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11:56
BT Tradespace:
Hello everyone, thank you for joining us today for the Live chat.
Today we’re joined by Nikki Pilkington, from nikkipilkington.com. Nikki is sharing her advice on all things Google & SEO. So, if you have any questions regarding how to choose the correct keyphrases, how to make sure you don’t get banned from Google, or best SEO practices, please do post them here.
The Cover it live platform allows us to view your comments/questions before we push them live, so if you experience a delay in seeing your question appear, don’t worry. The chat is easier to read when we push questions live just before they are answered.
Many thanks, and over to you, Nikki!
11:57
NikkiPilkington: Hi everyone and thanks for joining us – I agreed to do this chat as I know that lots of people have questions about SEO and google, but don’t always want to post them in forums / on websites etc.
When I started doing this almost 15 (gulp) years ago, there were no training course, hardly any websites to help, and indeed no Google. I learned by trial and error, by listening to other people’s experiences and by sheer determination ina lot of cases. I’m still learning every day, because SEO changes frequently.
Hopefully you’ll ask me lots of questions and I can help get rid of any misconceptions, as well as give you a few new ideas for 2009 :)
11:57
[Q1]
What would be your best advice for someone setting up a site for a new company with the view of self managing?
11:57
NikkiPilkington: Hi, I think it’s great that in this day and age setting up and managing a website is so easy. Using one of the blogging type platforms is perfect for SEO (Wordpress for example)
11:58
NikkiPilkington: With Wordpress (and Blogger I think) you can install SEO plugins that take a lot of the guesswork away :)
11:58
[Q2]
Hi Nikki – are you ready to take questions yet?
11:59
NikkiPilkington: Hi, we’re a little early I think but why not? :)
12:02
[Q3]
Hi Nikki
12:02
NikkiPilkington: Hi – good to see you here
12:03
[Q4]
Hi Nikki
12:03
[Q5]
I am thinking of a proper website for the person concerned
12:03
NikkiPilkington: Hi guys
12:04
NikkiPilkington: [A5], in that case they need to be sure that the website they have can be updated regularly, that title tags can be changed on every page and ditto with META description tags
The worst thing is not having control of these
12:04
[Q6]
Hi Nikki, can you tell me what’s the relevance of the description tag?
12:04
blog can come later
12:04
NikkiPilkington: [A6], the description tag is important in a couple of ways – as well as reaffirming your keyphrases, it’s the bit that people see when they search for you in Google – so it needs to contain a good call to action
12:05
[Q7]
Nikki, do you have any advice for a site which ranks highly in Google worldwide (front page) but not in UK?
12:06
NikkiPilkington: [A7] The probable problem (without looking at it) is that it’s a .com domain name hosted in the US – although it is possible to get .com domains listed in the .co.uk version of google, at times they will give precedence to .co.uk domains
12:06
[Q8]
As far as blogging platforms go, is there a significant difference between Wordpress and Blogger and if so, what? I currently run 3 blogs with Blogger.
12:07
NikkiPilkington: [A8] I don’t use Blogger and I always recommend Wordpress because the SEO plugins for Wordpress are fab and have never let me down. However, Blogger is owned by google, (although they say blogs on there are given no preferential treatment) ….
12:07
[Q9]
Hi Nikki.How effective do you think Adwords is in driving traffic to a webpage?
12:08
NikkiPilkington: [A9] – Done properly, Adwords can work really well for a website – the problem is that it’s not always all that intuitive and it’s easy to make mistakes. Run properly you can drive very focused traffic to your site, and as long as your site has a compelling call to action you should do well from it.
12:08
[Q10]
Hi Nikki – I’m thinking of launching a service to the Korean market – do I need a Korean domain name? Do I need to host my site in Korea? or just have good content in Korean on my .com website?
12:09
NikkiPilkington: [A10] you’d need to check out the criteria for getting a Korean domain name – it’s a new one to me! I think in general if there is a local version of google for any country, then being hosted in that country is a good thing if it’s possible.
12:09
[Q11]
what about links? how would you advise getting more?
