Introduction

Okay, so your business may have had a website for quite a while, its just, well-it might not be generating any business?

So now’s the time to partner with an SEO agency, and you want that agency to help improve where your business ranks for a number of keywords but for these to be focused on one town or city.

Us SEO’s refer to this as “local SEO”– and its slightly different than if a business was to hire an agency to implement national seo.

This guide offers a comprehensive guide to how a business could improve its local SEO.

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and why your business should follow these

Okay, so your ready to invest in SEO, so now it’s full steam ahead and you should fire-up the espresso machine and start adding work to your website?

Well, we would say no, we would pause for a second and keep this is mind, that is, the work must be high quality, it must be white hat, it must follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, because if the business does not, well the business may incur a penalty.

Okay, so we are starting this blog post on a bit of a downer, but we don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm for SEO, but here’s the thing, get it wrong and a business could incur a penalty.

Many businesses have incurred for example Google Penguin penalties, now this doesn’t just mean that the business will move down the ranks by just say a few places, no instead the website could move down the ranks by a few pages, or in some cases the business could be removed completely.

And that’s often because Google’s algorithm has deemed the business has having low-quality seo, so this could mean that in some cases the entire website is moved down the ranks, or it is de-indexed, meaning that it has been removed from Google.

So, here’s our best advice, read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, or if your optimising your website for another search engine, then make sure you read their guidelines, that’s before you implement any SEO.

Must be white hat

All work must be white hat, and what do we mean by “white hat”- well it simply means that the work must be high-quality.

So many agencies say that they are “white-hat” when in matter of fact, they do not use white hat methods.

So you must make sure that all work is white hat, as if its not then again the business could incur a penalty.

Section one: Onsite SEO

Broadly speaking SEO can be split into one of two categories, they are onsite and offsite seo, however with that said, there are well over 200 ranking factors in total- and what do we mean by ranking factors?

Well, quite simply put ranking factors are what Google’s algorithm uses to work out how strong your businesses SEO is, so for example, one ranking factor would be backlinks, another could be a meta description.

However, not all ranking factors are worth the same, some are more important than others. So often when you ask a marketing agency for a quote, they will state a monthly fee, this will be used to improve your businesses organic seo, and the agency should use this time to optimise which signal will give you the best return.

And what do we mean by that?

Well, lets say you hire an agency here in Cardiff, and you sign-up to say a 12 month contract, and in month 1 the agency spots that your website does not have any meta titles, no meta descriptions, no content marketing- well it should be obvious that this needs to be fixed first, if the website has pages with just say 1 line of text per page.

Then the following month the agency may start to build backlinks, so as you can see, the agency must prioritise their time.

Now we are going to offer some suggestions as to how a business could improve its onsite SEO.

Homepage design

Your homepages design is really important in order to improve your company’s seo, for example if the homepage’s main menu is difficult to use, for example lets say on some smartphones the menu doesn’t load, well your websites going to have a high bounce rate.

So, a business should make sure that its homepage is easy to use.

Your web developer and your marketing agency should work together and use split testing, sometimes called A/B testing, that’s so the design of the website can be improved and to see if this helps to improve the company’s seo as well.

For example, the web designers may add a new main menu, if this is easier to use, then the businesses bounce rate may reduce.

Reduce your company’s bounce rate

Let’s say for example that your business sells suits, and your business has a bounce rate of say 79.8% and then you have a direct competitor, that business has a bounce rate of 22.9%- now what does this tell Google?

What does this say to Google’s artificial intelligence programme-RankBrain?

Well it simply says that the business with the lower bounce rate, may answer the question better.

And how did we come to that conclusion?

Well, that’s simple, if your business has a high bounce rate, this simply means that your website is getting visitors, but they are leaving after just visiting that one page on your website.

And if your selling suits, well its unlikely that someone is going to land on your website, see the first suit and think I will purchase that.

Often they will want to browse the different suits, and by other items such as ties and socks.

So if a business has a high bounce rate, then this could be considered as an indicator that your business is not answering the query.

