I was recently asked a question from a guy who had created lots of pages on his website containing duplicate content and his Google ranking had dropped.

Here’s the gist of my response which I believe will help you in your quest to optimise your website effectively:

If the majority of your website is duplicate content this will effect the overall ranking of your site as Google will probably view your site as being created just for the search engines.
 
I have done the exact same thing in the past as what you have done, I created a page for every town and just changed the town names etc.
 
It worked for a little while, but then my site got totally banned from Google, meaning I had to change my website address, which you dont want.
 
There is no way round it, you simply have to create pages for your visitors, not just for Google.
 
Yes, you could add text about each of the different town, and that may work for a while, but again you will be adding that text just for the search engines.
 
Your visitors are coming to your site for information about what you do, not info about their town.
 
If I were you I would do the following:
 
Remove the duplicate content from those town pages and add the following:
 
Content coming soon, to visit home page click below:
Then link to your home page using your keywords.
 
Then, every time you do a job for someone in a different town, get a testimonial from them.
 
Then add the testimonial to the relevant town page, along with some great content about the job you carried out, include as much info as you can including spec etc.
 
Lets say you did a job in a town called Barking, you could write the content for the page in a Blog style, you could then include some info about other stuff relating to your day in Barking.
 
So you would have:
 
A page optimised for your Barking keywords including:

• Testimonial from your client in Barking
• Info relating to the job you carried out.
• And a bit of info about Barking, where you went, found this great restaurant etc.

That would give you some great relevant content.
 
What I would then do is add a summary about the Barking job onto your home page linking to your Barking page, this not only helps update your home page it helps Google find your Barking page.
 
You could also add the link at the bottom of every page (site wide links) as follows:
 
Check out some of our recent jobs:
 
Then add the Barking link etc.
 
Yes, this is going to take some work, but it will be great content, naturally created and gradually added over time, Google will reward you for this.
 
Obviously Google works in strange ways sometimes and whilst I am speaking from experience it is hard for me or anyone else to predict what Google is going to do.
 
My rankings have dropped significantly in the past when I added a bunch of pages containing duplicate content all at once, I don’t do that anymore.
 
So, to build a quality website that is going to perform well over time you need to create great relevant content and pages that your visitors will love, Google will then follow suit.

One of the main factors for optimising your website for page 1 on Google is to get incoming links from other web pages, and to boost the effectiveness of those links there are a few things to consider, including the relevance of the page where your link is coming from, plus the link itself needs to be relevant to the keywords that you are targeting on Google.

Here’s one strategy you can use for getting great incoming links to help you achieve higher Google rankings.

Article Marketing for Rapid SEO Success

Once you know how to do this you will find it very easy.

Lets assume you run a Beauty Salon in Kent and you want to promote your Eyelash Extensions service.

If you want to be on page 1 of Google for the search term: ‘Eyelash Extensions Kent’ here’s what you need to do.

Write a 250 word article that educates people about Eyelash Extensions, you could include the benefits, how to choose a Lash Technician, the history of Lash Extensions etc.

To boost your SEO your article needs to include:

• Your Keywords in the title of the article.
• Your Keywords in the body of the article.
• Your Keywords in the link that links back to your site in the bottom of the article.

Then submit your article to www.ezinearticles.com

Most article directories are not as fussy as Ezine Articles, but the link you get from Ezine Articles will be very effective.

Here’s a few things you need to know about Ezine Articles.

You must write a 100% original and informative article, your article must not be copied from anyone else, it must be your own words. You can include information from your own website as long as the original information  is not copied from anywhere else.

You will not be able to include your location in the Title of Your article unless you are specifically talking about the location in question. So, to be on the safe side just include the keywords ‘Eyelash Extensions’ in your Article Title.

The link to your website that appears in the bottom of your article needs to be in the Resouce Box, you will find this when you login in to Ezine Articles.

If you just add your link in the bottom the article it will send people to your website but it will be a No Follow Link, meaning it won’t count towards your SEO, so you must include your link in the Resource Box, which you will see when you login to your Ezine Article account.

Once you have added your article to Ezine Articles and it has been approved I would then add the article to your own site, plus I would submit that article to a handful of other Article Directories.