12:10
NikkiPilkington: [A11] – it’s not just about links, but they can be important. Posting in forums gives you links but they may not be counted, and registering in directories will help. Post on other people’s blogs (no spamming) etc – and of course Twitter is another good place.
12:10
NikkiPilkington: The important thing about links though is the text used to link – called anchor text – it should always contain your keyphrases if possible
12:11
[Q12]
How do I know what words are the right ones for my sites SEO?
12:11
NikkiPilkington: more on anchor text here http://nikkipilk.sc10.co.uk/blog/2007/11/26/the-links-effect/
12:12
NikkiPilkington: [A12], the best advice on keyphrases is RESEARCH WELL – use Google’s keywords tool to find the relevant phrases that people are searching for – just because you think you know what people are typing in doesn’t mean that they are using those words!
12:12
[Q13]
Nikki, can you explain a little about the SEO plugins for Wordpress?
12:12
NikkiPilkington: Wordtracker is also good for this of course
12:13
NikkiPilkington: [A13] – using something such as the All in one SEO plugin allows you to edit all of the relevant areas on each blog – titles, description – important parts of the SEO process that often get missed
12:13
[Q14]
We have complete control and the site is one that has been live for sometime. We want to change the index and titles of pages and alter the content to suit. We have Dreanweaver 8 and have full control
12:14
NikkiPilkington: [A14] Well then I would advise downloading 299 Steps to Website Heaven (I would!!) http://www.nikkipilkington.com/google-listings/299-steps-to-website-heaven-free as it will walk you through the whole process.
12:14
[Q15]
Hi Nikki – how often should you change text on a website?
12:15
NikkiPilkington: [A15] there’s no hard and fast rule, but I try to add to my blog at least 3 times a week – obviously with a static website you wouldn’t do that, but it’s more about adding new content than just changing for the sake of it. Google likes to see sites growing and expanding
12:15
[Q16]
Am I right in thinking that Twitter does not get picked up by the search engines or is that wrong?
12:16
NikkiPilkington: [A16] – twitter entries do get picked up by search engines, but they are ‘no follow’ links which means that Google doesn’t ‘count’ them as important – of course they’re important to people who find the result and follow the link – they’ll have no effect on your google listings, but they may have an effect on your traffic :)
12:16
[Q17]
How do you see the move toward Semantic Indexing affecting SEO as a whole?
12:17
NikkiPilkington: [A17] – it’s been talked about for eyars and Google is getting better at knowing ‘similar’ words etc – I think it’s a good thing and it will make people think more :)
12:17
[Q18]
For my own site I am now being offered money to put links on my links pages…usually around £25 00 The criteria has always been that the request should come from a company relavent to my site content What do you think?
12:18
NikkiPilkington: [A18], links on your site should always be relevant to your site – but don’t forget that not that long ago Google threw out a lot of sites that were accepting paid links…
12:18
[Q19]
As you know I am a writer and sometimes I struggle a bit when composing online text, trying to make it “keyword rich” without adversely affecting its “literary” flow. What advice would you give to me and other writers in my shoes?
12:18
NikkiPilkington: [A19], I wouldn’t worry about density and such – well written copy is automatically keyword rich. I always recommenmd reading it out loud to someone else – if they can make sense of it then your readers can. Your readers are the most important thing really, not Google (believe it or not!)
12:19
[Q20]
Hi Nikki I have my domain name in .com and .co.uk I have my .co.uk pointing at my .com would it be better having it the other way round because of me being in the UK?
12:19
NikkiPilkington: [Q20] – it would probably help more – if the .co.uk domain is just a refresh or forwarder then it’s not helping your SEO anyway as Google will just list the page it forwards to (and meta refreshes are dangerous)
12:19
[Q21]
I’ve been working on improving my Google Page Rank for months, but it’s stuck at 3 despite lots of work… how important is Page Rank? Any tips on improving?
12:20
NikkiPilkington: [A21], please don’t get hung up on google page rank – it used to be a big deal but it is less so these days. As an example, we have PR2 and 3 sites above other pages that have PR 5 and 6
12:20
[Q22]
“Google likes to see sites growing and expanding” ….. does this mean static sites, or does it apply to standalone blogs too?
