The Google ‘Over-Optimisation Penalty’ has still so far to be confirmed by Google themselves, but that hasn’t stopped the SEO blogosphere from buzzing with speculation about what will be targeted, whose rankings will suffer and some people even reporting that it might be here already. Certainly there are examples out there of some larger sites dropping twenty or more places overnight.

Amid all the conjecture, there are a few recurring themes. Below, we’ve compiled some of the salient points and how to avoid the pitfalls of ‘over-optimisation’.

Pages Titles

The main things Google might look unfavourably on with page titles are; repeated keywords and repetitious use of synonyms that don’t add anything in the way of understanding.

Keep things simple and clear. Try to include keyword search terms that describe the page overall and the products it features.

Backlinks

Backlinks are a strong indicator to search engines of a site’s relative worth. This knowledge has lead to widespread exploitation, namely; comment spamming, blog networks and reciprocal linking.

Link-building can be a laborious process, there are no quick fixes but links from quality sites can help increase traffic and authority. Its importance should not be underestimated.

Footers

Link-heavy footers were once a neat method of fooling search engines without impacting too much on a site’s appearance. Placing large numbers of links at the bottom of a page was a way to tell Google that it was important and worth looking at.

Use anchor-text links in the body of the onpage text where they enhance the user experience of the site.

Internal Links

Exact-match anchor text repeatedly linking to the same pages on a site might have once helped spread a site’s authority but, when overused, this is little more than extra clutter.

Instead of focusing on sheer volume of internal links; try to include logical, useful links where they are appropriate. Also, change the anchor text to avoid using the same keyword phrases over and over again as repeated uses will not bring extra value.

Keyword Stuffing

Blocks of text written with the sole purpose of housing a few-dozen mentions of a particular keyword or keywords do not add to a site’s value.

Any information on-page should be there for humans, rather than search engines. As such, it should be useful, relevant and well written.

Bearing these things in mind will not only help your site to avoid being penalised by Google, it will also improve the experience for the user, which should always be the priority of SEO!

“Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal. “

Simply put, this update means that Google will now display results that are local to the searcher, even when the searched for term is broad and doesn’t specify a location. This is done by detecting where the searcher is based and mixing results from local companies/organisations with broad results that would normally rank for the term.

Google will supposedly only do this when they detect that a search has ‘local intent’, although they seem to be applying it to some fairly broad searches where you wouldn’t necessairly be looking for a local company. Take the below screenshot of a search for ‘SEO‘ as an example:

Google Venice update being applied to broad search terms

Whether Google will update this algorithm change in the future so that it applies to a smaller selection of terms is unclear, but for the time being, expect to see more local results on your results pages.

Allow us to introduce Skills Deals, our newest client. They are a deals website with a difference, offering as much as 70% off highly skilled services in your area.

The SEO team here are chomping at the bit to get started and we look forward to posting the positive results of our partnership here.

For more information about our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) services click here >>

We are pleased to announce that we have recruited Arthur Tegetmeier as our new SEO Executive, who commences work with us this week.

He studied psychology at the University of Central Lancashire and has experience in producing content for blogs. He joins us having recently moved to Chester from his native York.

Arthur is joining our growing SEO Department

You can contact Athur by emailing Arthur@clicky.co.uk

We are currently recruiting for an SEO executive to join our expanding team in our Chester Head Office.

This is a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic, hard working and confident individual to start or progress a career in online marketing in a fast-growing, dynamic digital agency.

Are you what we’re looking for or know somebody who this role would suit?

For a full job description please click here >>

Please email CV’s and covering letters/emails to sam@clickymedia.co.uk
(No Recruitment Agencies Please)

Clicky Media™ would like to introduce our new SEO client, Stewart Floor.

Who are Stewart Floor?

Stewart Floor import only the finest Brazilian Hardwood from South America, ensuring that all of the wood is both ethically and legally harvested. An American company from Chicago, Stewart Floor is privately owned by Sean K. Stewart who has been in the flooring industry for fourteen years. Not only do they independently check each pallet of hardwood, but they are members of the National Wood Flooring Association.

Clicky Media™ are looking to improve Stewart Floors rankings using Search Engine Optimization. Stay tuned for the results of our SEO campaign.

Check out Stewart Floors beautiful hardwood flooring here http://www.stewartfloor.com/

For more information about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and what we could do for your company click here > >

We are pleased to announce our web address has changed to a much shorter and snappier www.clicky.co.uk!

When the business was first setup in 2005 we wanted to be known as clicky.co.uk but unfortunately it was unavailable and we went with the longer clickymedia.co.uk which matched our official company name. (Which remains Clicky Media™ Ltd)

All of our existing links will all redirect so no need to change any bookmarks etc and all of our listings in Google will update automatically over time (not affecting our SEO positions etc!)

Our email addresses all stay the same as before but each team member will also receive any mail with the same prefix to clicky.co.uk also (e.g. tom@clickymedia.co.uk and tom@clicky.co.uk will both end up with Tom) so again, no need to update your contacts!

If your business is doing something similar and you need help to ensure you do not lose your Google search results etc – email our SEO expert Jason – jason@clickymedia.co.uk or jason@clicky.co.uk!

As soon as we have some results to show, we will post an update so stay tuned!

For more information about our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) services click here >>

It’s not only the number of additional results that has changed, it’s also their appearance. Previously, the sitelinks were limited to simply displaying the name of the page. Now, each sitelink displays the name of the page, along with the URL of the page and a short description (taken from the meta description tag). See below for the new layout…

These sitelinks are chosen via a Google algorithm and although you cant pick and choose which additional links you want to appear when somebody searches for your brand, you can specify URLs that you don’t want Google to show (an example may be that Google is returning an old blog post that you don’t want to appear as a result). To inform Google of this, you need to log in to Webmaster tools and ‘demote’ the URLs that you don’t want Google to show. Once Google has carried out this change, you can then repeat the process until you are happy with the sitelinks that are appearing.

We regularly carry out sitelink optimisation for clients as part of our SEO service. If you would like to find out how we can help you, visit our SEO section and request a call back or quote.

No prizes for guessing the leader; Google is still hugely dominant with over 90% of market share. Bing & Yahoo make a notable contribution with just over roughly 3% each, leaving the other two major search engines, AOL & Ask, trailing with less than 1% each. These of course all still way ahead of all other search engine brands, which combined only account for less than 0.2% of this year’s market share. When you consider just how many are included in this bracket, the significance of these results really starts to sink in – remember Lycos, AltaVista or MSN search? All have practically sunk without trace, scary stuff.

So what does this mean for your marketing? Well, if you’re not advertising on Google, you should be. Whether you like it or not, Google has total dominance in the Search market. It’s been reported that globally Google receives over 1 billion monthly unique visitors, that’s huge – it equates to approximately 1 in 7 people around the world visiting Google each month. To see just how popular Google is, use the below link to see a great 3D representation of the number searches around the globe – it’s something to behold:

click here >> Google Search Globe << click here

To find out more about Search Engine Marketing, click here, or alternatively give us a call on 0845 275 1225.

Sources: StatCounter.com, SearchEngineWatch.com, ComScore.com, Google Trends