Luna Ceramics open their new showroom

Luna Ceramic has just opened their new 5,000 sq ft showroom in Lincoln with a large range of tiles, stone and Villeroy & Boch bathrooms.  Monkfish Web Design Lincoln wishes them all the success with their new venture.  You can visit them at Unit 5 Bishops Road Lincoln LN2 4JZ

www.lunaceramics.co.uk

Borsetshire Life now on sale

Contract publishers Silk Press have been awarded the contract to publish the Archers 60th Anniversary magazine the Magazine is called Borsetshire Life after the fictitious life style publication often mentioned in the long running award winning Radio 4 show.  It is available through most major newsagents or you can purchase it online though the Silk Press website and their new ecommerce shopping cart.

For more information visit www.silkpress.co.uk

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural"  or "organic" listings. The higher ranked on a search results page the more frequently a website will appear on the first page of the search engine listings, this means more visitors will see your website and in turn you should get a higher volume of visitors which should lead to more sales. SEO can target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, video search as well as general searches.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimising a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links,

LHD Cars, Left Hand Drive Cars powerful keywords in a niche automotive market

LHD cars, Left Hand Drive Cars are the two most popular searches made on the internet for UK based people and ex pats looking to buy a car to use in Europe.  With over 99,000 searches between them a month (LHD Cars 49,500 Left Hand Drive Cars 49,500) being ranked on the first page of Googles searches is a must for any car dealer selling left hand drive cars.   With only 10 listings on the first page of Google.co.uk bringing up 734,000 results for LHD Cars and 11,400,000 results for Left hand Drive Cars you can see that the task is not necessarily and easy one.

Monkfish SEO has years of experience optimising websites for the Google search engine and are able to offer a fantastic search engine optimisation package which will see your website move up the rankings and nestle within the top of the first page.   LHD Cars and Left hand Drive Cars are not the only keywords with high search traffic Cars with left hand drive (49,500) Cars left hand drive (49,500) left hand drive cars for sale (22,000) are some of the terms potential customers may use when searching for a new vehicle.

There are a number of ways to optimise your website and we would usually recommend that both on site and off site techniques are used and are updated regularly to keep you at the top of any search term as ALL the major search engines changes their criteria from time to time which means what is important today may not necessarily help your ranking tomorrow.

For more information about Search Engine Optimisation Click Here or call 0800 161 3879 and speak to one of our SEO team.

Is your website working for you?

Most companies when setting up a new website or redesigning a new one spend most of their time looking at the content and the look and feel of their new site without really thinking about how it will be found and who will search for it.
A great looking website is a fantastic advertisement for any business but if no one sees it then it just becomes an electronic piece of art.  You wouldn’t spend £1000s designing and printing a new brochure and leave it in the store cupboard scratching your head wondering what to do with them.  The same applies to a website.
Before you have built a single page of your website, you should have worked out a strategy of how you plan to use your website and more importantly how you plan to market it and who you are looking to attract.
The internet is a powerful marketing tool and has the potential to transform your business, but it does need to be built and designed in a way to achieve your marketing goals.
A website without a clear marketing plan is usually a waste of money an important part of pricing up your website costs is building in a budget for marketing this can either be separate or included in your overall marketing budget for online and offline advertising.

Areas to look at when marketing your website:

Organic search engines:  This can be the most difficult to achieve and needs time and money spent on it but also has the greatest rewards if done successfully.  If you appear on the top page of Google or any of the major search engines you will usually see a massive increase in traffic to your website and an increase in enquiries and sales.
Sponsored Links:  The quickest way to be found on all the major search engines you basically pay to be where you want to be, Whilst this is quick it is an ongoing commitment as soon as you stop paying you will disappear from the search results also you are bidding against your competitors so it can become expensive compared to organic SEO.
Email Marketing:  More and more companies are using the data they have collected over the years to send out promotional material and newsletters to their customers via the internet.  If done correctly this can help build a bond between your business and the customer and increase the amount of referrals.
Offline Advertising:  Whilst the internet has caused a down turn in the conventional media your customers do still read magazines, watch TV, walk past Billboards etc and these are still effective ways of one promoting your business and two promoting your website. 

Always remember your website is an electronic advert for your business which allows you the facility to tell customers more about your business than a simple ¼ page in a magazine.

If you would like to know more about marketing your website please click here.

Our next article will give you more information on what you can do to optimise your website and make it more search engine friendly.

Bing Talks About its Link-Building Policy

It's easy for businesses to get caught up in Google's expectations for their sites, when trying to market through search. That's certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google dominates the search market by a huge margin. Still, there are other search engines that people are using, and it is also wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too.

I'm obviously talking about Yahoo and Bing, but Yahoo's share is declining, while Bing's is gaining. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway.

We don't hear as much about what Bing wants out of a site for rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Centre has shared some dos and don'ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for honouring Bing's policy does not differ too much from advice that Google would give you. It is, however, still always nice to see how they feel, just to clear up any possible confusion.

Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. "Just don't make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution," says DeJarnette. "You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time."

What Not To Do

DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:

• The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
• Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
• Using hidden links in your pages
• Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known "bad neighbourhoods" on the Web
• Linking out to known web spam sites

"When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction," says DeJarnette. "If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index."

What To Do

DeJarnette also shared some tips for getting more quality links. Following are Bing's tips for effective link building (paraphrased):

• Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
• Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they're aware of your site/content
• Publish concise, informative press releases online
• Publish expert articles to online article directories
• Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site's content when applicable
• Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
• Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
• Launch a blog/forum on your site
• Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
• Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site

Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any savvy search marketer is not already aware of. That said, there are clearly plenty of online (and offline for that matter) businesses out there that don't have savvy search marketers on the payroll. It can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and what not to do to help webmasters get better rankings.

*Article courtesy of www.WebProNews.com for more information on Search Engine Optimisation and Online Marketing click here