Introduction

It’s been a while since Google first rolled out their Panda update back in 2011, yet this important update still impacts many websites today.

So, all that commotion surrounding this update may have died down a bit, but its still super important that both seo agencies, and clients alike understand what the Panda update is about.

The reason being is when your equipped with some understanding how this update works, you will have a better understanding of how to implement white hat seo.

It’s safe to say the days of optimising a website just for seo gain are now over, now websites should aim to be the best service by optimising the website in a white hat way.

So, SEO has radically changed, and that’s thanks to the Panda.

 

Which websites did the Panda update particularly target?

If a business had low quality seo implemented, then that business may have been impacted by Panda.

These are the websites that were most often impacted

 

Content thin

Ever landed on a company’s website and been unimpressed by the lack of information? Perhaps for example you wanted to purchase a new pair of shoes, and the only information on the shoes were which size you would like to purchase.

Instead you wanted to know if the shoes were leather, a bit more about the brand for example. Well websites with little in the way of information could be deemed as being “content thin”.

This is a sign that the website may well be low quality, as what is often needed is unique descriptions for each product.

 

Spammy

Often when a business invests in super cheap seo, there’s a reason for why the seo is so cheap, often it’s because the work is spammy or black hat.

Black hat seo will mean the website will incur a penalty. Spammy seo, that is just low quality seo which can also result in a penalty.

For example, you may well be looking to find an accountant in your local city, so “accountant + city name” may just get placed in the content too much.

Also, the meta title, meta description, alt text may well have “accountant + city” placed in every bit,  and us seo’s call this “keyword stuffing”- it’s a really poor seo tactic, one likely to mean the business will incur a penalty.

That is just one example of seo work that could be deemed as spammy, there are many more.

 

Duplicated content

If a website was to have duplicated content, then this can adversely affect the businesses rankings.

White hat seo dictates that all content should be original to that website, this means if you are retailer, it doesn’t make sense to copy and paste product descriptions that may be provided by the manufacturer’s website.

The Panda update is improving and sophisticated

It’s worth mentioning that the Panda algorithm update wasn’t something that was created, and then forgotten about.

Most seo agencies believe that the Google Panda update will be updated on a regular basis.

These regular updates of the Google Panda update will be to help Google weed out low quality websites, and as new rubbish seo methods are introduced to try and fool the algorithm, well you guessed in Google is likely to be one step ahead.

So how should our business be creating content marketing?

We believe you have to think of the following three factors when creating quality content marketing:

 

Relevant

We believe your content marketing should be relevant to your business. Now this may sound pretty obvious, but in matter of fact many businesses do not make their content relevant.

Sure, the content may be relevant in the sense that its about the business, but is it relevant to what the business offers as a service or product?

Let us give you an example, say you run a family law practice, and you specialise in the area of divorce.

Now what would you deem a better seo strategy, articles about how you’ve attended an awards ceremony and recap on what the business has been up to, or articles more focused on answering divorce related questions?

Well we think the latter, sure a few articles on what the business has been up to is okay, yet if you lose sight of offering information that really helps your customers, well the seo strategy is likely to fail.

So, you need to instead offer really good quality advice to your customers.

 

High-quality

All seo work must be high quality. By high-quality we mean white hat.

 

Detailed

You often see it on some company websites that they have invested in seo, but sometimes it may be a bit of a rubbish effort that is made by the marketing agency.

For example, they may add blog posts, but the word count may be on the low side. So, with just a few lines of text they just offer some company update, but in reality, it wont be of much use to in terms of improving the businesses seo.

So, we believe if your going to answer a common questions that your customers may have, well you have to push the boat out.

So here’s what we think your content marketing efforts should include:

 

·        Answer the question in sufficient depth, if the blog post needs to be over 2000 to answer the question then so be it

·        Offer quality not quantity

·        Link to where you have found the information, so basically cite your sources

·        Make it interesting, for example the blog post may contain all the relevant facts, but is it at the cost of sending the reader to sleep?

·        Make it white hat

·        Don’t copy other people’s work

·        Use titles, alt tags, meta titles and meta descriptions

·        Write or create content marketing that will be useful, don’t just focus on trying to improve your businesses seo

Google’s set of questions

Search Engine Land published an interesting article that is well worth a read, regarding the Google Panda update.

 

Quality

As already mentioned, focus on quality. All seo work should be white hat.

