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		<title>5 ways Restaurants can get more out of Twitter</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/5-ways-restaurants-can-get-more-out-of-twitter/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=5-ways-restaurants-can-get-more-out-of-twitter</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/5-ways-restaurants-can-get-more-out-of-twitter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:32:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Restaurant Marketing Ideas]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/?p=2230</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How to use social media to help fill your restaurant]]></description>
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		<title>Cracking the Small Business SEO Code</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/cracking-the-small-business-seo-code/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cracking-the-small-business-seo-code</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/cracking-the-small-business-seo-code/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:26:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Blogs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/?p=2089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Helping get the most out of a small business SEO campaign]]></description>
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		<title>10 things to Avoid when Choosing an SEO Company or Consultant</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/10-things-to-avoid-when-choosing-an-seo-company-or-consultant/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=10-things-to-avoid-when-choosing-an-seo-company-or-consultant</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/10-things-to-avoid-when-choosing-an-seo-company-or-consultant/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:17:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Blogs]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[It’s safe to say that as far as mistrust goes within an industry, then the SEO one must rank pretty highly. The amount of horror stories we hear are constantly on the up “my old SEO company were on a retainer and said that if I left them all my rankings would drop”, “I never really saw what they did, they told me that disclosing their methods could mean competitors overtake me”., “I got a monthly report with a big long list of articles they’d submitted to various sites” So how do you separate the good SEO’s from the cowboys? The ones who’ll add value to your business, rather than spend $100 dollars of their £500 retainer on outsourcing link building to India. It’s a tough one, and is quite difficult for business owners to know the difference – unless they have a good knowledge of SEO. And then you have to consider that there are so many SEO companies out there, which makes it even more difficult. There isn’t a marketing, web design or print company that hasn’t got on trend and dedicated a page to SEO services on their website. The problem here is very few of them actually know how to do it, it’s just a case of jumping on the bandwagon. Now we’ve read numerous articles suggesting what kind of questions you should ask a potential SEO partner – “what type of links will you be building?” “Do you use black hat techniques?” to name but a few. These questions are all well and good, but if you have no prior knowledge of SEO (like the majority of business owners/key stakeholders) then ultimately they’re going to be asking questions without a clear idea of what the right answer will be. Coupled with the fact that SEO companies employ strong sales people who know how to say the right things means it’s even harder not to get missold SEO. With all that in mind, we’ve put together a little list of the 10 signals that if you see them, in all honestly mean they&#8217;re probably not the SEO company for you. Because in the words of the Lord Sugar &#8211; they haven&#8217;t got a bloody clue. 10 Signals the Company is a Cowboy Operation: 1. Too good to be true As the good old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is – we’ve recently seen offers like “£200 for any keyword, first page ranking or your money back” – the fact is, this kind offer is way to good to be true, and is so far and away from being realistic. 2. Paid on Results Now having confidence in your SEO ability is a must, but taking it to the point of offering a paid on results service usually sets alarm bells ringing for us. If you think about it, the company you hire is practically working for free until you achieve whatever the agreed result is. (Usually a ranking). Paid on results to us, states a company is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve a ranking, and because they want it to happen quickly so they get paid quicker, they’re going to take shortcuts and build links in a spammy way. We can see how this one appeals to business owners, as it lowers the risk somewhat, however, from our perspective it actually does the opposite &#8211; you may see a quick gain, pay the cash once the milestone has been hit, and then everything drops off a cliff. But what happens after that? You&#8217;re in a far worse position that the one you started in. 3. Money back guarantees Again, the minute we see this it instantly set alarm bells ringing – when you pay an SEO company to handle your SEO, you’re effectively paying for their time. So how can any reputable company offer a money back guarantee on a service that by it’s very nature can’t be guaranteed. AVOID. 