Nowadays, there’s a search engine optimisation (SEO) company for everything you can imagine. It’s becoming overwhelming for some businesses to find the right one that fits their marketing needs. But what do they do, and how much do they charge? This article will answer all of these questions and more.
An SEO agency works with businesses to improve search engine ranking. The best SEO experts can help you drive more organic traffic to your website. Search engine visibility increases your website’s traffic, which results in more clicks, phone calls and sales.
It’s vital to design your site with the goal of bringing in visitors who are interested in learning more about your business. With the help of a top SEO firm, your content will be better understood by search engines and people alike. Consequently, you’ll be able to grow your business and generate more revenue.
So what exactly do SEO agencies do? What are the various services that they typically offer?
Reviewing your site’s performance and looking for improvements is an essential part of what search engine optimisation consultants do. A thorough audit is necessary to run an impactful ongoing SEO campaign. Before an SEO firm can suggest and make any changes to your SEO strategy, they’ll conduct an audit of your site to help them determine how strong or weak your current strategy is.
As part of an SEO audit, an SEO firm will gather information about your website’s traffic, website speed, keywords that rank for your site and its ranking at the time of the audit. An SEO audit and analysis also involves analysing your competitors’ SEO strategy. By doing so, they will know what they can do rapidly to boost your performance and gain an edge over your competitors.
By performing keyword research, an SEO firm can determine which search queries to target to maximise your business’s online presence. A good keyword research strategy is essential to a successful SEO campaign.
Researching keywords seems simple, but it takes time and effort. The quality of a keyword depends on many factors. The volume of search engine traffic, the intensity of competition and the user’s intention are some of the factors considered by SEO agencies.
Keywords correspond to the type of search terms people tend to use, and search engines use them to determine a page’s content. An ideal keyword receives a lot of searches, matches the client’s business and doesn’t have a lot of competition. With effective keyword analysis, you can achieve higher rankings and reach more customers. Knowing how real people conduct their searches can help you optimise your content and improve your search engine placement.
Generally, the initial optimisation process aims to resolve your site’s main SEO issues. This involves tweaking on-page SEO, off-page SEO and technical SEO.
A website’s on-page SEO consists of elements you control directly, like link structures, proper formatting, keywords, headers, code clean-up in the website’s backend, improvement of image quality and implementation of user-friendly navigation in your site.
Off-page SEO involves elements like outreach, building links and other things you can’t directly control. It also includes boosting your position for local searches using local SEO tactics, adding your site to valuable directories and providing press releases about your company’s new products and services.
A website’s technical SEO, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with its architecture. It includes things like well-structured links, properly formatted headers, a quick load time, secure HTTPS connections and a mobile-friendly design. By tweaking your technical SEO, you improve how your site works, making it more responsive and readable on all devices.
Optimising SEO elements is crucial for your website. Structuring your site’s navigation, for example, ensures that people can find exactly what they are looking for. Keeping your website’s code clean improves its performance. And internal linking within your site makes it easier for users to get to the pages you want them to visit.
Having good content is key. The right content generates sales by converting visitors into buyers and demonstrating your site’s value to search engines.
For organic traffic to consistently flow to your website, your site must constantly be updated with fresh content and optimised for search engines.
Content optimisation includes eliminating or rewriting duplicate content, optimising your page titles with keywords to rank higher on Google, improving underperforming pages with keyword-rich copy, developing new pages to attract more visitors and inserting images to increase conversions.
A website’s SEO goes beyond just making changes to it. Making changes without monitoring and analysing data is pointless. A good SEO agency will track traffic, rankings and conversions every day, week or month.
A successful SEO campaign requires constant monitoring since the algorithm of Google changes frequently and your competitors can increase rankings depending on their marketing efforts.
Continuous monitoring ensures that existing SEO work produces your desired results. Moreover, it provides insights for improving future work.
Good SEO firms communicate well with their clients. The reports they produce should include information about the number of visitors your site received, their time of visit, their origin and their reason for visiting. Detailed information about rankings, leads, conversions, ROI and inbound links should also be included.
Getting a monthly analytics report can help you understand how the SEO services contribute to your company’s success.
Many factors, such as business size and website, determine the cost of SEO in the UK. On average, SEO services for start-ups cost between £99 and £299. The cost of SEO for small companies can reach £500. For SMEs, this ranges from £501 to £1200. SEO services can cost up to £4,999 for medium-sized to large businesses. Finally, SEO work for large companies can cost up to £5,000 and beyond.
Executing a successful SEO campaign takes expertise. If you require an SEO consultant in the UK, the Smarter Media team is ready to assist you. We offer a full range of SEO services for businesses in various industries.
Boost your SEO efforts and accelerate your business growth with Smarter Media. Learn more about our services by contacting us today.