 

Must answer the question

Sometimes some digital marketing agencies have been focused on creating content marketing that is just written to a meet a word count.

Yet, as you can imagine often the information isn’t very useful. So, what you end up with is often 500 words of rabbling without offering any useful information.

This is often the type of content marketing that annoys customers. For example, say you were a bathroom retailer, and you published an article advising on how to fit a new shower enclosure.

Well, if the article just promoted various shower enclosures, and didn’t really offer any DIY advice, well as you would guess the reader is going to feel as though you have just wasted their time.

This means that they are likely to leave the website, and not visit anymore information that the website has to offer. Often the reader will quickly pick-up that the page is marketing gibberish, and leave the website, which means the website will incur a higher bounce rate.

Most digital marketing agencies, including ours, believe that a sky-high bounce rate can mean that some websites will see their rankings decrease. The reason for this is that it’s a clear sign that the website doesn’t answer the persons question.

White hat agency

If your business needs help with its SEO, then why not give us a ring?

 

 

 

Cost

 

How much do your SEO services cost?

There will be some SEO companies that offer fixed prices for organic and local seo, and these prices are mentioned on their website.

This can sometimes give a rough idea as to what the business might expect to pay.

However, every industry sector is different, so in some regards fixed price packages are almost a waste of time.

The reason that fixed price packages are often a waste of time is due to the fact that the level of work needed is dictated by your competitors.

This means if you have competitors have already set the SEO standard very high, well this will then have to be exceeded by your business, that’s if you wish for your business to rank higher.

So, as you can see, a local insurance broker calling an seo company to purchase a £250.00 per month seo package, to get the business ranked for the term “car insurance companies”- well that’s likely to be a total waste of money for that insurance company.

That’s because there will be many insurance companies that will have already be investing in seo, and investing millions insuring that their businesses rank on the first page. So, the local car insurance companies marketing budget is likely to be a drop in the ocean.

So this may sound a bit defeatist, but its important to be realistic when investing in seo, as too many seo agencies grab a clients money, make false promises, and then leave the business in question disappointed.

So, what you really have to look for is an seo agency that offers you the best value for money. This means you need to partner with a white hat seo company that informs you about what you can realistically achieve with your marketing budget.

This means we set our seo prices depending on how strong your competitors are. Some seo companies don’t do this, they offer a low price to try and secure a company’s business, however often this wont offer the amount of work needed for you to beat your competitors.

Often it will only get the business to rank for “longtail keywords” – which offer a lower amount of visitors, and are not as effective.

So our seo prices vary, they typically vary between £250.00 being our lowest price, and then we offer prices which can go up to £2000.00+ per month. For an exact quote, why not e-mail us today.

We can often offer your business a quote after a short period of time.

 

How long will we have to pay for?

If your looking to invest in organic SEO or local SEO, this means that you should be aware that its an ongoing process. This means that often a monthly investment is needed.

This is not to say you cant cancel at anytime with us, because you can, but its worth bearing in mind that organic seo often needs a monthly investment.

Now obviously from a businesses perspective you may well be thinking well, why do we have to pay monthly?

Why can’t we pay a one-off payment and your seo company gets our business to the top of Google?

Well, there are two very good reasons for this, number one your website is compared with your competitors, so as soon as your competitors seo is deemed better than your business they will overtake your business in a flash.

Meaning even when a business gets onto the first page of Google, its not guaranteed to stay there for any length of time, that’s because a competitor may overtake the website in a flash.

So this is why organic seo is an ongoing process.

As you can imagine there will always be a new group of companies wanting to take your space.

Also, our digital marketing agency doesn’t recommend that loads of SEO gets implemented in a one off hit of seo, and then nothing added for months after.

The reason being is Google’s algorithms will be looking for spam, and a website having no seo added to the site, then a massive amount of seo all in one go, well, it this seo work may well be deemed as spam, which could actually damage where your website ranks and not improve the seo.

 

Why can’t we just pay a one-off fee and you get our business to the top?

It’s probably one of the most common questions that we get asked, and its perfectly understandable why a business would want to pay a one-off fee and then get a cast-iron guarantee that the business gets to the first page of Google- however we don’t recommend this, and neither do we offer this.

The reason that we don’t offer this service is your business is in constant competition with your competitors. So this means that you may well have competitors that have been investing in seo for many years.