Now if the business has a low-bounce rate, and people are looking at many different suits, socks, shirts and ties, well this means that the business is offering a lot of different products that the customer wants, so not only is this good for the business, but its good for the businesses SEO as well.

We say that because so many digital marketing agencies state that if a business has a low-bounce rate, then this can help to improve the businesses seo.

Meta titles and meta descriptions

Its important that each page on your website has a meta title and a meta description, its also fair to say that meta titles and meta descriptions are not one of the most important ranking factors, however this should be completed if your business is to improve its local seo.

For example, if you run a plumbing business, you should write a meta title and meta description for each page. So, lets say for example that one page is about installing a certain brand of boiler, you should include a meta title and meta description which reads something like this:

Meta title: We are a plumbing business in “” we can supply and install “” boilers

Meta description: Here at “” plumbing we can offer to supply and fit “” boilers, if you would like a quote then why not give us a ring?

Now its fair to say that the meta title and meta description has to be written to a set wordcount, too long and it may not be used. So, if you have a website such as WordPress, then why not add a plugin, some are free, then some of these plugins allow you to see if the meta title and the meta description are within the word count, that’s before your business publishes the page.

Alt text

Let’s say that your business sells many thousands of products, lets say you sell mens clothing, now you could enhance your businesses seo by adding an alt tag to each product on your website.

For example, for a blue shirt, you could simply add the alt text “blue shirt and name of brand”- now alt text is not a very important ranking factor, yet regardless of this most white hat seo agencies will still add alt text as it can improve your SEO if its carried out with other onsite seo such as adding meta title ands meta descriptions.

H1-H6

Let’s say that you sell mountain bikes, and each week your business publishes a blog post about mountain bikes.

Now if you were to publish blog posts that have a high word count, well you will want to use titles to break up the text, and a lot of businesses will mark the titles with a H1 through to a H6 tag.

If this is done is a white hat way, then this can enhance the businesses seo.

What can happen is Googlebot can crawl and index that page, and lets say the H1 through to the H6 tags are talking about electric bikes, then Googlebot and Google’s algorithm will know the page is talking about electric bikes, your website will then be deemed more relevant for electric bikes so you may get more organic visitors.

Internal backlinks

Internal backlinks are a great way of keeping shoppers on your website for longer, so for instance lets say you are adding a blog posts about candles, and your business sells thousands of different candles, then you could add internal links, such as “bees wax candles” or “candles made using natural ingredients”- these can help to keep a shopper on your website for longer.

This may help to reduce your businesses bounce rate, so for example, lets say someone lands on your website, and you sell suits, then on that page you may also offer a link to where you sell shirts, socks and belts, this may keep a shopper on your website for longer.

Many digital marketing agencies think that if you reduce a business bounce rate, that its Google’s RankBrain that will spot if shoppers are shopping on your website, and spending a while buying or looking at your company’s products.

Compare this to say another business, where 90% of shoppers are landing on the business’s website, then after just a few seconds they are leaving the website.

Now, Google’s RankBrain is likely to spot that the business is not offering what a lot of shoppers want, so many digital marketing agencies believe if a business has a high bounce rate, then the website may move down.

NAP

As this entire blog post is dedicated to offering advice on how a business can improve its local seo, then we must talk about adding NAP information to your website.

NAP simply means name of the business; the businesses address and also the businesses phone number.

This should be added to your company’s website, we always add NAP information to the footer of a website and also on the contact us page. NAP information can then be read by Googlebot, this is so Google’s algorithm will know where the business is based, and this can help to improve a business’s local seo.

However, as any good digital marketing agency will know the businesses NAP information on the company’s website, must match with the business’s citations.

Pages

One way that a business could improve its local SEO is by simply adding new pages so that every service that your company offers has its own page. What do we mean by this?

So for example, lets say that you run a construction business, now your business has a website that has a homepage an about us page, and also a contact us page.

However, what is often needed is separate dedicated pages for each service that your company offers, such as “loft conversions”, “property extensions” “new-build properties”- now once these are added to your website, and each page has its own meta title, meta description, title, content marketing then this is likely to enhance the businesses seo for each service.