Every local business owner should use Google Business Profile to improve their local search presence. Essentially, your Google Business Profile is a community profile, not just yours and it deserves the attention. Before you start you’ll need a few pieces of information to get started on the platform. Read through this checklist and make sure everything is set up correctly for your business.
In 2021 Google announced they will be renaming Google My Business (again) and it means that business owners need to learn a new process all over again. However, it only takes a few minutes and one or two days of practice to get the hang of the new Google Business Profile. We all know how sensitive Google can be, specifically with certain keywords or images, and therefore it is important you follow their guidelines first.
We compiled a list of tips you should consider when you’re setting up your Google Business Profile as well as maintaining your local listing.
The short answer is yes! Local SEO for small business is one of the easiest ways to improve your trust score as well as your search ranking to local customers. Having your business listed with Google on their own platform is a great way to improve your SEO efforts. When you set up a Google Business Profile you will have to prove your business is legitimate, this means Google will trust your business (and website) more.
Google has made it very easy to list your business across their platform by providing a FREE tool. Yes, that is correct, Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) is free to set up and use.
It is simple to set up, visit their website and simply start filling in the form with your information. Follow the very easy step by step process and list your business online now. Google will assist you when you need to know if your business can be listed. Some businesses are not eligible for Google Business Profile, these include eCommerce or online-only companies or any rentals or for-sale properties.
Make sure you are the owner or representative of the company and you use an already registered Google account profile to set up your listing. Once you have started the procedure and set up your profile, then you will need to verify your business listing. Google gives you a few options:
Most businesses have other employees in the team that may be responsible for Google Business Profile information. The marketing department may want to regularly keep an eye on the listing, and customer support employees may be tasked with attending to reviews. Another option would be to grant access to a digital marketing agency to optimise and update your Google Business Profile.
There are various access levels available:
When setting up your profile listing, you should list as much information about your business as possible. Ensure the information is updated if it ever changes too. When a potential customer views your profile they will have several options in which to view more information about your business, and how to contact you. Here are our suggestions:
There is some valuable information in this article.
Your potential customer is a visually stimulated learner. The popularity of social media sites proves how we like to view photos, videos and all the other options. Thinking back to MTV’s Cribs, we also do appreciate a good tour of your property.
Images can show your establishment, your services and products and encourage visitors to your company to post their own too. Photos from yourself or as part of a review on Google Business Profile increase your credibility, trust and boosts your listing to more potential customers.
A virtual tour is a great way to introduce your establishment to potential customers. Not many businesses use this option and there is a great opportunity for companies to take advantage of Google’s Business Profile algorithm.
Google Business Profile is open to a range of businesses from all types of industries. From restaurants and cafes to transportation and hairdressing studios. With so many categories available, there is also the option to add in ‘What do you sell?’.
You can add your entire menu (with photos too), or a list of hair dressing options, or perhaps your transport and logistic price list. This means that customers are able to see what you offer and immediately call you to place an order, ask for a quote, or place an appointment for a haircut and colour.
Google search users love to ask a question. If you don’t know the answer to a question then just “Google it”. So when someone has a question that needs to be answered, and it’s about you or what you sell, then best add the answers to your Google Business Profile. As part of the customer journey, if you hold the answer to their question then your credibility increases and their trust in you also increases. This then improves customer retention and loyalty.
If you change a contact email address, migrate your website, improve your working hours or perhaps simply change a phone number then do not forget to update your Google Business Profile. If there is a bank holiday planned, or staff training booked which means you’re closed then update your listing.
You may also go through a minor (or major) decor renovation, a repaint, or perhaps added new items to your service offering. Update the relevant information section and add in new photo or video content. By being consistent with updating information Google will be pleased, and customers are not left disappointed when they view incorrect information.
When you take the time to understand your analytics then you can draw inspirational insights from the trends. Google Business Profile Insights allow you to view how your listing is performing, how many times someone searches for your business, when someone asks for directions to your address, how many times a person calls from Google Business Profile or from other sources if you’re tracking those in Google Analytics and so much more.
Knowing these metrics, you can see your efforts perform, your business grow and the awareness surrounding your company, all of which is an essential part of marketing and measuring your success. Establish your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on whatever campaign you want to set.
There are several tools from Google that can help your business. Your digital marketing efforts can all be assisted by making use of the software that is available. Increase your leads using different forms of digital marketing. If you run Google Ads and have a Google Merchant Center account, these can be linked to your GBP listing. Increasing the effectiveness of the campaigns you have running with each of these tools.
Third party applications like Trustpilot capitalise on the effect reviews can have for business. This is also true when your listing receives reviews on Google. When customers are searching for a business near them, as part of your local SEO, the viewer will see reviews and base their decision on the reviews from other people. This is another form of ‘word of mouth’ and we all know how powerful the act of ‘word of mouth’ can be.