This means to bring you level with a competitors seo will often take a considerable amount of work.

But then what’s to say a competitor improves there seo, which most do on a monthly basis, so soon enough your website will start to drop back down.

But here’s the main reason we don’t offer seo in one off hits, and why so many other seo companies do not neither.

That’s because a website that hasn’t had any or little seo, which then has massive amounts of seo added in one hit, well this can look spammy.

It can therefore trigger the algorithms attention, for example why were so many backlinks built that month?

Or, why were so many blog posts added all at once?

The work could therefore possibly be deemed as spam, as it don’t look normal to have no seo added for years, then a massive amount of seo in say the space of a few months.

So this is why we don’t offer this service, as it could mean a website drops down the ranks, and not goes up the ranks.

This is because Google, and the other search engines are very cautious when it comes to spam, anything that looks like spam may well be subjected to a penalty.

For example a Google Panda penalty or a Google Penguin penalty.

So what’s the solution?

Well we would highly recommend that your seo work is drip-fed, and by this we mean slowly implemented every month by a white hat seo company.

 

Why is organic SEO an ongoing process?

Organic SEO is not a one-off process. This means that a business shouldn’t expect to pay an seo agency to get them to the top and then stop investing.

The reason is your business is in constant competition with other websites, so as soon as a competitor is deemed to have stronger seo, well that website will move up.

What often happens when a business stops investing is the competition will improve their seo, then they overtake a bunch of businesses, so it then becomes harder to overtake that business.

So a lot of seo agencies, including ours do not offer stop, start seo. Instead its better to keep chipping away at improving a website, and in doing so you can improve your businesses seo to a standard it makes it harder for competitors to overtake the business.

However, with that said, sometimes a business will simply spend so much money on seo that they leapfrog the competition, and therefore it often boils down to how much of a marketing budget the business has and how good the seo agency is that they have employed.

But one thing for sure, more often than not, if a business stops paying then often they are overtaken by their direct competitors.

 

Why do we have to pay each month?

Your competitors will often be working on getting their business onto the first page of Google, therefore all of the businesses on the first page of Google are all battling to either retain or improve where they are.

This means that there will always be other companies that want to take your position, or reach the top.

So this is why most businesses pay every month, that’s so an seo agency can keep working on the businesses seo and keep improving the businesses seo so that the website can constantly be striving to beat the competition.

Sometimes some businesses will face companies that have enormous marketing budgets, so sometimes its simply not possible to hold off such competition.

Yet to stop investing altogether, well as website will often keep going down the ranks, that’s while other businesses with better seo take your place.

So this is why businesses normally pay per month for seo. 

 

How does your SEO company know what to charge?

Our monthly fee is based on an assessment of how strong your competitor’s SEO is. For example if you have many competitors that have many good quality backlinks, coupled to good onsite SEO then we will know a rough idea of how much work is needed.

However it is also based on the current level of performance of your website, for example if we are taking over from another agency, and the seo that they have implemented is of a good quality, then this can reduce the amount of work that we need to do.

You may well be thinking, well why would you be taking over from an agency that was doing a good job- well sometimes this is due to the agency putting their prices up, so often businesses then shop around for a better quote.

However, our monthly fee is dependent on how strong your competitor’s SEO is. For example, if its apparent that some of your competitors are investing a lot of time every month on improving their SEO, then this will influence the quote that offer to customers.

 

Cancellation

 

Can we cancel at any time?

With our SEO agency yes you can, however some businesses do tie companies in to 12 month contracts.

So, if you want more flexibility in terms of being able to cancel when you want, well we can offer this.

 

Guarantees

Do you guarantee results?

From a customer’s perspective it seems reasonable that if you pay for something, that the business in question must then guarantee results.

However, many leading seo agencies do not guarantee results, and our seo agency does not either, but there’s a good reason for that.

That is when it comes to investing in organic it boils down to how much time a business can dedicate to the seo work.

There may well be a group of competitors, or a new-start-up business that will have a truly massive marketing budget, meaning that some businesses will not be able to compete.

This means a business with a £250.00 per month budget often cant compete with a company which has hired a well respected seo agency and is spending £10,000.00 per month.

However, there’s another reason that we don’t and many other businesses do not guarantee results, and that’s because it also boils down to how long has a business invested for?

