SearchEnginePromotionwith’ctabuk’

GETTING ON GOOGLE (And other Search Engines)

By David Castle and various members of the David Castle Forum.

Well this makes a change for me, I normally write Historical Fiction books. But my buddies around the globe have all said. ‘Stop prattling on about history and guitars. Show people what you are really famous for!

Getting listed on Google

I said, guys forget it; there are dozens of books on the subject. They carried on with their persistence.

So here I am, back at the PC churning out another book.

OK – go into Google and search ‘ctabuk’ that’s me folks. One of the more famous usernames in the Search Engine Forums.

I moderate over at Web Pro World and I have a UK forum on the subject of Search Engines. Just search my name and you should find it. However, knowing my luck Google will have disowned me!

As I am writing this there is a credit crunch well and truly in place.

My wife Leslie and I are both Financial Services Authority regulated as mortgage brokers. But we never advertise, we let people find our websites via natural search.

It’s the same with my new novel; people around the globe occasionally go looking for ‘New Historical Fiction Books’. They will find me there.

Over eight hundred different search terms find our sites.

At our peak and before the credit crunch we were generating millions and millions of pounds in lending. Year in and year out. No advertising whatsoever, no ‘pay per click’ no ‘adsense’ just search engine listings.

Hey, this is more fun than writing history. No research needed!

All the ‘guide’s to getting listed’ books I have seen on Google get so bloody technical they bore the pants off people. I am not a ‘techie’ so it’s going to be pretty basic stuff.

A search engine is like a giant robotic brain. Google sits in California but has offices worldwide. All of these offices use different databases, in the UK at the last count we had around nine.

Each database can get different results, which is why we use local directories for linking. But more on that later.

Searches are triggered by ‘keywords’. So if you are researching the Monmouth Rebellion or someone say’s ‘Have you heard about the ‘Bloody Assize in 1685? then the odds are, whereever you search you will find my site.

‘The Site’
The biggest mistake that people make is thinking that all the best titles or URL’s (Uniform Resource Locators) are taken. Twaddle, others say use hyphens if the title is taken. So you get this website address

My-site-is-the-best-in-the-world.com – Oh, heck, that’s crazy.

Others tell you ‘It has to be a dot com’ – Jeepers, haven’t they heard of ‘sitemaps’?

I use a dot co.uk or an .org.uk wherever possible. But I am aiming at the UK market. Though it’s fair to say that on the historical novel thing my UK site is on page one world wide an all of the search engines. I never, ever assume that a title has been taken.

Let’s assume that you are a brand new business, and quite rightly you want a natural link on page one of Google. I mean, don’t we all? Well I have hundreds.

OK, you set up your website and you name it after your business – Fred Scuttle Bathsalts Manufactures – WRONG!

If you are selling a special product, then name the site title as your URL so if you sell bathsalts you need the term at the start of the site title followed by the dot co.uk or whatever.

You have to ‘Think Searcher’ – If someone is searching for a New Historical Fiction Book because they have read all the others, then they will search that term.

So, there are fifty websites all starting with ‘bathsalts’ some people would say ‘give up, they’ve been taken’.

WRONG!

Bathsaltsforyou probably hasn’t. Don’t make the mistake of using a number 4 so many make that daft mistake. It would be better to have Bathsaltsforyoufromme than a bathsalts4U.

These lazy phonetic spellings are rubbish for search engine marketing.

A ‘keyword’ is called ‘anchor text’ – Google has little spies that travel the Internet world looking for fresh information. They have an insatiable appetite, they search everything and anything. These ‘spies’ are called ‘googlebots’.

Mallard Hurn

It’s the only address like it in the UK.

Our house is in the distance, the garden goes all the way down to the last tree on the left.

About the site owner

Greetings, according to WordPress people like to know something about the person operating the site. Fair enough – I’m David Castle married to Leslie (her parents chose the Scottish use of the boys name) – we have been married for 37 years come October 2009. We live in the fens of Lincolnshire. When we moved here our garden was a meadow. Nothing but grass and weeds, here’s how it looks today. All our own work, we have two ponds both hand dug into solid clay and both are 5 feet deep, the one at the bottom of the garden is 25′ x 25′ and took us a whole summer to dig. It is now a duck pond – complete with resident mallards, toads, frogs, newts, over 100 fish and bloody water beetles that eat fish! The smaller pond has over 1000 tadpoles (29/05/09) and 50 fish. We get all sorts of wildlife, foxes, pheasants, moorhens,rabbits, hares,hedgehogs etc. Dragonflies and butterflies in droves. The pergola was built by us, well, Leslie did the bricklaying (yes really!) I did the carrying. It’s a great place to relax, there’s even an in house barbie.
This year we are growing all our own veg, potatoes, sweetcorn,runnerbeans,tomatoes,onions,lettuce,carrots etc etc. The trees are sufficient to keep us in firewood – twisted willows grow fast. I used to work as a forrester, so I have a chainsaw and a massive axe. Because early 2009 was so cold we bought in 4 tons of ringed oak – I did them with the good old axe.
Inside the cottage it’s oak beamed with a old fashioned Rayburn and log fires – great at Christmas. It’s pretty bleak during winter, but we have good neighbours so we all cooperate. We are surrounded by fields, just four cottages and a couple of farms. Pretty cool!
Here’s the garden taken from the sun roof over my office. I have 6 guitars in there!

