Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster Tools) helps you maintain, monitor and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google’s Search Results. It ultimately helps you to understand and improve how Google sees your site and best of all, it’s completely free!
Watch our short 1-minute video to find out how Google Search Console can help you:
What can Google Search Console do for you?
Google Search Console provides you with some great insights into what is actually happening with your website. It assists you in finding and fixing any website errors you may have, as well as allowing you to submit a sitemap and create/check a robots.txt file.
Should I use Google Search Console?
If you have a website then you should be using Google Search Console, no matter your expertise. It can provide you with information from the last 30 days, three months, six months, whatever time frame you are interested in.
It also allows you to identify:
• How many users are accessing your site
• What pages they are going to
• What search queries they are using to find your site
• Which countries they are coming from
• Which devices are being used
• And much more!
Google Search Console and SEO
Google Search Console is essential in helping you monitor your website’s traffic. It supports you in optimising your rankings and allows you to make informed decisions about the appearance of your site’s search results.
Technical decisions can also be made based on the information provided by Google Search Console. Tools such as Analytics, Google Trends and Google Ads all work in conjunction with Search Console, which allows you to do sophisticated marketing analysis.
Overall, Google Search Console can provide you with great insights into your website.
If you have any questions or need any help with your marketing, then give the marketing people a call on 01543 495752.
Watch our 90 second video to find out how you can get your website to rank higher using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
So, what is Page Speed?
Put simply, page speed is the time it takes to fully load the content on a specific page. The longer it takes for your website to load, the fewer pages Google will crawl on your website, which may have a detrimental effect on your Google rankings.
Not only is it essential for ranking higher in Google, it is also important in terms of the user experience.
2. Once your website has been analysed, you see a score out of 100 which summarises the page’s performance for a mobile device
You should aim for a score of 90 or above as this is considered fast. Anything below 50 is considered slow and should be improved as soon as possible.
3. The page speed will differ on mobile and desktop so don’t forget to check both.
4. Look at the suggestions and make the necessary changes to make your pages faster.
So, if you want your pages to rank higher in Google Search it is essential that your pages load quickly. Your bounce rate will be lowered and your website is more likely to convert.
If you have any questions or need any help with your website, then give the marketing people a call on 01543 495752.
YouTube has over a billion users that watch 250 million hours of video each day, making it the second largest search engine. But how do you optimise your videos and get them ranking higher than everybody else’s?
Watch our 3 minute video now to find out how:
Here are our 5 tips on how to optimise your YouTube videos for SEO.
Content
Keywords
Title, description, tags, thumbnail, links
Captions
Engagement
Tip 1 – Content
Planning your videos is a vital part of YouTube SEO. You need to ensure your content is relevant, detailed and follows best practice.
Make sure that you have done your research before you even think about picking up a camera.
In terms of relevance you can use websites such as Exploding Topics to find out what people are currently searching for. These websites allow you to discover what topics have a high demand for content.
Be aware that popular topics are more competitive meaning they will be more difficult to rank for.
YouTube rewards longer content. The longer you can keep a viewer on YouTube, the higher your videos will rank.
YouTube wants people to stay on their site for as long as possible and there are a couple of ways to do this.
One way is to make long videos, the preferred length being around 10 minutes.
Another way is to make a YouTube channel/playlists or videos that follow on from one another. This means the viewer will keep clicking on suggested videos instead of only watching one video before leaving the site.
Tip 2 – Keywords
Whilst planning your content you also need to think about keywords. Ideally you want around 4 to 6 keywords, including a main one that will be used more frequently than the rest.
Your main keyword should be included in your title, thumbnail and multiple times throughout your description. It is important, however, that they are used naturally.
The reason for deciding your keywords before you film is to allow you to actually say them throughout your video. This means they will appear in your captions and you will have a higher chance of ranking for those keywords.
Tubebuddy is a free browser extension that the marketing people use to check our keywords. It displays how competitive keywords are and how often they are searched for. If you are looking for a tool to check your keywords this is definitely one to try.
Top tip – Remember it’s not just about monthly search volume. User intent and search relevance are factors to think about as well when thinking about your video content.
