April 2011 - Newsletter

Hi guys,

Hope you've had a great few weeks since our last update. We've put together another issue packed with lots of info - this time on search engine optimisation (SEO).

We also wanted to let you know about a highly valuable seminar on how to attract more customers, which will be run in conjunction with Action International's business coach Marti Amos. It's a great seminar that will empower you with a ton of practical information that you can implement on your business straight away. It will be held in Auckland on 29th of April - if you think you might be in the area around the time, check out the flyer for more information. We also managed to negotiate a fantastic ticket price for Zeald clients only - hope you are able to make it. :-)

For a full list of topics, check out the contents below and hope you enjoy the read!

What is SEO and how does it work?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the way you layout your website and content so that it can be found and indexed by search engines robots. When your website is optimised for the right search phrases, search engines will be able to give you a high ranking in the search results.

Why is this important? Studies show that 95% of NZ adult Internet users research goods and services online before making a purchase. This means that people are spending a lot more time online looking for information on products, and if your website is not seen in the first couple of pages in the search results, you could be missing out on valuable business.

In order to improve your ranking, it helps to understand how Google works. Read our article on how Google ranks sites in search results.

SEO and Zeald sites

While we're on the subject, we thought we'd take this opportunity to explain how the Zeald websites are built - in relation to SEO. There seem to be a few false rumours floating around the place about how Zeald sites don't allow search robots to find any other pages besides the homepage. This couldn't be further from the truth.

In order to block the robots, we'd have to put in special bit of code to prevent them from indexing all your other pages. We would only do this if we had a specific request from a client to do so.

In fact, we do everything we can to build websites that are highly search engine friendly:

  • We work with one of the top SEO companies, Aplus to make sure that the Zeald product is highly search engine friendly.
  • During the production stages we encourage all our clients to submit their site maps to Google so it becomes easier for the robots to find all the pages on your site.
  • We usually send out an email about this along with a link to our help file on how to submit a site map.
  • We request that all the links on your site that point to other pages are done through text rather than image. This is because when you use a bit of text to link a page, the robots can find it easier than when you use images.

We hope this eliminates any doubts you might have about our product. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to drop us a line. Thanks!

We hope you enjoyed the read. If you have any feedback for us, don't forget to post it in our Online Help - we love hearing from you! If you have any friends or colleagues who could use our help, please do let us know, and don't forget to check out our Friends & Supporters Club!

Thanks and hope you have a great week,

The Team at Zeald