For example, some of your direct competitors may have been investing in organic seo for say the last 8 years, so a business just starting to invest cannot realistically expect to make serious inroads into beating their competitors in just say the first month.

However, this is often not the facts that most seo companies want to draw your attention to right at the very start. Instead they often want to get your signature on a long contract, then they may start to get you quick results through what are called “longtail keywords” which can sometimes mean your website will be on the first page of Google, but for terms that nobody searches for, so are pretty much useless.

However, the businesses that know a bit more about SEO, well they know it is a slow process, and you have to partner with the best minds you can find to improve the site, that’s even if they don’t offer quick results.

So we don’t guarantee results, and that’s because your businesses place in the pecking order is often dependent on the time your seo agency can spend working on your businesses SEO. Plus you do have to factor in how long have your competitors been investing for?

If it looks like quite a while, that’s because they have say 1000 good quality backlinks, well often there’s much catching up to do, and this takes time. So the agencies that promise the earth, and guarantee that they will get you to the first page of Google in few months, well its down to you as the business to work out how genuine those claims are.

This is also not factoring in another thing that you should consider, that is the businesses that do guarantee results, well, sometimes they are not interested in doing any hard work, they want to cheat the algorithms into thinking your businesses SEO is better than it is, this can then cause a penalty.

A penalty, such as a Google Penguin or Panda penalty can sometimes take a long time to recover from, in the meantime your website may not be on Google, and if it is well it may have dropped significantly to say the 11th page of Google.

So often the agencies that promise the earth, for very little money, well the old saying does start to ring true- you do get what you pay for!

How long will it take to get my website onto the first page of Google?

This is solely dependant on your competitors. For example, if your business is up against businesses that have invested in seo, and have done so for a long time then the process will be much slower.

Some seo agencies don’t point this out at the very start, they are just eager to get your money, however we are different.

So imagine your competitors websites like you would a wall, well if your competitors have been building their walls for a long time, well that wall is going to be hard to scale.

This is why it sometimes takes many months, even years to catch up with the competition. Of course we can give an estimation in terms of timescales when you contact us, however its worth bearing this in mind, that is if your competitors have been investing in white hat seo for many years, well it can therefore take sometimes a long time to catch up with the competition.

This is not too deter you from investing, however its important to be realistic, as sometimes some agencies will be willing to make bold claims which can not later be backed up with following through.

You really do therefore have to work hard in terms of finding an seo agency that’s honest, and that has seo consultants that have up to date seo knowledge. As often when a business does get onto the first page this means that your businesses SEO agency will be competing with what are likely to be other businesses that have employed skilled seo companies.

So therefore just as your business is improving your seo, so will your competitors. This is why organic seo is an ongoing process. How long it take to get your business onto the first page is dependent on how good your competitors seo is, and how long they have been investing for.

 

Quality

How do we know the quality of the SEO work will be good?

Most businesses that invest in SEO these days rightly are worried about the quality of the SEO work they will receive.

For example, a website that pays for seo, yet the seo is low-quality may receive a penalty. For example, a Google Penguin penalty can mean that a website drops and sometimes some businesses are removed altogether from Google.

So its really crucial that the quality of the work is good. At our seo agency we will only ever offer white hat seo work, which means that we only ever offer quality work.

Google’s algorithm will reward good quality white hat work, so this is the only type of seo that our business offers.

Why should businesses that are about to invest SEO know about the Google Panda and Penguin updates?

There are so many seo agencies that compete on price, and sometimes the prices are so low that the seo agency then cuts corners. Now don’t get us wrong, it doesn’t mean that low prices automatically means that the business will receive low quality seo, that’s because some agencies have charged high prices that still provided low quality seo to their clients.

However, what’s important to remember is this, that is regardless of how much the seo cost, if the work is low-quality the business could incur a penalty. Google penalties are often given many different names, such as the Google Penguin or Google Panda penalties for example.

These penalties can mean that the websites rankings drop, plus sometimes a penalty can mean that a website is removed from Google, or the other search engines altogether.

So, its important for businesses to know that low quality seo can sometimes mean that the business will incur a penalty.

Its important to know that also many businesses have then subsequently turned to other seo companies in order to rectify the problems caused by the previous seo agency. This means that the business may then pay a lot of money to correct the problems with the businesses seo.

 

Organic

What is organic SEO?