If you then repeat this process, writing new articles for the same keywords it’s only a matter of time before your website starts to climb higher up in the Google rankings, which in turn will help you attract more website visitors and potential clients.

If a Beauty Salon followed this exact strategy for their Eyelash Extensions service I predict they could achieve first page Google rankings for their keywords within a few weeks or months.

What’s more, because the links are coming from relevant pages in the right way they would probably remain on page 1 of Google for their keywords for a very long time, especially if they regularly updated their website in general.

Q. Why do so many people spend so much time and money on SEO?

A. Because when your site appears high up on Google and the other search engines for your target keywords your site will attract highly qualified visitors, and highly qualified visitors are more likely to take action on your site, contact you or buy from you.

SEO cannot be ignored.

There are obviously many things that need to be in place to help your site appear on page 1 of Google, but the big question is:

What is the number one Search Engine Optimisation strategy?

And the answer is…

Relevancy

You simply must make every part of your site relevant for the keywords that you are targeting, including; Title Tags, Body Text, Links, Headline Text, Meta Data etc.

Imagine your were optimising your website for the keywords SEO Tips:

You would want to get your keywords in the Page Titles, you would want to make sure it is on each page of your site at least a couple of times, you would make sure you link from page to page with your keywords etc.

Your keywords need to be in all of the places as mentioned above.

Providing you regularly update your site with fresh new ‘Relevant’ copy and you continually get backlinks from ‘Relevant’ sites and you make sure your site is relevant for the keywords you are targeting you should soon start to climb up the rankings on Google and receive that highly qualified traffic that you need.

Make your site relevant today, and create that Google magic.

Chances are you have probably heard of SEO, Search Engine Optimisation has been around for many years now.

SEO is basically the stuff you do to make your website appear higher up on the search engines like Google etc., when someone searches online for the products or services you provide it goes without saying that the higher up on Google you appear the more traffic you will receive, and ultimately the more traffic you receive the more chance you have of some of that traffic becoming your paying customers.

You don’t have to look very far to find SEO companies offering their services and of  course you can even do your own SEO, so it seems everyone is spending money or time optimising their websites to increase traffic.

What isn’t happening much though is CRO, Conversion Rate Optimisation.

CRO is basically the stuff you do to get more of the people that arrive at your site to take action, get in touch or become a customer.

Most people seem to be obsessed with sending as much traffic to their website as possible without thinking about how they can increase the conversion rate.

You obviously need traffic and SEO is a great way of getting traffic, but if you can combine that with CRO it will really boost your SEO efforts.

So, how do you increase your Conversion Rates?

Assuming your aim is to get people to contact you, the best way to increase your conversion rate is to offer your website visitors something for free of real interest and value to them.

By offering a Free Report, Free CD or Free Video etc. containing useful information in exchange for their name and email address will help you to increase the amount of people that give you their contact details, thus increasing conversion.

People are generally looking for information when they search online, if someone searches on Google for your Keywords and they arrive at your site they haven’t found you by accident, they are genuinely interested in what you are offering, If you then offer your visitors more free information related to what they originally searched for on Google they will be more inclined to give you their email address.

Once you have a steady flow of visitors you need to know how many of those visitors are contacting you.

Then, you need to get to work on increasing the amount of people that contact you.

CRO will make your SEO more effective.

So, you’ve got your new website online, it shows off all the great things about your business that your potential customers will love, what next?

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short, which just means that you position your website in such a way that it appears high up on Google and the other search engines for the phrases or Keywords that people use when the search online resulting in potential customers visiting your website.

There are a lot of articles out there which will tell you the specific things you need to concentrate on to optimise your website, but one thing that most people do not tell you is this:

Optimise every single page on your site for a different keyword or phrase.

This is guaranteed to help you get the most website traffic out of Google.

If you are selling a variety of different products it is a good idea to optimize a separate page on your site for each of your different products or services.

This will mean that each of your products or services will have a better chance of coming up high on Google when a relevant term is searched for.

What most website owners do is they lump all their services together onto one page, and then try to optimise that one page for half a dozen different keywords / products.

As far as Google is concerned the message on your Services Page is too varied to be effective in the search results.