Tip 3 – Optimise your Title, Description, Tags and Thumbnail
Your title, description, tags and thumbnail are all extremely important when it comes to YouTube SEO.
Your title needs to:
Contain your main keyword
Be short/to the point
Explain the content of your video
Your keyword research will come in handy for this step as you will discover what questions people are searching for based on your chosen topic. Remember – questions make great video titles!
Your description should be detailed and contain all of your target keywords.
Editing the video transcript into short paragraphs will help you add detail into the description. (Make sure you insert timestamps at certain points so the viewer can easily navigate through the video).
The first line of your description should include the main keyword, and don’t forget to include links to your website and social pages.
Video tags give YouTube context about your video, meaning you should use up to 10 tags to make sure the context of your video is clear.
Top tip – Keyword-rich tags are important but remember they can also look spammy, so a good balance is needed.
A mixture of specific and broad tags is preferred, as long as they contain relevant keywords in your description and title word-for-word.
Remember that your thumbnail needs to:
Grab viewers’ attention
Stand out from similar videos
Make the user want to click on it
Viewers most often look at your thumbnail before reading your video’s title.
Extra tip – Implement the title of your video into the thumbnail but use minimal words.
Tip 4 – Captions
Captions are essential.
They make your videos more accessible, and they also allow search engines to fully understand the context of your video, meaning it will rank higher.
Use the subtitles tool in YouTube Studio to easily manage and create captions for your videos.
The final tip is to get your viewers to engage with your videos by getting them to like, comment and subscribe.
You can do this by asking them to during your video, using info cards throughout the video or asking them to in the video description.
When viewers do comment, it is vital that you reply to their comments and engage further with them. Some content creators will ask their viewers a question at the end of their videos to get more engagement.
These tips are an essential part of YouTube SEO and getting your videos to rank higher.
If you have any questions or need any help with your videos, then give the marketing people a call on 01543 495752.
Improve your company’s local search rankings with Google My Business
Watch our short video and dramatically increase your local web visibility immediately.
It’s easy to set up, it’s extremely effective, and best of all, it’s totally FREE.
The Marketing People’s SEO Manager John Hoey shows you the simple steps to set up your Google My Business account and easily connect with customers based upon your location. Easily add your email address, phone number, cover photo and other information contained in the business profile. This can be done once you have verified your account to improve rankings.
Don’t miss out. Watch our quick video here
Video: Improve your Local SEO by setting up Google My Business
A quick and easy guide on how to setup your google my business account and attract local customers
For your convenience, please find below step-by-step instructions from the video on how to get your business live on Google:
Google My Business is a free piece of software that Google offer, so anyone around the world can set up their business.
By searching The Marketing People in Google, look at the box on the right-hand side with our logo, telephone number, opening hours and reviews included.
Click here and sign in. The first thing it asks for is your business name, so type that in and click next.
Next, do you want to add a business location where customers can visit you, like a shop or an office? By typing in your business address, this allows Google to display your location on Google Maps.
Now it will ask, do you serve customers outside of this location? If so, it will prompt you to specify where. Be selective with the areas you include and don’t flood it with every city in the UK; this won’t improve your Google My Business listing.
Your business category is next on the list. Google will copyright you for the categories that you input, so make sure you select the most relevant one.
Next up is your contact details. Add your telephone number and website address. If you need help with designing and developing a new website, or you need some changes making to your existing website, please call us.
Once you have clicked finished, Google will send you a postcard through the post to your physical location. Once you have received this, go back here and enter the code that’s on the postcard. This will complete the optimisation.
Now it’s time to populate your page.
You’ve got all this information down the left-hand side, including your address and your service areas. You can add your opening and closing hours and any special hours for Christmas, Easter or any religious celebrations. You can also easily post photos, blog posts or anything else that may help your search results.
So there you have it, there’s a really quick and simple, free business tool to improve your Google rankings with your gmb listing.
SEO is a fundamental part of the overall process of delivering inbound enquiries, engaging effectively, and convincing and converting those visitors to customers.
Take advantage of our free SEO audit to discover where you are listed on Google, and how to appear ahead of your competitors.
