5 SEO predictions for 2014

We’re always trying to predict what the search engines and social networks are going to do next in order for our 3,000+ clients to stay ahead of the game. Here are our tips for 2014.

1. More emphasis on social signals. The curve started in 2013 and we feel that social signals are going to become progressively important during 2014. At the moment, the more likes / follows you have the better. What we’re starting to see are the quality of your likes / follows making a difference. A little bit like the evolution of back link quality we are now seeing this with like and follow quality.

2. Facebook’s slide? There are some early signs that Facebook maybe on the slide. Their user base under the age of 18 is declining. Maybe 2014 will be a year for a new social network to shine.

3. On-site content. Quality not quantity. Our feeling is that press releases are a waste of time unless you are press releasing for the right reason. If you really do have some news then a press release is great but the days of press releasing in order to build relevant backlinks are over. These are not being taken in to account as much by the search engines.

4. Conversational backlinks. The search engines what to rank sites higher that people are talking about. Therefore, links that are embedded in to forum / blog conversation are being treated as high quality and we’re seeing really good results when links are built in this way. It’s also very organic as long as the link is relevant to the conversation. This is now our rapid backlinks are built.

5. Discount based search engines. It may sound like a plug for connect but we do feel that discount based search engines, where the ranking is based on the level of discount and loyalty that a user shows to the community, will start to take off more in 2014. Why wouldn’t you search where you get the best deal first?

So, there our tips for 2014! Let’s see if we’re right.

From all the team at Click Submit, have a fantastic new year's eve and a profitable 2014!

A time for giving!

Instead of sending Christmas cards, this year we decided to donate the money to Macclesfield Childrens Hospital. Yesterday a donation of £1,000 was made to the hospital. It was greatly received and we couldn't have done it without all of our fantastic clients!

Here's to a relaxing Christmas and productive 2014!

317,174 likes and follows exchanged!

You may already be aware that we publish all of our system stats. We believe in transparency and therefore publish and refresh our site wide stats on a 24 hour basis.

Over the coming months we have decided to use the blog to go a little more in-depth on each of these stats, starting with the number of likes and follows exchanged via our like to follow system.

This statistic shows how many times our users (that are opted in to like to follow) have liked and followed each other via Twitter and Facebook. When we first started reporting these stats we were blown away. We knew that it was a popular system but had no idea how popular it had become.

Since launch our cients have exchanged over 317,000 likes and follows with over 1,000 now being exchanged everyday!

The key to its popularity is the way it's offered. You don't have to like and follow everyone. You choose to like and follow, or remove a site from the list. This means the system does not breach any of the rules set by Facebook / Twitter in the way you gain likes and follows. That means the likes and follows are highly regarded because they are from other vibrant socially active businesses and individuals, and the best bit...

Like to follow is included for free as part of our core SEO product.

Backlink update for 2014

We often get asked, what is a good backlink and how can I avoid bad links?

The answer to this is easy. A good link is one that gets indexed and a bad link is one that does not.

There are two things we know for sure:

1. A good link will improve your ranking.
2. A bad link will not harm your ranking.

We blogged about the misconception of a bad link back in April and we have certainly seen what we thought was happening happen. So let’s look at what Google say in their webmaster guidelines.

“In some circumstances, incoming links can affect Google’s opinion of a page or site. First and foremost, we recommend that you remove as many spammy or low-quality links from the web as possible."

What's interesting is how none committal Google are when it comes to the affect that bad links will have (see where we have marked the test red). Our believe is that they are creating a hysteria surrounding links in order to convince people that link building should not be done and any links you have built should be removed.

What we know is that backlinks are still the most important off-site factor when it comes to ranking. We also know that Google uses a robot to find and index these links. So, with current technology it would be so hard for Google to decipher whether a backlink is bad or not, they could make a guess but this is not something that they would be able to rank people lower on. Also, if bad links lowered ranking there would be a whole industry of bad link building to competitor’s websites and Google could not allow that.

So in the words of Ferris Beulah “we’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again” a bad link will not lower your ranking, it just won’t move it higher.

