learning search engine optimisation for your website

Here’s a pretty long but still real simple and useful article on search engine optimisation.



The thing about SEO work is it doesn’t happen straight away it often takes MONTHS to see the tiniest changes.

But this is the thing about music promotion. We all know the music industry is heading online. And I can tell you that for the foreseeable future that searches drive online information and basically as boring and un rock’n roll as this stuff is, it’s SO VITAL in the long term!!!

Luckily for musicians search engine optimisation is just one of many skills I make available on our digital coaching packages for artists as well as small business – check it out more here:

http://kurbartistmanagement.info
Remember on our digital coaching and online promotion packages we take care of all of this stuff it’s all inclusive!!!

Kurb SEO search engine optimisation search marketing adwords auckland new zealand

Kurb small business marketing and online promotion auckland new zealand

Kurb online marketing and web 2.0 promotion auckland new zealand

Let’s face it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complicated subject—and not only is it complicated, but the professionals don’t even agree about what works best.

On the other hand, it’s become pretty obvious that SEO is no longer something businesses can ignore. Especially small businesses.

Where does SEO fit in with small businesses, home businesses, and freelancers? How can a small business owner make sense of the many parts? Is SEO practical or effective for small business?

These are all questions I’ve been asked repeatedly by clients, and I’m pretty sure they are questions that are on the minds of many business owners out there. With that as my motive, I’ve created this article to explain everything a business owner should (and shouldn’t) know about SEO.

What is SEO and Why You Should Care

Search Engine Optimization is about getting more traffic by improving your rank in organic search. By organic search, I mean free search. So at it’s root, SEO is about getting free long-term exposure for your business.

Now there is an important distinction to make regarding types of SEO. There are generally considered two types of SEO, white-hat and black-hat, and they vary based on their primary goal. White-hat SEO is about making your site easy for Google to read, creating valuable content with relevant keywords, and building links in an honest fashion (more on these later). Black-hat SEO is pretty much about tricking Google into ranking higher, and doing anything dishonest to influence your search positions. There are several blurry areas, but for the purposes of this article I’m going to stay firmly within white-hat territory.

Now that we have that finished, let’s move on to the interesting parts.

Why you should care about SEO

The internet is only growing, and people are spending more and more time immersed in its digital waters. At the very center of this trend are search engines—they are the primary way of finding or being found on the internet. SEO is about getting you ranked well and helping you profit from search engines.

• SEO brings traffic. As in, people looking at your business.


• SEO increases visibility, so your business can be found.


• If you set yourself up correctly you can benefit for years.


• SEO helps manage your company’s reputation online.


• SEO is a necessary step to marketing your business online.

If you want to expand your business onto the internet, there really isn’t another choice but to understand and implement good SEO practices. Without them, chances are you won’t get very far online.

Code, URLs, and Crawlability

The first step in optimizing your site for search engines lies with making the code and URLs of your website “crawlable”. Just as a quick warning, these are things you should know about, but you should probably have your web guru implement them.

The code

Basically, in order for you to rank and get traffic from Google or other search engines, they have to be able to read your website. The key point is that search engines can only read text. This means all of your images should have a textual description, you should have a lot of textual content, and you shouldn’t have an entirely flash or javascript website.

The URLs

Once search engines can read your website, they index (save and file) each page based on the unique URL (the address you type into the bar). This is important because some websites don’t have a unique URL for each page, which leads to the content getting all mixed up in the search engines. If your website does this, chances are you won’t rank well in Google or any other engines. Take a look at the picture below for examples of good and bad URLs.

Not only are unique URLs important, but having keywords in the URL is also important. Search engines count URL and Title Bar keywords heavily, and if you aren’t using them then you’re missing out on a vital piece of SEO.

Semantics

This is something that we’ll look at more in the content section, but it needs to be at least brought up with regard to code. A properly optimized website will use semantic code to market headings, paragraphs, lists, etc… This means that each part of your content is given a relative importance. Google uses this prioritization to figure out which keywords are important, so you should ask your webmaster to make sure your website is coded properly to use these standards.