Let’s say you are looking to purchase a new coffee machine online, and let’s say you are using Google to help you locate your perfect coffee machine.

Well normally the results for the coffee machines will be like this, PPC adds at the top, then if your looking to purchase locally you may have some local business results (Google My Business). Then underneath those businesses, you will normally have roughly ten organic business listings.

Now this means that the majority of the page will be taken up by organic business listings, so this is why so many businesses want to be on the first page of Google within the organic business listings.

That’s because organic business listings are the bulk of the results, but also because if your business is ranked higher up the page, in the first business position well its likely to get more clicks.

So organic seo is the process of improving your businesses seo so that your business climbs up the organic business results.

A lot of companies therefore pay an SEO agency, like us to help improve where there business ranks.

Normally seo companies charge a set monthly fee. We charge our clients per month, and we determine the price on how strong your competitors are, meaning we assess how much work is needed to beat your competitors seo.

 

How is this any different from say PPC?

PPC is totally different, with PPC you set your budget, and which keywords you want to rank for. As long as you pay the fee your website can appear in the PPC adds.

However, with organic SEO you don’t pay Google for your website to rank, instead you may wish to partner with an seo agency like us, this is so we can improve your businesses seo so that your business ranks higher.

Most seo companies, including us charge per month for the time we spend improving your businesses seo.

 

Is organic seo a fast process?

The truth is no, often it is not a fast process at all. This is what can deter a lot of businesses from investing.

The reason that so many businesses do not invest is because of the amount of work that is often needed for that company to catch up with their competitors seo.

For example, you may have a direct competitor that has invested in organic seo every month for say the last 8 years. This means that the businesses seo is likely to be very strong and therefore a lot of work would need to be implemented to overtake that business.

So this means that the business with the strong seo, well that business may have say 1000 good quality links. And this alone may take some other companies many years to catch-up with that number of good quality backlinks.

So as you can see, organic seo is not often a fast process, however, for the businesses that do succeed and do partner with the right seo companies, well often organic seo can offer their business a big competitive advantage.

However, the business must invest in white hat seo, and must partner with a white hat seo company.

Why do some agencies charge low prices and some charge very high prices?

A lot of business owners can get confused as to why the quotes that are offered by marketing agencies vary so much. That’s to say one company may quote £250.00 for local seo, while another seo agency may quote £2000.00- so why is there so much of a difference.

Well, as you can imagine there can loads of different reasons why the quotes offered by different seo companies vary so much.

However with that said, you do have to figure out whether one agency is offering white hat work, and perhaps another agency isn’t.

White hat seo, which is often referred to as quality seo means that the agency should be implementing seo the correct way. However, some agencies say that they are offering white hat seo, when in matter of fact they are not.

However, with that said, sometimes the really cheap quotes can be offered because the agency is cutting corners. For example the marketing agency may well be using automated link building, which is most definitely not recommend, as this form of seo could lead to a penalty.

Having said that often cheap seo is offered because there’s not actually much work that an actual seo consultant is doing. That’s to say the company may well be cutting corners, so often this is why prices can vary so massively.

 

Why should the organic seo work be white hat?

We strongly recommend that you only invest in white hat seo. However, some agencies say they are offering white hat work when the work is not white hat.

White hat simply means that the marketing agency is using the correct ways to implement seo, they are not therefore cutting corners.

However, as mentioned a bit earlier, sometimes an agency will make promises which are false, such as work is white hat, when it sometimes not.

 

Local

What is local seo?

Whether you run a local pizza take-away shop or an accountancy practice, its most likely that your business could benefit from investing in local seo.

Local seo is the term that’s used to describe work that can get your business listed in the Google My Business results, and the organic business listings.

So for example, your pizza take away shop will most likely want to be ranked at the top of Google for “local pizza take-away shops”.

Now if your seo agency correctly implements your businesses seo, so for example they build good quality backlinks, they improve your businesses NAP information by building business citations, well your website stands a better chance of ranking higher.

However, its also more than likely that there will be other businesses in the area that also want to rank high on Google. So, this means that often they will be employing an seo company to improve their seo, let’s say by adding blog posts each month, so this is often why so many businesses hire an seo company.

 

Why do most businesses invest in both organic and local seo?

Let’s say for example you run a local solicitors practice, and your solicitors practice specialises in the area of divorce.