Our core SEO product fuses perfectly the important on-site work with a low frequency manual link building strategy that will give your site the maximum ranking benefit without any chance of being penalised by any search engine.

Twitter Ads. Live update!

So, Twitter has today rolled out a new advertising platform allowing advertisers to connect with potential new clients via their network.

In their e-mail to user they stated:

Watch your business take off. Twitter Ads gives you the power to:

Increase followers
Target your messaging
Reach wider audiences

Sounds great, doesn't it? It is.

...But is it?

We like to test any new advertising platform early in order to assess if it's worth adding as a managed feature to our existing product range. In the past we tested Facebook Ads. The results were pretty poor and as a result we decided to shelve any roll out of managed Facebook advertising services. We only want to offer our clients products that we feel can really have an impact. We felt that Facebook Ads were only good for generating more "likes" but then our unique like to follow product does this already, and it's free!

So, what about Twitter Ads?

We launched a campaign this morning. We created 3 campaigns targeting potential SEO resellers and also direct SEO clients. We only targeted the UK and selected to only target users on laptops or PCs. Initial results have been fairly positive. Here are the stats across all 3 campaigns:

Number of impressions: 6,325
Number of engaments (clicks or follows): 70
Total spend: £50

Do we recommend it?

It's very early days but so far the results are pretty good and it's not too expensive. The question though long term will be, does the traffic convert? We intend to test this further over the next 14 days and then make a decision on whether to offer this to our clients.

We hope that this offers you an insight in to this brand new roll out from Twitter and also the diligence we apply to any new advertising platform before we offer it across to our clients.

Home is NOT where your site lives!

Over the last few months we conducted a survey and amazingly 22.2% of our last 500 new client’s home pages had the page title of just the word “home”. Now, on the basis that there are over 650 million websites online, this means that roughly 143 million websites have the page title “home” on their index page, making the word “home” probably the most competitive keyword on Google!

Imagine if the search results on Google looked like this...




The beauty of our core SEO product is we miss nothing. Whether it’s a basic on-site error that takes you a few minutes to fix (see the SEO analyser), or complex link building that we conduct on your behalf, you know that your site has the best chance of success with us managing the process.

We use techniques developed over years with the emphasis on assisting the search engines to find your website and appreciate its relevance, which is a technique fully endorsed by Google themselves.

Funny SEO email!

Check out this hilarious e-mail that someone from Google HQ received. It's 100% authentic because the head Google’s webspam team, Matt Cutts, blogged about it!


I was on your website www.google.com and wanted to shoot you a quick note. I think I can make a few changes (aesthetically and/or SEO – wise) to make your site convert more visitors into leads and to get it placed higher in the organic search results, for a few of the select terms.

This is NOT like one of those foreign emails you probably get in your inbox every day. Just to be upfront I have 3 agents that work with me for development /SEO.

I would just need to know which (if not both) services you’re open to checking out information about, either web design or SEO. Would you be open to seeing more brief info / quote for what I would like to accomplish?

Regards,
XXXXXX XXXXX


At Click Submit we've honestly never made a cold sales call / e-mail. Our philosophy has always been to focus on innovation, support and keeping the price right, which thankfully means people come to us directly. We are however yet to get a direct call from Google needing help!!!

Breaking news. Google intensify EMD update.

This morning we're seeing a trend across our client base of over 2,500 SEO campaigns.

Any of our clients with exact match domains are seeing fairly dramatic falls in their ranking. On the flip side we are also seeing a trend of our clients with non exact match domains seeing good ranking improvements as Google further levels the playing field on descriptive domains and put more emphasis on content / high PR backlinks.

Although this is an annoying update for anyone with an exact match domain, we do welcome this change. It only seems fair when exact match domains are impossible to get hold of (unless you can afford to buy one on the resell market) that Google focuses more on what people have on their website and how relevant the general internet population feel it is with backlinks.

If you're an existing client and have any questions or concerns relating to this update then please get in touch.

