Introduction

If you’ve ever attended a meeting with your SEO company, well you are bound to have heard the term “Google Penguin” crop up time and time again.

Yet, often this term is crammed into sentences that are full of other marketing jargon! Yet, here at this marketing agency we like to explain things clearly, and we think as a business owner you should know a thing or two about the Google Penguin updates.

So, what exactly are the Google Penguin updates?

There are basically two types of SEO, there’s the marketing agencies like us that want to do a good job, these are more commonly referred to as the “white hat” agencies.

Then there’s the businesses that want to cut corners, that want to try and fool Google’s algorithm if they can. Yet these businesses are working on a knife-edge, that’s to say at any time their client’s websites could incur a penalty.

And that’s exactly what can happen if backlinks are built incorrectly. For example, there are some agencies that build backlinks in a white hat way, yet this does take a lot of time.

So, the black hat agencies, that’s the marketing companies that want to cut corners, well they may build backlinks which Google would deem as being low quality.

And its these links that the Penguin update is looking for. So, if your seo business builds a load of backlinks which are low quality, well you guessed it you are likely to receive a link penalty.

So, will I avoid a link penalty if we pay for a super expensive seo agency?

Price doesn’t really come into it, if the agency is implementing low quality seo, well that means the website may incur a penalty.

However, with that said, its worth bearing this in mind, if the seo company does charge low prices, then you have to ask yourself how much time really can they dedicate to building links.

Because believe us, building backlinks correctly it takes ages. So, in a way if you are offered a low seo quote, well you have to be even more diligent in checking that the backlinks being built are quality or not.

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

So, if my website does receive a link penalty what does this mean?

Well one thing for sure, a link penalty should not be taken lightly. The reason for this is its not like a minor fine can be paid, and the link penalty is lifted.

No, instead Google will want the links to be removed or disavowed, and this should be done by an expert.

Yet with that said, because your website has been impacted by a Penguin update, this can often mean that the websites rankings drop, and sometimes a lot.

Also, Google can sometimes remove your business altogether.

What does it mean to disavow backlinks?

Disavowing links simply means a request sent to Google that your business wants to disconnect your businesses backlinks, from the website.

However, a few words of advice are needed before you do this, if disavow the wrong links, well its entirely possible that your rankings could decrease even more.

So, a word to the wise, speak to a respected white hat agency before your disavow any backlinks.

Why should my seo business be checking our backlinks?

Most seo businesses believe that there are in excess of 200 ranking signals, which Google calculates to work out how important your website is.

Yet, with that said its not like every ranking signal is worth the same, as they are not. That’s to say an alt tag is not worth the same as a high-powered backlink from a quality source.

And many leading digital marketing agencies believe that backlinks are the most important ranking that there is.

So, if your website accumulates loads of spam backlinks, or has low-quality backlinks, your seo agency should notify you of this.

As we mentioned earlier low-quality backlinks can result in a penalty, which can result in your website dropping in terms of where it ranks.

And to give you an example of how far some websites may drop, you may have a business that is ranked number one, then after a link penalty the website may end up on page 11 of Google.

So, if your business spots that your websites backlinks look low quality, then you should think about changing seo agencies and obtaining more advice from a white hat agency.

Introduction

You’ve probably heard the term “backlinks” long before now- whether that was during a meeting at your marketing agency or perhaps you read it within your seo report, its therefore safe to say most people are already well acquainted with the term.

Yet, even though a lot of business owners will have heard of the term, they may not have the foggiest as to it means.

So, if you want to learn a bit more about backlinks, well, you’ve come to the right place.

What are backlinks?

Let’s say you are looking to purchase flights for your holiday, then you remember that you haven’t booked your car hire.

At what prompts you into thinking you haven’t booked a car is a advertisement at the top of your screen.

So, you click the advertisement, and your transported to the car hire website, and this means you have followed a backlink.

Backlinks are therefore useful as they help people that visit a website, to find another website that may be of use to them.

Yet, when we think of backlinks in the context of SEO, well backlinks then have a different purpose.

The reason being is this, the more quality backlinks your website obtains, the more “link-juice” is sent to your website.

Now its worth keeping this in mind, Google doesn’t just decide where your website should rank on your business’s backlinks alone.

No, the reason being is that most seo companies believe that Google takes into account over 200 ranking signals.