So when someone searches for “divorce solicitors near me”- your business would obviously like to appear on the map and within the Google My Business results. However, where there was once on average seven businesses ranked here, now there are normally only three businesses.

This now means that many businesses don’t just invest in local seo, but also organic seo as well.

The organic business results take up the majority of the page, that’s to say when looking for a divorce solicitor you may well be presented with 10 organic business results, so it therefore makes sense to aim to get the business to rank within the local business results, and the organic business results.

 

How much does local seo cost?

How much local SEO costs is dependent on how much competition your business is up against.

For example, let’s say you run a dental practice, yet there may be 20 other dentists that are also investing in seo.

So this may mean that most of the dentists have been investing in SEO for a very long time, let’s say for example for the last 8 years.

This means that over the 8 years these businesses have improved their seo, this now means that their seo is very strong.

This therefore means that a business that’s just starting to invest in SEO, will have to catch up with these businesses, and catching up is just the first part, then the business has to have better seo if it is to rank higher than these other businesses.

So, this means that often there will be a lot of seo work needed, such as building links, and this is what dictates how much the monthly cost for SEO will be.

So for example, for a business that doesn’t have much competition, let’s say a local pet shop, well it may well be so that the business may only need £250.00 pound spent on the businesses seo with us, however if the business is a solicitors practice, and the competition have very strong seo then the monthly cost may well be £2000.00 plus per month.

 

Why should the work be white hat?

We only ever recommend investing in white hat seo. If you do not know what white hat seo let us explain.

White hat seo basically means that the business is implementing seo correctly, however here’s the thing, some business state that their work is white hat, when in matter of fact it is not.

This is why you really do have to think carefully about which seo company you choose, as your business only wants to be investing in the best quality work.

If your business does not, and you invest in seo which is low-quality, well the business may incur a penalty.

For example many businesses have received a Google Penguin or Google Panda penalty and this is because the business has used low quality seo.

So often one of the signs that the seo work will be low quality is if the marketing agency is offering the work at a really low price, as realistically how much quality work can be offered for a low amount of money?

But its not just the agencies that offer low prices, sometimes the agencies that charge high prices  may implement rubbish seo. So, you really do have to pick a company that offers quality work.

 

SEO

What does link building mean?

One of the main reasons that some businesses are ranked on the first page of Google is because they have good quality backlinks.

For example, let’s say you’re you run an architects practice, and you have links from construction businesses, your business may have 100 good quality backlinks.

So this is often the reason for why one business will be on the first page of Google and other architects may well be on page 11 of Google.

However, some backlinks can help to improve your businesses seo, because they are good quality and relevant to your business, yet other types of backlinks, such as low quality backlinks could damage your businesses seo.

For example, so many businesses falsely believe that the more backlinks their business obtains the better, that’s regardless of quality- however this is not true.

Its really important that you only obtain good quality backlinks, and we can help your business to build backlinks.

However, its also important to know that building backlinks are only one part of the seo process, that’s to say seo agencies like us normally work on improving many different areas of the businesses seo.

In matter of fact there are over 200 ways that an seo company could improve a businesses seo, that’s  because there are over 200 ranking signals.

So often a digital marketing agency like ours will quote to improve many different areas of the businesses seo each month.

What does content marketing mean?

Content marketing is another really important part of the seo process. Many businesses think that content marketing is just merely written words, like the text you would read on a blog post.

And it is true that most content marketing is written text, however it could also be a YouTube video for example. Or perhaps the business uses a combination of YouTube and written text.

Sometimes some businesses think that by adding a few blog posts to their website that the seo will improve.

However, it’s the same as building backlinks, that’s to say if the quality is really good, then this can help the businesses seo. However, with that said, if the work is low quality, for example it doesn’t really answer the question, well this could be deemed low quality seo, and could therefore actually damage the businesses seo.

It could damage the businesses seo because the website may incur a higher bounce rate, that’s if a lot of the content marketing work is deemed not good quality. Also, the work may not be created in a white hat way, so this means that for example the author may have mentioned certain words that they want to improve the businesses seo for too much.

So for example, let’s say you run a dental practice, and you want to attract more customers who want their teeth made whiter, well, you may mention teeth whitening too many times.

That’s to say for someone reading the work, it may seem odd that you keep mentioning “teeth whitening” too many times in the article, well Google’s algorithm may detect that you keep mentioning this phrase too much also, so much so that work may well be deemed as spam.

