For the purpose of this article we’ll use the example of a fictional plumbing & heating company in Edinburgh called EaziPlumb.

Meta Title

What is it? The meta title appears at the top of your browser window and as the heading on the search engine results.

Bad Meta Title: Welcome to EaziPlumb

Good Meta Title: Plumbing Edinburgh | Heating Engineers | EaziPlumb

Tip: Use the most relevant keywords at the start of your meta title.

Meta Description

What is it? The meta description is not visible on your website but is used by the search engines as the two lines of text under your meta title and is displayed in the search engine results.

Bad Meta Description: Plumbers Edinburgh, central Heating Edinburgh, Plumbing in Edinburgh, Plumbers Midlothian, Cheap Plumbers, Affordable Plumbers Edinburgh.

Good Meta Description: EaziPlumb are the reliable choice for plumbing and central heating installation and repairs in Edinburgh. No call out charge, contact us now.

Tip: Your meta description should read as a proper sentence and try to encourage people to click through to your site. It should also contain any relevant keywords e.g. plumbing Edinburgh

H Tags

What are they? H Tags are basically your main headings and sub headings within the text ion your website. If they are coded as H1, H2 tags etc they carry more weight with the search engines. Your main heading should be coded as an H1 tag on each web page.

Bad H Tag: Welcome to Our Website

Good H Tag: Plumbing Edinburgh – How to Save Money & Time

Tip: It’s best to put your keywords at the start of your H tags where possible for SEO purposes.

Anchor text links

What are they? Anchor text links are the descriptive text you use to link from one page on your website to another.

Bad anchor text link: contact us

Good anchor text link: contact our Edinburgh Plumbers

Tip: Using a relevant keyword or phrase within your anchor text links carries more weight with the search engines rather than general terms like “click here”.

Alt Tags

What are they? Alt tags are alternative text for images that people with sight problems using a screen reader will hear.

Bad alt tag: image1.jpg

Good alt tag: One of our Edinburgh Plumbers

Tip: Your alt tags should be descriptive and include relevant keywords if appropriate.

So there you have it, our quick guide to online copywriting basics for SEO. If you have any questions please leave them in the comments box below and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Read our 11 things to avoid doing on Twitter below.

• Don’t give a running commentary on your personal life

You’ve probably heard people say Twitter is 50% social, 50% business. Bear this in mind when posting your Tweets because your colleagues, clients etc probably don’t care that you’re having pizza for tea or are about to run a bath.

• Don’t swear

This should be pretty obvious but a lot of Twitter users swear happily and don’t seem to care their customers and suppliers can read what they’re saying. What impression would your biggest customer get if they read something like “I f***ing hate Monday mornings” on your Twitter profile?

• Don’t try the hard sell

Remember it’s called Social Media for a reason. Nobody wants to hear sales message after sales message from you. Get to know people and build up an online community rather than just trying to make money all the time.

• Don’t use automated messages

Social Media is about having a conversation online. Don’t send an automated message to people when you could write a more personal one.

• Don’t automatically follow everyone who follows you

When someone follows you have a look at their profile and see if what they tweet about is relevant or interesting to you. Why clog up your life with stuff you don’t want to read?

• Don’t criticise your clients or employer

Again, you’d think this was just common sense but if you’ve got a lot of Twitter followers you may forget that client/boss you’ve just ranted about is actually able to read what you’ve just said about them.

• Don’t hide behind a company logo

Twitter is a social platform, so don’t get all corporate and hide behind your company logo. People buy from people as they say, so get a picture of yourself on there.

• Don’t ignore mentions of your company name

If anyone posts something positive or negative about your business on Twitter don’t just ignore it. Twitter is about interacting with people and thanking them for praise and dealing with complaints in a professional and timely manner will show that you care.

• Don’t ignore your competitors

Following your competitors on Twitter is a great way of getting to know them better and what makes them tick. By building up a friendly relationship with your competitors they may pass you work when they are over capacity or be able to help you out when you’re too busy.

• Don’t forget Twitter is now indexed by Google in real time

It’s not just your followers who will be able to see what you’re Tweeting about. Unless you protect your tweets they may be indexed by Google and displayed in the search engine results too.

It’s maybe not such a good idea then to have a go at one of your competitors on Twitter thinking they’ll never read it.

• Don’t forget to do some ‘real’ work

Twitter can become very addictive and before you know it you may have spent a couple of hours or more on it without doing any work.

It’s important to remember that Twitter is just one part of your overall social media and online strategy so don’t let it detract from you getting on with running your business or doing your job.

Nobody can guarantee SEO results

There are SEO companies out there who ‘guarantee’ to get you to number 1 on Google for certain keywords and phrases related to your business.