For an SEO contract that provides a return on investment (ROI) call The Marketing People now on 01543 495752 to find out how we can help.
We are pleased to announce the acquisition of John Hoey Web Design.
At The Marketing
People, we are continually looking at ways to improve the benefits our services
provide our clients to achieve their particular business requirements and
objectives.
Enhancing our
existing in-house offering with a proven SEO expert, user-centred web designer
and developer who shares our business benefits focus and client service
approach, we are pleased to have John join us at The Marketing People as our
appointed SEO Manager.
Many clients had
informed us when switching to The Marketing People that they were not quite
sure what they were paying for when it came to their previous SEO provider, who
they had a distance relationship with and only received occasional reports from
them that they didn’t understand. Or, if their provider understood their
business and their objectives, they hadn’t seen the results they were promised
they would get when employing them.
SEO has changed
and continues to do so; it’s part of the marketing mix, not an afterthought
once the website has been designed and built. It should be considered at the
design stage for web design, and also any digital campaigns to drive inbound
leads and enquiries.
With this
acquisition, our collective current and future clients can continue to develop
their competitive edge in their sector and marketplace at all touch points for
potential and existing customers. Coupled with the marketing consultancy, brand
development, creative graphic design, digital marketing, web design, print and
promotional services we provide, SEO gives our clients the opportunity and
means to make their targeted brand and marketing work.
Put simply: marketing
is the key to any business success, and that investment in marketing by clients
should deliver the maximum return achievable. This acquisition is in line with
our collective objective to help clients do just that- to attract, engage,
convince and convert potential customers while maintaining existing clients.
To read John Hoey Web Design’s blog post please click here.
For more details, please get in touch with a member of our friendly team on 01543 495752.
A great small business marketing package is all about looking amazing isn’t it? All creative and colourful right? That’s only a small proportion of what real marketing is about. Let me show you how we approached the marketing for this superb private chauffeur service.
Kam @ Vertu Chauffeurs came to us without having the best experience so far from other marketing outlets. Like many others, he came with the notion that SEO would solve everything.
The business had been ‘sold’ some so called ‘SEO keyword’ services from a well-known business directory. Sadly, this was doing nothing for Vertu. Indeed, if it had done anything for him, the marketing in his old website was quite limited, not nearly effective enough to convert any potential website visitors into a lead. Any real SEO development could have been wasted.
We sat down and had a chat about his target audience, his business, his competition and his value proposition, plus effective key messaging for his business. Together, we talked about positioning this properly to attract the right kind of customers, looking for his exact type of service. We wanted to make use of the opportunities he already has to market his business. These opportunities included word of mouth, face to face networking and targeted literature drops.
‘Private, Punctual & Professional – For Business, Transfers & Events’
We wanted to discover the brief with Kam, not just take one from him. We needed to challenge his approach. By adding our experience and industry knowledge, it allows us to take in the information, validate it then translate this to a marketing brief.
This brief would dictate the look, feel, messaging, control and consistency for all of Vertu’s business marketing going forward. With his budget in mind we were able to determine how much time we could spend on each element, we could literally compress our expertise for this small business marketing package. We decided to trigger our essentials marketing package.
Kam uses word of mouth, face to face business networking, direct leaflet drops and traditional business correspondence, so we could see our essentials marketing package would be perfect. It provided, business cards, flyers and a website his potential customers could refer to after receiving his printed media. Find out more about this package here. ESSENTIALS
He didn’t need any SEO yet because this could potentially strip his budget and we were in agreement he needed a solid base to work from first. He could develop SEO later, once the business had grown some more. We would ensure however, the new site was optimized for future development. http://vertuchauffeurs.com/
So how would he use the package
Anyone from Vertu can now network with other businesses and hand them a business card or a brochure to introduce the service. Potential clients can also visit his website, which portrays the business’ brand values, service and solutions. Above all these potential clients can see consistent messaging, through these communication touch-points. It now looks professional, credible and his service is provided precisely for them, his very own chosen target audience. It is now an effective marketing base to work from.
