It’s been another great month at Sizzle Media. The weather has been improving and we have noticed a distinct upswing in people’s willingness to invest in their businesses. Recently we have been harping on about the benefits of SEO, and more so what you can do yourself to improve your chances of getting found on Google.

One of the many little things that you can do to improve your search engine rankings, is to conduct some Internal Linking from content in your site to pages that describe the service in more detail. You will see examples of this across the Sizzle Media website whenever we want to emphasis a service we offer to Google to help us rank better.

We recently had the owner of an ecommerce website (see what we did there) approach us with site optimization problem. They already had a SEO consultant optimize their site, but they still weren’t acquiring any Keyword rankings what so ever. Did the SEO consultant ruin something? Or was it just bad luck? Whatever the problem was – they needed help, Quick! We jumped in and to my surprise the site was actually optimized very well.  The site was certainly search engine friendly. In addition, the site had an excellent amount of well written and unique content (you will surprised how rare this is for an ecommerce website). Even ‘URL structures’ and navigation were neat and. Besides, the website was indexed accurately on all the search engines, now why isn’t the site still not ranking?

Well, the SEO consultant whilst doing a fantastic job overall, had actually missed a key building block – internal linking. With proper internal linking, there is simply no reason why your site shouldn’t rank well on your set primary keywords.

Both internal and external links hold immense importance in SEO and it’s imperative that you link choice keywords to pages within your site, it really could make a massive difference, and is very easy to with a content managed website (there it is again).

Internal links should always be directed to a “target URL”.  The “target URL” will be your webpage that you would want on top of your search results. The idea is to boost up your internal site traffic, giving your visitors pathways to reach more detailed information pages; increasing movement within your site. The “Target URL” must always contain keyword-rich content and not just waffle. Goof quality content equals good quality traffic.

Using internal Linking, we helped this ecommerce website company bind pages together within sub categories, categories and product pages and the results we near instant, better search results and increased traffic. The bottom-line really is internal linking is easy and in most cases free to do and it all stacks up to an extremely powerful SEO tactic.

To find out me about our SEO services, call Sizzle Media on 0161 820 8577

Here we go again. Our first dusting of snow has landed on planet Manchester, causing travel disruptions and delays pretty much across our entire lives. The one thing you should be able to rely on is your business website. It doesn’t have bad weather problems, illness, mood swings and bad hair days to contend with, nor does it sleep and ask for days off. It’s probably your most efficient and cost effective business asset if looked after and nurtured.

Making your website is as effective as possible should be a business priority. Always consider how your website can be improved and what can be done to keep your site up and running, generating enquiries and sales, especially if you have an ecommerce website with the busiest shopping season rapidly approaching!

1. Update your content. As online traffic increases during the festive season, people will spend more time looking for bargains and looking past the first page of search engine results. It’s important that when they do find your ecommerce website that the latest news item isn’t from June 2009. Make sure your content is updated and relevant to your business.

2. Special Offers. Now that you have a buyers attention; you need to entice them and encourage them to purchase something. There is little use of reducing the price of a product that cannot be found quickly. Add a seasonal graphic that promotes your special offers and allows your visitor to click through to the page to find more detailed information.

3. Cross Promotion. Many an ecommerce website is guilty of using festive seasons to try and flog everything from the homepage, therefore confusing your customer by giving them too much to choose from too quickly. If you have a great offer on, use that product page to draw visitors attention to other products that they may be interested in. For example, if your website sells children’s designer jeans, on the same page you might want to present offers you have on knitwear, woolly hats, gloves etc. Take your visitor through a shopping experience, like visiting a real shop they may well need several items.

4. Data Capture. Now that you have made a sale, be sure you send a confirmation email to your new customer thanking them for their business. Don’t underestimate the value of this customer and be sure to add them to your database for when you have new special offers on your ecommerce website, and when the next special day or season arrives, and there are plenty throughout the year, you can send an email promoting you new offers and directing them to specific products on your website. Make sure you give the recipient the opportunity to unsubscribe from your email newsletter or it may be reported as a spam email, and don’t overdo it.

If your website is out of date or not generating any business for you, contact Sizzle Media website design Manchester today on 0161 820 8577 and let’s get your website updated and ready for business.

Sam Aston has captured the hearts of millions as Coronation Street's cheeky schoolboy Chesney Battersby-Brown. And the Haslingden High School pupil has scooped several major awards since his debut and is now turning his hand to business. Sam with the help of his brother and father Richard Aston have their sights set on developing a branded merchandise business.

Having been in discussions with Sizzle Media for over 12 months as to what direction the Aston’s would like try their hand in business, due to Sam’s  busy schedule the family decided that promotional merchandise would be a good starting point that everyone good get involved in without overtaking their current careers.

Sizzle Media's eCommerce web design services have become increasingly popular during the recession as more and more people try their hand at business online.

For a very low investment, anyone can start their own online business whether promoting your own business services. Sizzle Media’s ecommerce websites are built on our award winning LAVA platform, allowing clients to manage their products, promote their site online and offer clients exclusive deals.