I've recently gotten back into Radio Control modeling after a 35+ year absence. My home club is AMOS RC and you can see their site (which we designed and maintain) here. It's a really fun hobby, cheaper than golf, but it  teaches some hard lessons - like New Years day this year.

Being a novice (I was never terribly proficient in the 70s), it's easy to get confused about your plane's attitude in the air and what appropriate control responses are required.  Such was Wednesday... confused pilot, plane too close to the ground - the inevitable happened!  So it's now waiting for the arrival of some new parts so we can get airborne again!

The point of the story is this.  We all go through various circumstances in life and we have the ability to choose to grow from them or to wither because of them.  Don't let anyone try to fool you - there is no status quo!  Everything changes us for good or for bad.

So, at the beginning of a New Year, all business owners should stop and learn a lesson like I did at the field last week.  Look at what worked and improve on

Here's 5 presents you can give your website this Christmas to  help it work better, work smarter and get more business for you.

1. Write a blog

Many clients I speak to have a real phobia about writing a blog, but it's really simple - it just requires commitment. As a business owner, I have no doubt you know a lot about your business, and the industry you're in.  There, already, are a wealth of topics to cover. Throw in a few, what I call, "human interest" stories (see my blog around June/July this year for my daughter's wedding), and you're good to go.

2. Add or renew some content

For search engines and humans alike, new content is considered good (providing it's unique and well written).  Both see it as an indication of a site that's considered important in the scheme of a business's marketing strategy. If you're hesitant about writing new pages, have a look at some older ones first. Check they're current, have the right information, add a little more, try rewording it (careful with SEO there though) until you get comfortable about writing a whole page from scratch.

3. Check your keywords

I hope that, when

A recent court case Downunder in Australia, found Google guilty of being party to libelous content which tied a man to organised crime.  Did Google write the content?  No, but they "published" it according to the jury, and the judge gave them the proverbial wet bus ticket" with a $200,000 fine - what's that, a minute's worth of income?  A second's?

Understandably, Google is appealing the case (well, they sure can afford to!), but it's not about the money.  It's all about the precedent.  Google claimed that it merely listed the link to the content, and that the view expressed herein do not necessarily, blah, blah, blah!  The jury and judge saw different.

A page of their own making

Part of the reason was that it wasn't just the "link listing", but Google also had the plaintiff listed in their images with not-very-subtle allusions to his crime connections.  This, the judge said, was much more than mere link listing.  This was a sophisticated cut and paste of others' content into a page of Google's own making.

I will agree with Google (something I really DON'T like to do!) that their algorithm just goes out, finds content, then delivers it in

One topic of questions I hear a lot is about linking - no real surprise as this has been the mainstay of off page SEO in the past.  However, Google, with its billions of dollars and a stable full of engineers, is getting smarter.  The old focus of getting dozens of backlinks all with the same anchor text is well dead, yet many companies still consider this relevant.  But it's not just about backlinks anymore.

Is every backlink good?

Short answer is no - not every backlink is good.  Links from known link farms and spam schemes are not good and will generally hurt your rankings long term, even if you do see short term gains.  Worst case is they get your sire delisted and then you're in deep doo-doo.

I get asked (by those with a little SEO savvy) about the worth of getting no-follow links.  The truth is, many sites that you don't even think about post links as no-follow.  Craigslist is one, for example.  So, if they're no-follow (that is, they don't pass any authority - often called link juice) what's the point of getting them.  There's no point in setting out to get them, but get