A complete guide to SEO
Introduction
If you run a local business, then it’s highly likely that you would like that business to rank on the first page of Google.
The only problem with that is often many hundreds, if not thousands of over businesses also want to rank the first page of Google as well.
This means that most businesses face constant competition that they have to compete with.
This is why a lot of businesses will have partnered with a white hat SEO agency, so that white hat work can be implemented every single month.
It’s fair to say that where a business ranks on Google may change every single day.
That’s to say a business may well be on the first page of Google today, but it could be overtaken by another business the very next day, this is why businesses are in constant competition, and need to partner with a white hat agency in order to constantly improve the businesses search engine optimisation.
Within this article we are going to explain what local Seo is and how a business may benefit if it was to invest in white hat work.
Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
Whichever business that you choose to implement SEO for your company, or if you decide to improve your search engine optimisation yourself, you should always follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
If your business does not follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines, then your business could incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
It’s therefore really important that your business implements high-quality white hat work, and that you also follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
If a business does not follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines, it is possible that the business will incur a penalty, for example a business may incur a link penalty if it was to build backlinks in an incorrect way.
An example of a link penalty would be a Google Penguin penalty.
This is why it’s so important that you choose the right agency and that you also follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
If you are optimising your company’s website for another search engine, it’s important that your marketing agency or your business also follows that search engines guidelines as well.
Why all work must be white hat
As earlier mentioned, it’s really important that all work is white hat, it’s fair to say that it can take a long time to see results through organic and local Seo. What we mean by this is in highly competitive industries, it can sometimes take many months if not years to see results.
This is why some businesses think that they do not have the time, or the financial resources to wait so sometimes they will be willing to cut corners, however, this often results in an algorithmic or a manual penalty being imposed upon the website.
If the business does incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty, then this can mean that the business will drop in terms of where it ranks. It can also mean that it can take a very long time for the website to recover form an algorithmic or a manual penalty, it’s not uncommon for a business to take many months if not years to recover from a penalty, this is why it’s so important that the work is white hat and of a high quality.
Don’t over optimise
Another common problem that some businesses encounter is that they try to implement SEO themselves and then over optimise the website.
This means that the search engine optimisation has been done to a level where it has triggered an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
For example let’s say you run a skip hire business, you may have mentioned “skip hire” and the name of the few areas too much, that’s to the level where the website is now deemed as having low quality SEO so therefore the business may have incurred an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
It is far better to offer information on your company’s website, that will help your customers, that’s to say, to answer questions that your customers normally would ask your business.
Therefore if you are over optimising your website, by for example adding too much text for words that you want your business to rank for, for example “skip hire” plus a name of the city too much, then this could over optimise the website, and it could result business going down the ranks and not up the ranks.
Therefore, a website should not be over optimised, it should follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and also with you to white hat SEO.
Google’s algorithm
If your business wants to improve its SEO, then it must improve what are called “ranking factors”.
Ranking factors are everything from backlinks, right through to meta descriptions.
It’s fair to say that not all ranking factors are worth the same, for example high-quality backlinks from a high-quality website, such as the BBC, will improve your SEO more than say changing the meta descriptions on your website would.
This means that different ranking factors are weighted slightly differently, this means that in order for your marketing agency to improve your businesses search engine optimisation, your agency will need to concentrate on the more important ranking factors.
However, there are over 200 different ranking factors, this means that a marketing agency will often work on improving many different ranking factors every single month.
Also, your competitors will most likely be improving their ranking factors as well, this means that your business is in constant competition with your competitors, so you will be competing for which business can obtain the strongest ranking factors.
The businesses with the strongest ranking factors will be ranked on the first page of Google, however it’s also worth bearing in mind that Google algorithm will take into account over 200 different ranking factors.
For example, your business backlinks are just one ranking factor, your business may need thousands of good quality backlinks.
Another ranking factor will be the quality of your businesses content marketing and also the on-site Seo such as meta titles, meta descriptions.
Therefore, there is a lot of SEO work that needs to be done for most businesses, also if a competitor has been investing for a very long time, and your business is just starting to invest in SEO, then it may take a very long time to catch up with the established competition.
Also, Google’s algorithm will roll out updates, this can change where a business is ranked on Google. Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that even when a business does get onto the first page of Google, this does not mean that it will stay there forever.
The very next day if a business has stronger SEO than your company then that business may move up the ranks and your business may move down.
This is why SEO is a constant process, and most organic SEO agencies charge per month.
Google Algorithm Updates
Earlier we mentioned about Google algorithm updates, if the business was to implement low quality SEO this is often when a business will move down the ranks will be penalised if it is not follow Google Webmaster guidelines.
Therefore this is why we stress it so important to follow Google guidelines, because when a algorithm update is rolled out, such as the Google Penguin updates a lot of businesses were penalised because they did not use the right SU methods.
This is why it’s worth keeping in mind that when you implement SEO should implement high-quality work which is white hat and follows Google Webmaster guidelines.
Some businesses may succeed in getting onto the first page of Google, but if the SU methods use of correct, for example are not white hat the business could be penalised.
It’s also worth mentioning again that once a business is penalised, through something like Penguin update, it may take the business a very long time to recover. Also sometimes a specialist marketing agency that specialises in penalty recovery might be needed and this may mean that the business needs to pay more to have a specialist remedy the problem that has been caused by a Google penalty.