More organic seo will be needed, however, if a business does not have a website where each main service or a group of products are put together it can be very hard to optimise the website for each service.

That’s to say an SEO agency may succeed in getting the business onto the first page for say “local builders”- yet they may not be able to get the business onto the first page for “loft conversion companies”- unless that business has a dedicated page that’s designed just to advertise the businesses loft conversion service.

Schema mark-up

In order to improve your businesses local seo your agency should use Schema that’s to highlight your businesses NAP information.

This will make it much easier for Googlebot to crawl and index your businesses NAP information if its marked using Schema mark-up.

Local phone number

Most agencies would agree with us when we say its important for a business to have a local phone number- and what do we mean by this?

Well, some businesses just add a mobile number to their website, yet most agencies think that if you use a local phone number, such as for Cardiff, in South Wales the local phone numbers start with 029 20 or 029 21 now most agencies think that if your looking to improve your businesses local SEO for the city of Cardiff, then having a local phone number will help.

That’s to say when adding NAP information to your website, you should use a local phone number.

Can the site be indexed?

This is a really important point, you have to make sure that your company’s website can be indexed.

And what do we mean by this?

Well, sometimes when a website is being built, the web designer will switch on, or apply code which stops the website from being indexed.

That’s to say when Googlebot indexes the website, it will notice the no-index code, and will not index that website, or that page.

There are some reasons other why a no-index tab might be left on, yet what’s for sure is if your trying to improve your local SEO, and your using SEO tools to try and see if your website’s seo is improving, you should make sure that the website can be indexed.

If it can’t be indexed, then this will mean that the website will not appear in Google’s results.

Plus, another common problem can occur if you were to ask a web developer to make an improvement to your website, such as let’s say redesigning the homepage, they may switch on the “no-index” tab, and forget it was left on, so what the business or your agency must do is to make sure that the website can be indexed.

Content marketing

Now we are onto a really important part, that is content marketing, and if you want to improve your businesses seo, then your businesses content marketing must be high-quality.

For example, some businesses thought that if they were to keep repeating the words, they want their business to rank for, then this would improve the businesses seo, however, this is not a method that works, it could result in the company incurring a penalty.

Instead, what your marketing agency should do is to add work which is going to help your customers.

So for example, lets say that you sell a certain brand of car, and there are a few dealerships in your city, and you want to rank number one for “brand of car + name of city”- now instead of adding the brand of car + name of city throughout your website, what you should do is to add useful information that customers will want to read, so for example:

·        How your garage stands out, such as offering free servicing on new cars

·        Add reviews of new cars, and highlight the advantages of ownership

·        Add an FAQ and answer questions such as how much warranty each car has

·        Then apply white hat SEO

Section two: Backlinks

If you were to ask most marketing agencies here in Cardiff what are the top three ranking factors, most are bound to say in the top three will be backlinks, that’s because they are widely considered as one of the most important ranking factors.

And this is important to know, that’s because there are over 200 ranking factors, and backlinks are thought to be one of the most important.

However, with that said, a lot of agencies and businesses make the mistake in thinking that all backlinks are worth the same, when they are not, some will help to improve your businesses seo, and some could damage your company’s seo.

The backlinks that your business needs are high-quality backlinks, which are relevant to your company.

So for example, lets say that your business sells luxury cars, if your business then obtains a backlink from say a well-known car magazine’s website, then the link will be relevant as its about cars, and the link will be from a high-quality source, that’s because the link has come from a well-known car magazine.

The links that your business should obtain, should be:

·        From a high-quality source

·        Be relevant

·        Built in a white hat way

·        Earnt and never bought

·        Your business must follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

What are backlinks?

Okay, so lets say that your looking to purchase a car online, and you use a website that offers cars from many different car dealers, you then see a car you like, you click the link to go to the businesses website, this means that you have followed a backlink.

So in terms of helping a shopper a backlink can be really useful, that’ instead of having to go and find that car dealers web address, instead you can just click the link, follow the backlink and land on the car dealers website.