Content and Keywords

The content and keywords of your website are both things you probably have control over (you might even be able to edit them yourself), and are both parts of SEO that you can implement yourself.

Content

Content includes any text, images, audio, or video that you put on your website. For this article we’ll focus on text, since it is the primary way Google understands your website. The others need to be described with text in order for Google to register them.

Here’s the simple overview of content and SEO:

1. Content is good


2. More content is better


3. Lots of content is the best

Content is what search engines rank. If you have a lot of content, you will have more pages that can rank, and more ways to get traffic. So the more content you have, the better.

But it’s not quite that simple, content quality is very important. A high quality article will get a lot of traffic from social media and will get more links, which is a big factor in SEO (see the next big section). Also good content will be relevant to your website and have relative keywords in it. So don’t just throw up a crappy page and expect it to rank well—your content needs to be well thought out and provide some good value.

Keywords

When Google reads your content, it distills everything into a list of keywords. It is those keywords and phrases that control what searches your website will show up for, so they are of crucial importance.

There are three important things to consider when looking for keywords. Is the keyword relevant to my business? How often is the keyword searched for? How competitive is the keyword?

Keyword Relevance You want to find keywords that have to do with your business so that they will bring in traffic that is valuable to you. A good way to come up with relevant keywords is to just brainstorm and come up with a list of words and phrases your target customer might use to find your website.

Keyword Popularity You need to find keywords and phrases that are being searched for regularly, or else you might rank #1 and get no traffic.

Keyword Difficulty Once you have a nice list of popular and relevant keyword phrases, it’s time to cross out most of them. Many keyword phrases, and most individual words, are extremely competitive and very difficult to rank for. When you’re just starting out, it’s best to go for the easy ones first.

Content Structure

It’s important to structure your content in a way that is semantically correct. This means using the right heading style for each heading, and using them in order of importance. A properly structured page will look like an outline with big headlines, little headlines, and paragraphs. This semantic structure helps accessibility, helps people scan your pages, and help search engines rank you properly. Here’s an example of good and bad page structure:

Popularity, Links, and PageRank

Once you’ve dealt with code, content, and keywords, the rest of SEO is kind of like a big popularity contest based on who links to you. Each website that links to you is saying “hey, this site is cool” so your ranking goes up a little. But it goes a step further than that.

Do you remember what happened in high-school when one of the cool kids said something was cool? That something all of a sudden became much more popular than if a normal kid had said it was cool. Google works in much the same way—links from authority sites count much more than links from a new website. The end result of all of this is something Google calls PageRank, similar to link popularity in other search engines, all of which is basically a measure of how important your website is online.

More Links, Higher PageRank, Better Rankings

In order to give your site more weight, and get ranked higher, you need to build links from other websites—especially authority sites (sites with high trust and high PageRank). There are many different ways to get links to your site, some are good, and some are bad.

Some good ways to get links include quality directory listings, blog comments, writing articles, guest posts on blogs, and social media.

Get Trustworthy and Natural Links

Probably because of the number of people competing for search rankings, it has become reasonably common for businesses to try cheating the system. Most of this cheating involves the process of automatic link building, and most of the time it works terribly.

In order to defeat the cheaters, Google has made trust a key element of ranking well. This trust is not built upon the number of links you have, but on the type and quality of each link, and the overall appearance of all of your links (your link profile). Because of this trust system, it’s very important for you to get links naturally and really aim for quality links.

Link Quality

Getting a quality link has several parts to it:

Originating Page The page that the link comes from needs to be a quality page, with relevant content, and not too many other links. If the page is a “links page” and has little text and mostly other links, it probably isn’t a great source. Also important is finding a page that has a relatively high PageRank itself.