This means that the business may incur a penalty, such as a Google Panda penalty.

So what is content marketing?

Well, it mostly is written text, however the quality must be really good, and by that we mean that each article should be:

·        Written by an expert on the subject

·        We always think that blog posts should be over 500 words

·        Written in a white hat way, so no adding keywords repeatedly

·        Should be well researched, so if you do mention someone else’s work, then we would recommend adding an outbound backlink

·        Should be checked for spelling mistakes

·        Must follow white hat rules

 

Reporting

How will I know if my businesses SEO is improving?

We simply send an seo report every single month you invest in organic seo with us. And some marketing agencies send seo reports which are simply full of marketing jargon and complicated graphs.

We think that some seo companies use such reports to try and pull the wool over their clients eyes.

That’s to say if the website’s seo hasn’t improved too much, well they will have so many seo metrics that they just focus on the one which has improved.

However our seo company is different, we focus on the really important figures, such as how many organic visitors has the website received?

 

Also what’s the bounce rate like, is it high?

Also we will look at what are the best performing keywords, for example, if you run a solicitors practice and you specialise in divorce, well is your website ranking for divorce related terms?

So our reports focus on the really important parts of improving a businesses seo. The marketing jargon we do not add, this way a business owner, or indeed an internal marketing team can see straightaway how the business is improving, in terms of its seo, and therefore we offer seo reports which make it clear to see how your organic seo is improving.

 

What does your agency use to track SEO improvements?

We use a number of different seo tools, we use different tools to spot new backlinks that have been built. But which tools we use is dependent on the client, for example if we are working for a large business, that sells a lot of products we use different tools for that client than we would for some other businesses.

We therefore use a number of seo tools, we also use Google Analytics and we also use Google Search Console.

 

We therefore monitor the following:

Bounce rates

If a website has a really high bounce rate, well its often up to the website designers and the seo agency to figure out why this is so.

A high bounce rate means that a lot of people are visiting your company website, then leaving more or less straightaway.

So, for example, let’s say you run a restaurant, its kind of like 90 out of the 100 customers popping their head around the door, but then leaving. That’s of course if the bounce rate is 90%.

So basically the higher the bounce rate, the more people that are leaving your website straight away.

Some businesses think that this only matters for e-commerce businesses, i.e businesses that sell items online. However, its not just e-commerce businesses, its also websites that sell services as well.

For example, let’s say you run an accountancy practice, and your website has a bounce rate of 90% and one of your direct competitors, their bounce rate is 10%.

Well, business number two, that’s the business with the 10% bounce rate well that’s obviously keeping people on the website for longer. The algorithms are therefore likely to determine that this website best answers the question, as otherwise why would a visitor bounce off the website, its most likely because it didn’t answer the persons question.

This is why seo companies, and website designers often spend considerable amounts of time trying to reduce a businesses bounce rate.

Sometimes this can be achieved relatively easily, for example a homepage with just 2 lines of text, well why not add more information, why not make it 30 lines of text that is likely to be useful to your customers?

However often its more complicated, such as is your website easy to navigate, for example if you sell a lot of items such as clothing, and your brown shoes are not selling very well, is that because its hard to find the section of your website that sells brown shoes?

Is it because your website doesn’t allow clothing to be sorted into what the customer wants? So as you can see often an seo agency and a website design company will need to work together to improve a businesses bounce rate.

 

Number of organic visitors

Obviously if you run a shop you want more customers to come into your shop, well the same can be said about your website.

However, even though you want more visitors, and for these visitors to find your business through your organic business listings, you want customers that are likely to purchase something.

Or if not purchase something, get in touch with your business and request more information on what your business offers.

This comes down to the skill of the seo company, as its relatively easy to get the number of organic  visitors to increase, but the seo agency has to ask are these visitors buying anything.

So what we mean by this is say you run a solicitors practice, and you specialise in the area of divorce.

And your seo company adds a number of blog posts, these blog posts talk about high-profile celebrity divorces.

Well, these blog posts are likely to attract readers interested in that couples divorce, yet are the blog posts attracting readers who will then contact the solicitors practice and pay for divorce advice- probably not is the answer.

So your seo agency has to implement seo, but always be aiming to attract the right customers, customers who are likely to buy something.