It makes a shoppers shopping experience much easier, for example, let’s say you’ve just booked a holiday, at the end of the purchasing process you may be asked, do you want to rent a car, and are offered a special offer.

So instead of looking for a car rental company you can then click the link and rent a car from the company.

Yet from an SEO perspective, backlinks can help a business to improve its seo, that’s if high-quality websites link to your site.

As we mentioned earlier there are thought to be over 200 ranking factors, and most marketing agencies believe that backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors, with this in mind this is why many businesses want backlinks to help improve where the business ranks.

However, here at this agency we would only recommend that links are earnt, and what do we mean by that?

Well, simply put we think its much better if your website offers quality information, and then other businesses, or websites then link to your site without you asking them to, or your business paying them to.

We would most definitely not recommend spending any money on backlinks, as this is likely to lead to a link penalty.

So what do we recommend?

Well, lets say that you run a business that sells camping and outdoor equipment, you may write a blog post reviewing 10 of the best selling tents in the U.K, now this post may well be widely read on Twitter, then people you have their own blog about camping and outdoor sports such as hiking, may then link to the work.

Why are backlinks so important?

A business could spend many hundreds of hours improving its onsite seo, that’s to say adding meta titles, meta descriptions, new product descriptions and adding content marketing, yet a business may never reach the first page of Google unless it has high-quality backlinks.

That’s to say for businesses that operate in highly competitive business sectors, such as car insurance, for those businesses to get onto the first page of Google’s results, then that business will normally need high-quality backlinks.

If a business has not got high-quality backlinks, then that business can sometimes reach a point where its hard to improve its rankings any further, that’s to say an agency may get the business onto page 3, yet without backlinks the business may struggle to move any higher.

What is the Google Penguin penalty and why should this be avoided?

So many businesses, plus also some marketing agencies take the mindset that the more backlinks they have the better. When it comes to link building this is a flawed strategy, its more than likely going to result in the business incurring a link penalty, which is often referred to as a Google Penguin penalty.

And why do we say that?

Well, because when it comes to backlinks, its far better to have quality backlinks than to opt for quantity.

If an agency was to purchase backlinks, or obtain low-quality backlinks, then the business will incur a penalty. This penalty can mean that the business will drop down the ranks.

Will a business be able to recover from a penalty easily?

Often no is the short answer, some businesses and agencies think that by building low-quality links they can improve where the site ranks, and then do not realise that it can sometimes take a very long time for a business to recover from a link penalty, sometimes many months.

What do no-follow backlinks mean?

If you were to ask any good digital marketing agency what a good set of backlinks leading to a company’s website should look like, they will say that the backlink profile should have no-follow and do-follow backlinks.

Now, for those business owners that know a thing or two about building backlinks, they will know that no-follow backlinks do not pass link equity, so some agencies may deem these links as worthless.

Yet, its good practice for a business to have do-follow and no-follow backlinks, if a business was to have say 10,000 backlinks, and these were all do-follow, then it can look like the backlinks have been purchased.

As we mentioned earlier, our agency only recommends that backlinks are built in a white hat way, and the backlinks are not purchased.

The difference between no-follow and do-follow backlinks, is that do-follow backlinks can pass link-equity.

And what do we mean by earning backlinks?

We most definitely do not mean purchasing backlinks, as this is likely to cause a link penalty, what we instead mean is that a business should earn links, your business should offer advice which other businesses or websites will want to link to.

For example, lets say that your business sells furniture, and to help the environment your business only uses reclaimed wood to make all of your furniture, you may have blog posts to state where you reclaim the wood from, and how you also fix furniture to give the furniture a second lease of life.

Now many interior design blogs are likely to want to link to this website, and this is how backlinks should be earnt, that’s to say businesses and websites want to link to your website, that’s without having to pay them.

Why you shouldn’t purchase backlinks

If a business was to purchase backlinks, then this is likely to cause a link penalty.

What is Google Analytics?

