SEO: Can anyone recommend a good company?

The incoming links are only as valuable as the source they come from.
So if I link to my site from here it would be worth more then linking to my site from a wordpress blog with 3 views a day. A link to my site from the bbc trumps all.

Exact keyword URLs are only dynamite if they closely match the SEO profile of the site.
I could own http://www.LondonWeddingPhotography.co.uk but if the site content is about bikes it is actually damaging to the ranking.

There isn't a hierarchy of priorities as such, more a guiding set of rules.

Structure - Good clean code. WCAG accessibility 2.0 to A rating ideally.
Well structure IA and responsive build for all devices and browsers set you in the best stead.

Content - keep your copy organic. The days of writing your content then flushing through it and splashing keyword around are gone. If it reads shady, it probably is. That said, key word in your page titles and your H1-3 tags are still worth doing.
Frequency of update of content is much higher rated then it was before. Showing google you are consistantly up to date and relevant bumps you up the rankings. That's why everyone has a blog.

Images - ALT tags should be more then a list of keywords otherwise they will be sniffed out as dodgy. Write a description of the actual image, which if it is relevant to the business of your site, should naturally include keywords.

Links - make sure you incoming links are from reputable sources and have thematic consistancy. Little bit of this and a little bit of that from low ranking directories reflects badly on you.

Social media - Buzz and posts/links to your content on the social meeeeds are now worth a lot more then previously. If you post a link to you tings on twitter and get 4k retweets google reads that as confirmation of quality and relevance.
Do set up a google plus account and claim ownership of your content. If google can say, this article was written by this person and here is a picture of them then they like you.

etc etc etc

Coolbeans, thanks for taking the time to explain that. That pretty much reflects my assumptions, the social media stuff is interesting though. Cheers :)

http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors

Some idea here I guess

Are you an SEOer?

Noooooo no no no.
Wouldn't be so bold as to call my self that.

I work in UX and content strategy, so I'm involved with the SEOers at certain points.
Enough to pick up the basics and hear about the changes.

Thanks for all this stuff you lot.

Good food for thought.

'loin, I may just bite the bullet and go for it. I believe it to be a good concept and if it falls through by next year then we'll have had to make quite an effort to fuck it up :)

The only drawback with the domain is that the actual name isn't all that relevant to the project, but we'll see what can be achieved in a year in terms of ticking off that list you posted :)

Making a strong brand is probably worth more than worrying about the incidental effect having keywords stuffed into the domain.

I'm not confused, you're confused ;-) as I said it's all about the quality of your links.. You get the bbc to link to you and all that keywords in your URL stuff is small fry...

Making a strong brand is probably worth more than worrying about the incidental effect having keywords stuffed into the domain.

For sure.
This stuff is only critical if SEO IS your business (web advertising, targeted digital marketing etc).
If you're chasing a different business goal then look after the basics for SEO and spend the rest of the time focussing on your core biz.

I'd be very interested to hear what word precedes .digital to make it £600 a year!
Is it 'sony'...?

I tend to err on the side of lead with and host on a .co.uk or .com, then you have the freedom to experiment and try other things out with straight forward redirects.

^Ordinarily I'd agree but just about every other TDL is spoken for with this particular word and .digital was one that stood out as being relevant and available - if a pricey combination.

But the fact that the other TLDs are spoken for raises another issue in that I wonder how that will impact returns?

I don't expect much traffic to be driven from search - indeed the only other word.suffix example I can see after some varied searching comes at the earliest 4 pages in on Google after a load of other junk. It just happens to be a very common word and marries nicely with '.digital' hence premium. I'm toying with slipping another word in but worry that may dilute the value of it (and make it even longer - current word is 10 letters long plus suffix).

I wouldn't do that.

Keep he domain strong if that is the likely name of the site/product. Don't dilute to save pennies at this point would be my advice. I'm happy to move to pm's if you'd rather bro.

It's a pretty interesting topic of debate. The new domain extensions create new possibilities for algorithm interpretation. But I don't think anyone would be 100% on these - at the minute it's all hyperbole. For sure the safe bet is buy a .com but I've recently bought a few of the new extensions and am interested in the possibilities.

Btw SEO IS my business :)

If the word you want to use is common will people accociate it with the trade / service you are offering?
As has been mentioned above, get your house in order first..

Will people associate it? Absolutely not. Hence my earlier assertion of little/no traffic from name alone.

Project still early stages but branding already quite developed thanks. Questions here largely to satisfy curiosity and put myself in a position when, if I'm asked these questions myself in a month I won't have to look completely blank.

False. In fact, quite the opposite. Having a keyword in the URL is SEO dynamite.

False. Unless you work for Google writing their search engine(s), you can't know this.

In March, 2012, nearly two years ago, Matt Cutts addressed a myth about the new gTLDs. Specifically, he said:

"Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don't expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn't bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that's your choice, but you shouldn't register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you'll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings."

from a Moz article about the new TLDs: http://moz.com/ugc/an-seos-guide-to-acquiring-new-gtlds

I can haz snake oil too?

I just mean that if the word is common you might find yourself further down the rankings from the off.

All in the name of good conversation and what..

Yep, we're anticipating that unfortunately but ta anyway. Just trying to get heads around it so if we do bring in someone like Brilliant Noise (or one of the countless others local to us in Brighton) that we'll at least know a little of what they're talking about.