The truth is nobody can guarantee this as the search engine rankings are based on a complicated algorithm that is constantly being modified and updated.

SEO is an ongoing process

Even if you achieve your desired position in the search engine results you should never stop the SEO process.

The simple reason for this is that virtually every sector is now highly competitive online. If you stop doing what got you well ranked in the first place, the chances are your competitors will gradually overtake you.

Regular and relevant content is important

Your website should always be a work in progress in terms of content. It’s widely known that Google places value on regular and relevant content when calculating a site’s ranking.

If you leave your site to go stale then you’re missing an opportunity to increase traffic to your site and improve your search engine rankings for particular keywords and phrases.

Quality matters when it comes to incoming links

Links from other sites to yours are a major part of SEO. The mistake many people make (and a tactic a lot of rubbish SEO Companies use) is to just try and generate as many incoming links as possible whether they’re relevant or not.

For example, if you’re a shoe shop in Manchester with a website, the search engines will place more value on a few high quality relevant links from shoe manufacturers than on hundreds of links from directory sites filled with listings for cheap Viagra and other unrelated products.

Keyword density is dead

Many moons ago when SEO was still in its infancy, keyword density (stuffing your chosen keyword or phrase into your website text as often as possible) like the example below was all the rage;

“Welcome to Smith & Associated Dentists in Manchester. We are one of the oldest dentists in Manchester, so if you’re looking for a new dentists in Manchester, choose us because we’re the dentists in Manchester to put a smile back on your face.”

While this used to have a significant impact on search engine results, it soon became frowned upon as it was an easy way to get ranked and completely destroyed the art of writing good content that was relevant and interesting to read.

Keywords still have their place in SEO but a reputable company will know where to use them rather than cramming them in at every available opportunity.

That concludes our 5 quick SEO facts, if you’d like us to share a few more, please leave a comment below.

There are many ways in which writing regular news stories can help you sell more online and we’ll go into these in a minute.

First of all, I’d like you to think about shop window displays. How often do retailers change their window displays? Why do they change them so often?

Your website is your shop window and it pays to keep it fresh with relevant news stories for the reasons below;

Keep people coming back

If you owned a conventional High Street shop and never had any new stock or fresh items to keep people coming back, you’d probably go out of business.

People may well be interested in the products or service you’re selling via your website but they may not be in a position to buy just yet.

Writing regular news stories about what’s happening in your business, changes to your product lines and new services will encourage people to keep coming back.

If you walked past a fashion store in January and then again in July and they had exactly the same shop window, would that encourage you to go in and buy something?

Make your business more visible

When you’ve got a website you’ll have much more competition than you would with a conventional shop in a High Street location. Therefore it’s critical that you make your business as visible as possible to people who are looking for what you’re selling.

Regular content such as news stories and blog posts play a part in achieving higher search engine rankings (if optimised properly) which in turn can make your website more visible to your target market.

Use your web content to sell the savvy way

With the average person being exposed to hundreds if not thousands of different advertising messages every day of their life, it pays to get savvy with your news stories.

Nobody wants to read a news story that’s just about how many orders you’ve had in a particular month or trying to hard-sell a particular product or service.

Before adding a news story to your website always ask yourself “what’s in it for the reader?” Is there anything of value such as expert hints or tips or a way for them to save money?

You should also use your news stories to communicate your industry knowledge and expertise which in turn could lead to more sales.

If done properly a news story becomes a clever advert for what your business stands for and what you’re selling.

Creating web content in the form of just one news story per week gives you 52 opportunities a year to sell your products or services the savvy way.

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Simple websites from Solutions Four work.

When we say simple we mean clear, easy to navigate, well written and effective.

Think about it;

• Does your website have to be complex to achieve results for your business?
• Why pay for a whole host of coding and design features that you don’t need?
• Spending big on a complex website for your business could end up alienating your customers

A fresh, results-driven website requires a lot of hard work and using our proven techniques, the end result will deliver in the following areas;

• Design – clear & vibrant to portray a professional image
• Development – simple navigation and site structure
• SEO – on and off page optimisation to get your site found online
• Copy – words that really push your products/services and get sales

Your finished website may be simple but critically it will also be effective.

Call now on 01767 687 646 for a straight forward, jargon-free chat.

Solutions Four are an ethical business. After discussing your website needs, we will suggest exactly what you need rather than adding a whole host of additional features that are nothing more than window dressing.

Internet users like simple websites

With internet users deciding whether they like a site or not in around 6 seconds, a simple website will get your message across quickly and clearly.

Why pay more for an all-singing all-dancing website that people find confusing?

All of our websites are designed, developed, optimised and written with results in mind.