If you are going to improve your businesses local SEO, then you are going to want to monitor how many organic visitors your website is getting, what the bounce rate is, and also compare how many visitors your business is getting compared with say the previous month, a great tool that can help your business to monitor how your SEO is improving is called Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a free tool, and before you start improving your businesses seo we would recommend that your web designer links your businesses website with Google Analytics.

Section three: What is Google My Business?

So, let’s say that you wish to order a tasty pizza right here in Cardiff, and you ask Google, “ find me local take-away pizza shops”- and then you are shown a map, next to the map are a list of local businesses, these are the “Google My Business results”.

Now for your business to appear in the Google My Business results, your business must have a Google My Business account. This is easy to set-up, yet having said that so many businesses miss important details, such as adding a business description, or setting the right category for the business.

For example, the pizza take-away business may set their account as a restaurant, when really they may be better if they opted for a take-away restaurant.

How easy is it to set-up a Google My Business account?

 It’s really easy to do, it doesn’t take much time, and it can help to improve your businesses seo.

 If you want to improve your businesses local SEO then your business is going to need a Google My Business account.

Then once your Google My Business account has been set-up, you should make sure that the NAP information that’s mentioned on your Google My Business account matches with your websites NAP information 

Add a backlink to your homepage

When setting up your Google My Business account, make sure that you add your homepage as the website that links from your Google My Business account to your website. Some businesses use their contact us page, however we would always recommend that you use your homepage.

 

Add your businesses opening hours

Add your businesses opening hours, and if your business decides to change its opening hours make sure that you keep your Google My Business account updated. The reason for this is if your profile says that your shop is open when it is not, then the business may obtain a negative business review, so its always worth asking the marketing agency or for yourself as the business owner to update your Google My Business account.

 

Add a detailed business description

Some marketing agencies, and some businesses just simply copy and paste a business description from their about us page, or from somewhere on their website, however our agency would recommend that you write a new business description, one that is not copy and pasted, and then add this to your businesses Google My Business account.

 

Make sure the NAP information is correct

Okay, so if you run a business here in Cardiff, South Wales, and you are looking to improve your company’s local SEO, then we would recommend that your business adds NAP information to your website.

NAP simply stands for name of your business, its address and the businesses phone number, we recommend that this is added to the footer of your website, plus on the contact us page of your website.

Once this has been added, you should make sure that it can be indexed, plus to make sure that the NAP information matches the businesses citations. So what we mean by this is if some of the businesses citations still state an old address, then these should be updated.

Then the NAP information that’s on your company’s website, that should then be added to your businesses Google My Business account. It’s worth remembering that all of the businesses citations, GMB listing and your website’s NAP details should all match, if they do not, then its worth hiring an agency to make sure that all the NAP information matches.

If a business does not have NAP information that all matches, that’s to say half of the business citations state the old company address,  then this can cause “conflicting citations”- this can mean that Google’s algorithm may not know where your business is based, so for example it may well be unsure if your based at the old company address, or the new one, this is why an agency may well update some business citations, so that they all match.

Section four: Content Marketing

This now leads on to a really important part of SEO, that is content marketing, it doesn’t matter if your trying to improve your businesses seo locally or on a global basis, most businesses will use content marketing.

However, again white hat seo methods must be used.

So many businesses make the mistake of thinking that a direct competitor has say 100 blog posts, then the business may believe that this is the gold standard that must be beat.

So that’s to say some agencies, and some company’s think its just about publishing as many blog posts that the company can-however this is a totally flawed strategy, as again it doesn’t come down to how many blog posts the company has written, its about quality.

So for example, lets say you run a plumbing business, and you notice that the business that’s ranked number 1 is publishing a blog post about plumbing every week, they have also published 200 articles in the past.

So you then hire an agency, and say write as many blog posts as you can about plumbing, will this help to improve the businesses SEO- well, we don’t think so.

What we believe is far better is to offer work is high-quality- but what do we mean by high-quality?

·        Useful to the reader

·        Written by an expert

·        Well-written with a high word count

·        Must contain facts

·        Must not be written with the sole aim of trying to improve the businesses seo

Notice our last point?

