The Importance of Keyword Research
As we begin another New Year and think what we are trying to achieve for our business it is worth revisiting the basics of Search Engine Optimisation. Search Engine Optimisation (usually known as SEO) is now an essential part of marketing for any business. Making sure traffic is coming to your website is vital to driving your business forward, bringing in new customers and keeping your current customers on board.
One of the foundations of good SEO is keyword research
. Good keyword research will help you to establish the words and phrases that people are using to find goods and services and making sure that they are placed throughout your website. If keywords are placed properly within your website then search engines such as Google and Bing will rank you highly for those words and your website will be displayed more prominently. The best possible outcome is for you website to appear on page one of a search. This inevitably means your website is more likely to be selected by the person doing the searching. All you need to do is convert that click into an order!
As a guide, any number of keywords can be selected but the more generic they are, the more competitive they are and the longer it could take to rank for them. For this reason it is more useful to select more specific keywords, which are not quite so competitive. A useful hint is to also utilise your local area and use a location as part of the keyword such as “gas engineer Sutton Coldfield”.
A reputable SEO company will be able to show you how highly particular keywords are ranked and suggest keywords that would work well for you. They can then select which keywords you would like to maximise. At SEO It Right we do this by writing fresh and original articles each month, using the keywords we have agreed with you. How many we work on depends on the package you choose with us, and we are able to be flexible with this as your needs change. Once those articles are written they are submitted to Google to index. This increases the number of backlinks your website may have which will increase your ratings
Keyword research is a vital tool in establishing your internet presence and using a good SEO company can really help you maximise your potential.
Posted by Frances Berry
Tips For Increasing Your Website’s Traffic for 2013
It’s the same for everyone – new year, fresh start. If you have a website which you wish to drive traffic to, here are a few tips which you could follow in order to get your site seen and talked about for 2013:
• Set up social media accounts. 2012 saw social media becoming more and more intertwined with SEO, so it really is becoming a necessity to set up Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts in order to increase brand awareness and get people reading about your site. Positive social signals are great for determining brand domains, so keep your social accounts up to date with new and interesting snippets of information.
• Create a responsive site. Research shows that more and more people are accessing the internet from mobile devices as opposed to a PC, so when designing a site make sure it is responsive and can easily be used from mobile phones, tablets and iPads. If the site is not easy to use from a mobile device then your bounce rate may increase as people get fed up trying to find information which cannot easily be seen.
• Keep writing fresh and unique content! This rule has been around since the start of SEO, however it is still just as important to make sure you keep your website content interesting and engaging for your readers. Make sure it is aimed at your target audience and is relevant to your site.
• Use a Rel: Author tag. If you’ve written something, make sure everyone knows it’s your creation! Adding a rel: author tag makes search results seem less clinical and readers can build up an element of trust with authors. It also gives you a chance to link back to other articles or blog posts which you may have written in the past which readers may be interested in taking a look at.
These are just a few suggestions of things for you to think about for your website, but if you need any further information or just don’t have the time to create your own regular Tweets and Google+ posts, why not set up a Social Media campaign with us at SEO it Right and we can take care of everything for you?
Merry Christmas from all of us at SEO it Right
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers past and present for their support over the past twelve months. We look forward to more great things in 2013 and it is sure to be an exciting year in SEO! Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
How SEO Could Help Your Business Get Onto Page 1 of Google
Search Engine Optimisation is basically a method of pushing a website onto page 1 of the top search engines. Most internet users who type a keyword into their internet search toolbar will only look at the results of the sites which are featured on page 1, rarely do they bother to scroll down to look at those which are on page two onwards. Nowadays we expect results instantly; we don’t want to have to spend time searching through text to find what we are looking for.
SEO works by identifying relevant keywords to the website and optimising them so that when an internet user types the keyword into the internet search toolbar, that particular website will appear on the first page of the listings. The keywords can be optimised in a couple of ways.
Firstly, an article needs to be written around the subject area of the chosen keywords. The content of the article must be fresh and original, no cheating copying and pasting from somebody else’s work! The articles can then be submitted which will create backlinks to the site – the more backlinks there are, the more favourable Google will look upon the site.
Social bookmarking and bookmark pinging can also create some great backlinks so it is well worth including this as part of the SEO campaign in order to help increase rankings.
No SEO expert can give a timeframe on how quickly a site can move up in the rankings, it is an organic process and provided it is done correctly it will work over time! Some websites will move up in the rankings quicker than others, it really depends on how competitive that particular industry is. With plenty of time and effort, positive results should be seen long term.
If you are interested in an SEO campaign for your business or if you would like to find out more information on SEO, feel free to contact us at a time to suit you.
Link Building – The End of an Era?
The world of SEO is a fast moving one and as a result of the regular Google algorithm updates, SEO practitioners have had to learn to change their strategies in order to keep on the right side of the major search engines. As soon as Google clicks its mighty fingers and says “jump”, we all have to immediately try new methods in order to ensure our customer’s websites rank highly on the SERPs.