4. Ranking Guarantees The very nature of search engine optimisation means it’s impossible to ever give a ranking guarantee. The fact Google outlines this in their Webmaster Help Section should be proof enough that guarantees aren’t possible. Yet still SEO companies offer this, and customers still fall for it. Of course, guarantees sound attractive, but customers need to realise that guaranteeing something that can’t be guaranteed is a total lie. Think of it like the weather forecast, the forecasters, like good SEO’s have all the tools and know-how to make informed predictions but they’d be stupid to guarantee something that is ultimately out of their hands. 5. Pre Set Pricing Strategies/Packages No business is the same, and when it comes to SEO it’s not a one size fits all approach that works. So if you see companies offering SEO in the form of pre-built packages that involve things like “600 article submissions”, “25 High PR backlinks” then it’s a sure fire sign that you’d be letting your site get into pure spam territory. Quantifying the number of links you will get for a client, we’ve found is very difficult – and in the grand scheme of things – quantity isn’t a big deal. It may take a week to get 1 great link, but that would be more worthwhile than a 1,000 spammy links you can build in an hour. 6. They use terms like “search engine submissions” in their pitch Any company offering search engine submission clearly has no idea about SEO – search engines are more than capable of finding a website themselves, so suggesting that they manually submit the site to each and every search engine (including some of the most obscure search engines around) is really not a paid for service. 7. They don&#8217;t ask the right questions Any SEO worth their metal needs to gleen as much information as they possibly can about the business in order to be able to understand the industry and put together a strategy that compliments the overall marketing strategy at the core of the business. Hey, they might even come up with a killer idea that the company can implement across all channels, not just online! So if your SEO company isn’t constantly asking you questions, trying to understand your business then its highly likely then all that matters to them is the pay cheque at the end of the month. 8. Extremely Low Cost SEO by its very nature, specifically link building is a time consuming task so when we see stupidly cheap offerings like ‘SEO for £50 per month’ we have to think what on earth are you actually getting for your money here? Come to think of it, we’ve even seen free SEO offerings in some corners of the web – right so how can that possibly work?? 9. Fixed Cost SEO This is abit like the set package alarm bell – any SEO campaign has to be bespoke – so putting a fixed cost in the face of a customer before you’ve even got an idea of their requirments can’t work. And if you’re a customer and you get this – just think, if you go to a car garage – does the mechanic quote the price of fixing it before he’s diagnosed the problem? (Ok so some might!) but you get the gist. 10. The company refuses to disclose their methods Any company that tells you that disclosing their methods may hamper your sites rankings is pretty much lying. Of course, every agency, seo consultant will have their little nuances and creative ways to build backlinks &#8211; but we&#8217;re not suggesting they should reveal those. But if you feel things are being hidden from you then its a good sign that a) the company isn&#8217;t doing much work, or b) they&#8217;re building backlinks for you in spammy corners of the web, with a strong preference for .info and .cc domains. So there you have it, 10 strong signals that if on show by the company, in all liklihood mean they aren&#8217;t the right SEO company for you. What other signals set alarm bells ringing for you? Had a bad experience? Share it with us.]]></description>
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		<title>What makes for a good SEO client?</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/what-makes-for-a-good-seo-client/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-makes-for-a-good-seo-client</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/what-makes-for-a-good-seo-client/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:14:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Blogs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost/breaktheseal/?p=1587</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I appreciate that most people reading this post would be more inclined to see an article relating to ‘what makes a good SEO firm’ rather than this opposite take on the situation, but I feel it is pretty important to highlight the impact that a good relationship between online marketer and client can have on the success of the SEO campaign. Here are a few of the traits we here at breaktheseal love to see in the clients we work with. Faith in the SEO’s Advice This should be a total no brainer. I mean, who would pay a company to do a job that they specialise in and go against their advice? “I just heard on this free SEO Podcast that you need to noindex half your site to boost the other half in the rankings, let’s try it”. This is just one example we have come across where the client is too eager to do everything themselves, overriding and completely hampering any progress that is being made. Our advice is, by all means take an interest in SEO, but focus your attention primarily on running your business and we’ll take care of your online advertising issues. Good Communication &#38; Proactive Although we work externally, from our office in Bradford, the work we do requires a clear line of communication with the client. There’s also other stakeholders