Ask previous visitors to leave a review. Add place cards strategically in your content marketing asking for reviews and encourage photos with an honest opinion. Whenever someone leaves a review, always go and reply – the good and the bad. A potential consumer will be swayed by your engagement with reviews (essentially customers) and view your company in a positive light.
If there are any parts to setting up or maintaining a Google Business Profile that you are struggling with then Google itself has a whole section dedicated to answering your questions. Another option is to find a digital marketing agency near you that can take on this responsibility for you. Peace of mind while you take care of the other important aspects of your company.
Google renamed Google Business Profile to Google Business Profile. Local SEO for Google Business Profile in 2022 is going to be full of challenges, but it will still all be about providing great local search results, not just business listings. That’s because local search is still evolving and there are always new services and trends to adapt to. It will take many years to see what the next version of Google’s local search ends up finally looking like, so for now, we’re just looking at what Google says about it.
When you need customers, clients and business partners, the demographics and location of your target market comes into question. Google knows this and has as part of the algorithm what we call local search. This is when a potential customer searches for a business ‘near me’. This is also where you can list your business as a brick and mortar company on Google Maps and have potential customers find you with a simple search.
Competition is fierce, not only in the ‘real world’ but online as well. Search Engines such as Google show websites based on their content and their search engine optimisation. It’s a rough world out there, but as an SEO agency in the UK, Smarter Media uses local SEO tools to optimise local listings. If you’d like to attempt local SEO for your business then follow these tips and steps below.
Google Business Profile is a tool that manages the online presence of your business and/or organisation on Google. Using this tool also allows you to manage your presence on Google Maps. While you set up your account, ensure you remember these tips:
Combine these tips into your Google Business Profile account, with regular updates throughout the year for accuracy (including your opening hours for day-to-day operations and special local holidays).
Once you have developed a user-friendly website using a local digital marketing agency (or in-house if you choose) then use the link to your website in your Google Business Profile description. The first 100 characters should contain your most important target keywords and then have links pointing to your website included.
This is usually the first step in any SEO campaign, and it is just as relevant to a listing on Google Business Profile. There are many tools such as SemRush, MOZ, or Ahrefs used for keyword research. However, these tools are often expensive and may be out of budget for some smaller businesses. This is where you may experiment with simply searching in Google and waiting for their suggested phrases or using free keyword tools such as Ubersuggest or Answer the Public.
Whichever keyword research process you choose to use, remember that research and understanding what your potential customers will be searching for is important. Use keywords that are appropriate for your business and your products or services.
Good reviews on Google improve your search ranking. Obviously. No one wants to visit a one-star review organisation. The more reviews the better too; your average review increases if you have one bad review and twenty fantastic five-star ones.
Encourage past and present clients and customers to leave a review for your Google Business Profile and always respond to every review instantly. This all increases your ranking in local search results.
Still in 2022, content is king! Yes, blog articles, news reports and all written content still wins for Search Engine Optimisation for websites this year. Just like it has for the past decade. Written content can be centred around more keyword research, but specifically, if you write about or are connected to local topics.
Include your targeted location in your content. Write about topics that are relevant to your organisation that happen in your local area and watch the impressions soar. Google loves local as much as the next socially responsible business.
We recommend that you use your targeted keywords in the URL, H1, Alt text, content and title tag for optimising your business for local SEO results.
For Example: “The Best Local SEO Agencies in the South West of the UK”
Smarter Media along with other local SEO services in the UK recommend embedding a map on the contact page on your website. This helps customers become physically aware of the presence of your company in relation to their location, and Google loves when you link back to them.
This is a great way to increase reputable backlinks to your website which is the second most important tip for increasing your ranking with SEO. Find websites that list local services in your area. Be specific to your industry if you can and then list on those websites, ensuring you use keywords in the description and use a link to your website where you can.
For example: Trustpilot for reviews, Deliveroo for restaurants, Booking.com for hospitality, and TradePages for tradesmen.
Other ways to increase your backlinks include blogger outreach programs, guest blogging and skyscraper techniques. To learn more about backlinks read our other article: Understanding Backlinks
This technique not only increases your online presence and authority on Google, but it is also a great way to be socially responsible and increase brand awareness and loyalty. By sponsoring local events the websites associated with the events might list your website (another backlink building opportunity) but in this way, your business is linked to another local business – a super boost to your local SEO ranking.
Local PR outreach involves reaching out to local publications suggesting story ideas that may or may not involve local topics. This establishes your business as a link to a location-based media publication which bolsters your local SEO authority in a positive way.
This could be a topic for an entirely new article. Social Media and its influence on SEO in Google and on local SEO with Google Business Profile. Local question-answer sites like Quora or Tripadvisor offer a great opportunity to speak directly to your customers. Social media and the groups that are local to your area are also other options for local outreach opportunities. Join your local community group to learn about your customers, their wants and desires and perhaps include them in your keyword research.