Yet, with that said out of those 200 ranking signals, backlinks are widely regarded as one of the most important signals.

So, in a nutshell, if you want your website to rank high on Google, often your business will need high quality and also relevant backlinks.

Quality backlinks

You may have already noticed the word “quality” crop up quite a few times within this article already.

And its important that we labour the point that quality is important when building backlinks. The reason that quality is important is if the links are low quality, then this can result in the business incurring a link penalty.

Google’s link penalty is referred to as “Google’s Penguin” penalty. The main reason that your business should always build quality links is because if low quality links are built a penalty could mean that your website drops.

Also, if the backlinks leading to your website are low quality or deemed as spam, then this could result in your website not being displayed in the serps.

SERP’s stands for search engine results pages, so basically means, if you run a dental practice and you were used to were business being displayed for “cosmetic dentists” after a link penalty its likely the business won’t be shown at all.

Relevant

Here’s a top piece of advice, not only should the backlinks you build be high-quality they must also be relevant.

So by this we mean if you run a construction business, there’s no point in your local rugby club linking to your website.

Make sure your websites anchor text is optimised in a white hat way!

So many businesses incurred link penalties because their business, or their appointed seo business over optimised the companies anchor text.

What we mean by this is say you run an estate agency business, well the seo agency may have optimised too many links with the anchor text “estate agents + city”.

If you don’t know what anchor text means, well its really simple, the anchor text is just the text that you click on to follow a link.

So for example, if you see a link you can click on that reads “estate agents”- then the words estate agents will be the anchor text.

The anchor text should be written naturally, and by the word naturally we mean it should help the user to know where the link will take them, and not be words you just want to improve the websites seo for.

So for example, if the link takes the visitor to properties that have 3-bedrooms, then simply label the anchor text “properties with 3-bedrooms”.

How do you earn backlinks?

Remember the golden rule of link building, that is quality over quantity. Here at this marketing agency we believe that the best way to build backlinks is organically.

This simply means offer the best information that you can on your website. So for example, if you run a dental practice, then offer the best advice that you can about looking after your teeth.

If your content marketing is good quality, then other websites may wish to link to it. For example, a blog that’s talking about how to improve your smile may link to your article.

This way of building backlinks, by not asking anyone to link to you, but they do so on their own accord is the best way of building backlinks.

Yet, with that said your seo agency must still check on a regular basis that the backlinks that are being build are good quality.

Competitor backlink analysis

A lot of seo companies simply have a look at your competitors backlinks. This can be an effective strategy, as after all your competitors will be ranked at the top for a reason.

So, for example, a car dealership may well rank at the very top for a certain brand of car. So when the marketing agency has a look at that dealerships backlinks, they may discover that they have backlinks from websites which offer customer reviews.

Therefore, the marketing agency can then advise their client that they may wish to be on these customer review websites. This way a backlink can be earned and also the business has a chance to showcase its high levels of customer service.

How we can help

Does your business require assistance to build high-quality backlinks? Well, what you waiting for? Why not give us a ring today?

Introduction

If your business is currently investing in SEO, well you’ve probably already come across the term “Panda update” long before now.

Sure, there’s loads of various SEO terms that a business may already know about, but the Panda update is an important one- so sit up and listen!

This blog post will help to enlighten you as to how the Google Panda update changed SEO, and how some businesses had to drastically change their marketing strategy as a result.

Which websites did the Panda update particularly target?

We always say that us digital marketing agencies can fall broadly into two categories, that’s the group that wishes to continuously cut corners, and then the group that wants to do the tasks properly.

The group of marketing agencies that repeatedly wants to cut corners, well often they market their services at really cheap prices, but there’s normally a good reason for this.

The reason is the marketing agency may write content marketing that is written to a low standard.

The work may well be duplicated, or repeat the same keywords too much, this is the sort of work that the Panda update will penalise.

By penalised we mean that the page may drop in terms of where it ranks, or that particular page on the website may not rank at all.

The main reason that a page or a website would drop is because the SEO work would be deemed low quality by Google’s algorithm. It is also possible for a website to receive a manual penalty.

There are loads of way’s that a website could be deemed “low quality”, but here are a few examples of rubbish seo that Panda is targeting:

Content thin

Ever been looking to buy something, say a new washing machine, and you find a website, yet then you find that the website just doesn’t offer enough information to allow you to purchase.

