Business121 Small Business Newsletter #5

In this week’s Business121:

1. How Not to Get Banned by Google
2. New Section on Bytestart.co.uk for IT Contractors & Freelancers
3. Latest News for Small Business Owners
4. Under the Thumb of Google’s Jagger Update
5. BIG discounts for small businesses

How not to get banned by Google

With so many search engine marketing techniques being employed these days, and with wildly conflicting advice available all over the web, it is well worth ensuring that you do not use any traffic building techniques that may result in Google banning your site.

Given that Google now provides the majority of Internet search traffic for all web sites, the last possible thing any small business site owner would want is to be banned from the Google index.

Although the main rule would be to create a site that caters for your audience, provides quality content and contains meta information which is faithful to your site content, you should always optimise your site code to aid in your search ranking efforts, but this should be done in moderation, and in line with the following tips.

Excessive Links

Now that so many webmasters are more obsessed with their Google PageRank than the amount of quality traffic they receive, link pages are fuller than ever. You should try not to place too many outbound links on a single page. If you do need to link to 100 or more sites, place the links on separate pages.

Link Farming

Link Farms, or Free-for-all links pages exist solely to help listed sites gain higher search engine rankings. These are bad places to be associated with and are frowned upon by the major search engines. Obviously you can't control which sites link back to you, but you can ensure that you don't link to link farms.

Cloaking

Seen by many SEO specialists as probably the thing most likely to result in a Google ban, cloaking involves creating one page designed specifically for the search engines, and another which will appear for the user. This is search engine manipulation at its worst.

Selling PageRank

Some sites have gone so far as to sell PageRank - i.e. selling links on highly ranked pages. You can sell links (i.e. advertising), but you cannot sell links for the stated purpose of increasing Google PageRank.

Doorway Pages

A few years back, doorway (or gateway) pages were as common as normal pages - these are usually small pages, crammed full of keywords, designed solely for the purpose of gaining high rankings. They usually look awful and a site which uses a lot of doorway pages is likely to be penalised.

Excessive Cross-Linking

Some webmasters create multiple sites, often with identical or similar content. They are then heavily linked together with the sole purpose of increasing PageRank. Not recommended. If you have several sites, inter-linking is fine, but in moderation as with all search engine marketing techniques.

Submitting multiple URL's from the same site

An example would be for a webmaster to submit mysite.com and mysite.com/index.html to the Google database, thereby essentially trying to get two search results for the same page. If Google doesn't find a new site quickly anyway, just submit your index page ONCE!

SEO Software

Don't use unauthorised computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate Google's terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

If you follow these guidelines and steer clear of excessive search engine marketing techniques, you should be fine. Just remember to create a site with is faithful to the product or service you are providing information on and you should be fine. Concentrate on exchanging quality links with similar sites and don't get too obsessed with your Google Pagerank. Quality, returning traffic is the goal.

For Google's webmaster guidelines, visit
http://snipurl.com/_Google_Guidelines

For loads more Google Tips, try our dedicated web promotion section on Bytestart - http://snipurl.com/_Web_Marketing_Tips

James Leckie

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New Section for IT Contractors & Freelancers on Bytestart.co.uk

We’ve added a fresh new section containing start up guides and advice for anyone thinking of entering the world of contracting/freelancing. The new articles include everything from setting up your first limited company, through to interview tips and how to write that “scorching” CV to secure your first contract.

The Bytestart team have had many years of experience of the IT contracting world (both in practice and in providing information on other internet portals). We’ll be adding plenty more content as the weeks go by, so be sure to check back for more updates. As ever, if you have any ideas or questions about setting up in business as a freelancer, or in general, please feel free to contact us.

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/contractors/index.shtml

Small Business News

Write a business plan – before you start
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The best way to show bankers, venture capitalists, and angel investors that you are worthy of financial support is to show them a great business plan. Make sure that your plan is clear, focused and realistic. Then show them that you have the tools, talent and team to make it happen. Your business plan is like your calling card, it will get you in the door where you'll have to convince investors and loan officers that you can put your plan into action.
http://snipurl.com/_Plan_to_Impress

Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme – Changes
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With sweeping changes to the Small Firms Loan Guarantee (SFLG) to be introduced later this year, businesses are being urged to examine the new eligibility criteria of the scheme.
The changes come after the Government accepted in full the recommendations set out in the Graham Review of the SFLG, which benchmarked the UK scheme against several international loan guarantee programmes and set out 38 recommendations to ensure the continuing relevance of the SFLG.
http://snipurl.com/_Loan_Scheme_Changes

Cameron the favourite candidate for top bosses
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Tory leadership contender David Cameron is the choice of big business to lead the party, according to a survey of 1200 executives attending the Leaders in London event.
http://snipurl.com/_Cameron_favourite

Paternity leave proposals could worry small employers
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The FSB has warned the government that the changes announced in the Work and Families Bill will pose particular problems for the UK’s smaller employers.
http://snipurl.com/_Paternity_Leave

IoD says interest rate cut still on the cards
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An interest rate cut in November is still likely despite rising inflation, the Institute of Directors (IoD) said last week.
http://snipurl.com/IOD_interest_cut

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Under the Thumb of Google's Jagger Update?

As many of our newsletter subscribers and visitors take a keen interest in search engine ranking changes, I thought I'd write a few words about Google's latest update, nicknamed "Jagger".

Judging by the number of forum posts and articles on this update, it seems that Google changes haven't had such an effect on the minds of webmasters and site owners since the infamous “Florida Update” in November 2003, which completely disrupted the search engine rankings of many a small business site at the time.

Unlike many of the regular Google backlink and PageRank updates, every now and then there's a much more noticeable change to Google’s ranking algorithms this could well be the case with Jagger.

According to a well-regarded SEO Blog - http://snipurl.com/_SEO_Blog

"The changes actually started with a string of back-link updates that began in early September and continued into the first week of October. Two weeks later, the information Google has in regards to links directed towards a specific website is likely different than the information it had two months ago. That is likely the cause of immediate changes to the SERPS.

The most important advice in dealing with any type of Jagger is simple; don't panic."
Although some changes will be evident to anyone with an interest in Google rankings (such as changes in ranking position for certain phrases), from past experience, things do take a week or so to settle down. What you see now, may not be the case in a few days' time.

I noted that Bytestart has been given a PageRank increase to 6, which is fantastic, but there's no guarantee that Google may not have had the final word yet, and we may go back to 5 as quickly as we went up.

Read loads more about Google here - http://snipurl.com/_Google_Tips

Bryan Jackson

BIG Discounts for Small Businesses

Our article on the ‘Business Discount Club’ in last week’s Business121 has really struck a chord with small businesses.

Judging from your feedback, finding trusted suppliers and then finding the time to negotiate the best price with these suppliers is a problem a lot of you regularly wrestle with. Thanks to LogBuy this is now something we can all permanently tick-off our to-do list.

Through LogBuy all of us small businesses can club together and with our collective muscle we can all benefit from lower prices from trusted suppliers. And, as more and more of us join the greater our purchasing power becomes and the better the prices we can all enjoy.

It’s a virtuous circle that big businesses have used to increase their profits for decades. Now it’s the time for small businesses to enjoy the benefits of ‘economies of scale’ too.

If you didn’t join last week, sign-up here now:
http://snipurl.com/_LogBuy_Join

Remember, there is no cost to join, no annual membership fee and no commitment to purchase anything. It’s an effortless way to help your - and every other - small business in the country to get a better deal.

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