Anchor Text Anchor text is the text that actually links to your website. Good anchor text will have relevant keywords in it. Bad anchor text will be irrelevant or just a URL.

No-Follow This point needs to be here for accuracy, but it definitely complicates the matter and is something that you should probably ignore if you’re new to this. Basically, a link can be formatted such that it won’t transfer any benefits to your site. These links are called “No-Follow” links, and shouldn’t necessarily be avoided (they can still send traffic) but they won’t help your search engine rankings.

Basically, you’re looking for other up-standing citizens of the internet who will link to your content because it provides value. If you try to pay for links, or get free links with no editorial control (anyone can get in), chances are you’ll end up with low quality links.

Getting Links With Content

One of the best ways to generate links is by creating outstanding content and publishing it on your website—you want to create the type of article that is so in-depth, or of such high quality, that other people can’t help but link to it. This type of content is often called linkbait because it is designed to get links. Some people find that a term a bit spammy, but either way the fact remains that you can get good links by creating really valuable content.

Should You Pay For This Stuff?

Whether or not you should pay for SEO services depends on your situation and your marketing goals. If you want to build a popular website that generates a significant number of leads, it’s probably going to be necessary to get some SEO help. On the other hand, if you only have a business card website that helps you sell in person, and don’t really want to sell or market online, then it might not be worth the time or expense to go after search traffic.

Consider whether or not you’ll be able to get a return on your SEO investment. If you send more people there, will your earnings go up?

If your website can’t generate leads, or sell your product, or make money, then you might want to think about that in more detail before investing in SEO.

When thinking about investing in SEO, it’s a good idea to see what resources you can afford to spend. You may be in a position where you want to pay someone to do all of the work for you, or you might be in a situation where it’s better to spend the time and do it yourself.

Whatever your situation, I always recommend hiring a professional to deal with things like code and website structure. It’s very rarely worth it to learn highly technical parts, especially considering they change frequently in SEO. The content and link building are things you can do on your own if you have the time and energy.

Kurb SEO search engine optimisation search marketing adwords auckland new zealand

Kurb small business marketing and online promotion auckland new zealand

Kurb online marketing and web 2.0 promotion auckland new zealand

CD and DVD duplication Auckland New Zealand

CD and DVD duplication and printing in Auckland and New Zealand

You absolutely shouldn’t waste your time reading this. What follows is SEO drone (SEO stans for search engine optimisation, the art of ranking highest for Google and other search engines. Google is the search engine used in 92% of New Zealand based searches.)

Why is this important? 72% of ALL visitors to http://www.kurb.co.nz come through search engines.

So these are the types of articles dudes in India write for businesses which have no purpose – because, seriously who would read this? - except to tell google that the site that this article and the links in it are important for search terms to do with CD and DVD duplication because . . .

You’ll notice in the way its written, it just keeps hammering those keyword phrases again and again.



That’s why when I’m writing about Auckland new Zealand based drum and bass and downbeat artist romantech I will go on about how he is a drum and bass DJ and drum and bass producer of drum and bass songs and provides free drum and bass mp3’s so you can download free drum and bass mixes from his site.


you get me?

just make sure you get your code right for when you're commenting , blogging, etc.

Not just the name of your band goes here in the "anchor text", but important search keyword terms - genre, location, even bands that sound like you!!!






cd dvd duplication and printing auckland new zealand





Worried about the deadline for pressing CDs that you need to give away at the upcoming trade show or training seminar? Well, you need not loose sleep over it, for you can utilize the services of a company that specialize in bulk CD and DVD production. Please ask for that assistance from one of these renowned CD manufacturing companies in New Zealand that have been forerunners in the business:

http://cd-dvd-duplication.co.nz

cd dvd duplication and printing auckland new zealand

Kurb cd dvd duplication

The company has a vast experience in DVD and CD manufacturing and the methods adopted are – CD and DVD duplication. CD duplication or burning means making copies of CDs. This method is only used when you need less than 1000 copies.