 

Time spent on your website

This point is similar to your businesses bounce rate, that is you don’t want most of your businesses visitors leaving your website straightaway.

Instead you want them to shop around, and purchase something. So, in order to work out if your business is attracting the right visitors, one way is measure the average time spent on your businesses website.

For example, is the average visitor spending 30 seconds on your website, or are they spending 6 mins and 30 secs?

Obviously the longer the better, as they are more likely to be shopping around, and more likely to purchase from the business. If the visitor is leaving more or less straight away, well why is that? it obviously shows that what the business is not offering what the customer wants.

Perhaps it’s the price of items, or perhaps its because each product lacks a detailed product description? So your seo agency has to think about this.

 

Number of backlinks

Your seo company should be checking your businesses backlinks, that’s in terms of how many backlinks your company has, also whether or not the backlinks are quality or not.

Your seo agency should check that the backlinks are quality, as if they are not quality this could mean that your business incurs a penalty, such as a Google Penguin penalty.

So your seo company should check the quality of your businesses backlinks on a regular basis.

Where your website ranks for certain words

This is probably the most obvious point, but your seo company should be checking where your business ranks for certain words.

For example, are the words that the business ranks highest for relevant to the business? For example lets say you run a dental practice, well you may well be aiming for the business to rank for “dentists + name of city”.

However, if the website ranks instead for “how to floss your teeth” and “how to brush your teeth” well this is great, but its not likely to bring in much business.

So it’s the seo companies job to make sure that words the business ranks for are relevant to that business, but also likely to bring in paying customers.

Introduction

When first investing in SEO, its common for a marketing agency to state loads of work that your website needs.

And this is all well and good, but if you haven’t got the foggiest clue as to what any of the terms mean, well you could be left just a little bit confused.

But do not worry, as here at this marketing agency we explains things very clearly. Within this blog post we are going to explain what schema mark-up means, and also how to add this to your businesses website.

Collaboration

Now when your reading about various forms of SEO, its pretty safe to say that the vast majority of agencies focus on optimising your businesses website for Google.

However, with schema you may here that this form of seo is promoted by most of the large search engines.

The reason being is that Google is said to have worked in collaboration with other search engines to help create schema.

Yes, but what is schema?

Well, when you on a website, say a website that reviews brand new cars, there’s likely to be tons of information.

For example, articles dedicated to explaining the performance of a new car, and what the car handles like.

But this mass of information is what we in SEO called unstructured data. Which basically means its useful from an SEO perspective, but it can sometimes be hard for the search engines to decipher what the page is about.

However, the search engines have got very clever at knowing what a page is about, and most SEO consultants believe massive leaps forward came from the Google Hummingbird updates and Google’s Knowledge Graph.

However, what if there was a language that most search engines understood, where you could mark up the really important areas of your website. Such as your businesses reviews, its contact details and also opening hours?

Well there is and this is called schema. So, basically instead of Googlebot having to work out what a page is about, after reading hundreds if not thousands of words, well Schema helps cut through all that, and allows you to highlight the really important details.

Rich snippets

Have you ever searched for a business, such as a hotel, and the listing that really stood out was the one that looked different from the other business listings.

For example, you were looking for a hotel, and the star rating appeared in the results, and all the other businesses didn’t have this?

Well this wasn’t magic that was taking place, it was most probably the hotels clever seo agency implementing schema to mark-up the businesses reviews.

As a hospitality business they know good customer reviews are essential to getting more bookings, so some businesses may wish to draw attention to the reviews that their business has. Schema can do this.

But rich snippets hasn’t got to  just be business reviews, it could be opening hours and many other details as well.

Local SEO

Digital marketing agencies, like our business use schema to mark-up details that are essential to improving a business’s local seo.

In SEO we refer to the name of the business, its address and phone number as “NAP” information.

You can use schema to mark-up the NAP information of your website. This way when Googlebot next crawls your company website, well you would have made it super easy for Google to know your businesses NAP details.

And this is pretty important, as with all the information on your business’s website, if you can make the important information, such as the NAP information standout, you will be helping to improve your businesses SEO.

So, how do you actually add schema to a website?

Adding schema to a website has never been so easy, that’s thanks to Google, which has a structured data mark-up helper.

Does your business require help with its SEO?

If your business needs help with its seo, then why not give us a ring? We are organic seo experts.

We offer affordable prices.