we need to be in contact with on a regular basis, such as your web developer along with any marketing strings you may have. Because our approach doesn’t revolve around purchasing spammy links on websites that don’t get any traffic, we need to know as much about your business to seek out all possible linking opportunities. Also, the fact that web marketing is an ever changing landscape, a good working relationship is crucial to ensure changes are made quickly allowing us to react as soon as possible and stay ahead of the competition. Patience &#38; Understanding Your website isn’t going to go from page 27 to position 2 overnight. Search Engine Optimisation is a progressive art that requires time and attention to detail to generate the best results. If you’re in a situation whereby you need the campaign to repay itself after month 2 then SEO probably isn’t the right marketing option to take. Most clients and prospects are aware of the benefits that can be gained from having a strong online presence and appreciate the time and effort that goes into achieving this. Gives Regular Feedback A lot of the time (especially if your site isn’t ecommerce) analytics and conversion tracking doesn’t paint the full picture. It’s always beneficial to know how the website is performing from a bottom line perspective, i.e. does all this extra traffic result in positive leads? Have the new prospects turned into clients? Feedback is probably the most important aspect of the decision making loop, so a small amount of time to reflect on the performance of the site along with any queries you may have for us is definitely beneficial. Summary As your SEO partner we are effectively the SEO ‘extension’ of your company. The more we know about your business and industry, the more routes we have to go down to generate legitimate and authoritative links. The more knowledge we have about the performance of the site, the better informed our recommendations will be to your web developer. We always let our prospects know that to get the best out of any Search Engine Optimisation campaign we have to work as a team. It’s no coincidence that those who do always get awesome Search Engine results.]]></description>
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		<title>Top 5 Firefox Add Ons for Web Designers</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/top-5-firefox-add-ons-for-web-designers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=top-5-firefox-add-ons-for-web-designers</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/top-5-firefox-add-ons-for-web-designers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Jul 2011 20:57:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Web Design Tips]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Firefox is the most popular choice of browser going these days and thats mainly due to the large number of add ons and extensions that can extend its core functionality above and beyond. Whether you&#8217;re just a regular browser, an SEO, or a web developer there&#8217;s definitely something out there that can make things that little easier. We take a look at our top 5 firefox add ons that we find helpful in web design. Measureit We&#8217;ll start with arguably the most simple tool of all, but then again perhaps the most useful, measureit basically gives you an on screen ruler to measure graphics, items, anything you see on the screen really. And when you consider the sizing of elements is a very important aspect of web design, you&#8217;ll soon wonder how you operated without this handy little tool in your firefox toolbox. Download Measureit Colorzilla Those of you familiar with photoshop and or most other image editing software will be aware of the colour picker tool that these bits of software provide. Colourzilla adds this functionality into the browser, meaning you can select colours from any webpage or area within the browser &#8211; perhaps your client loves the colour of a site she&#8217;s found and wants that replicating on hers &#8211; colourzilla provides the answer. It allows you to easily copy the colour notation in a range of formats, and the great thing about this add on is that its constantly being updated with new features and tweaks to make it even better. Download ColorZilla Web Developer Toolbar The Web Developer toolbar inserts a toolbar below the firefox address bar and provides a huge range of tools to use at your disposal, whether its simply validating a webpage to see if its W3C compliant, or inspecting the CSS of a page, the toolbar provides everything a web developer can possibly need. Download the Web Devloper Toolbar Firebug Chances are if you&#8217;re a web developer, then you&#8217;ve heard of firebug, and if you haven&#8217;t then you&#8217;re missing out! Firebug is probably one of the most popular web design tools out there. It allows you to debug websites, and inspect any element within them. So if theres a CSS style effecting your website, you can find out which and why from within this tool. It can look like quite complicated on first glance, but once you figure it out, this tool will probably the second most used behind your browser itself! Download Firebug Fireshot FireShot is an screen capture tool. It differs from most other screen shot ad ons as it gives you the ability to capture an entire web page, as well as allowing you to add images and annotations to it. You can save the captures in a variety of formats, email them or host them on fireshot servers Download Fireshot So there you have it, our top 5 firefox add ons for web developers. We know theres many more out there, some of which we&#8217;ve probably not even used ourself so feel free to drop a comment if you think one should make the list!]]></description>