By using the method of bulk CD duplication, you can save a lot of money and at the same time get CDs that look like the original. You can get all kinds of CDs replicated – be it music CDs, data CDs or movies. You can also go for CD replication along with different packaging combos /options available at DVD Replication’s website, to save additional costs.

Everyone enjoys listening to music, which is why music CDs are the perfect companion for almost any occasion or event. Many musicians are now becoming their own records companies and doing their own CD and DVD retail and distribution. Independent distribution of music CDs is now commonplace in the market as the cost of CD replication technology has fallen dramatically since the turn of the century. It is now the case that you can get studio quality copies of your music CD by getting them duplicated at local vendors and market them on your tours and your venues and concerts.

The duplication process can complete studio quality cds and DVD in a relatively short The quality of the CDs created by CD and DVD are world class and also very cost effective, due to which this process is being adopted very successfully by the music industry now.

For getting professional quality music CD replication, you can simply log on to Kurb cd dvd duplication and get quote your bulk CD ad DVD duplication project from one of New Zealand’s leading media companies that offers specialised CD and DVD duplication services. In addition, you can also get a huge range of cover printing and packaging options.

CD Roms or Compact Disc Read Only Memory-type of optical disks are the most commonly used medium for storing large quantities of data. You can get these CD Roms manufactured in bulk by using the method of CD duplication. This is the most cost effective and quickest method of getting copies of any kind of CDs - be it music CDs, data CDs, movie CDs or any other form of CDs.

The method of CD duplication is adopted when the quantity of CDs are in the range of 1000 or less. The advantage of this process is that it can be completely automated by using a robotic arm with a duplicating tower. As each disc is burned the robotic arm will remove it and replace the disc with another blank disc to repeat the burning process again. In this way, you can get these CDs duplicated in a very short period of time. However, if you need more than 1000 copies of CDs, you should go for the process called CD replication.

To get worldclass cd replication,n which is a better quality process that CD Rom duplication services, log on to Kurb cd dvd duplication. We will be happy to quote for you project. Offering excellent service, quick turnaround time and door to door delivery for all purchases.

The advance in technology has give rise to a new method of pressing CDs and DVDs in bulk. This method is called CD and DVD duplication. In this method, you can create replicas of the original disc. The artwork will be printed directly onto the disc surface just like you find in retail stores.

There are many advantages of using this method. CD and DVD duplication saves a lot of money that can be channeled for other purposes.

With so many advantages offered by DVD and CD duplication, you can do away with all your worries and concerns and go for media duplication services. For more details in CD duplication and to order your set of bulk DVDs, please visit Kurb cd dvd duplication

Over the past few years, the way we store data has changed significantly. Floppy disks and video cassettes are virtually obsolete. Now, with state of art technology, we have entered into the age of the DVD (Digital Video Disk). DVD’s can store large amounts of data in comparison to regular CD/VCD, as you can store anything from 4.7GB (DVD 5) up to 17GB. As an optical storage facility, it is superior for its resolution quality and amazing storage capacity.

At Kurb cd dvd duplication we provide the best facilities for the production of customised DVDs that can be duplicated in bulk. we provide DVD printing, duplication and packaging solutions with expertise and professionalism, you can market your products and services in a novel and innovative way, which is sure to capture the attention of potential customers.

At Kurb cd dvd duplication our DVD s can be useful in making business presentations and showcasing multimedia utilities. CDs and DVDs can also be used to carry resumes. Because they are portable and can be customised according to your needs, our mini DVD’s are great value for money. For more information about our DVD business card, DVD replicated services and DVDs, visit us at Kurb cd dvd duplication

The DVD is a relatively new storage method which lets you store 14 times more data than on a CD-ROM - from 4.7 to 17 gigabytes. DVD’s can be replicated with data on one or both sides and a dual DVD can also be produced to increase the amount of data you can save on one disk. Today, the use of the DVD has become widespread as people have come to prefer them as a media storage device. For commercial DVD production, duplicating or copying a DVD can be a tedious task. Therefore, it is better to appoint a commercial CD/DVD manufacturer to meet bulk duplication requirements.

