Wednesday 25 May 2016

In the SEO wonderland through the content keyhole


Longing by KingaBritschgi



I have been quite busy building websites and optimizing them in the most natural way: concise and informative pages, good photography and keywords inserted appropriately in headlines, subheads and captions. I tend to spend a lot of time formatting photos for the web as the content management system Cambridge University uses (Falcon - Plone) has been set up with very specific image sizes for pages, side portlets and carousels. 
Some of my work has been updated by others who have followed me, but most of my work (or at least the bones) is still there to see. 

I have also devised Twitter and LinkedIn strategies, compiled newsletters (embedded e-newsletters and attachments) and given advice to a variety of businesses in the corporate sector. I particular like devising blog calendars and providing ideas for articles (or coaching somebody to write an article).

When building a new website it's important to minimize the number of main tabs and try to make the site navigable not confusing. With Falcon you can have menus popping down when you hover on a tab and various side panels. It has some limitations but it is easy to learn and has a special space for SEO code - ie Google Analytics and ways to tag images too.

In a previous job I managed to rank a company blog on the first page of Google with a single article. I have a screenshot somewhere to prove it and got 300 likes from a Facebook article. There was no magic involved, just quality writing diffusing useful information and a pinch of keywords judiciously scattered throughout without forcing them on the reader.

When I created a website for a biotech company, I experienced devising a two-level website with B2B and B2C pages. The B2B pages had more technical information and were aimed at doctors, while the B2C pages were written to create brand awareness among the consumers who might ask their doctor to use that particular brand of dermal filler. That is a crowded market with leaders willing to spend thousands of pounds so launching a new product on a shoestring budget is more of a challenge. The key is to do some competitor analysis beforehand so you can trump the competitor on something, not everybody can excell at everything so you can have a better blog than a bigger company and move faster because the content does not need to be signed off by as many executives and you don't have to deal with as many stakeholders either. You can really be an agile marketeer and strike the iron while it's hot!