For example, you may wish to know how fast the washing machine spins at when drying your clothes, but the website just doesn’t offer the information you need.

So, these sorts of websites may just have a line of text as a product description, or sometimes no text at all, basically the seo effort is very poor, so the website may be deemed “content thin”.

If your website seems to be content thin, in terms of lacking information, then you should discuss this with a white hat online marketing agency.

Spammy

Some seo companies simply implement spammy seo. What we mean by spammy is the website simply aims to rank as high as it can, yet the website doesn’t offer good quality information to visitors.

For example, imagine a solicitor’s website, that specialises in the area of divorce, you may want to know a bit about how the divorce process starts, and a bit about that practice.

Yet, a website with spammy seo, well when you land on the website, it may just show “divorce solicitors + city name” repeatedly, that’s well mentioning loads of different cities.

So, the attempt by the seo business was to try and get the website to rank within multiple cities, but in reality, the content isn’t useful to potential customers, so this sort of website would have been affected by Panda.

Instead the website should have focused on offering good quality information to potential customers.

Where the business is based should have been optimised using white hat methods, such as optimising the businesses NAP information.

Duplicated content

If a website was to copy another businesses content marketing, then this can mean that the business could be affected by Panda.

A business should not use duplicated content.

So how should our business be creating content marketing?

Here’s the three things that we believe your business should concentrate on when writing content marketing

Quality

The work must be quality focused, and by using the word “quality”, we mean useful. So, for example, if you are writing a blog post about how to prevent tooth decay, make the article as in-depth, as interesting and as engaging as you possibly can.

By making the work detailed Google will be able to pull out the relevant facts regarding tooth decay.

Google can then match the words with its Knowledge Graph, often SEO’s refer to this matching of related things, which SEO’s call “entities”.

As you can see Google will know that tooth decay is one entity, tooth paste is another and by offering advice on protecting the enamel of the teeth the structure that makes a tooth, would be another.

So, as you can see, if you write a comprehensive article, that offers a lot of advice, then is likely to rank better.

Answer the question

So many seo agencies write articles to a set 500-word count, and do not care about the quality of the advice that the marketing agency is dispensing.

For example, the marketing agency may well be representing a dentist, so they may produce an article on what to do if your tooth was knocked out, resulting in a dental emergency.

Well the SEO company may only have the intention of getting people to call that dental practice, and therefore target the phrase “dental emergency + area”- yet this is likely to be an article that is very shallow in terms of its purpose.

When in reality someone may not want to go to that dental practice, they may well be looking for reliable advice as to what they should do if their tooth has been knocked out.

As you can see offering quality advice is important, aiming to just improve the businesses SEO should be secondary to offering quality advice.

Relevant

The content marketing work should be relevant to your business.  

Google’s set of questions

If you wish to read more about the Google Panda update, we would recommend these two articles.

Quality

Does your business require help with its SEO? If so, why not give us a ring?

Introduction

If you’ve recently been visiting various digital marketing agencies, well you will know all too well that some just spout marketing jargon for the mere sake of it.

What can happen is some business owners come out of a meeting with more questions than answers.

Recognising the need that the business needs to invest in local seo, yet now wondering what business citations and NAP stands for.

But do not worry, you haven’t got to go back to those agencies that sound like they are reading from a marketing jargon textbook.

No, that’s because we offer a different approach, we explain things simply. So, let’s start by explaining what NAP means and how this is crucial to the success of your businesses seo.

What does NAP mean?

NAP stands for name of the business, its address and phone number, it really isn’t any more complicated than that!

Where it does get a bit more complex is how you should use this NAP information to improve where your business ranks locally.

So for example, if you’re a solicitor, dentist or a plumber you will want your business to be ranked at the top of Google.

And your seo agency should therefore be using your businesses NAP information in order to improve where your business ranks.

However, before we continue its worth mentioning this, and that is NAP is not the only thing that your seo company should be working on.

The reason being is this, Google’s algorithm takes into account over 200 ranking signals, that’s when working out which website is best.

So, as you can imagine, optimising your businesses NAP information is only a small fraction of the seo work that is often needed. Yet, optimising the NAP information correctly is a vital component of any seo marketing strategy.

Getting your NAP details right onsite

First things first, you have to get your NAP details right onsite. Now you might be thinking, how can a business get the NAP information wrong on their own website, but believe us some do.