Not only creeping in on the local topics of interest, but engaging in the conversation is a great way to gain public interest. We understand that this may be labour intensive, but is a great way to boost your business in the local communities.
As an expert SEO agency in the UK, specialising in the South West of England, we offer a local SEO audit as part of our larger SEO audit process. You need not be confused by the terminology as we have many years of experience in SEO and other blog articles that cover industry-specific jargon in simple easy-to-understand language. If you’re looking for more information, contact Smarter Media now on 01793 292 171 or email us at hello@smarter-media.co.uk
Digital marketing can be a cost-effective and successful way to boost customer acquisition and retention rates and increase your profitability in the process. With so many methods of digital marketing, however, it’s important to find the right solutions for your business.
To learn more, take a look at these top methods of digital marketing to use to general leads and find out how they can enhance your lead gen strategy now:
Ranking highly for relevant search terms on search engine results pages (SERPs) can increase the volume of traffic getting to your site but, crucially, it can bring in more hot leads too. When users input a search query, it means that they’re actively looking for related content. Due to this, they’re likely to be further down the sales funnel than users who may see untargeted ads or branding.
For SEO strategies to pay off, you need to ensure that you’re targeting the right keywords. As well as researching which keywords are most relevant to your business and your users, you’ll need to assess the investment required. Keywords with high levels of competition may take longer to rank highly for, for example.
Once you know which keywords to target, you can begin optimising your online content for maximum SEO performance. This means increasing page loading speeds, verifying that your site meets relevant security standards, publishing value-driven content, writing insightful, relevant, and accurate metadata and alt tags, securing high-quality backlinks, and much, much more.
While executing an effective organic search strategy requires expertise and experience, increasing your SERPs rankings for high-priority keywords can drive warm and hot leads directly to your site.
Ranking highly for relevant search terms on search engine results pages (SERPs) can increase the volume of traffic getting to your site but, crucially, it can bring in more hot leads too. When users input a search query, it means that they’re actively looking for related content. Due to this, they’re likely to be further down the sales funnel than users who may see untargeted ads or branding.
For SEO strategies to pay off, you need to ensure that you’re targeting the right keywords. As well as researching which keywords are most relevant to your business and your users, you’ll need to assess the investment required. Keywords with high levels of competition may take longer to rank highly for, for example.
Once you know which keywords to target, you can begin optimising your online content for maximum SEO performance. This means increasing page loading speeds, verifying that your site meets relevant security standards, publishing value-driven content, writing insightful, relevant, and accurate metadata and alt tags, securing high-quality backlinks, and much, much more.
While executing an effective organic search strategy requires expertise and experience, increasing your SERPs rankings for high-priority keywords can drive warm and hot leads directly to your site.
Everyone knows how important social media is for today’s businesses, but are you using it effectively? With almost half of the world’s population active on at least one platform, you have tremendous potential to increase brand awareness and generate leads when you use social media. Of course, the flip side is that you’ll need to use savvy digital marketing techniques to reach your target demographic amongst so many users and find innovative ways to boost social engagement.
Most people associate paid search, or PPC advertising, with search engines, like Google or Bing, but you can use paid ads on social platforms too. In fact, they can be a highly effective way to reach users and nurture leads. Again, you’ll have a wide variety of options to build your ideal audience, so you can decide what type of users see your content. The introduction of social transactions and purchases means that you can even use social ads to sell products and services directly, without users having to leave the site.
Each social platform has its own ad solutions, but you can use a combination of text, images, and videos when advertising on social media. If you want to launch a new product, images can be a great way to showcase your latest release. Alternatively, ‘How To’ videos can give users an insight into your brand and provide them with valuable information.
Despite the use of spam filters, email marketing is still a highly effective way to nurture leads and transform them into confirmed sales. Once you’ve secured a user’s permission to send marketing content, you can impress them with creative emails that reflect your brand’s personality and provide them with a seamless way to access your website instantly.
Email marketing can be an effective way to increase personalisation and provide users with content that’s most relevant to them. Incomplete transaction reminders and product suggestions based on a user’s previous online behaviour are just two simple yet successful ways of nurturing leads and increasing sales.
The rise of automation also means that setting up email marketing and retargeting campaigns can be easier than ever. With segmented email lists, for example, you can set rules for when certain marketing emails should be deployed and ensure that users receive content that’s tailormade for them.
Devising Your Next Digital Marketing Campaign
As you can see, there are numerous methods to use if you want to establish lead generation funnels via digital marketing. Although the methods cited above are distinct, it’s important to remember that there is some crossover when it comes to digital marketing.
Content marketing refers to the content you create, publish, and share online, for example, yet it’s a core part of other methodologies, such as SEO, PPC, SMM, and email marketing. After all, your content needs to be insightful, impactful, and intriguing if you want to persuade users to engage with it!
