Category: SEO

Your digital marketing strategy is built on building visibility online. Whether that is building communities on Facebook, viral marketing campaigns, promoting engaging content or SEO. Everything is about putting yourself in front of potential customers.

Google + is another method of putting you in front of your customers.

But Nobody Uses it

On the face of it, Google + is huge, with over 2bn accounts. However, these accounts don’t necessarily equate to ‘users’ as every new Gmail account is automatically linked to a Google + account. People get a Google + presence even if they don’t want one, and the vast majority of these accounts are never used.

Your customers aren’t likely to be using Google +, but Google does.

Google Uses it

It is believed Google weights its own content higher than content on other networks. If you are on Google + you could benefit from being active on your account in the following instances:

1. When someone searches for your company online

Google + profile pages rank higher on the search than your website. If people click through to your Google + page and you haven’t paid any attention to your profile, this will affect the user’s perception of your company and its marketing.

2. Active Google + accounts have an effect on SEO

And here’s the main benefit, Google is in complete control over its algorithm and can rank Google + content more highly than other content. A strong, active Google + account could improve your search ranking.

3. Google + reviews

Google places reviews from Google + above other review sites such as Yelp. Encouraging customers to review your product or service on Google + can help you leap frog more established businesses, simply because you are utilizing Google’s services.

Getting Ahead of the Game

Google + is important simply because it is part of Google’s service offering and its algorithm uses the content on the service to rank content. Having a strong, active presence on Google + can help you rank higher than more established businesses for search terms, simply because of how Google weights content on its own services.

The question of whether to choose a specialist agency or a more general service is as old as marketing itself. There are arguments for and against using either, pros and cons associated with both. However, a business needs to consider what outcome it’s looking for.

A Stronger Focus

As you’d expect, a specialist SEO agency has a tighter focus and therefore will have a more in-depth, up to date knowledge of SEO. Everyone working in an SEO agency (if you ignore the necessary accountants and admin staff) spends their day doing SEO, and nothing but SEO. It would be safe to assume they are good at it.

A marketing agency will have a completely different set up. Depending upon their size, they may have some staff who are SEO specialists, they may outsource SEO, or it may be done by general marketing staff. It’s also likely your contact in the marketing agency will only have general SEO knowledge.

So if you want to deal with an SEO specialist, an SEO agency may be the way to go.

Tunnel Vision

On the other hand, SEO is just one part of digital marketing and hiring a specialist agency may result in ‘tunnel vision’. Your SEO agency may make recommendations that are great for SEO but neglect user engagement through great content marketing.

Ultimately it is about what you need. Are you and/or your team confident about either SEO or marketing? Where are the gaps in your skillset?

What’s best for your Business?

Give yourself and your team a quick appraisal, do you need an all-rounder who can help you with SEO and content? In which case you need a Marketing Agency. Or do you have great content which is punching below its weight? In which case you need as SEO Agency.

The type of agency you choose should complement the skills of your in-house team and depend on your aims. There is no right or wrong answer, only what is best for your business.

Please contact us if you are looking for an affordable SEO agency.

SEO is a continuous battle with your competition for online real estate. Your direct competitors want the same as you: ranking on the first page of results when your customers do a search. But, over time, the ability to rank highly becomes more difficult. You may still be investing in your content and your SEO but your page ranking is sliding.

It’s important to remember none of this affects the underlying principles of SEO. Does SEO work? Yes it does. Is your SEO working? Well, that’s a different matter entirely.

Barriers to Effective SEO

There are two main problems for anyone trying to engage in digital marketing:

1.     People who use search engines rarely look past the first page of results for a search term. This means potentially hundreds or even thousands of website are vying for 10 spots on the page. That’s a lot of competition.

2.     The competition itself is weighted in favour of those with more time and more money, and who have been doing it for longer. You may never be able to rank on the first page for the most popular search terms, simply because it’s survival of the fittest.

Before you pick up your ball and go home, I can reassure you again SEO does work. It really does.

SEO that Works

There are 3 main principles to effective SEO:

1.     you need to be smart about the search terms you target,

2.     you need to be in it for the long haul,

3.     you need to work towards improving your ranking continually.

To help your SEO have the greatest effect, finding the best keywords or search terms a business of your size and resources can compete in is essential. This is as much an art as a science and, if you are going to invest time and money in it, an SEO Agency or Consultant will be able to find the most suitable keywords.

SEO can Drive Sales

Effective SEO can be a lot of work, but it is worth it. Imagine the power of ranking on the first page for ‘best pizza in Cardiff’, or ‘plumber in Wandsworth’. SEO is a powerful tool for driving both traffic to your site and sales to your business. SEO works, how successful it is for you depends on what you do with it.

If you would like more information about our SEO services then please contact us.