12:21
NikkiPilkington: [Q22] – all sites – a website is no longer something you just leave to stagnate – for Google to see it as important, they want to know that it’s growing and going to stick around – that’s why blogs and forum sites do so well in the search engines
12:21
[Q23]
Hi Nikki, you advised me a little while ago to add more text content to my online shop (which I’m doing) using keywords, but I don’t have the facility to add a blog at the moment- would you advise setting up a related blog perhaps using Wordpress and linking it back- would that be as effective do you think?
12:22
NikkiPilkington: [A23] – having an outside blog won’t hurt you, as you can use anchor text links back to your site, but it won’t be as effective as adding fresh content to your own site
12:22
[Q24]
Hi Nikki – how important is social media for improving google positions – obviously it should be good for traffic and it will prob. have links. But do you think google uses traffic to calculate positions?
12:23
NikkiPilkington: [A24] There used to be a case for sites with lots of traffic getting better positions – I no longer think that’s the case – forums etc do well because they have regularly updated fresh content, and usually keyword rich
12:23
[Q25]
Further to Q24, with the plethora of social media sites out there growing all the time, is there a list of good and not so good ones to put your profile onto (for visibility’ sake of course)?
12:24
Oh thanks for that Nikki…I didn’t know!
12:24
NikkiPilkington: [A25] – any sites that have good listings in google themselves are good – Ecademy does well, BT Tradespace obviously, places such as wecandobiz and UK Business Labs are starting to gain more traction
12:25
[Q26]
What about people paying for hosted pages on a site…i.e chefs listing their CV’s for a month?
12:25
NikkiPilkington: [A26] – listing a CV or paying to have an advert on the site is treated differently – it’s usually good, relevant content for a site (notice i use the word relevant a lot?) – a page full of paid for links isn’t good content for any site really
12:26
[Q27]
Hi Nikki, I currently advertise our website address as the companyname.co.uk, but I also own the domain name softwarefinance (which is what we do) but i’ve never used it. Is there any benefit to using this more?
12:27
NikkiPilkington: [A27] – there could be value in it, depending on the age of the domain – newer domains are given less precedence over older ones in most cases – it is possible to build good listings without a keyphrase rich domain – but every little helps. Just be sure that what you have listed already isn’t lost
12:27
[Q28]
Yonks ago “.com” was considered a more upmarket domain end bit (can’t remember the correct jargon here!) than “.co.uk” or any of the others. Is this still the case, or have we moved on from that?
12:28
NikkiPilkington: [A28], I think people have moved on from the snobbishness about domain suffixes – and if you’re searching in a search engine you’ll click on a relevant link rather than worry about the ‘end bit’ – I think couk and com are better than ltd.uk or org.uk but that’s more personal opinion
12:28
[Q29]
I’m going to split my blog into three sites so I can focus in each one. Surely that will reduce the google-juice of each, won’t it?
12:29
NikkiPilkington: [A29] – splitting your blog into 3 sites allows you to ‘niche’ each one, which in turn makes each one more relevant – your positions may drop to start with but with decent content they should rise again
12:29
Further to [Q29] .biz was at the bottom end … now?
12:30
NikkiPilkington: If you want to get listed in google UK then .biz isn’t great – I always recommend .co.uk and .com over any other suffix as they are the most easily listed ones
12:30
[Q30]
Sorry, didn’t mean to send that, just leave a gap after the salutation! ….. My question. I run a low cost operation, & have a PR0 website www.pimlico-flats.co.uk . The keywords most people search for (by a long way) are “Rent London Flats” I’ve had a look around & discovered a large number of Domains available which use some or all of these keywords. Should I acquire these domains? If so what should I do with them? Possibilities being – move to them, link from them, run adsense ads on them & earn money ……….
12:31
NikkiPilkington: [A30] – it’s a very competitive market – the domain names may be of use if you can develop sites on them (without duplicate content on same servers) – I’m not sure about the Adsense value to be honest
12:31
[Q31]
How successful are the “sponsored links” you see at the top of Google pages? Do punters click on these first, or are they wary of them because they are paid for ergo, not necessarily any good?