Rumblings in the SEO underworld are now telling us that whilst link building is still a major part of an effective SEO campaign, it should not be the main focus. Penguin made a big impact on those sites which had lots of poor quality links from low authority domains and many SEOs have had to work hard to encourage the organic growth of good quality links. However, the time may have come to stop focusing so hard on link building and instead spend a little more time working on all of the other aspects of the SEO campaign.
Andre Weyher used to work in the Google webspam team and in a recent interview he stated that for a site to prepare itself for future Google updates, it should aim to work towards an SEO strategy which works on “smart on-page techniques and internal linking on one side and relationship based link building on the other side….the links should come from a source that has a genuine reason to link to your site”. So although links are important, their quality and relevance still far outweighs the quantity.
The advice from various SEO gurus seems to be simple: create unique and original content for the site, ensure that all of the meta data is correct and each page has the relevant number of keywords, create a blog which is updated on a regular basis and ensure you include the rel author tags and finally, get tweeting! Social marketing is the way forward, so make sure your business has a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a Google+ account.
Ensure your social accounts are all kept up to date with new and interesting information for your readers. Creating great rankings is not just about keeping the Google bots happy, it’s also important to keep your human visitors happy too – after all, these are the people who will be putting their hand in their pocket to buy your products and services!
SEO it Right – Football Team Sponsors!
Here at SEO it Right we are pleased to announce that we are the proud sponsor of the Boldmere Falcons under-7s football team. The bold black and white striped kit will be worn by the team of 10 enthusiastic football players at their away games, so the SEO it Right name will be seen on various football pitches in and around the Birmingham area every Sunday morning.
The under 7s team was set up in August 2012, but in that short time the lads have trained hard and have performed well in each of their matches. So far this season they have managed to win 4 of their games and lose just 2, an impressive record particularly as they are a relatively new team and they are all aged 6 or 7!
The boys train once a week with their manager, Callum Flanagan, who is just 17 years old but has high hopes for gaining a degree in Sports Management and one day becoming a Premiership Football manager himself. What a great way to start his career with this team of cheeky chappies!
On a personal note, my son Daniel is a member of the team (see the lad with the cheesy grin on the first row first left) and I would like to thank Adam and Fran for their contribution to the team. Without the generosity of these great local businesses, then junior sports teams would struggle to raise the funding for such professional looking kits and equipment.
The Boldmere Falcons Under 7s Football Team, proudly sponsored by SEO it Right
Three cheers for SEO it Right and Boldmere Falcons!
To find out more about what SEO it Right do, take a look at our website or contact us to see how we can help your business to thrive online.
Why a good SEO strategy could eliminate the need for a costly PPC campaign
Pay Per Click (PPC) is a method of advertising on the internet where visitors are directed to a website after clicking on an advertisement. It works by the visitor typing a keyword or phrase into the search box, the search engine will then produce a list of websites which have bid for that keyword. The advertiser then pays for each visitor on a per click basis.
Although using a pay per click campaign management technique can be a quick way of improving a website’s ranking, it can work out to be very costly. Some companies choose to use PPC when they first set up their website as a way to get quick results, but once an SEO campaign has been established then they could withdraw the PPC strategy.
A good SEO strategy should combine a number of techniques. These could include making sure fresh, unique content which is based upon relevant keywords is written on a regular basis. This could be to promote new products or it could be to promote the services which are on offer from the website. Plenty of links should be created between reputable websites to help to boost search engine rankings. Social media is also become more and more important and it is a good idea for businesses to create Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts to allow them to communicate directly to their target audience.
Although a good SEO campaign can be time consuming, it is definitely worthwhile to help to market the website of the business and help it to increase its sales and revenue. The internet has revolutionised the way in which companies market their products and services and as a result, all organisations have had to adapt to the way in which they advertise and promote their business.
If you are interested in creating an SEO campaign for your business, feel free to contact us for further information.
The Importance of Creating a Website which is Mobile SEO Friendly
These days, more and more people are using their mobile phones to access the internet, send emails and organise their calendar in addition to making the usual calls and sending texts. This means that businesses are now having to adapt their websites to ensure they are mobile SEO friendly; after all, there is nothing worse than trying to access a website which simply won’t load properly.
So, what is the best way of creating a mobile site which is going to be user friendly for its visitors as well as ranking well on the major search engines? Firstly, it may be worth finding out exactly how your target audience are accessing your current website. If you find that many of them are using their mobile phone devices, then it may be worth creating a site which is specifically for mobile phones. Alternatively, a responsive site can be created which will be accessible by both mobile and desktop users; the site will automatically identify how the user is looking at the site and the appropriate screen sizing and layout can be utilised.
When creating a specific mobile site, it may be worth remembering to use less content than the amount you would use on a desktop site. Mobile users are often looking for something specific, and don’t want to be inundated with reams of irrelevant text.
Mobile users are also often looking for local search results, so it is worth making sure that only local keywords are optimised on the mobile site.
There are a number of pros and cons to using mobile or responsive sites and it really depends on your technical skills and also the type of audience you are targeting as to which type of site would be best for your business.
If you would like to find out more about mobile or desktop SEO, feel free to take a look at our website or get in touch with us directly.