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		<title>5 Twitter Tools That Get Our Seal Of Approval</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/5-twitter-tools-that-get-our-seal-of-approval/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=5-twitter-tools-that-get-our-seal-of-approval</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/5-twitter-tools-that-get-our-seal-of-approval/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Jun 2011 20:57:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Social Media Advice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost/breaktheseal/?p=1568</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The team at Breaktheseal like to keep things simple. So let’s cut to the chase, here are our top 5 Twitter tools you can use to be that little bit more proactive whilst you’re on it. Follower Wonk The Pitch: This nifty little tool lets you search the bios of Twitter users to find specific information relating to who they are eg they&#8217;re job role or what they’re into. In Action: You’re a golf retailer that specialises in personalised golf clothing and you want to find as many golfers as possible on Twitter. Simple, just use followerwonk to search through the bios and pull through everybody that makes reference to playing golf, using searches such as ‘golfer’, ‘loves golf’, ‘scratch golfer’ and so on. Top Tip: You’ll get more relevant results if you search with search operators, such as quotations (“) to get phrase matches. Standard searches will often produce some off topic and irrelevant results that take ages to trawl through, so quotation based queries are a great way to narrow the search and make it more relevant. Example “play golf” will restrict results to people that mention this exact phrase in their bio. Road test: Followerwonk Nearby Tweets The Pitch: Find Tweets that are posted from a certain geographic area. In Action: If you’re looking to build up local followers as part of your social media campaign this is a great way to find out whose Tweeting around you. Simply type in your town, city or suburb to get the live updates rolling. Top Tip: You can remove certain areas from your search. For example, you are looking for followers around Bradford, but definitely not from Leeds, you can block Leeds based tweets for appearing in your results stream in the preferences section. Test out the Nearby Tweets Service. ManageFlitter The Pitch: Simple and effective Twitter account clean up tool. Log in with your account and it will instantly highlight all those that don’t follow you back. In Action: You’re a local restaurant and you’ve followed 500 local Tweeters using the Nearby Tweets application. Simply hook your account up with ManageFlitter a week later to unfollow all those that didn’t follow you back. Top Tip: ManageFlitter also highlights the accounts you follow which haven’t been used in a while. These can also be wiped of your following list making the followers to following ratio much more in your favour. Have a play around with Manage Flitter. Twitter.com/search The Pitch: Comprehensive search tool from the developers of Twitter. In Action: Can be used to search a wide range of past tweets, using filters such as keywords used, location tweeted from, time of the day and attitudes expressed or . Top Tip: To get really accurate data use a multitude of the available search parameters. Example, if you want to find Tweets made by a certain account between set periods of time that mention a certain topic, you can do! Try out Search Twitter. Hoot Suite The Pitch: Free tool that allows management of multiple accounts. In Action:Great for agencies or people that run more than just one Twitter profile. Simply add them to your dashboard and you get a glimpse of what’s happening across all your accounts. Switching between profiles is intuitive, thus removing all the wasted time and efforts involved in logging in and out of your different accounts. And they also provide a free iPhone app for tweeting on the move. Top Tip: Hoot Suite has a great feature that allows you to schedule Tweets to be made in the future. If you have things you want to say but know you’ll be too preoccupied to do anything about it, set them up to be fired out when you need it! Check out Hootsuite Feel free to leave a comment if you think we&#8217;ve missed any out!]]></description>
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		<title>Choosing an IT Support Company</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/choosing-an-it-support-company/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=choosing-an-it-support-company</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/choosing-an-it-support-company/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2011 20:42:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Startup Business Help]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost/breaktheseal/?p=1563</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Whether you’re a start-up or an established business, it goes without saying that the vast majority of modern businesses are fully dependent on their IT systems and when their computers, servers or networks shut down, business operations can grind to a halt. The vast majority of start-up businesses are on what can only be referred to as a “middle ground” &#8211; dependent on their IT systems and big enough to have invested substantially in them, but not of a large enough organisation to justify employing and maintaining full-time, in-house IT staff with the inevitable burden on overheads. This is the situation we found