The dots are now all joined up, they lead directly to his potential customers. These potential customers now have the perfect reason to lead themselves directly back to the Vertu Chauffeurs service.
All of these marketing outputs were designed to fit his business objectives. Designed in a manner that he is able to control, on his budget, efficiently, consistently and effectively.
This is real, effective, joined up marketing, oh yes and it looks great too!
If you are interested in finding out how we can transform your business with our small business marketing package, call our studio now on 01543 387 047 or email contact@themarketingpeople.com now for a chat about your business objectives.
Website Lead Generation for Normans Book Keeping & Payroll
Our brand development and subsequent website lead generation has been a massive success! We tied it all in together and provided the web visitor with just what ‘they needed’.
‘Book keeping is boring, isn’t it?’ We beg to differ…
When the managing director from Norman Book Keeping & Payroll came in to see us, he was interested in ‘refreshing’ his website. He wanted to grow the business, targeting particular types of customers and appeal to those looking for the right kind of help. From Owner managed business to larger SME’s, looking for expert bookkeeping and payroll services. A little frustrated, he had tried once before but it didn’t seem to have made any difference. The business still had no inbound inquiries from the website. He realised that the traditional method of just telling a website designer what you want, doesn’t work very well, without the right marketing know how. Let’s see how we applied our knowledge into marketing his business correctly and effectively.
In a nutshell we needed to do the following.
‘futurise his business in line with his customer’s needs and the book keeping industry’s competitive landscape.’
This now became a little more interesting.
The previous business marketing showed a dowdy, but functional business involved in providing all of the things you would expect in bookkeeping and payroll services. After consulting for a short while, we realised this wasn’t all they did. They actually provided some pretty amazing innovative services, allowing for online cloud-based book keeping services in partnership with Xero. This allows for easy integration with, spreadsheets, Sage & Quickbooks, plus a plethora of different mobile apps driving information into a modern and exciting book keeping model. Some of these apps include the likes of Go Cardless, Shopify, Paypal and Stripe.
Norman Bookkeeping needed to resemble a contemporary firm, able to link up with your data effortlessly. They wanted to show how they produce quick, easy management reports and information as and when you require it. They didn’t need to change the way they worked, just the way they appeared and the way they communicated this up to date book keeping and payroll service in Aldridge, Walsall and regionally around the Black Country & the West Midlands.
For example
There are many advantages to using Normans such as:
Access your data on the go!
Automatic Bank Feeds mean that we can do the job much quicker and therefore cheaply
Holding all your purchase data electronically means that you will be fully compliant with HMRC’s new regulations for Making Tax Digital
Get paid faster with online invoicing
There are hundreds of apps that will link directly with Xero such as Stripe, GoCardless, PayPal and Shopify to name but a few.
So what did we do?
Provided a thorough consultation and brief discovery
Advised upon current trends, industry requirements and intelligent customer targeting
Worked on a real and true representation of the business services against the required target audience and an ideal customer model
Applied some competition analysis and helped to create a unique ‘POD’, or point of difference. We also took into account some ‘POP’, or points of parity. In other words, what do we need to do to prove a ‘USP’, without moving too far away from the industry services that others also provide. e.g. ‘we do that too, but with a difference’.
Provided a brand positioning report and direction
From this positioning came a brand positioning statement and strapline
All of the above now went into creating a new brand and its ID/logo
We began the graphic design element using some desk research, developing fonts, illustration and visual perspectives. We employed colour coding, image research and other creative elements/marketing collateral to create something really functional and easy to understand.
Provided in depth technical site scoping to give the potential visitor the very best of user journey and slick informational navigation
Wire framed the site scoping, to visualise the website more effectively against it content requirements
Wrote effective and intelligently considered positioning copy and calls to action plus dynamic contact copy relevant to each piece or relevant service, to engage website lead generation
Developed the website, provided 301 re-directs, to capture past cached pages and posts for SEO purposes, unveiled and relaunched!
In general, we improved the user journey and calls to action through content and a contact dynamic, re-branded the business, improved the brand visibility and developed its website lead generation capacity
Norman is now called Normans
We now know exactly what Normans do and they are most certainly, ‘not boring’.