Commercial DVD production will deliver a professional and innovative marketing tool in the format of a DVD business card. The DVD is perfect for sales catalogues, presentations, training, multimedia content and resumes. The Mini DVD is also a smart option for commercial DVD production. The Mini DVD is an 80mm diameter disk, with a capacity for holding 120 minutes of footage.

There are various types of DVD’s. DVD 9 is a marketing term for Dual Layer DVDR-R and DVD+R. DVD 5 is a one-sided, single layer disk on which data of up to 4.7 gigabytes can be stored.

The DVD is a relatively new storage method which lets you store 14 times more data than on a CD-ROM - from 4.7 to 17 gigabytes. Your DVD can be replicated with data on one or on both sides. www.dvdreplication.co.nz offers one of the best DVD/CD replication facilities. We offer fast, efficient CD and DVD replication services to customers world-wide.

For more information about CD manufacturing, DVD replication, Bulk CD replication log on to Kurb cd dvd duplication For all your bulk DVD replication requirements, our company offers great value, expertise and professionalism both locally and internationally. We produce DVD’s and CD’s of exceptional quality at very affordable prices. Our expertise and professionalism is second to none. Something else - we offer 100% customer satisfaction and are committed to delivering excellence of product and service..

DVD is the new generation of optical disc storage technology. DVD stands for Digital video disc. DVD is essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold cinema-like video, still photos, better-than-CD audio, and computer data.

DVD has replaced laserdisc, is well on the way to replacing videotape and video game cartridges, and could eventually replace audio CD and CD-ROM. It aims to include home entertainment, computers, and business information.

DVD has widespread support from all major electronics companies, all major computer hardware companies, and all major movie and music studios. With this unprecedented support, DVD became the most successful consumer electronics product of all time in less than three years of its introduction.

To find out more about what DVD is please visit Kurb cd dvd duplication

Marketing 2.0 for Web 2.0 - how can your business benefit?

ew I'm business blogging - shoot me now. How sickening.

You can be rest assured that the devil drives an extremely hard bargain. Apparently it’s a buyers market.

Don't worry I've got 2 more music blogs coming up on content and what to do now no one wants to buy CD's.

Of course the same principals apply if your small business is in music and you will obviously observe I'm generating content to distribute - not only to strengthen my search network but to create awareness of the work I'm doing by providing free expertise.

My expertise is obviously in online marketing and I'm not too shabby flinging a few words together. But I'm sure you're good at something you can write or make videos about to - and don't worry this article took me 4 hours to write.

Marketing 2.0 for Web 2.0 – how can your business benefit?

The Internet is the most powerful and far reaching marketing tool available to small businesses and increasingly word of mouth is now word of blog, email or IM and thats what web 2.0 is - when we stop hearing the messages sent by those who can afford to send them and we just learn from the messages we share from the access the internet now provides to one another.

According to Tim O’Reilly who coined the phrase “Web 2.0” in 2004:

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

Web 2.0 presents opportunities to use the internet in new and interactive ways to deliver an unprecedented amount of information and choice to unprecedented audience numbers.

Unlike declining traditional media the internet offers users control over access and it gives consumers choice. Web 2.0 represents a major blow for traditional advertising methods because Web 2.0 is about the online experience the user has customised – and no one wants ads! Marketing is to survive only as part of a media experience that is embraced, not an unwelcome interruption to be filtered out.

Social Networking:

Social networking – the explosion of sites like Myspace, Bebo, and Facebook – has transformed the online social environment into a place where branding happens naturally. Myspace, the big daddy of social networking sites, created an online environment where brands as well as bands, characters and ideas could be accounted for with online identities.

