Tag Archives: targeted SEO

Footer Links – Are They Good For SEO?

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footer links imageThe footer of your page can contain links to internal and possibly even external pages. It is sometimes used to place large 728 x 90 or 468 x 60 pixel adverts and in the past has been a decent way of passing some ‘link juice’ from the anchor text link in the footer to the page it is pointing to. For example, if you owned www.widgets.com, you could place ‘blue widget’ as a text link in the footer and point it to the main ‘blue widget’ page for which you have optimised that key phrase for.

We are looking at the headers and footers for a client today and they still want a series of links in the footer of their website to send people to. So are footer links a good idea and do they benefit your site when it comes to SEO?

Well, many years ago websites were using them as a way of passing some link value to their internal pages. You see a footer is always there on every page and it is true that important pages linking from your main home page should be found in as few clicks as possible. Therefore, since 2000 a number of website owners, designers and SEO practitioners have stuffed loads of keywords in their footers in the hope it will improve their search engine positions for those keywords.

Unfortunately, what unfolded is now just another case of link abuse and those websites with 20 or 30 links in their footers have now devalued this technique. Remember, the search engines are now manually reviewing websites these days and a site with 30 links in the footer will probably be marked down and put in the ‘trying too hard’ or ‘using manipulative techniques’ folder.

In our opinion, it is best to have just a few links in your footer. We add the general contact and site map links and then maybe two to three other very high value pages which are also the most popular with visitors. This way, you can justify adding these anchor text links in your footer for the main purpose of improving user experience and for providing another route to these pages. Of course, it will also pass on some value to that page but it is debatable as to how much.

Also bear in mind that the location of the footer means a very low click through rate. It is our experience that people do go to the footer to locate a contact info link if the site does not make this clear any where else. But, you should have a contact page, about us, and telephone number in very clear view anyway!

The short of it is if you are going to use the footer as an SEO linking strategy, do so for just a few of your main keywords. Don’t create a footer with 20-30 links on it and also make sure that you create good internal anchor text links on related pages to your main SEO pages whenever you can to help your internal SEO effort.

Scientific SEO

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When we say scientific SEO, we don’t mean the science of SEO, but actually SEO for Scientific companies. The reason we cover this, is because different industries need different approaches to this form of online marketing. You need to get in the mind’s of potential buyers in this market and then give them as much as you can that will turn them on. (so to speak!)

person in the lab

SEO Strategies Should Match The Target Audience

Seriously, people who buy motors and drives within the engineering industry want to see very different content from someone who is a buying a UV Spectrophotometer, for example. You therefore need to look at each SEO project on a case-by-case basis and make sure that you tick all of the main boxes for each.

When we look at the subject of scientific SEO, we need to concentrate on how buyers react and operate during a typical day. Do they have access to video? Do they feel comfortable in a community environment and if so, what kind of forum, blog or Q&A are they most comfortable with? Also, how long do they stay on your site and what kind of content will make them want to come back. They may tell their friends, you know!

All of these questions (and many more) should be on your list when you start to plan your own internal pages and your main SEO campaign.

First of all you need to look at the main focus of your site and decide on whether it is good for potential buyers and search engines. Always make sure that it is well optimised for visitors first and then compromise for search engines only – never compromise at the expense of the visitor. This is especially true after google’s latest ‘panda’ update which now means a better site structure, layout, good unique content pages and even a truely original tone and angle for content on your site. What we mean is that your pages should be totally unique in terms of content and the way that content is presented and communicated.

When you have taken a look through your site, you need to make sure that your navigation is up to scratch and people do not have to click on 12 links from the home page before they get to a page you want to optimise well for. The closer this page is from your main index page (the home page) the better. A good bread crumb trail and menu system will work wonders to get people to where they want to be – and back again!

When you have sorted the internal structure out, you then need to move onto external work. Do you know a scientific genius at a university who will give you a link, or can you get links in return for writing good content for their site? Just make sure the links you get are on relevant sites for your chosen products and niche and that you get anchor text links highlighting your main key phrases at all times.

There is a science behind this whole SEO thing but don’t get wrapped up in the terminology, algorithms and complicated stuff associated with indexing, spiders, crawlers etc. Just give people a good experience, make it easy for them to find the good content and make sure you optimise your pages and overall functionality for the marketplace you are reaching. Do all of that and you won’t go far wrong.

Our services – through a combination of our bespoke internal SEO services (working on your own site) and labface.com, (external optimization) we are helping over 60 scientific organizations to get additional product visibility, link popularity and better placements in the organic search results in google, yahoo and bing. To find out how we can help you, just contact us and we’d be delighted to discuss a plan with you.