ourselves in recently, and thinking about it, choosing an IT company is a lot like choosing an SEO company. Here&#8217;s why&#8230; Many business owners are increasingly finding it logical to concentrate on running the business rather than spreading themselves them too thin and outsource their IT needs to a friendly and competent IT Support firm to handle that aspect of the business. The one problem with this approach is that, like SEO, there are hundreds of IT Support companies out there, and it’s difficult to separate the good from the bad. Here are our top tips on how to choose a company that will suit your business. Competence and Availability The first and perhaps most obvious considerations to ask any potential IT partner is their competence. Do they possess the experience, accreditations and professionalism to fully take care of your IT Systems? An important point to take note of is; don’t be afraid to ask searching questions. IT is a world full of jargon that can easily confuse the average businessman/woman. What type of questions should one be asking? Here’s a few: What training and accreditations do you have appropriate to my IT systems? What is your experience and track record in IT? Please can you supply us with three organisations that you have worked with and improved their IT operations? You may be surprised how many IT companies will fail at least one of these questions. Ensuring value for money Key questions you need answering:- What rates does the IT company charge? What does that include? How quickly does the company respond to customer issues? What internal processes occur when you receive my request for help – the firm may have the best IT trained team in the world, but without efficient systems your problem will be lost with the rest Different IT companies offer widely varying operational procedures and charging:- Pay-As-You-Go – You call when something isn’t working, they come, fix it and you receive an invoice based on an hourly rate. Block Hours – Some IT companies offer block hour deals where you purchase an agreed number of hours per month at a reduced rate. Managed Services – Where the client company pays the IT firm an agreed fixed monthly fee in exchange for it providing all your IT service needs: support, server monitoring etc. IT support needs to be there when you need it One of the most important reasons for employing a third party IT Company is to fix things when they break. So a critical question is “How do I get help when I need it?” Are you required to call a helpdesk? 2.Do you have an engineer’s mobile number? Do you have a contact email address? What systems does the IT firm have in place? 5.Are customer issues dealt with swiftly and efficiently? Remote Monitoring &#038; Managed Services Prevention is cheaper than the cure and nothing is truer than that in today’s IT world where IT companies offer the facility to monitor your IT systems 24/7 &#8211; 365 days a year with remote software. When the software spots a potential problem, the IT Company is immediately informed by SMS or email and is able to act swiftly to resolve the issue, all of which links in to a managed service contract. The IT Company monitors all your systems and provides all your support for one monthly fee. While this may initially seem expensive, it’s worth shopping around. Project Management IT projects are invariably on-going &#8211; software upgrades, new premises or the installation of a new server. If you already use a company for IT support, it makes perfect sense to turn to it at the time of a project. But you should be satisfied that any IT support company you hire: Has suitable systems in place for project management Possess the necessary tools to set deadlines, ensure they are met without anything critical “falling through the cracks.” Has a fool proof mechanism for ensuring projects are completed on time and within budget Putting it all together The more important your IT systems are to the running of your business, the more important it is you select the right IT Company. When something breaks (and it will!) it will be your business that depends on them. Monday morning on the busiest time of your year when your server goes down isn’t the time to realise your IT company hasn’t got what it takes.]]></description>
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		<title>The Evolution of Google Places</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/the-evolution-of-google-places/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-evolution-of-google-places</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/the-evolution-of-google-places/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 May 2011 20:27:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Google Local SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Blogs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost/breaktheseal/?p=1558</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In our last Google Local blog post Will Google Places Search Integration Effect Organic SEO? we looked at the possible impact that the new style Google result listings for local search would have on organic rankings. Lets take a look into how things have developed and what you can do to boost your Places page. What&#8217;s changed? As predicted in that article, a position in the Google Places map listing is now open to the Paid Search market. These come in the form of a blue map marker, which clearly stands out over the several natural listings- not great news for SEO’s but nethertheless a change worth noting. The introduction of Google Hotpot has help boost the amount of direct citations Google receives, allowing users to directly review a business from within their Google Account. How to improve your listing&#8230; The number of searches that includes the Google Places map marker is now around 20% of total search volume. Not only that, this figure is constantly increasing highlighting a growing importance for SME’s to optimise their listing for local search. Here are a number of pointers to consider when completing your listing. 