12:31
Thank you, btw.
12:32
NikkiPilkington: [A31] – the sponsored links are Adwords, and in a lot of cases they are successful – some people click on main listings, some on sponsored links – I think people are less wary of adwords now that they’re more mainstream. Lots of our clients have Adwords and do very well with them
12:32
[Q32]
hiya Nikki, I’ve got a .co.uk domain hosted in the UK and it does do well in google.com at all – how can i change this?
12:33
NikkiPilkington: [A32] – without looking at it and the site I wouldn’t be able to advise properly, but if you’re able to secure the .com domain that may help (it’s a bit technical for a quick chat though)
12:33
[Q33]
How much money does a ‘one man band’ need to set aside for SEO or Adwords – a king’s ransom? I’ve hearc scare stories. Also I get a lot of offers from India … any thoughts on those?
12:34
NikkiPilkington: [A33] – it doesn’t have to be a king’s ransom – but rmember you’re paying for knowledge as well as time. And saving money on your own time. Indian offers are the same as any other really – check them out thoroughly. get references, check sites they claim they’ve promoted – be wary of anything that sounds too good to be true.
12:34
[Q34]
I’ve heard people advise against using adsense until your site is established as Google won’t like this. Would you say this is true or just a myth? Thanks in advance!
12:35
NikkiPilkington: [A34] Google wants to see sites that are relevant to searches – if a site has Adsense from the beginning then there is some evidence to show that google sees it as less relevant than a site that is full of content and has no ads at all. That said, Google don’t want people to STOP suing adsense, as it’s good for them! So yes, hold off on the ads until you’ve established some listings
12:36
[Q35]
How easy is it to SEO a site or blog?
12:36
NikkiPilkington: [Q36] – that’s a piece of string question :o) Freebie 299 Steps to Website Heaven walks you through the process – some would say that’s really easy, others would say it’s difficult.
12:36
[Q37]
On the subject of adwords, I’m earling £0 from them. One of my new sites will be for my IT business. Having adwords could make people click to buy, say AV, rather than contact me. Do adwords usually generate a significant income, to make it worth the risk of losing business to them?
12:37
Excellent chat Nikki (&BTT!)- thanks very much. Much easier to follow when I turned off the auto scroll.
12:37
NikkiPilkington: [A38], I presume you mean adsense where you make money from the ads shown on your site? You can exclude certain sites and competitors, and some people make a lot of money from adsense ads. I have to say that if I see a business site full of adsense ads though, I tend to wonder whether the owner is making any money from their main business ;)
12:38
[Q39]
What about peeps that have portfolio businesses, can that create a problem for the entrepreneur?
12:38
NikkiPilkington: [A39], you mean multiple busineses? I don’t think it’s a problem as such as each business should have it’s own niche – remember google loves niches :)
12:39
[Q40]
I’m getting more and more angry about these content harvesting operations where any old BS is put up as “content” (including some of my articles which they’ve nicked and even one of my books, but that’s a long story…) Often the original material is reworked to avoid copyright issues, with nonsense phrases inserted so making it complete jibberish. I’m told the idea behind it is to attract search engine rankings so punters will visit, then finding the “content” bad, will click through to the nearest GoogleAd to get away from the cr*p. What is the current thinking about this in your industry?
12:40
NikkiPilkington: [A40] – it’s a pain, especially for people such as you who spend time creating content – there’s a lot of it about, and google is starting to crack down on it, but it’s fact of the internet, just as plagiarism was a fact of the libraries too at times :(
12:40
Yes, sorry, I meant AdSense, not AdWords. I don’t really like ads, so they would be discrete and blended. I’ll have to consider whether to include them later, but as you say, not until I have content up.
12:40
I had no knowledge at all about websites but there is an awfull lot out there to read, it can be done yourself!
12:40
To the ‘one man band’: Nikki is to polite to say that she offers SEO services. Ask her for a quote.
12:41
[Q41]
What benefit and value can an Expert SEO service like yourself bring to a small business with a limited budget?
