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Does web hosting affect Search Engine Optimisation?

September 2, 2008

Apparently it does. 6 months ago, when I finally made the decision to return to the UK for good, I started actively targeting UK based website maintenance clients by writing content specifically targeted at google.co.uk.

To date the response from Google has been non-existant. If you were to do a Google.com search for ‘UK website maintenance’ you’d find thinkdave.com right up there in the top 5. Great. Except for the fact that the majority of people in my target market use the ‘pages from the UK’ feature on Google. Searching in this way doesn’t bring up thinkdave.com in the first 20 pages – hardly desirable.

It appears that Google looks at (a) your website’s domain name and (b) the location of your web host’s servers when deciding where to index a website geographically. So my .com site, hosted by Dreamhost in the US is hardly likely to inspire Google to list me under pages from the UK in their results.

How to fix the problem

Luckily there are a couple of ways to fix this problem, although neither of them is without a bit of manual labour.

Option 1 – Move hosts. This is the most obvious solution to the problem. By moving my .com website to a UK based web host (with UK based data centres), Google will assume that it’s quite likely that I am in fact based in the UK. And in a few weeks time I’ll start climbing up the search engine rankings for ‘website maintenance’ on google.co.uk.

Option 2 – 301 re-direct. For those of you who just went ‘Huh?’ don’t worry. A 301 re-direct simply tells visitors and search engines that a website has moved and re-directs them to the new site. In my case, I could re-direct thinkdave.com to thinkdave.co.uk and be done with it. Not particularly elegant, but it’ll work. Like the first option it will take Google a few weeks to twig on, but eventually they’ll have to admit that thinkdave.co.uk is most likely UK based.

My solution

Firstly, I’m going to move thinkdave.com to a UK based host. I’m getting a bit sick of moving hosts (this will be my second move this year), but I think it’s important. I’ll also benefit by not having to contact a US based company every time something breaks, although it remains to be seen whether I’ll get any support from a UK host…

Once the server move is done I may install the re-direct anyway, just to make sure. I’ll re-evaluate this problem in a few weeks and see how I’m doing on local search engines.

Why should you care?

If you’ve been having a problem getting ranked on google.co.uk, it may be due to your hosting setup, especially if you’re using any domain other than a .co.uk. Contact your hosting providers and ask them where their data centres are based. And if they’re not based in the UK, you might want to consider moving.

Needless to say, I’ll be moving server towards the end of the week, so expect some minor downtime issues while I’m making the switch.

5 Internet marketing tools that will always work

August 11, 2008

Just when I think I’m starting to get the hang of the latest Internet Marketing fad, another one replaces it. This seems to happen about once a week at the moment.

But there are a number of Internet Marketing tools that just keep on working, no matter how the Web evolves. Here are 5 goodies micro businesses can, and should be trying out:

  1. Pay-per-click advertising. Not everything on the Internet is free. Then again, not everything has to be expensive either. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a simple way to manage an online advertising campaign, irrespective of the size of your budget. The best service to start you off with online advertising is Google Adwords.
  2. Content. No matter how much money you spend on fancy graphics for your website, it’s the content that gets visitors to do business with you. So the next time you decide to redesign your site, hire a good copy writer first. If you have any money left over you can spend it on graphics.
  3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Of course you can write all the content in the world, but if it isn’t properly optimised for search engines, you’re wasting money. SEO takes some time and patience, but it pays off in chunks once you’re at or near the top of the search engine rankings.
  4. Email marketing. If you’ve been in business for a while, you should have a house list of email addresses for your clients. If you don’t have one yet, start compiling and using a house list today. And if you’re new to business, you need to concentrate on building a house list quickly. Email marketing allows you to push your message to people who are willing to hear from you. It’s a proven fact that marketing to people who already know you is far easier than trying to sell to someone who doesn’t have a clue who you are.
  5. Online directories. There once was a time when adding a link to your website onto thousands of online directories would skyrocket your search engine rankings. Of course, Google is more clever than they used to be so this isn’t quite as lucritive as it once was. That said, you can’t ignore the fact that a few hundred inbound links from high ranking directories will send traffic your way. Note: Every Friday I post lists of free online directories for you to try out, and it should only take you 20-30 minutes a week.

So there you have it. Don’t worry about the latest social media tool or the brilliant, if somewhat questionable tactics many Internet marketers are recommending just yet. Start with these basics and you’ll have a good foundation for your website for years to come.

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