Now as a business owner reading this you might think, well why would I hire a marketing company, and spend a lot on getting work written, if its not got the sole aim of improving my businesses SEO?

Well, here’s why, if the work is well-written and useful, then it could help the business to earn backlinks.

Plus, Google will know if a shopper or a visitor to your company’s website is interested in what your business has to say.

For example, lets say that your business sells electrical goods, let’s say you specialise in selling T.V’s, now if business one has a very high bounce rate, then Google’s algorithm will know this.

If business two offers a lot of helpful and useful information about how to choose the right T.V, then that business may well be one which shoppers spend a long time on the website, they may read various guides, various product descriptions, and also use a tool which the business has created to help a shopper find the right T.V- now that business is likely to have a low bounce rate, Google Analytics will show this, plus also Google’s Algorithm will spot that the business has a low bounce rate, so it may move that business up the ranks.

So, now you can start to see that if the work is well-written, and helpful to your customers, how this content marketing can help your business and help to improve your businesses seo.

Duplicated content marketing and how this can harm your company’s rankings

Often when an e-commerce website is being designed a web designer will copy and paste product descriptions from the manufacturers website, and this is a good idea right? Well, no its not a good idea, that’s for sure it will most likely cause the website to be deemed as a low-quality website, by using low-quality seo methods right from the very start.

So a digital marketing agency that’s offering quality advice would say, do not put the website live that’s until the business or the agency has written all of the product descriptions themselves, so there’s no duplication.

Content thin

So many businesses think that when they write content marketing that they just have to write the work to meet a word count,  that is a direct competitor here in Cardiff, is writing blog posts which are around 1000 words, so that business then thinks that they must do the same.

This is likely to cause the businesses content marketing to be considered as content thin- and what do we mean by that?

Well, lets say your about to do some DIY work in your house, you want to replace some old taps which are leaking in your bathroom, so you have a look for some advice on how to swap the taps online.

Which blog post would you want to read out of these two blog posts?

Blog post one is 500 words which ramble on mentioning bathroom taps, over and over again, and just seems like an article that’s been written to keep mentioning variations of bathroom taps, such as Victorian taps, modern taps and also brass taps.

Well, that’s no use you think, that blog post offers no advice on how to fit the taps, that’s despite the blog post being titled “how to install your new bathroom taps”.

Now article number two, that’s different, it has a step by step guide on how to install your taps, it also includes diagrams on how to undo the old taps, how to turn the water off, how to fix the new taps, also how to install the flexi pipe to the copper pipe, which you find very helpful, and in no time at all you’ve fixed the taps.

Now article number one, the rather unhelpful article, well that’s likely to have a very high bounce rate, and no businesses will want to link to this work, so the business is unlikely to accumulate any high-quality backlinks.

Yet business two, the business that offered helpful advice on how to fix the taps, well that business may have a low bounce rate, plus the business may accumulate a lot of good quality backlinks, so this may help the businesses seo.

Why your business should aim to reduce its bounce rate

So often a business will hire an SEO agency and a web designer, yet the web designer is often not just used to design the website, and then the design remains the same.

Often what a lot of businesses do instead is to hire a web design agency and for them to do A/B testing on improvements that they make to the website, for example they may redesign the menu.

If the new menu succeeds in lowering the businesses bounce rate, then the business may use that main menu, the aim therefore will be to reduce the company’s bounce rate, whilst also obviously aiming to increase sales.

This is why most digital marketing company’s now work alongside web designers, this is so they can recommend ways that they can reduce a business’s bounce rate.

A lot of businesses know that if they reduce the company’s bounce rate, then Googlebot and Google’s algorithm will spot this, and this means that the seo could improve.

This is why some businesses are always improving the design of the homepage, and trying to reduce the company’s bounce rate.

 

 

 

AMP  

Another factor that all businesses should consider is how fast their company website is, for example, if the company website is slow, and the customer has to wait too long for products to load, then this might increase the businesses bounce rate.