Google launches its latest "Hummingbird" algorithm

Google have secretly launched its latest "Hummingbird" algorithm in a bid to keep pace with the evolution of internet usage, Amit Singhal, senior vice president, said.

Google is describing it as the most dramatic alteration to its search engine since it revised the way it indexes websites three years ago.

As search queries get more complicated, traditional keyword-based systems begin deteriorating because of the need to match concepts and meanings in addition to words.

Mr Singhal, writing in a separate blog post, said: "Remember what it was like to search in 1998? You'd sit down and boot up your bulky computer dial up on your squawky modem, type in some keywords, and get 10 blue links to websites that had those words.

"The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket."

"Hummingbird" is the company's effort to match the meaning of queries with that of documents on the internet, said Mr Singhal from the Menlo Park garage where Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin conceived their now-ubiquitous search engine.









Once again “Hummingbird” confirms that we have been on the right track for some time. Over a year ago we released our unique search term checker where you can enter a search term in order to check its impact time frame. This works by looking at many elements of a search term but one key element it checks is the length and how specific a search term is in order to get faster more targeted results.

Our search term checker is available on the home page and sign page of the site.

Over 1,000 connections and counting!

We’re very excited to announce that since the launch of Connect just a month ago there have been over a thousand connections between our clients.

Our commitment is to add value to our core SEO product or in other words, develop new unique products at no additional cost to our clients and connect is another example of this, a zero cost product driving more business to our clients!

For more information about connect check out the video:

Get connected!

The ultimate networking event has arrived!

We are super excited to announce the launch of our very own business networking solution. Connect is a unique concept, born from evolution of Click Submit and included free as part of our core SEO product. All of our customers have one common goal; to make their business succeed. So we decided to allow our customers to connect with each other for mutual benefit. Although anyone can search the database, only our paying clients can connect, so you know that there are no time wasters. We also reward loyalty, so the longer you’ve been a client the higher up the rankings you‘ll appear.



If you decide to opt in to Connect we ask you to make one simple commitment. You commit to search Connect before searching any of the major search engines, and If you can’t maintain this promise then you can opt out anytime. Don’t worry, if connect doesn’t return any results it will give you the option to search Google anyway.

You can also offer a percentage discount which is exclusive to people who find you through connect. Yet another reason to search connect before the major search engines.

Our commitment is to add value to our core SEO product or in other words, develop new unique products at no additional cost to you. If you have any further questions about this or any of our other products please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Check out our new music video!

We're really excited to announce the launch of our very own music video. If you like it please share it via Facebook, twitter or e-mail!

Latest Penguin Update

In April, we wrote a blog discussing Google’s forthcoming Penguin update, and a couple of weeks ago their algorithm changed and altered how search results are now ranked, indexed & filtered. Google’s main aim has always been to provide a quality user experience and gain long term loyalty by providing the best and most relevant search results, and so far they have had phenomenal success in doing so. Therefore, the recent update has intended to further fulfil their aim. In this instance, there has been a major emphasis placed on having a user friendly and well designed website. In a video posted by Matt Cutts, he asks for us to ‘think of the user experience’ and consider ‘what makes it compelling, what makes it interesting and what makes it fun!’.



Never before have Google focused so heavily on on site content, so here at Click Submit, our exclusive on site analyser has proved a vital tool that offers advice on how to optimize your website and make it both user, and search engine friendly. We will also analyse your descriptions, page title, robot txt file, URL relevance, image ALT tags, meta tags, body content, and create a report summarizing our findings, which will be downloadable from your control panel within 24 hours of sign up. These reports are refreshed every three months and prove very useful for our existing clients.

Also in the video, Cutts explains that social media is an important focal point for SEO, and the need to have presence through sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, is increasingly crucial. Our unique Like To Follow strategy, which is free with our core SEO package, is a simple system that allows you to benefit from high quality likes on Facebook and follows on Twitter. Thus helping you appear more popular and relevant to the search engines.