You need to be more specific, it will help Google.

For Example:

Lets assume you own and run a Beauty Salon in Hampshire, UK and you are offering the following services in your salon: Skin Care, Massages, Semi Permanent Make Up, Teeth Whitening, Tanning and Bridal Make Up.

Most website owners who are paying someone else to build their website would lump all the services together onto one page, and list all the services each with a small description, this is usually a cheaper option.

The problem with this in the eyes of Google is that the information on that page is all about lots of different things, so if your competitor’s pages are more specific Google will favour your competitor’s pages in the search results.

The best way to go on this is to create separate pages for each of your products / keywords, you can still keep your original Services Page that lists all your services as that is great from a visitors point of view but by adding 6 new pages all highly relevant for their specific service / products you increase the chances of a specific page being found in the search engines, plus an extra 6 pages will increase the overall content and size of your site which will also go in your favour on Google.

With SEO being a buzz word of the times every body wants their website to be search engine friendly and up there in the first page rankings, but there are some errors which people are regularly making when trying to optimize their sites that are preventing them from getting the first page listings that they are striving for. The following is a list of 3 SEO don’ts when optimizing your website.

Don’t use the same page title on every page on your website. By using your different keywords in the page titles of the different pages on your site and making those pages more specific to those keywords you increase your chances of being listed on the search engines for more than one set of keywords.

Don’t forget to use your keywords within the content of the pages on your website. Be sure to use your keywords in the body text on your page but do not over use them by just sticking them in here, there and everywhere! Also, make sure that your keywords are in the ALT tags of any images that are on the page. This is another place where keywords can be used but again, be careful of the overuse of a keyword – you do not want to risk being penalised by the search engines.

Don’t make the content of your site just for the search engines. Actual human beings will be reading your pages and are ultimately who your website is for so make sure that your content is relevant, interesting and informative and include your keywords where you can but make sure they fit effortlessly into the flow of your wording.

In a recession when times are tough, many businesses will make cut backs and try and save as much money as possible. Often the advertising and marketing budget is one of the first things to be cut.

This is a fatal mistake that companies make, as during a recession, marketing and advertising your business to get new customers is more important than ever. If you advertise and market carefully and in the right ways during a recession it will give your business the best chance of survival.

One of the best (and cheapest) ways to advertise and market your business is through SEO on the internet. As you are able to analyze how your online SEO marketing is going, monitor where your web traffic is coming from and tweak your marketing to make it work best for you avoiding unnecessary costs, it makes sense that this type of marketing is ideal when budgets are tight.

If you choose the right keywords and phrases you are targeting a very specific audience. When you do offline adverting, for example in a newspaper or on the radio, you are never really sure who you are hitting with your advert but with SEO, because the person is looking for what you offer, it makes sure that the right people are seeing your website.

The cheapest way to do SEO is to do it yourself or get one of your employees to do it. With just a small amount of research you can learn the basic principles of SEO which will enable you to make the necessary changes to your website to make it search engine friendly and get your website listed higher up on the search engines. Alternatively you can employ an SEO company to do this for you but for the small investment of time it will take to learn the basics it is really worth doing it yourself.

Anyone who knows anything about internet marketing will tell you that without a first page search engine ranking you have got little chance of getting mega traffic to your site. I mean, when you are searching online for something, how often do you look at the results on page 2, 3, 4 or 5? Not very often, I would bet.

People searching the internet tend to concentrate on the results they are given on the first page. They just haven’t got the time or the patience to sift through pages and pages of results to find what they are looking for. So if you can get your website seen on the first page of results it is going to get you a lot more visitors to your website and, in theory, a lot more business.

It is highly possible for you to get those sort after first page listings if you think about it logically. If you target a very general keyword such as ‘pens’ it is going to be much harder for you to get to page one as it is going to have greater competition than a more specific set of keywords such as ‘black ball point pens’.

Obviously there will be less people searching for ‘black ball point pens’ than there will be searching for just ‘pens’ but when those people reach your website they will be highly qualified as they have been searching for something very specific that you are offering. If you can get first page rankings for these specific keywords you will have a greater chance of converting these visitors into paying customers.