Normans are now successfully receiving leads from the website. Not just any old leads, but the right kind of customers discovered against our agreed customer modelling! It’s been a massive success, their target audience can now discover the perfect solution to a book keeping and payroll problem. Contemporary services and time saving applications, information at the touch of a button. It’s right for them, it’s modern and ‘just what they need’, communicated clearly and concisely through a brand the customer can proudly recommend to others.
Before you rush out and spend £1000’s of pounds on SEO, think about this. Make sure your website has got what it takes to engage, convince and convert your visitor first. Theoretically if your lead conversion is 1% and it equates to £1000 worth of business, we can convert this to 2%, 3%, 5% or even a 10% uplift. You do the math, it’s not impossible to double your websites return on investment. You can apply the SEO later, when you know you can convert.
Normans now ‘Convert Numbers, into Knowledge’… because here at The Marketing People, we help to ‘Convert Knowledge, into Numbers’.
For more information on our website lead generation services, contact The Marketing People on 01543 495752 or contact@themarketingpeople.com
SEO can be a struggle for any business, but it seems an entirely uphill struggle when you are a smaller business looking to rank. In this post we’re going to look at SEO tips for smaller businesses. How you can build your rankings, and what you should expect when it comes to SEO.
Though there are a number of things that can give your SEO a quick and noticeable boost in rankings. We’re going to look at 5 reasonably easy tips for SEO for small businesses today.
The first thing we should clarify is SEO doesn’t always bring quick results. It’s not a one-time thing you complete and leave. It takes time and patience. You will need to be prepared to put in some consistent efforts to your SEO, but oh does it pay off if you do.
So what things can you focus on to get your smaller sized business noticed?
Decide what you wish to rank for
Whether you want to rank for products or services, you need to decide exactly what those are. Then build your content around that. SEO is not the same as it used to be. You can no longer stuff loads of keywords into your pages and blogs to make them appear high in rankings. You have to carefully consider your content, to include relevant keywords, but in a manner that is user friendly. The overall focus should be to actually help with the query the user has.
Once you know what you wish to be found for, you can look at the page structure for your website, and potential blogs. To begin with, it may be easier to try and focus on one key term or idea for your page. To give it the best chance of ranking.
Establish your online presence
Small businesses are often in the position where they don’t have a lot of spare budget to spend on a fancy website straight away. But you don’t need all the bells and whistles to get started. A small site, with a few pages, perhaps with a blog you can utilise for new content, and social pages linked are all you really need to get started. However, you should be considering a mobile optimised website. As no matter what your size of business, you can’t escape that the majority of people now shop and browse on their phones.
You should look at a website on a suitable and relevant domain. Which can feature a little more about you, and why people should consider your services or products. This is your foundation, and where you should hope to push your online visitors to. You should also install Google Analytics when you build your site, as this will come in useful later!
You can then use a blog feature to update new content, showcase new products, highlight great feedback from customers, and also inform customers of issues relevant to your products or services. Finally you should look at social media to capture the attention of new clients from different sources and pull them back to your site. Social also does wonders for building up your site authority, as well as building the number of results in rankings.
Build up your internal linking
Link building is huge when it comes to SEO. In basics, the more people who link to your site the better. However, when you’re first setting out, having others link to you can be difficult, so you should perhaps focus on internal linking first. Ensure all of your pages or blogs link to other relevant content if possible. So for example, at the bottom of this blog you will find a link to our SEO blog category. Because you are reading a blog on SEO, we can assume you may be interested in reading more content that is relevant to that subject. Within those other SEO blogs are links to our SEO page, which talks about our SEO offering.
This is good practice in general as it provides a better experience for the user, but also helps bots that crawl your site to establish where your content fits in to the web.
Build up your local presence
We have another blog purely on this topic coming up soon, but local is something you really need to be considering. Since Google’s pigeon update, location has become a much bigger factor in rankings, and one that as a smaller business you can take advantage of.
Consider your local listings pages, such as Google+ page, which should match your address on your website exactly. Then remember to check through other directory listings for your business, and again ensure they all match the same address. Moz has just released a great feature called Moz Local, which will help you get started in this process.