The Garden

The Pergy Built by Leslie

Natural Search vs. Advertising

Getting onto page one or two on Google via natural search is every Company’s dream. The main reason is that from the searchers point of view Google sees your website as being what we call an ‘Authoritive Site’, almost as if Google is somehow recommending it! Getting on to page one takes time, it does not happen overnight. The more competitive your market then the more difficult it becomes to catch up with, or even to overtake your competitors. Google has rules – if a site is suddenly loaded with thousands of links then what we call the ‘googlebots’ will think that you are trying to beat the system. The site may indeed initially fly up the rankings only to plummet out of sight. We call this the ’sandbox’, once in it, then getting out will take twice the time of a site that uses the ’softly softly’ approach. If you have ever visited a Search Engine Optimisation forum (SEO) then you will see dozens of threads entitled ‘Black Hat or White Hat’. Black Hat basically means attempting to fool Google. White Hat is the softly softly approach. I am 100% White Hat.

Once I have hopefully got your site highly listed then you can stop paying for the service. I’ll still be here to help out if your rankings drop, we simply restart the contract.

Google is looking for links to your site that endorse your service. That means a linking strategy based on both outgoing and incoming links based on your keywords or products. We call this ‘anchor text’.

Each page on a website must have a heading that relates to what you are trying to promote.

The number of times that I have reviewed sites that are based on either a Company Name or an Individuals name is totally unbelievable. It runs into the thousands. It’s called ‘ego’ and I do not wish to offend – but if you are trying to sell ‘green widgets’ and you call the site John Smith and Co dot com, then you stand about as much chance of getting listed for your goods or services as I do of becoming the next President of the United States!

The keyword is ‘Relevency’ – anchor text = product/service – the site title = first port of call for the googlebot.

My role is to act as an advisor, I have already made it clear that this is not a quick fix to page one of Google.

I read in the forums threads like ‘my client is a moron, I told him it would take time, but ‘oh no, you are rubbish!’

Think of that from the marketers point of view, we live in oppressing times, money is short, advertising is expensive and the News media are losing revenue daily – people and Companies simply do not have the funds to conduct massive campaigns.

My wife Leslie is a mortgage broker, she has her own business, the sites I set up for her are all on page one of Google. http://www.sharedownershipmortgages.org.uk – http://www.openmarkethomebuy.org.uk – http://www.sharedequitymortgages.org.uk and around 4 others. She gets 4 mortgage enquiries per day – 7 days a week. Her problem as an official Homebuy Stakeholder Broker is obtaining the Government funding so often promised by a certain Gordon Brown.

But what do those links tell you? Put simply, that we are professionals. I am doing this because I enjoy it. I have assisted hundreds and hundreds of people to get their sites listed. Now it’s your turn!

Marketing a business in Lincolnshire

Now Available Nationwide

So, you have made up your mind and you want to set up in business.  Good for you, and we wish you every success. One of the first things you are going to need is a website – yes?

How much could it cost?   –  Well, do it the following way, and wave bye bye to £2,566.oo!

Web Design say £400   – URL Title from £10.00 Hosting at £8.00 per month – that’s £96.00

Time spent in arranging pages £800 or thereabouts.

Search Engine submissions, well the guy said I have to do that, but he can do it for just £60.00 – not bad, I’ll get on Google! Yippee.

Advertising – he said we should get on to page one of Google guaranteed for around £100.00 per month. Gosh, that’s cheap advertising!  He did say it might go up though, apparantly it all depends about ‘key words’ and other stuff. But, if he can get us on Google Guaranteed – then I know he’s an expert!

Now let me see, all of that comes to £2,566.00 – well, it’s a bit more than I thought -but I’ve come this far -I’ll do it!

WRONG

This web blog came free of charge. Anyone can have one. I chose the design – so I’ve saved £400.00

Oh, and the hosting comes free as well, so that’s another £96.00

The guy that say’s ‘you must submit your site to the Search Engines’ is either pathologically stupid or a born liar.

Search Engines find sites through links. So there’s another £60.00 saved.

Designing pages – I designed this -it cost me the time it took to type it. So there’s another £800.00 saved.

Getting on page one of Google Guaranteed – means advertising using Google Adword or Google Pay Per Click.  I don’t use it.  You have found this page through Natural Search – Hi, I’m David and I’m one of the few guys who really understands Search Engines. I’m no technical whizz kid, but I have friends who are.

So how much do I charge? £60.00 per month. £720.00 per annum. £1,846.00 less than most.

You will get a site like this one. You can add pages whenever you like.

What will I do for your enterprise?

Link it for the search terms that will find your pages on the Search Engines.

Is it guaranteed? No – No one can guarantee first page results, but I know a few things that other Web Marketers simply have not bothered learning. So all I can do is my best efforts, and that is guaranteed!

What experience do I have?    Page 2 has actual examples.

6 years in Web Pro World – one of the Worlds largest Search Engine discussion forums.

4 Years in Seors – one of the UK’s best SEO forums – I know – I started it!

Web Pro World has 2 UK moderators – I am one of them.

How do you contact me? ctabuk@operamail.com