A lot of agencies think that a high-bounce rate can be caused by a company’s website talking too long to load.

So, some businesses here in Cardiff, may hire a web developer to build an AMP version of the website, this is so that the website is fast, AMP simply stands for accelerated mobile pages, and this means that the website will be faster.  

A lot of businesses now know that because Google’s algorithm will look at the strength of over 200 ranking SEO factors, that the business must aim to have as many ranking factors as strong as possible.

So, for example, in a hyper competitive business sector, like car insurance for example, the car insurance company’s will be looking to make every ranking factor as strong as possible, this is why as soon as AMP emerged, many businesses would be making the leap to see if this improves the businesses seo.

This means that a lot of businesses will not just be concentrating on improving the important ranking signals, such as backlinks, content marketing and reducing a businesses bounce rate, the businesses that operate in highly competitive business sectors, such as retailing electrical items may be concentrating also on making their company website as fast as possible, and using AMP.

Indexation issues and “no-index” tabs

This is a really important point, as some businesses may spend a lot on improving their SEO, yet if the company website has indexation issues, then this can damage the businesses seo.

For example, lets say an indexation issue was caused by a new plugin, this may mean that the businesses blog posts could not be indexed, this could cause a massive SEO problem, that’s to say the content marketing that may have been improving the businesses seo, may well be de-indexed.

This is why the agency must make sure that Googlebot can crawl and index the website, if the work cannot be crawled, then this could cause seo problems.

Sometimes when a business is having their website improved, lets say the website is being redesigned, the web designer may switch the “no-index” tab on, yet if this is forgotten about, and not switched back on then the company’s website could be de-indexed, which could mean that the rankings drop.

How we can help:

We are a white hat SEO agency in Cardiff, if you would like a quote for improving your company’s organic seo, or local SEO then why not give us a call, we can offer the following services:

·        Local SEO

·        Organic SEO

·        Link building

 

 

Your business may have had its current website for quite a while, yet it may not have been generating much business for you?

That’s to say, you may have hired a web developer to build a really professional looking website for your business, yet its months since the website went live, and you haven’t received one single call?

So now you plan on taking action, you want to generate more sales, so you start looking for a local seo company that offers organic and local seo.

And you found one, yet one of the first tasks that they want to do is to replace all of the duplicated content marketing on your site- but you can’t understand why would they want to this?

You think that surely its better to leave it as it is, and to just focus on other areas of SEO, such as building backlinks, right?

Well, nope we would disagree with that, because duplicated content can work like a handbrake does on a car, that is if applied, well things aren’t going anywhere fast!

And duplicated content is a massive problem, that’s because often a website designer will want to hand a website back to you as soon as possible, and presumably get paid for building the website.

Yet, if they hand a website back to you, and hundreds of products have no product descriptions, well, the website is going to look rather bleak, so what do they often do?

Well, sometimes they will copy the text directly from the manufacturers website, which is not a good idea!

It’s not a good idea, simply because when Googlebot then crawls and indexes that page it will spot that the text is duplicated, and its been duplicated from the manufacturers website, and because your website was indexed after that, well, it will be your website that’s classed as the low-quality website.

This means that many businesses have duplicated content, may well be affected by the Google Panda update, yet have no idea, and this is why the business may well be lagging, that’s in terms of sales.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, if your in a rush, and haven’t got the time to read the rest of this article, in a nutshell, the work needs to be unique, it needs to be well-written and original.

What Google’s algorithm would prefer is a website where the content is unique, this means you’ve written it just for that website, plus you add information that your customers are likely to find useful, so for example, lets say you sell washing machines, do not just copy and paste directly from the manufacturer, no, instead write your own product description about the washing machines, for example, that it has 8kg washing capacity, that it spins and such and such speed, and write why you think that is a good washing machine for that price, this will help your customers, but also it should help to improve your seo, as the work is unique to your website.

 

So, what’s the solution?

You got it, fix that duplicated content.

What is duplicated content exactly?

Okay, so some business owners think that duplicated content just applies to the main pages of the website, such as the About Us page for example.