The most common issues are often when the NAP information is written into an image. The reason being is Googlebot will struggle to read the NAP information, so instead you should write it in plain text.

Using plain text will allow Googlebot to read the NAP information, and therefore update the algorithm with your businesses NAP information.

Also, its worth asking a digital marketing agency to mark-up the NAP information using Schema.

Why its important to optimise your Google My Business listing

Once your business has the NAP information written on your website, we would recommend the next best step is to optimise your businesses Google My Business listing.

You should optimise your Google My Business listing by making sure the NAP information matches your website.

Your should write a detailed business description, you should also add as much description as possible.

The reason for all this work is simple, your business will want to displayed in the Google local business listings, so you stand a much better chance if you have spent the extra time filling in your Google My Business listing as much as you can.

Why your business should use a local phone number

So many businesses just state a mobile phone number, and with good reason and that’s because an emergency plumber may have no other option than to use his or her mobile number.

But if you do have the choice, then use your landline number instead. Most digital marketing agencies believe that its better to optimise your website using a local phone number, than a mobile number.

What is Schema?

Schema is a structured language, this means that Googlebot will know your businesses name, address and phone number easily if you mark-up the text using schema.

As you can imagine, there’s loads of information on your company website, from its opening hours, to how the business started. So, by adding Schema you are helping Googlebot to save time, and quickly check your businesses NAP information.

What are business citations?

Business citations are simply mentions of your businesses NAP information on other websites. We would highly recommend writing your businesses NAP information on quality websites such as Facebook.

We would therefore recommend setting up a business profile, and adding NAP information to a Facebook page. You can also create business citations on other quality websites.

Can we help?

If your business requires help with its online marketing, then why not give us a call?

Introduction

If you run a business you will know that most businesses now face fierce levels of competition.

That’s to say in the past some businesses may have got by investing in a bit of marketing.

Yet now that the level of competition has increased, well most businesses have to invest in digital marketing.

And this is where seo agencies like ours come in. Yet we are truly different from so many agencies out there, simply because we don’t over complicate things with tons of complicated marketing jargon.

We explain things clearly, so if your business is looking to improve its local seo, this blog post will help you.

Here’s a seven step plan to help you improve your businesses SEO

#1 Obtain your Google My Business account 

One of the first things you have to do is obtain your Google My Business listing. This is really easy to do, and if you follow the link here you can start creating a Google My Business listing straightaway.

A GMB listing is essential if you want your business to be shown in the GMB results. And we would also recommend that you spend the time to make sure you complete your GMB listing and don’t miss out any important parts.

Make sure you get the following right:

·        Ensure that the businesses name, address and phone number matches with your businesses website

·        Write a detailed business description

·        Make sure your businesses opening hours are listed

·        Add pictures of your business, such as the store front

#2 Reviews on Google My Business

If you have loads of customers saying how good your business is, well, why not capitalise on this?

You could ask your customers if they would be willing to leave your business a review on your companies Google My business account, this can also help your companies SEO.

However, don’t write fake business reviews yourself, the reason being is Google’s algorithm is super clever, it will know that the business reviews are fake.

This means that your business stands a much lesser chance of being shown in the local business listings.

We also advise only to ever use white hat seo methods.

#3 Use structured data, such as Schema

Say for example your business is a car dealership, so your going to most probally

 #4 Add quality content marketing

It’s essential if you want to improve your businesses local seo, that your business invests in quality content marketing.

Most businesses therefore pay an seo business to add content marketing to their website on a regular basis.

However, here’s a few words of advice, the content marketing must be quality. The work should be relevant to your business, and it should aim to help your customers.

For example, if you run a dental practice, well there’s no point in just banging-on about how brilliant your dental practice is. To see real seo benefits you have to offer quality work, so for example you may wish to write a piece of content marketing about how to relieve tooth pain, or what you should do if you have sensitive teeth.

#5 Technical SEO

Once you have your brand-new website back from the website designers, you may think that most of the technical seo work will already be done for you.

However, a lot of the time the website design agency will have focused just on design, that’s to say its then a process of the seo agency implementing seo from scratch.

This means we will often have to add:

·        Meta titles and meta descriptions

·        Alt tags

·        Make sure that each page has sufficient word count and will not be deemed “content thin”

·        Make sure that NAP information can be read

·        Make sure that the website loads quickly

·        The website optimised for mobile devices

·        And loads more seo work is normally required

#6 (NAP) Business citations

Your SEO business should make sure that your website clearly displays your businesses NAP details.

