Does Google actually care where your web site is hosted? Do they care which domain extension your using? People often ask these questions and I think it’s time for some answers. You can also find further SEO tips and information within our forums where I will be working as hard as I can to keep you updated with the latest tricks of the trade.

Google and your hosting provider

Today Google is using geo-targetting more and more within its index, meaning your search engine position will be effected by the location of your web sites IP address. Some argue that this has a marginal effect, personally I think it can have a broader effect. Either way it should be taken into consideration, especially when there is a competitive market for your chosen search terms. Being a UK hosting provider we would actually recommend that all non UK websites go with hosting company’s that are local to them as this will give them a local IP to aid there SEO efforts.. Of course we would also recommend that any UK based sites host with us which will give them a Nottingham based IP.

Domain extentions and Google

I would always recommend to our customers that you purchase a geographic domain name. For example, if you are setting up a UK based web site you should purchase  UK domain such as .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk etc.

Ok, so you are a new blogger finding out ways to increase your traffic? You need to have good content and equally good patience to get some good traffic going to your blog.

I personally feel that search engines are one of the best ways to get visitors to your site. And what better site than google?

You might be aware of Google’s Blog Search . You can search up whats being churned out all over the blogosphere at Google Blog search. Do a search for your site and if it doesn’t turn up then click here to add your site to Google Blog Search.

I have recently been reading up on the top ways to build your domains trust with Google. Why? Because Google ranks websites based heavily on the ‘trust’ value that your web site has. There are a number of factors that Google is known to use to determine your web sites trust, some you can influence, and others that you can not influence as they are beyond anyone’s control.  A prime example of something that you can influence would be to register your domain name for longer than 1 year at a time. Google sees longer registrations as a commitment to your domain name/web site.  Spammers often register and drop domains, using them for only a year at a time, so Google knows that this is a trend. Another way you can influence Googles trust in your web site is to contact web site owners within your demographic, if you have a web site about boots, find other web sites that talk about boots (preferably well known sites or sites that appear high in Google) and politely ask them to link to you, offering them a link back in return.

What you can not influence

Google knows how old your domain name is, if its ‘young’ it will be more difficult to rank high in the search results. This can obviously only change naturally with time.

So you need some keywords? To find out which keywords are hot and which one arnt you need to visit a web site called SEO Book. They have a keyword checker where you can enter any keyword you want and it will then tell you exacly how many searches are being made for all of the keyword terms surrounding the one that you entered. Using this tool you can easily target the keywords with the most traffic.  However i would suggest that you try to target the lower traffic terms as they will be easier to obtain results from.

Visit SEO Book today @ http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

Preparing your web site for the big search engines can seem daunting, your constantly told that you need to be in Google to stand any chance of receiving visitors but how does it all work? What does Google want you to do?! In this article i will outline the very basic requirements that Google and other top search engines expect from you. This will at least get you started on the road to success.

Page title

Your web page title is the most important part of your site.  Think of of your web page as a word document that you have wrote about a specific subject. The title tells the reader what the letter is about before they read it. Google reads your web site in exactly the same way, and your title tells Google what your web page is all about. 

Example <title>UK Web Hosting Services, Domain Registration</title>

In the above example, our title is short and sweet, tells the user that we offer UK based web hosting services and domain registration. Its best not to include stop words like it, and, is, etc.. just include the words your looking to target. If your using multiple words use a wild card like | or full stop between your words.

Meta tags

After your title, there are some basic meta tags that should be present within your web sites <head> tags, these are <keywords> and <description>.  Below is an example of how your overall head tag should look.

<head>
<title>UK Web Hosting Services, Domain Registration</title>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”uk web hosting, domain registration” />
<meta name=”description” content=”Quality UK web hosting and domain registration services.” />
</head>

When you have these tags in place, remember to keep your web sites content relevant. For example, don’t use the keyword plumbing when your web site is all about shoes!

Follow these rules and your web site should at least rank somewhere in Google for your chosen keywords. Just remenber to add new content as often as possible, this feeds Google and it loves new and fresh content!