The hard work and expertise we put into every website is worth it and in the words of Leonardo da Vinci “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

Call us now  on 01767 687 646 for a no-obligation chat about your new website.

The following 10 points give an ideal introduction into how to write effective online copy to help maximise your sales.

• Is your main headline attention grabbing?
• Does your copy mention the benefits of buying your products or services? i.e. what’s in it for the person viewing your site?
• Are your benefits clear and unique or vague and general?
• Is your text lively and interesting?
• Have you laid out your text with interesting sub headings and bullet points?
• Are your sentences short and to the point?
• Is your text likely to persuade people to buy your product or service?
• Is your website copy written in a conversational way?
• Do you have a call to action? e.g. “Buy your new gizmo online now”
• Is your text relevant to what people are looking for?

This list is by no means comprehensive but will point you in the right direction if you plan on writing your web copy yourself.

So here are 5 useful tips to help market your restaurant in the right way;

Don’t be afraid to up-sell – Something as simple as telling diners about your fantastic starter specials for example, rather than just asking if they want a starter or not can make a big difference to your sales. Recommending a good wine to go with the meal also gives you the opportunity to up-sell and show customers you’re knowledgeable about your dishes.

Never just advertise as a one-off – It’s generally accepted that people need to see a piece of promotional material about 6 to 7 times before they really take notice of it. So don’t get disheartened if your adverts or flyers don’t get a response right away; persevere with it and you’ll reap the benefits.

Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback – When you’re involved in the day-to-day running of your restaurant it can be easy to miss something glaringly obvious that you’re doing wrong. Ask your diners to complete a short feedback form with the incentive of a prize and leave a box at the door for their comments. You can use the positive comments as testimonials and the bad ones as ideas on how to improve.

Take your restaurant for a walk – If people aren’t coming to you, then you should go to the people. Setting up a stall in your local market or taking samples of your food to busy nearby shopping areas will really help to improve your trade and let people meet the personality behind the restaurant.

Write a newspaper column – There’s such a huge interest in all things food at the moment, so why not approach your local newspaper and offer to write a column in return for a free mention of your restaurant? Things like recipe ideas always go down well and by being perceived as an expert in your field, you’ll soon find people will want to come and eat at your restaurant.

The worst thing you can do as a restaurant owner is nothing.

If you don’t continually try to promote and market your restaurant, you will lose business to the restaurants in your area that are being proactive.

If you’re not sure where to start, contact us today and we’ll devise a restaurant marketing plan that works for you.

With the internet being more popular than ever, launching an online presence for your business is critical to its success, whether you’re selling products or providing a service.

At Solutions Four we understand that many new companies don’t have a big budget to spend on a website which is why we’ve created a fixed price CMS web package on our new site www.minifour.co.uk

Grow your business at your own pace

The last thing you want to do when you start your own business is to overstretch yourself financially.

Our Mini Four website package is perfect for start-ups and small businesses who want an affordable and professional online image without breaking the bank.

If your company develops and expands over time and you outgrow your Mini Four site, we can use our wealth of web and marketing knowledge to provide you with a new site that reflects where your company is and where it’s going.

Solutions Four always look to develop long term partnerships with their clients and our Mini Four customers will be no different.

Why Choose Mini Four?

• Fixed price package means you know what you’ll be spending
• Years of expertise in CMS web design and promotion
• You can update your CMS site yourself instantly and at no extra cost
• Our web package is comprehensive and provides everything you’ll need
• Speed – your new site can be up and running within 7 days

To discover more details on cost and what you’ll receive for your money, go over to www.minifour.co.uk.

However, it’s common knowledge that Google likes unique, fresh and relevant content on websites and this can play a part in improving your search engine rankings if done properly.

Why? It demonstrates to Google and visitors to your site that you’re active, serious about your business and provide interesting content that’s relevant to what people are searching for.

Content Do’s and Don’ts

Things you should do:

• Research the most relevant keywords related to what your site is about
• Write regular and interesting blogs & news stories based around these keywords
• Write with your target audience in mind and keep every article relevant
• If you don’t have the time to write or can’t do it yourself, hire a copywriter

Things you shouldn’t do:

• Copy someone else’s article word for word and put it on your site
• Keep your site fresh for a week or so and then lose interest
• Stuff your articles with the same keyword or phrase over and over again
• Write long winded and hard to read articles that never get to the point

Content & SEO Summary

If you put the effort in and write regular, fresh and relevant content based on a well researched keyword strategy you’re on the right track to improving your search engine rankings.

There are many free keyword research tools available, including Google’s which will help you identify the most relevant phrases you want to target.

Remember that content is only one aspect of an overall SEO strategy but it does play a big part and if you put the effort in, you will reap the rewards.