Due to this, it’s vital to take a comprehensive and holistic approach to digital marketing. As well as making sure that the technical aspects of your campaigns meet best practice standards, a creative, original, and innovative strategy will set your brand apart from its competitors.
Experts in Digital Marketing
With analysis, strategy, content, and engagement, we convert users into customers and transform your dreams into real-world campaigns. To discuss an upcoming campaign in more detail or to find out more about our digital services, contact Smarter Media now on 01793 292 171 or email us at hello@smarter-media.co.uk.
The internet is a strange and unpredictable place. With the frequent algorithm changes, Google updates and endless information on what to and what not to do, it can become seriously confusing. Not to mention those calls and emails from companies telling you they’ll get you on page 1 of Google.
Here we take a look at some of the intricacies of SEO, what it can mean for your business growth and the benefits of using an agency to manage your online presence.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, increases web exposure and drives more traffic to your site, improving the chance of you being seen for the products and services you provide. It’s an important part of the online marketer’s strategy but it doesn’t happen by chance; instead you have to invest time, budget and effort in order for it to work properly.
Do I need SEO support?
There are many benefits to using SEO support if (like many organisations) you don’t have the in-house expertise, just choose carefully. There are agencies out there who will promise you the moon when trying to sell their services but fail at delivering, or even damage your online reputation via practices such as inflating rankings for money.
With a reputable firm, you’ll have a team of experts constantly working behind-the-scenes researching, optimizing those keywords and constantly monitoring the results. They will take the time to understand your growth plans and offer full support and advice. Their long-term goal revolves around helping you reach yours.
The benefits of working with a good agency
Many organisations find that hiring an SEO agency is better than trying to do it on their own, because they get quicker results and more expertise. Plus, its another arm to your business, a good agency will tick away in the background and align the work they do with your campaign focus and close the visibility gaps you have online.
Here are some of the headline benefits you get from working with a good SEO agency…
If your budget doesn’t allow the expense of a full-time digital marketing role, an agency can provide tailored strategies, expertise in different areas like on-page optimization or link building, as well as analytics reports for every project they undertake.
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO is the most important aspect of an digital marketing strategy. After all, what good is your website if people can’t find it? The content on your site needs to be optimized for keywords and shouldn’t have any typos or errors that would discourage visitors from staying. An expert On-Page SEO specialist will analyze titles, meta descriptions, header tags etc., in order to improve rankings – luckily there are companies like ours who specialise exclusively in this field!
On Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) describes the ways you can upgrade your page’s rank with search engines by making changes such as optimizing pages for certain key words.
Off-page SEO
Off-Page SEO is an often overlooked aspect of search engine optimization but can have a huge impact on your website rankings. It includes activities such as building links and improving reputation and online branding. Your agency should have SEO copywriters that create blogs, press releases or magazines that make it easy for the engines to understand what you’re about. The advantages don’t stop there; agencies also help their clients carry out link campaigns which are proven time and again in helping websites rank higher than before.
The Importance of having an SEO strategy
An SEO strategy is a plan designed to achieve certain goals over time and it typically consists of three stages: short term, mid-term, and long-term. A good example of this would be planning for an event in 3 months by first setting out the date then deciding on a theme.
SEO Goals
Your goals are the end results that you want to achieve from your SEO. This can be described as specific, measurable, realistic and time-bound (SMART).
The goal will typically relate back to a specified objective for your company’s website in search engines’ organic listings pages or other applicable places like Google Ads. It usually has 2 main parts; keywords you would like your site/page(s) to rank for among search engine users and reporting on how those rankings change over time. Achieving these objectives gives you targeted growth because your products or services will start showing higher up in the rankings.
In order to achieve your SEO goal, you need to be aware of actions that will help you along the way. We provide our clients with a list of tasks or steps they can take in order to reach them. These activities can consist of anything from technical changes on their site to improving content quality for better rankings; an expert would be able to tell which action was best advised depending upon how each individual website performs.
By following these steps and utilizing an agencies expertise, you’ll see tangible results with your website traffic and the conversion through to that all important sale. If you need some help getting started or would like more information about working with an agency, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team.
Content optimisation has more to it than you think.
To understand how to optimise your content, we first need to understand how optimisation works. It’s the key to any problem, really – see how it works, so you know how to tweak it to your advantage.
Let’s start with the fact that it is easier and simpler to explain what optimisation is not. Optimisation isn’t simply throwing in tons of keywords here and there and hoping someone clicks on it. And it is not pushing out hoards of hastily-written content either.
So what is optimisation? How can a writer use it to their advantage? How can it be done efficiently?
The simple answer: Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
The more complicated answer is as follows; when you know what steps to take, writing becomes more than just a string of words but instead clickable content optimised for SEO. Adding an SEO stage when creating content for the web is great and will be beneficial for website performance today and in the future.