100% Complete: This may sound a bit obvious, but ensuring your listing is fully complete means you’ve given Google as much info as you can, and they can’t ask for more than that. Clever keywords: If you’ve come across traditional SEO then you’ll realise the importance of including keywords on a page, the same applies here, but be extra careful. Definitely avoid adding keywords to your business name, instead be more strategic and insert them wisely in the description and custom categories, whilst bearing this in mind- what do you do and where do you do it? Consistency is king: Well maybe not king but it’s certainly critical in the world of Google Places. Because Google scours the web, it wants to find as much information about your brand as possible. To make it clear that they’ve actually come across content relating to you (i.e. reviews, descriptions and handy bits of information etc) indicators such as name, address, telephone and email address must be consistent across the board. Local Directories: These are well indexed by the Search Engines and are given a high association with a particular city or region. Try finding them by performing a search such as “(your city/region) directory” to help filter the results effectively. Get Listed UK Beta Previously only tailored to the US, there is now an UK beta version. (http://uk.getlisted.org/) Although currently fairly limited, it does give you a clear overview of what’s required to gain full listings on some of the top sources for local citations. How to get those reviews There’s no doubt that reviews are one of the best ways to boost your local search rankings, but getting genuine reviews naturally is not something that happens all that easy. Offering incentives is deemed inappropriate by Google, and if found out may result in your page being deleted. Here are a few things you can do to help build them up legitimately. Send messages via your Social Networking streams politely asking customers for feedback in the form of reviews, with a link to a source you would like to build up (i.e. Qype). Leave a note by the till or have business cards printed that you can attach to their receipt, informing customers about your presence on these review sites. If you send out email confirmations when a customer makes an order, it’s easy enough to incorporate a call to action regarding reviewing the service they have received. The Future &#8211; Google Offers Google has made no secret that it wants to tap into the discount voucher market, it was only a few months ago that it tried to take control (http://www.businessinsider.com/why-groupon-said-no-to-google-2010-12) of group buying giant Groupon for $6 billion. You can imagine the motivation it now has for superseding them with their own voucher selling system – Google Offers. Although very much in development, Google has pushed this big time in America to get as many companies to register their interest as possible. Our guess is that this will take off massively and could influence the search results yet again. I mean if Google has a vested interest in your company selling vouchers through them, it wouldn’t be unreal to think they’ll push you up the listings to help you achieve this would it? Thanks for reading, Team Breaktheseal]]></description>
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		<title>How SEO and Social Media are Interconnected</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/how-seo-and-social-media-are-interconnected/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-seo-and-social-media-are-interconnected</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/how-seo-and-social-media-are-interconnected/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:21:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media Advice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost/breaktheseal/?p=1555</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Once considered completely separate entities, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO) are now very much intertwined. With SEO focusing on Search Engine rankings and Social Media platforms geared towards public conversation, these can be leveraged together to generate all round business benefits. For starters, let’s look at what they have in common. Both require quality &#038; fresh content If your website doesn’t have good content then no one will want to link to it, simple as. Same goes on Social Media channels, poor, uninteresting material will never get shared or build up a strong following, so keep it fresh, relevant and exciting. Both require internal and external work In SEO we like to call these internal elements, ‘on-page’ factors due to the fact they are actually on your brands web page. With SEO this involves ensuring the right keywords are included in a Search Engine friendly structure with appropriate Meta data. In the realm of Social Media, these factors relate to getting the right content in the form of pictures, statuses, discussions, polls, competitions and incentives. Off-page factors for SEO campaigns include building links for the purpose of directing traffic and informing Search Engines what your site is about. SMO is no different; these links come in the form of networking. Good links here involve solving questions the