool to generate keyword ideas.”

3. Include Keywords In Your Ad Text

“Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search. If your ad is displayed when a user searches on a keyword in your ad group, the keyword will appear in bold in your ad text.”

4. Use The Right Destination URL

“Make sure that the Destination URL (landing page) that you use for each ad is the most relevant page within your website – ideally, a page dedicated to the specific product or service that’s highlighted in your ad.”

5. Track Your Success

“To make informed decisions about how to optimise your campaigns, review your campaign statistics. To measure your success, use conversion tracking to see which ads and keywords bring the most to your business.”

So there you have it. 5 key best practices from Google themselves. The best part is, if you follow their advice and employ these best practices, your keywords will benefit from a higher click through rate, improved quality score and best of all cheaper cost per clicks!

Author: George Brewer

While Google’s algorithms are a closely guarded secret they are still very good at giving us some very good clues how to get your website higher in the rankings.

A very good place to start is with Google’s own Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide.

Click, download, learn!

Alternatively you could employ us to sort your website out. Are we affordable? Very. Contact us for an informal chat today!

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