Learn more about how you can optimise your content through this guide.
SEO-friendly content is a text written in an artful way that search engines love. By love, we mean understandable by an algorithm.
It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t, we swear.
To put it simply, SEO-friendly content helps the search engine connect a question to an answer. The question is usually something searched on Google. So if someone searches, “What is the best Italian restaurant near me?” or “How to build a shed?”, SEO helps a search engine find the best answer to these questions. The search engine then displays the most relevant information by placing it at the top of the page.
And because the article is the top search result, people are more likely to click on it than say an article on the 10th page of the site.
Using this to your advantage, SEO can help you be at the top of the search engine, so traffic will be directed towards you.
It’s a pocket-friendly way of advertising!
The key metric to measure the success of your content is organic traffic. Once you have that, your website will most likely be performing positively.
Where does SEO come in?
SEO comes in to help push organic traffic even further. It helps readers find the article in the first place and stay for as long as possible to, hopefully, click on one of the links on the piece of content. And by optimising your content, you are able to reap the benefits of the text written.
Here are some of the many benefits SEO-friendly content can do:
Now that you know the benefits, are you convinced that SEO is the way to go? We sure do hope so! Keep reading to find out how to optimise your content and have SEO-friendly text.
In this article, you will get a run-down of how to create SEO-friendly content to bring more traffic over to your website ano bring more value to the audience you’re catering to.
What is keyword research?
Research is the foundation of any job or technique and SEO isn’t any different. Keyword research should be the start of your SEO process and is the key to successful organic content distribution.
What are keywords?
Keywords are the phrases or words people enter into search engines to find an answer or more information about anything under the sun.
Although not the end-all-be-all of SEO as others may think, understanding the keywords people are searching for helps you:
To start, ask yourself what a user might search to find your content.
Choosing a primary keyword
When writing a piece of content, it’s tempting to shove every single keyword you find to fully optimise the text. Sadly, this is not how things work and can lead to unreadable and less comprehensive content.
To avoid this, select a primary keyword and use that as a focal point for your article. It becomes the main focus of your article, so to speak.
Select secondary keywords
Additional keywords can be used to optimise your content further and should be closely related to the chosen primary keyword. In this way, you can insert more keywords without compromising the focus of the article.
Now that you have identified the keywords, you can now plug them into your work. Writers have different methods of doing so but a general rule of thumb is to put keywords where they seem natural and never out of place.
If the keyword doesn’t fit in the paragraph, remove it!
What is search intent?
Search intent is what users are trying to accomplish with searching through Google or any other search engine. This means, if a user is looking for an answer to a question, a search engine’s algorithm helps the query along so the user finds their answer immediately.
So as someone optimising SEO, your text should convey the correct search intent for a keyword. Search intent can be:
Some indicators can help when identifying the keyword, such as featured snippets, people also ask, site links, and various types of ads.
Once you’ve figured out the search intent, you can now angle your article to the search’s purpose.
Once you’ve written your article, you now need to figure out your meta title.
An article always has two headings. The first is your H1 tag that serves as your title and shows up on the page, and a meta title or description that is viewed as a snippet of the article when viewed on a search engine.
Both tags should have your primary keyword, even though they aren’t identical.
For H1 tags, they should be catchy and unique! Differentiate your title from others on similar search pages.
Although H1 tags are important and should be eye-catching, meta descriptions are integral for SEO. This is because the meta title acts as an introduction to the content of your article. So if your meta title isn’t great, your audience will most likely not click on it. In essence, these descriptions are the primary piece of information that determines whether or not a person will click on your article and visit the website.
Here are some basic rules for meta titles to incorporate into your work:
These are the basics of writing compelling SEO articles. With this guide, you will be able to optimise your articles to the best of your ability.
With all the details you need to remember for titles, meta descriptions, keywords, and finally the content itself, its essential to remember to keep the article fun and creative. At the end of the day, people will want to read fun, informative articles.
Smarter Media is a digital growth agency using our Smarter Approach to help your business grow digitally. Working side by side with our clients, we use our ‘Smarter Way’ Process to create a plan that delivers results and our ‘Smarter Promise’ to do what we say we will. For a more comprehensive look at SEO, or to find out how you can achieve a better ROI with SEO & Paid Media working side by side, set an appointment with Smarter Media today!
Still unsure which SEO Management Company to work with, you can talk to an SEO expert at Smarter Media about it. If you are ready to ask serious questions and take the definitive step towards online business success, feel free to get in touch on 01793 292 171 or hello@smarter-media.co.uk today.
Your teachers in school tell you that plagiarism is wrong and is a sanctionable offence. The same principle applies with web content – only your website traffic is ultimately affected, even when you’re doing the plagiarism.