community have asked, going that extra mile to aid a disappointed customer and rewarding those that are true online ambassadors of your brand. Both rely on reliability &#038; trust as Critical Success Factors If a website is reliable and trustworthy, then overtime this builds up a trust level within Search Engines making them much more likely to rank it higher in their results. Similarly, if you’re able to build up trust within the social community you’ll find increases in; followers, shared content, clicked links, communication and all round online social interest easier to come by. They both increase online visibility While SEO increases your visibility through improved ranking positions drawing in relevant search traffic, SMO enables you to promote your content and get it shared fast across the web. With more shares and increases in online conversation this generates more exposure to your company and brand. So, now we know they’re similar, how they’re connected? Well, for starters, Twitter and Facebook have already been confirmed by Google as new ranking signals in their ever changing algorithm see here for Matt Cutts announcement. Although nobody outside of the search giant is 100% sure which social factors contribute to the ranking signals, we can hazard a calculated guess at the following; Next, there’s the impact Social Media can have on building links, aka Link Baiting. Spreading this new fascinating content around the web ensures plenty of people previously unaware of your existence notice it. The best thing about this is if they enjoy/like/find the content useful then they are probably going to link to it. Obtaining natural links from a wide variety of sources is crucial to the success of any SEO campaign and Social Media provides the gateway needed to attract them. Finally, the main link that connects the two is the importance of fresh content. Google and their seemingly less noisy neighbours are stepping up the hunt to provide searchers the most relevant and rewarding results possible. Gone are the days when a simple bit of text will satisfy what the user is looking for. Nowadays consumers want to see up to the minute news, fresh imagery, clearly explained how-to guides, video demonstrations, compelling research and if they can’t find it, have their personal questions answered quick. Online marketing has evolved from the ‘Build it and they will come’ way of thinking to the ‘Build it, share it, answer it, improve it…’ and so on, philosophy. Search Engine Optimisation can only tick so many of these boxes; Social Media is required to get the best out of your online marketing mix. In summary, SEO and Social Media campaigns can compliment each other. From unique content to increased inbound links, the work you do on various Social Media will ultimately have a positive impact on your Search Engine Ranking Positions. Team Breaktheseal]]></description>
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		<title>SEO Predictions for 2011</title>
		<link>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/seo-predictions-for-2011/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=seo-predictions-for-2011</link>
		<comments>http://www.breaktheseal.co.uk/seo-predictions-for-2011/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:16:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Breaktheseal</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Blogs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localhost/breaktheseal/?p=1552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Alot happened in 2010 in the world of SEO, and there&#8217;s already been quite a few changes in 2011, so what can we expect for the remainder? Here&#8217;s our little breakdown based on what&#8217;s happened so far, our gut feeling, patterns we&#8217;ve found from testing and information gathered from all the great SEO&#8217;s out there who run some pretty awesome blogs. What to expect? Increased efforts from search engines to reduce spam across the web, especially looking at content farms and aggregators and ways to prevent them clogging up the results in order to give users a better browsing experience. Citations, reviews and user generated content are likely to be treated far more importantly. Increased interaction with search engine results, enabling users to make better and more informed decisions before actually clicking onto a website &#8211; Google instant previews was one indication of this last year, now the experimental Google Plus 1 is just further reinforcing the rise of social search. You can find more info about google plus 1 on Tom Critchlows guest post on SEOmoz. Search results will continue to be ever more personalised, due to the sheer amount of information google can collect about you, combined with them increasingly intergrating more with the social aspect of search. Google will continue giving brands added importance in their search results The use and advancement of rich snippets will continue to grow so that search results become increasingly useful for end users Conversion rate optimisation will become increasingly important as business owners want to maximise revenue from the traffic earned via their Search engine optimisation efforts. Video results integration in the search engines will increase, sites that utilise video to engage users will reap the benefit of this and become more authoritative. To anyone reading, this isn&#8217;t a list of every change that will happen in 2011, it&#8217;s a set of predictions, so don&#8217;t treat it as a full on strategy, but definitely think about using them within your current SEO efforts.]]></description>
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