Ask yourself, how often do you look past the first page of results on Google? If you’re anything like most people, the answer is almost never. For all intents and purposes, those latter pages simply don’t exist. Good luck getting anyone to visit your new niche website or blog if you’re still floundering on page 10 of any search engine.

This is where SEO or search engine optimisation comes into play. It is the strategy and techniques used to optimise a website in such a way that if you were to search for certain terms (for example: “digital marketing” or “London pet shop”), a relevant website would show up, preferably in the first few results. A website with a solid SEO strategy becomes more visible and therefore attracts more potential customers. If it doesn’t then you’re not going to get much traffic at all.

It may not sound especially important, but getting ranked well in search engines can mean the difference between a website flourishing or crashing and burning. Maybe you have a new online marketing business with stiff competition, or maybe you’re an aspiring blogger writing on the vicissitudes of being a post-millennial, the simple fact is that you can be the absolute best at what you do, offering the best products at the best prices, but if the search engines can’t find your website then no one can.

If you think about it, the vast majority of people find out what they need to know not through word of mouth, but through the internet. Google alone processes a mind-boggling 40,000 search queries per second. We’re talking about a simply incomprehensible amount of information flowing every day, in an age where everybody has the attention span of a goldfish (if they’re lucky) and probably won’t make it past the first page or two as a result.

So how does the process actually work? Search engines function by using complicated algorithms which are used to rank websites based on their relevancy to the search terms entered by the user. Believe it or not, those specific algorithms are actually closely guarded secrets, so that nobody can take advantage of them, as the potential for abuse is immense.

In the early days of search engines it was simpler, but search engine companies soon became wise to the variety of techniques – some ethical and some definitely not, known respectively as white hat and black hat SEO –  that could be leveraged to redirect and manipulate online traffic to one’s advantage. In essence, SEO is coordinating and systematically arranging the variety of keywords, page titles, links and so on in a way that Yahoo or Bing or of course Google can find amongst the myriad other content out there.

Nowadays the algorithms are more sophisticated than ever, and utilising an effective SEO strategy is a considerable challenge. Successful websites have to rank well, or they won’t be successful at all. For better or worse, this is the way that information flows in the 21st century and in order to connect with the right potential customers or viewers a dynamic and intelligent SEO strategy is essential.

If your friend tells you about an exciting new hobby of theirs, let’s say going to Zumba class once a week, chances are that if you’re curious (and somehow don’t know what Zumba is yet…) the web and search engines are going to be your first port of call for investigating further; where can I do it? how much does it cost? why has it got such a weird name? and so on.

In the current digital age, the internet is the river in which our information flows, and there’s no denying that having an online presence is essential, as an individual or as a business owner.

The reasons are myriad, but if you’re interested in the world of marketing and selling (and if you’re reading this I can only assume that you are) let’s stick to them only as they pertain to success in these areas. Don’t forget though that even if your business is primarily based in real-world goods, the importance of being visible online still can’t be overstated.

Most of all, if you can be found online by using a properly implemented marketing strategy (SEO and so forth) your pool of potential customers will be vastly increased, probably by several orders of magnitude. Not only that, but it will be the right kind of customers coming to your site, which is to say, people who are actively hunting for services like yours. You can’t say the same about a billboard on the motorway, or any physical advertising for that matter, where the overwhelming majority of viewers won’t be the target audience.

Having an online presence can also mean a tonne of free advertising in the form of blogs, social media and similar web content. If you have a website, and someone used and enjoyed your services, they can link back to your website on their page generating more traffic from similar people, who are much more likely to be interested in what your business has to offer than the average joe. There are many more networking opportunities, perhaps you could enter a partnership with a complimentary business by linking to each others sites (like a copywriter and web designer might do), or be mentioned on a popular blog. They may sound relatively small, but these things really can take your business to the next level.

There’s no doubt that it also lends credibility and accessibility that can’t be matched by other methods. Any costumer can hop online and learn all they need to know about your services in just a few minutes with the right website. Needless to say, that’s infinitely easier than ringing someone up (but only when the lines are open!) to ask about prices, opening times, discounts, and so on and on….you get the picture.

Additionally, you can get a serious boost through customer reviews. If you’re like most people, a few thought out reviews can make the difference in deciding whether a not a service is for you. Customer satisfaction is likely to increase as well, the more you can tell them about your product online, through FAQs and simple troubleshooting guides, the less time they’ll spend waiting on the phone.

The flipside of all these benefits is that if the content is lacking or your web design is shoddy, then it will be tremendously off-putting to anyone who cares to visit, and will be damaging to your overall image.  But with the right professional design, high-quality copy and an effective marketing strategy, a great website and online presence is the ultimate portfolio for your business.