That’s to say that some businesses still think that it’s okay to duplicate a blog post, by taking it from another businesses website, and then placing it on their own.

Well this is not okay!

Duplication of any form of content marketing that is copied from another site, whether that just be a paragraph of text, or an entire blog post could harm your businesses seo, and its most definitely worth reading more about the Google Panda update.

Google’s algorithm is very clever, it will spot duplicated content, and your website could be moved down the ranks because of this duplicated SEO work.

So in a nutshell, do not add duplicated content marketing to your website.

Also, some businesses will copy and paste information that the manufacturer has written onto their blog post section of there website.

So for example, lets say that you sell a brand of lawn mower, and you’re the only distributor for that brand of lawn mower, and the company has just launched a new product range, for example a range of rechargeable battery lawn mowers, so you think that your helping your customers by copying and pasting that article, and placing it on your website, right?

Wrong!

Even a duplicated blog post could damage your businesses seo, Google’s algorithm will spot that its duplicated work, that its low-quality, and it could mean your website moves down the SERP’s.  

But why does Google’s algorithm do this?

So, let’s say you wanted to purchase a new electric car, but you weren’t sure how electric cars work, so you wanted to know for example how far the car could drive before it needed recharging.

So, you ask Google “which electric cars have the best range before the car needs recharging”.

Now because Google is so good at answering questions, well you expect a quality answer. But what if this wasn’t the case, and let’s say you received a list of 10 websites instead that all said the same thing! You would be annoyed, right?

That’s why Google employs a clever algorithm that rewards businesses that offer quality content marketing that’s original.

That’s to say if its copied, well, that page is not likely to rank high on Google at all, and this is so that you the user obtain a quality answer.

So instead of having say 10 websites that all supply the same answer about electric cars, you know that when you use Google you will obtain a quality answer from many different businesses.

Plagiarism checker

Google therefore has built into it’s algorithm the ability to check for duplication, but many businesses also use plagiarism checkers like CopyScape.

So let’s say you hire an seo company in Cardiff, yet after a few months you notice your place on Google is not improving. You were on the second page of the SERP’s now you are on page 5, and the SEO agency is saying don’t worry, this is normal, but is it?

Well, we would most definitely ask why your website is moving backwards, and do make sure as one of the first checks that the work being added is not duplicated, then hire another agency to make sure that the backlinks are being built correctly, and that the work is being done to a high standard.

Sound a bit excessive hiring another seo agency to check on the current agencies standard of work?

Well, we don’t think so, because if your business incurs an algorithmic or a manual penalty, such as a Google Penguin, or a Google Panda penalty, well, your website could be removed from Google altogether.

So its most definitely worth making sure the work is done to a high-standard, you can also use plagiarism checkers, that’s to see if the content marketing is duplicated or not.

Does your business require help with its content marketing?

If you run a business here within Cardiff, and you want to invest in white hat SEO, then why not give us a ring?

At the very least the text should not be duplicated, but that’s like saying you shouldn’t add diesel fuel to a petrol car- it should be obvious to the seo agency.

So once that’s been substantiated, that the work is not duplicated, the marketing agency should concentrate on writing high-quality content marketing, plus the agency should make sure that all of the following are added to every blog post:

·        Title

·        Meta title

·        Meta description

·        Alt text

·        Internal backlinks

·        External backlinks

·        Over 1000-word count

·        H1-H6

Plus the work must be high-quality, for example, lets say you ask a really simply question, such as “where can I buy a wooden shed”– well there might be 100 different places in the city of Cardiff that you can purchase a wooden shed from, that’s why for your business to get onto the first page the website must be really good.

Your business must have top quality seo, this means that all  the duplicated text replaced with high-quality text.

Your business must also adhere to white hat seo methods, plus the onsite seo must also be completed to a high-standard.

So if you are looking for a white hat seo company, then why not call us?

How we can help:

We can write content marketing for your business, we can also offer organic SEO, all work is white hat.

This means we will never use duplicated content marketing.