That’s the say some businesses will hire specialists that personalise in helping a business to recover from a penalty, so this can sometimes mean that some businesses will take a very long time to recover plus also the added expense of hiring a specialist agency to help the business recover from the penalty
This is why we always think it’s better to use white hat methods and follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
Fluctuations
The business may rank at the top of Google today, but within a few hours or a few days the business may have moved down again, so is also worth keeping in mind that businesses do move up and down Google ranks very frequently.
This is why a lot of businesses use Google analytics and other tools as well as Google search console to to analyse where the business ranks plus also how many visitors the website is getting, but often this is done over the course of the month as looking at one day in isolation of does not provide enough data to ascertain where the business ranks.
concentrate on offering quality SEO
Therefore before we go into recommending different ways in business might wish to implement SCO we words recommend that the business concentrates on offering quality SU.
We are now going to explain different ways that the business could implement white hat SCO in order to help its business improve its SCO
Onsite SEO
Search engine optimisation can broadly be split into two categories, they are on site and also off-site search engine position
An example of on-site SEO would be to improve the business and example of off-site SCO would be to build high quality back links.
It’s also worth remembering that Google’s algorithm is thought to take into account 200 different ranking factors, so the 200 signals can roughly be split into on-site and off-site SEO quite often a marketing agency will need to improve the businesses on site and also off-site SCO if it is to get the business onto the first page of Google.
For example, a business may need to build many high quality back links, but also work on improving the businesses on-site SCO adding content marketing to the website as well.
Meta titles and meta descriptions
we would recommend that a meta title and the meta description is added to each page of your website. For those that do not know what a meta title and the meta description is there simply a title and a short description that describes what that page is about.
For example, let’s say you are looking to purchase a new sofa online, and you asked Google to find you a business that sells leather sofas locally.
In the results you may have pay per click results right at the top of the screen, then a list of local businesses next to a map, these businesses are called Google my business listings.
Then the majority of the results what are called organic business listings, there are over 10 businesses not listed here. Next to the name of the company will be a title and the meta description that briefly describes what that page is about. For example the title may need that the company is an established business and sells a certain make of leather sofa.
Then the meta description a more lengthy description of that page is offered, for example the company stocks leather sofas and can also deliver the next day for free for example.
Then it is the marketing agency’s job to write a good meta title and meta description to encourage the shopper to click on the business. It’s worth bearing in mind that even when a search engine Optimisation has got your business onto the first page of Google, you still have to compete with the other businesses in order to get the shopper to click on your business.
Some marketing agencies refer to this as improving the businesses click through rate.
For example the marketing agency may rewrite the meta title and meta description so that brands of so far included in the meta title and meta description with people are searching for.
When a shopper therefore sees it you stop that brand of sofa may be more likely to click on your company when compared to competitors business. Therefore the marketing company may have succeeded in improving the businesses click through rate.
This is why it’s so important that the marketing agency carefully rights the businesses meta titles and meta descriptions, as it can encourage a shopper to click on your business. We would recommend that a meta title and the meta description is added every page on your website and every blog post as well.
We would not recommend that meta titles and meta descriptions are copy and pasted repeatedly, instead a unique meta title and meta description should be added to every single page on your website.
Alt text
let’s say for example that you run an e-commerce shop, let’s say that you sell electrical items such as televisions, fridge freezers, electric ovens, you should therefore add alt text to each picture of the products that you sell.
For example you may add a description of the product such as brand and what the item is such as the electric cooker.
This can help to improve the businesses search engine optimisation, as it is another signal that will tell Google’s algorithm what that page is about, for example that you are selling electric cookers. People may actively search for that brand of electric cooker, and when they do you will have improved your on-site SCO by labelling your alt text is an electrical and background.
H1-H6
If you are writing a particularly long blog post few business, then we recommend using page 1 through to heat six tax stop
For example let’s say that you are writing a particularly long blog post reviewing different model cars you may wish to split the blog post by labelling heats ones to heat six tax, which mention different vehicle manufacturers name. This is another way of improving your on-site SCO if this is done in a white hat when
Internal backlinks
We would then recommend is using internal back links to help your shoppers navigate you website much more easily. For example let’s say that you sell furniture, when somebody has looking to purchase a table, you may add internal link of that page 4 the shopper to follow the link to view various chairs that your company offers.
This is a way of helping your shoppers to navigate your website, as you know somebody who purchases a table from your business is also likely to purchase chairs from your business, so by adding an internal link or links to various chairs that you sell, you may be helping your shoppers also purchase products from your website more easily.
Also if you are writing a particularly long blog post, and let’s say you were talking about how to achieve a certain interior design look within your home, you may mention certain products that are featured in the picture that you sell, and offer internal links pages so that the reader of that article may then go on to purchase for example a sofa that is shown within the picture.
It is important to label the anchor text in the white hat way, and when adding internal backing stew website to follow Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
NAP
It’s really important to add NAP details onto your website, those that do not know NAP simply means name of your business, the businesses address, and also the businesses phone number
We would highly recommend that you use a local phone number. You should add the NAP details onto the contact page on your website plus also also recommend that the NAP details are also added to the foot of your website as well
It’s really important if you are looking to improve your business is local SEO that you add NEP details onto your website, as this will inform Google’s algorithm as to where your business is based and also the phone number. Your inner AP details should match all of your businesses citations, that’s the say that all of your business citations should match your website NEP details.
It’s also important that the NAP details can be indexed, but the say that they should be written in plain text so that they can be indexed by Google’s algorithm.