12:41
NikkiPilkington: it’s always possible to do it yourself – I learned how :)
12:41
NikkiPilkington: [A41] – I think there’s always value to be had from good SEO – more brand awareness, more traffic and ultimately more sales / leads (one hopes!)
12:42
[Q42]
Re: content harvesting … you say Google is starting to crack down on it, but surely they benefit from it most?
12:43
NikkiPilkington: [A42], at the end of the day, if google doesn’t provide relevant results, then people will stop using them. Therefore no ad revenue. Sites such as Copyscape will let you find out who is copying your content and contact them directly. You can also report spam through Webmaster Tools from google
12:43
[Q43]
Nikki, (continuing my question) is there any extra value to producing any content on a different website & then linking back to my own? i.e. does it become more valuable because it is elsewhere? TBH I would expect not.
12:45
NikkiPilkington: [A43], having relevant content elsewhere IS a good thing – which is why article marketing and forum postigns work well – if a site with authority links back to you that’s a good thing. if you just set up a ring of sites linking to each other, that’s a bad thing and google will pick up on it eventually
12:45
[Q44]
How important is w3c compliant code from an SEO perspective?
12:46
NikkiPilkington: [A44], compliant code is always better for the search engines as it’s clean and easy t read the relevant bits – but to be really honest lots of sites do well without having compliant code :(
12:46
[Q45]
True, it is possible to do it yourself, if you’re interested in it, and prepared to use ‘selling’ time to do it. But if not, get a professional in. I don’t do my own plumbing, but I could. Likewise my car. If you’re interested and have the time, do it yourself. If your time is better spent elsewhere, get in a professional. Time is our most precious commodity.
12:46
NikkiPilkington: True
12:46
[Q46]
I’ve been thinking about getting an SEO expert to do my web but as with al lot of SME the cashflow is tight from your experience when do your clients see a positive return?
12:47
NikkiPilkington: [A46], positive return time depends on a few things – some clients with less competitive or local phrases see a difference in a couple of weeks – some clients have more competitive phrases and it takes longer. At the end of the day it depends on many factors so not an easy quetsions to answer, sorry
12:47
[Q47]
What happens when everyone does SEO/Adwords – we can’t all be #1! I guess the prices keep rising until the market achieves some sort of balance?
12:48
NikkiPilkington: [A47] I hope so – I wouldn’t like to see cpc costs rising any mroe than you would ;) But the market will l evel itself out, and with a properly managed campaign you can ensure that your budget is well spent – cutting out keywords that aren’t niche enough and testing, testing testing
12:48
[Q48]
In terms of SEO having acquired something of a reputation for being a “black art” (rightly or wrongly) what are the most critical signs from would-be providers that should signal cause for alarm as a would-be purchaser?
12:49
NikkiPilkington: [A49] – I think one of the most important things is to check their own reputation online – do they list well for phrases such as ‘internet marketing expert’, do people say good things about them? Is their content all over the place or can you find nothing out about them? Who is linking to their site? Can they give you client testimonials?
12:49
[Q50]
I often hear that seo rankings suffer when people publish a redevelopment of their site. is it true and if so why?
12:50
NikkiPilkington: [A50] – in my experience, no – unless something is done that changes the intial optimisation. If someone has changed page names, titles etc, has different content, etc then yes listings can drop. However, if someone such asan SEO consultant is brought in to help the process they can avoid that happening
12:50
[Q51]
Nikki – it would just be further content from me on a site with a better (keyword) Domain. It sounds as if Google wouldn’t like me doing that. In which case should I move my entire site to the better (keyword) domain?
12:52
NikkiPilkington: [A51] – there are dozens of places to publish your content that will do you good – BT Tradespace, Ezine Articles etc – and they are already classed as sites with authority. If you republish your site on the new domain you need to think about pages that are already indexed, new domain penalties, etc – personally I’d build on what you have
12:52
[Q52]
It always ****** me off to be #1 and STILL get people above me on sponsored links. Damn you Google! Should I use Adwords as well to knock out one of those competitors? I suppose I’m asking is it worth doing both …
12:53
NikkiPilkington: [A52] if the budget is there then by all emans do both – but again, test, test, test – there will be people that click on sponsored listigns rather than organic ones, but there are also people that do the opposite. It’s a question of budget – and maybe that budget is better spent on other keyphrases you DON’T rank highly for in organic listings?