You only have to go to the stats to see the wild popularity of these sites in New Zealand and around the world. Even I choked when the Herald quoted 800,000 kiwis use http://www.bebo.com/. It comes behind only Google and Trademe for volume of usage in NZ.

By creating a presence for your business on social networks you are able to present content and interact with other users participating in a massive global network either as an individual representing or creating awareness (this will be required on facebook and bebo which are not so friendly to commercial brands), a brand profile of your business, or even a key product! Or all three! There’s no rule against having multiple accounts.

SEO and web 2.0 - when content "goes viral"

It is still the truth that most of your website traffic will come from search engines and in New Zealand that is overwhelmingly accounted for by the Google search engine. To put what is often reported to be a complex and competitive study into simple terms, search engine optimisation (SEO) is based around keywords matched to your content, and the ranking of its relevancy in the search by the amount of links to it and the quality of those links.

Search engines can be influenced in two ways – by both the quality and quantity of written content you make available and the quantity and quality of backlinks created to your site from other sites. Distributing and sharing as much content furnished with links back to your site as you can make available is the most effective way to dramatically increase your search rank, send your brand around the world and bring traffic to your website.

All I will say is that websites that follow the web 2.0 format, which are some of the highest ranked in the world – myspace, youtube, blogger – the last two of which of course are owned by google, are ranked in a different way by google, and using these sites in different ways to make people aware and provide links to your website can have dramatic results.

But when your marketing message has assumed the appearance of a media experience – whether a blog, a podcast or a short video demonstration - that you have made available through your various online social network to share and enjoy as “infotainment” it’s no longer advertising! And when people are motivated to share the information you have provided they are not only building your search ranking but sharing your marketing message that your personal brand represents knowledge and experience of the products and services you provide.

Video Marketing

Video marketing is the hottest thing in internet promotion right now and youtube is popular with an older demographic where social networking hasn’t spread. Unlike everything else I’ve talked about – videos in themselves will not increase your search rank on google! But the message out there is if you can do it, prove it - film it! People want to see for themselves and now you can show them!

Video content provides important information, breaking down the anonymity that effects a potential customer or clients decision to purchase through an online connection based on trust. Video is also the most potentially effective opportunity to offer deeper understanding through presentation and demonstration.

many more people will connect with your marketing messages as a visual image and when it comes to media – the types of small businesses that could never dream of affording to market by broadcasting video can now provide it cheaply in a way that makes it accessible to targeted users long after it is first made available.

One of the most successful viral campaigns focused on a series of short clips experimenting with blending different unusual objects in a brand presentation for a blender called "will it blend?"– one of these quirky clips featuring an iphone received over 3 million views on youtube.

XML, RSS, P2P, Aggregation

Web 2.0 continues to present newer and better solutions for distributing and accessing information but unlike social networking and video marketing these concepts of syndicating content feeds and providing ever more options for choice and access are ideas which time is yet to come.

But it remains that web 2.0 marketing is about “pull” and not “push”. Using social networking, and sharing blogs and videos, generating content that appeals to users whether it be through information, experience, demonstration, experiments or simply just the quirky, entertaining or humourous is a chance to build awareness of your business while connecting with people in a way they will appreciate and remember.

People are far more likely to "go with what they know" so establishing social profiles and participating in online communities, providing content that people will use and value, in a way that supports higher ranking in searches for your site is the best way for generating leads and contacts in the new online environment.

Cheers for the connection with Kurb. Supporting musicians with successful strategies on a budget. Kurb in NZ’s leader in online promotion strategies for artists and creative projects plus we offer the cheapest CD/DVD reproduction and cheap posters available.

Come by our page, theres plenty to pick up about new developments in the music industry in our blogs and theres a whole lot of free info and articles at our self promotions hub. Get some scope checking out our overview of online promotion strategies and if you’re interested our artist packages or brand new campaign packages including CD’s, o All the best with your music, from Kurb For direct enquiries get us on gmail as kurbpromo ..................... Kurb Myspace