Also consider building local ties (as you would offline too). So if you are working with another local business, talk about it! Make sure you have references back to them, and they backlink to you.
Track and assess
Use tools such as Google Analytics, or Moz to assess the traffic to your site, and how they are finding you. Google analytics is great for figures and feedback on traffic, but is a little lax these days on providing which keywords people have used to find you. Moz does a much more in-depth report on where you are ranking for selecting keywords, and if that has improved or dropped.
Then actually use your tracked data to build your content and your site in general. If people are finding you through slightly different phrases than you expected, then change your content slightly to reflect the tone people are using to find you, to help others find you. More people finding your website through a certain social network, focus more on that network.
SEO is an ongoing process, and one that you have to monitor and act upon to see continued results, so though it may seem a lot of work, continuing your efforts is worth it in the long run.
We have plenty of tips throughout our blogs on how you can build your SEO once you have become established. However, if you are still struggling with SEO, then why not give us a call? We work with businesses of all sizes, and look at each company’s individual needs before suggesting any way forward. Call us on 01543 495752 today and speak to one of our friendly team.
One idea we find is implanted with a lot of clients who come to us, is that SEO can be done once, get you high in search rankings and then left. But this is simply not the case. You have to keep on top of your SEO.
So we find ourselves saying over and over again that SEO is something you need to keep on top of. To ensure you keep your place in rankings ahead of your competitors. But how exactly do you keep on top of things?
Little and Often
As we have mentioned SEO is no one time thing, and you will never ‘complete’ SEO. So the best approach for your company (especially is the person dealing with your SEO has other roles too) is to perform check-ups little and often.
So where do you start with your check-ups? Use a tool like Moz. Where you have a number of free resources to get you used to the program, and getting started on SEO. Before moving on to a more robust paid option.
Their free resource kit allows you limited access to open site explorer and MozBar, as well as local and twitter analysis options.
Open Site Explorer allows you to see a whole host of factors that affect your rankings. Including your domain authority, page link metrics and inbound links to your site.
MozBar allows you metrics to analysis any web page. Which is useful for checking any missing elements on your own page. As well as what your competitors are up to.
Google Analytics also offer “page analytics” which offers in depth analysis on any webpage that contains analytics you have access to.
Put together your own toolbox that works for you to give you an idea of what needs changing. Then to assess how those changes are working.
Consider Both Front End and Back End
SEO works on a huge number of factors, which work both “back end” in the coding of your website, and “front end” in the content of your page. It can be really easy to stay focused on just one side, as both take a lot of time. However you need to remember to keep track of both.
This is where you may require help sometimes if you don’t have to chance to run this all yourself. Perhaps consider an SEO company, or web developer to look after your “backend” if you really don’t have time to learn these bits. Just remember to pick a company you will be happy to work with on a regular basis. Who will work together with you on the project. Though you should be weary of companies who promise you ‘guaranteed’ results.
And if you’re struggling with content creation that works then it may be time to seek out a copywriter, who writes for SEO purposes.
Keep Things Fresh
We do hear from a lot of our clients that, well they posted a blog 2 months ago, but they’re not ranking now. Or they have wondered why the content that has been static on their website for 2 years isn’t still drawing in the rankings it used to. And that’s because you have a lot of competition.
Almost everything ever written is now on the web. If you want your content to appear right at the top, you’re going to have to put in a little more work.
So whether it is creating new content for your blog or main web pages, or even updating old blogs with new information. You need to work a little harder on making sure your content is fresh. Any facts of figures are up to date, making sure the info is still relevant today, and linking where you can in your web page.
Do this a little at a time, using one day to write a blog, and the next to update a services page. You will gradually build, and improve your content, without being bogged down in pages and pages of content.
Create a Checklist
Being organised is essential when it comes to SEO. With so many elements to keep track of, staying organised means you know where you are in the process. As well as ensuring you complete each task to the same standard.