But wouldn’t it be so much easier to write an article, copy-paste it onto other URLs, and reap the benefits? It does make sense to assume that a potential client will view the more submissions you have, the more likely your content.
Although it’s much easier to simply copy and paste web content onto ten different websites in the hopes of gaining a click, duplicate content actually does more harm than good.
In this article, you will be learning about how duplicate content in SEO works, its benefits, the adverse effects, and how to avoid doing so. There is more to it than meets the eye when it comes to web content, and the same goes when duplicate content is in question.
Interested? Keep reading to learn more!
Is your website struggling with producing original content? Contact us for more information about how you can push out unique content on the web.
Duplicate content is any type of text or content that appears on a Google search engine or anywhere on the internet in more than one place.
So if you have two different unique website addresses (URL) with the exact same content on them, you have got yourself an example of duplicate content.
While Google doesn’t necessarily penalise it in the ways of the law, copy and pasting content onto various web pages, or duplicate content isn’t the best when it comes to search engine rankings. When there are similar pieces of content, which Google describes as “appreciably similar,” search engines have a challenging time deciding which content to push to the top of the results page.
You might be thinking, it takes more effort to write new articles with the same content than it is to duplicate the content, right?
The answer is complicated: yes in the short run and no in the long run.
Let us tell you why.
Here are some reasons why duplicate content is not the best practice for SEO and why it should be avoided at all costs.
Search engines
Ultimately, if the search engine doesn’t know which content to push out, there is a risk of them overlooking the content instead.
For site owners
When it comes to duplicate content, site owners risk low rankings and traffic losses. There are two main problems with duplicating content:
Are you still confused about how duplicate content can negatively affect SEO? Let’s put it this way:
In the Harry Potter series, Voldemort decides to split his soul into seven parts, which he called Horcruxes, as he thought it would make him invincible. Although it made him harder to kill, it ultimately became his weakness as Harry and his team were able to hunt his Horcruxes down, piece by piece to end his terrible reign.
This analogy works well for duplicate content because it works the same way – spreading the same content across multiple websites makes the text weaker.
In most cases, website owners don’t intend on creating duplicate content. But there are cases where this is true; in fact, 29% of web content are actually duplicates!
Although writers and SEO experts might think of it as a cheeky way of getting more content out on the world wide web, as we have said above, it does more harm than good.
Here are cases where you can watch out for duplicated content in order to avoid it:
URL variations
URL parameters like click tracking and analytics can create unexpected duplicate content. This isn’t because of parameters per se, but the order these parameters appear on a URL.
HTTP vs HTTPS or WWW vs non-WWW
Some websites have separate versions. For example, if “www.webste.com” and “site.com” are the same websites, and the same content is available on both variations, duplicate content exists. It’s like self-sabotage in a way.
Copied content
Scrapers are slimy individuals intentionally taking your content and republishing them on another website, most often their own, as a shortcut to get the text for cheap (in this case, completely free).
Besides not being able to write unique content, e-commerce websites also run into the issue of duplicate content.
Since there are websites that sell similar and exactly the same items, every re-seller uses the exact text that the manufacturer used to describe their listings. So, identical content ends up on multiple websites all at once.
If remained unfixed, duplicate content can be detrimental for a website that wants to build organic traffic.
How does one go about fixing the issue?
Thankfully, there are multiple ways to fix duplicate content,it and it becomes more accessible with the help of a professional.
When you find duplicated content, it should be canonicalised for Google’s search engine. There are five methods to accomplish this:
1: 301 redirect
The best way to solve duplicate content is to set up a 301 redirect from the copy page to the original website. When you have multiple inbound links leading to the same website, in this case, your original page, it creates a positive impact on the original page. Ultimately, this results in high rankings for the page.
2: Rel=”canonical”
If the redirect isn’t enough, another option is to use the rel=canonical attribute.
This means the search engine will be informed that a particular page is merely a copy, and therefore the ranking of the page should be lower.
3: Exame content and tags
Web content usually repeats certain words or phrases, especially if they’re keywords. Although it’s okay to have phrase repetitions, anything more than that will harm your page.
So be sure to check, double-check, and triple-check your own website for duplicates of the same paragraph or chunk of text to avoid running into duplicate content problems.
4: Apply noindex
Another way to solve duplicate content is through the noindex tag.
This is a type of HTML tag that allows any search engine and its web crawlers to “crawl” duplicated content. So the copies won’t show up as a search engine result. Instead, only the original copy of the content will be seen.
5: Continuously check for duplicated content
Since you never know who has used your content, it would be best to check for copies every now and then. If you do discover that someone has plagiarised or lifted your website content, give Google a shout to let them know.
In this way, you are assured that you won’t be accused of stealing content!
Besides being sure about keeping your content fresh and unique, there is a sure-fire way to keep duplicate content out of your sights forever.
How?