12:53
[Q53]
Real n00b question: For certain (but not obscure) phrases, my site is ranked higher than the site I’m talking about. How can this be?
12:54
NikkiPilkington: [A53], if Google sees your content as more relevant, with good links in, then you can list above older sites quite easily.
12:54
[Q54]
When I do split my one site into three, would re-posting old content into the relevent new site be a bad or good thing?
12:55
NikkiPilkington: [A54] – people are split on the ‘duplicate content’ penalties – I’ve never paid them much mind (which is why my articles are everywhere) howeve i wouldn’t duplicate any content unless absolutely necessary – so if your 3 sites are linking to each other, having 3 lots of the same content won’t help you
12:55
[Q55]
Nikki, Different qu. I recently asked Tradespace if it was possible to syndicate my own domain blog to my Tradespace Website blog. They have said “No” but suggested that I put a URL link to my own domain website Blog from my Tradespace Website blog. Does this have any SEO value? & would C&P my blogs into Tradespace & then linking, diminish my SEO because of the duplication?
12:56
[Q56]
Is there a transcript of this chat going to be published – I’m well behind with my reading!!!!
12:56
NikkiPilkington: [Q55] – linking to your own site will have SEO value – remember the link about anchor text earlier? I often post extracts from my blogs on Tradespace and in other places and the links in do get registered
12:56
NikkiPilkington: [A56] I think you can get the transcript once it’s finished
12:56
BT Tradespace: HI – you’ll be able to replay this entire chat once it has finished. It will be available here on the blog.
12:57
[Q57]
I’ve read research that suggests that when using Adwords, position 2 or 3 in the sponsored listings often achieve higher click through rates. Does your experience support this?
12:57
NikkiPilkington: [A57], this is possible on some phrases – again 9sorry to repeat) the important thing is to test – as with any marketing, change one thing rather than loads and see what the result is – some people report better clickthru on the right hand side than at the top :)
12:57
I don’t think I have any links in, and the site I’m talking about it T-Mobile. Very odd!
12:57
I think I understand. Maybe, on the two new sites, the first post should be “This is what I wrote about [for this niche] on my original site” and then link to old content.
12:58
NikkiPilkington: Without looking at it properly I can’t give you an answer to why you link higher than T Mobile – be happy about it :) I’ll look at if afterwards for you though definitely.
12:58
NikkiPilkington: Yes try rephrasing the content
12:59
[Q58]
hi nikki, I’ve recently read to completely opposing views on where its best to put a contact us box on a page i view is top left the other bottom right. any idea which is right?
1:00
NikkiPilkington: [A58] – a contact box needs to be visible and a good call to action – top left is the first place people look, bottom right is the last place they look when they’ve read soemthing, so both is good – either test, or why not do both>?
1:00
[Q59]
When I check my backlinks with Google – I don’t have any. Even from Tradespace. Can you think why this might be?
1:01
NikkiPilkingto: [A59], I’d need to look at your site, and your content to answer this – but it could be that most of your content is new or your putting it on sites that have ‘nofollow’ links (that google don’t recognise)
1:01
BT Tradespace: HI All, Nikki is just responding to the last question we’ve had submitted. Unfortunately we won’t be able to take any more today. Thank you to Nikki for a very informative session, and thank you to everyone for joining us today!
1:02
NikkiPilkington: Thanks guys – it’s been hectic but fun
1:02
excellent session – thanks Nikki
1:02
Yes, thanks so much Nikki – really interesting discussion.
1:02
BT Tradespace: If you have any further questions, you can post them in the comments section of our blog. Nikki will then be able to get back to you via the blog.
1:02
Absolutely fantastic. Thanks again to everyone involved.
1:02
Thank you Nikki
1:03
Super job … what’s your site again? ;-)
1:03
thank you
1:03
Thanks
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