We would perhaps suggest a checklist. Where you have a list of the elements you want to update, alongside the pages you need to apply those updates for. You can then simply tick them off as you along. The task can be easily divided by a number of people, or passed on to a member of the team. And it also gives you an idea of what was updated recently, and what may need your attention sooner rather than later.
However, you may also want to use one you come back to regularly. Where you can see what you updated, and when. So you know when to come back to it. We use a spreadsheet similar to the one below to refer back to.
One of their suggestions is creating a stream on twitter. Looking at terms like ‘google algorithm’ so that any major changes that come up can be seen almost instantly. Make sure you choose a specific enough term though, as SEO may bring up a little too much to keep up with.
They also suggest following thought leaders such as Danny Sullivan or Rand Fishkin. Who are more likely to talk about any new updates, and what you can do to make the most of them.
Make sure you check out the rest of the article for more great tips.
Remember
Little and Often – take time to update and educate yourself when it comes to SEO
Focus on SEO as a whole, not just one end
Get yourself organised to remember where you got up to
If you are struggling to keep up with your SEO, why not see how we could help. Visit us at our offices in Burntwood, Staffordshire, and speak to our friendly team about what your company is trying to achieve and we’ll do our best to get you there.
Search Engine Optimisation is something you can’t escape in today’s modern world of business. Getting ahead of your competitors, and battling to get your content seen is essential for getting you in front of your ideal customers. And how does it actually work?
SEO is the process of trying to get found by the right people for relevant queries. And it has changed a lot over the last few years! With a huge focus now on user experience and finding answers to questions rather than keywords on a page.
For those of who who might not be too familiar with the process, SEO works by “crawlers” going through your website. Assessing how easy it is to understand information and follow steps to the next most suitable content. Pages are then “indexed” into the search engine for future use.
How is it decided what comes first in rankings?
Once your site has been crawled and indexed by search engines, users can start finding you. So how do you get to the top of the page to be found?
For each query inputted into google, it makes an educated decision as to what would be the most relevant search for that person. It does this by assessing a number of factors (over 200 to be exact) through an algorithm to deliver the best result for that person. Google won’t reveal the exact factors. However, there are a few which are known about and regarded as pretty important such as keywords, site speed and links. With many marketers focusing on these aspects to get their clients seen.
Not enough for you? There is a list of 200 factors here, but as they state, some are proven, some are just speculation.
So those ranking at number one have beat all of the other content on the web in those factors to become number one. With content being constantly updating, Google updating their factors, and each users search patterns being different, you cannot always be guaranteed the number one spot if you reach it. Rankings can vary each day.
How do I find out more about improving my SEO?
Making one change to improve your SEO will not bring you benefit. Same as one good meal will not make you skinny. One good investment will not make you a millionaire. And one early morning run will not help you win a marathon. Making changes to improve is a step in the right direction. But SEO is something that needs your constant care and attention. You need to work at it a little each day for it to be of any value or benefit to you.
Luckily SEO is a very talked about topic. So there are plenty of blogs and articles out there on how to get the best from your SEO. Just tread carefully though, as there are a lot of different approaches. And not all of them are the right way to do things. You may find you’re penalised by Google rather than ranking higher.
If you are just starting out with SEO, this article from Moz is a great starting point on search engines actually operate. And why we need to follow certain practices with SEO.
This seems a lot of work …
.. And it is! There are so many factors now when it comes to ranking well on the web. Which is great news for us as users. As we gain the most relevant, informative pages for our query. But as marketers, or companies working on their own websites, it is more complicated than ever before to balance all the factors needed.
Don’t believe us? Just take a look at this brilliant (if not a little scary!) period table of elements needed within SEO. Featured in this article by Forbes and created by Search Engine Land. It shows how many aspects you need to take into consideration for SEO. As well as how much pull they each have on your rankings.
Now you know how SEO works? Look at our other SEO blogs to find out more on how to use it properly and make your business stand out. Really struggling to juggle all of the elements? Why not have a chat with our friendly team in Burntwood about what you would like to achieve for your business, and we’ll do everything we can to get you there.
Integrated marketing services that are proven to deliver results.
Get in touch if you are serious about improving your marketing returns.
Call 01543 387 047
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