Through SEO professionals who have decades of experience in the field! With professional assistance, you can effectively eliminate existing duplicate content on your website or those that are on other websites.
More than that, seeking the expertise of an SEO professional helps you consistently and continuously monitor for duplicate content as it happens in real time.
Smarter Media is a digital growth agency using our Smarter Approach to help your business grow digitally. Working side by side with our clients, we use our ‘Smarter Way’ Process to create a plan that delivers results and our ‘Smarter Promise’ to do what we say we will. For a more comprehensive look at SEO, or to find out how you can achieve a better ROI with SEO & Paid Media working side by side, set an appointment with Smarter Media today!
In the online world, there is a lot of competition. The same is true when it comes to your e-commerce enterprise. You might agree that standing out, or even surviving in your niche is a bit of a struggle. That is why you should consider a marketing tactic that will ensure the stability of your online presence and success.
For many years now, search engine optimisation has become a necessity for e-commerce entrepreneurs; online businesses won’t be able to survive if they can’t reach their target audience.
When customers look for something, they often use search engines and if you are nowhere to be found on the first page of the SERP results, your online presence is not strong enough to sustain you in the long term.
Here are a few reasons why you should consider SEO for your e-commerce enterprise today.
You might think that opting for SEO services is another expense on your part. This is hardly true. Consider it as an investment that will help you reach your business goals. As an entrepreneur, you already understand the importance of investing to get more exposure and receive high returns as a result. This is just one of the benefits of SEO.
Once your website or webpage starts to rank on the first page of search engine results, you will get more visitors and buyers. If that is something that you want, then SEO is a must for you.
If you want fast results, you can invest in advertising and Google Ads but the results of these methods are not long-lasting. They will only work as long as you will pay for them. SEO, on the other hand, does not work instantly but it works for the long run.
In SEO, you need to decide which keywords or key phrases to want to rank with. For instance, if you are selling T-shirts in your online shop and you are located in Swindon, you might want to get a high ranking for the T-shirts and Swindon keywords and the T-shirts in Swindon key phrase. SEO will help improve your rank at a steady pace and organically, as long as there is no spam activity on your online shop.
When it comes to SEO, it is best to delegate this task to the experts. An SEO agency will help you accomplish your business goals and so much more.
Your main goal should be increasing website traffic, website visibility and website ranking. According to some statistics, more than 30% of the clicks go to the pages on the first page of search engine results while the first 5 listings on the search engine results get more than 70% of the clicks. If possible, aiming for the top position of the search engine results is your ultimate goal.
Although the concept of authority is somewhat new in SEO, this benchmark is increasingly gaining traction due to its importance to web users. If your website has authority, it means that it is relevant, trustworthy and of high-quality. The higher your authority ranking, the better your SEO ranking will be. This will result in more leads, sales and brand confidence.
On top of that, an SEO agency will help you create a better buying experience for your customers. If your website is user-friendly, easy to navigate, compatible with mobile devices and capable of loading completely within a few seconds, your visitors will gain a positive website experience. The happier they are, the longer they will stay on your website, which will eventually lead to lesser bounce rates and higher conversion rates.
If you have already implemented SEO strategies for your website, the next viable thing to do is to identify what will come next. This is where SEO auditing comes in. An SEO audit will serve as your guide on the steps you need to take. The SEO agency will provide a checklist for you every time your website needs to be updated. The audit will lean your focus on the strategies that work for you so that you will not waste time on things that give no results. Regular SEO auditing will also allow you to monitor the progress of your website and finetune any existing tasks or strategies.
E-commerce SEO Company
What else can SEO companies do for your e-commerce enterprise? They can actually help you pinpoint your weaknesses in SEO. Having no SEO strategy is one. If you already have one, not implementing regular SEO audits is another. For instance, you may not know that putting the physical location of your business at the bottom of your website has an adverse effect on your SEO ranking. To address this issue, the SEO company will create a webpage that files your current business address.
There are many things that SEO companies can do for you. Aside from helping you identify your competitors, they can improve your organic search visibility and conversion rates by analysing your site speed and backlinks. Hiring an SEO company will give you a firm understanding of your current search engine ranking and they will assist you to achieve your goals.
Business growth is your ultimate goal and SEO services can help you achieve that. Aside from improving your search engine rankings and online presence, SEO can help you build a better relationship with your target audience, increase your online authority, drive more people to visit your website, improve the buying experience of your customers, enhance your conversion rate and give you an edge over your competitors. This will result in gaining more loyal customers and overall business growth.
If your aim is to increase your sale and revenue, SEO can help you generate leads and make more sales. As soon as your search engine ranking will improve, your online presence will improve, your web traffic and sales will increase.
So, if you are ready to take the next big step for your business, talk to the SEO experts of Smarter Media on 01793 292 171 or hello@smarter-media.co.uk today.