Cutt’s also highlights that many SEO companies spend too much of their time building backlinks. A common question from an SEO client is always, ‘how can I build more backlinks’ and it’s important to clarify that although backlinks are an essential part of SEO, it is only one important factor among a multitude of others. As touched upon in our previous blog on backlinks, we build ours at a steady pace, and ensure that each link is categorised and therefore, specific to your business/ industry.

Our balance between building backlinks at a steady pace, working with social media, and making sure that our clients know exactly how to develop their websites properly, has worked very successfully. With over 2,500 clients, 5 stars on Google, and a ton of raving reviews on independant site such as trustpilot, we’re confident that our strategy works. Whilst ever we continue to assist Google, we will maintain a bunch of happy clients. If you’re reading this, and you’re not one, you really ought to be!!

The great misconception of a "bad backlink"

A topic that seems to be coming up for discussion more and more are bad back links and their impact on a websites google ranking. In this article I want to offer some clarity on what we are seeing across our existing 2,500 clients and what we also hear every day from potential new clients.

Firstly, I want to clear up the misconception.

There's no such thing as a back link that will move you down the Google rankings, there are just links that will not be recognised by the search engines. So bad links will never move you down the rankings they just won’t move you up!

So why, I hear you ask, did some websites rankings drop when Google made their latest penguin update?

Simple, this is because lots of back links were suddenly not being recognised and therefore some websites rankings dropped as a result. To further clarify this is the fact that backlinks are out of a webmasters control. For example, anyone could build a backlink to www.clicksubmit.co.uk. So, if bad links can move a websites ranking lower then everyone would be building bad links to their competitor’s sites.

Our belief at Click Submit is that a slow and careful link building strategy is the order of the day. We will request around 300 links to be built to your site over a 3 month period with the aim of getting around 150 to 200 recognised by the search engines. When you combine this with the crucial on-site changes that we recommend after sign up, in order to make your website 100% relevant to your search terms, we are seeing great results. Our numbers speak for themselves. We have over 2,500 clients and not one contract. Our Clients only continue to subscribe to our service because our strategy more often than not works!

If you have found this useful please share it via Facebook, twitter or e-mail.

Thanks for reading!

Google's latest update and why we're one step ahead

Only recently, Google’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts explained that there will be a massive update to Penguin sometime this year. The word ‘Penguin’ is likely to be a familiar term to a number of you and also something many will be concerned about or have previously been affected by.

How can an update named after such a cute creature have the potential to bring chaos and detrimental destruction to my websites ranking, I hear you say. Well, the purpose of the Penguin update is to 'demote sites that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines' such as sites that use negative manipulative ‘black hat’ techniques to improve their rankings. These would include unnatural links, links from automated link content, links created using duplicate content and so forth. However, the great news is that here at ClickSubmit we have never, ever.... ever had one of our clients blacklisted by the search engines and are confident that this will remain the case for the next update because of our White Hat guarantee.

Image by birdsinhats.blogspot.com

For every enquiry we receive the question ‘how long will it take before I reach page one of Google?’ is usually asked. It is for this reason that many companies often feel under pressure to apply black hat techniques in order to get certain sites to the top of Google as quickly as possible. But these techniques will not keep you near the top for long. SEO takes time and the only way to get to the top is by helping the search engines, not cheating them.

We develop a mixed portfolio of links that are placed across the right sites at the right pace in order to maximize the benefits of SEO without any chance of blacklisting. Google’s goal is to give the best possible search results and we are simply co-operating and assisting their aim to help people find what they’re looking for. As Cutts himself said, ‘There are many, many valid ways that people can make the world better with SEO.’ The key is to find a trustworthy and transparent company, which is why we at ClickSubmit developed our control panel and write quarterly reports so that our clients can see exactly what links are being built to their site whenever they like.



Matt Cutts explaining that white hat SEO can be of great benefit

There is reason to believe that the major penguin update will either expand beyond spam, or broaden the definition of it in order to improve search quality. So to all who may come across this blog make sure that the links you are building indicate ‘popularity, shareability and authority’. Make sure the techniques you are using are white hat, or sign up with us to ensure that your link building is done productively, positively and correctly.

See our 3 step SEO strategy.