NAP stands for name, address and phone number for the business. The NAP information should then be copied and used in the business’s citations.

All SEO work must be white hat, so if you are in any doubt do consultant with a white hat digital marketing agency.

#7 Make sure that you refresh your knowledge on regular basis

Some people learn a bit about SEO, but then let their knowledge stagnate. This can be the same story for some marketing agencies, that’s to say some businesses take the attitude that what works now, but work in the future.

This simply isn’t true, that’s because Google is constantly improving its algorithm, this means on a regular basis changes are made to how agencies should implement seo.

Simply put if you let your seo knowledge stagnate, then it’s entirely possible that you could be implementing seo which is now deemed low quality and could result in a penalty.

If your business requires help with its seo, then why not give us a ring?

Introduction

If your business has just started to invest in SEO, well you’ve probably now got a long list of things that need doing to help improve your website.

Yet, all those various pieces of SEO work normally have rather confusing names, that’s to say often they are described using marketing jargon.

But do not worry, as we are here to help. Within this article we going to explain what schema is and how it can help your business.

Unstructured data

Let’s say for example we are looking to purchase a holiday abroad, but first we want to learn more about the destination.

So, we may read about the local area, things you can do when your there and various places you can eat. This information will normally be very descriptive, often written in a text format.

Yet all this information will be written for us humans, and sometimes the search engines can therefore have a hard time figuring what that particular blog post is all about.

However, with that said Google is now very clever at deciphering what a website is about. The Google Hummingbird update in particular allows Google to understand the meaning of a website a lot better.

The reason being is many SEO consultants believe that Hummingbird and Google’s Knowledge Graph now allow Google to extract meaning a lot better. The reason being is Google knows how things connect.

For example, if your researching a trip to certain part of Spain, Google will know that certain tourist attractions are popular at that location, and that a lot of people visit certain restaurants.

So, when these attractions and restaurants are mentioned in a blog post, Google will understand the different places, which we in SEO we call “entities”. Therefore, Google will know that you are talking about an area in Spain.

Yet, there’s ways that we can still help the search engines further, and that’s by marking-up certain elements of your website using schema.

So, for example, many businesses mark-up using schema the following information on their website:

·        Businesses address, phone number and name (NAP information)

·        Star rating in terms of how positive the customers reviews are

·        Opening hours

Using schema allows you to mark-up unstructured information and make this information structured using schema mark-up.

This can help your businesses SEO, the reason being is that Googlebot will be able to instantly know key information regarding your business if it is marked up using Schema.

Then say for example the restaurants star rating may show up within the serp’s. Plus say someone was in Spain at that location, and they ask Google where is a local traditional Spanish restaurant, well Google will have greater confidence in where a the local businesses are if the website uses schema.

Schema is just one part of the seo process

Sometimes on some seo companies’ websites they describe schema as something that can dramatically boost your businesses seo to another level.

However, in reality Google, and some other search engines take into account over 200 pieces of information, called “ranking signals” when working out how important your website actually is.

So, in a nutshell schema is just one part of the seo puzzle.

This means if you want your business to get onto the first page of Google, many other ranking signals will need to be optimised as well.

Schema, rich snippets and helping your business to standout

Even when your seo agency gets your business onto the first page of Google, you still have to try and make your business standout.

Most business owners know that the business listings that get clicked the most on Google are the ones right at the top.

But say someone is searching for a hotel, and they want to find one that has really good reviews, well a business listing at the bottom of Google, that has a good star rating in the SERP’s, well this is likely to stand out from the crowd.

So, you got it, schema can be used to make your business stand out from the crowd, and sometimes obtain more clicks on your businesses listing because Schema allows your business listing to display more information, in this case the businesses star rating.

CTR, click through rate

Therefore a lot of marketing agencies use schema mark-up to improve how many people click on the business listing.

Sure, it’s all well good having a well written meta title, and meta description, yet having schema added so you can display say your businesses star rating for example, well this may well give your business the edge over the competition.

How do you add schema mark-up to a website?

Adding schema to your website has never been so easy, that’s because Google’s Structured Data Mark-up Helper makes it super easy to add schema to your website.

Local SEO

As any good seo company should tell you, it’s important that your businesses NAP information is clearly written on your website.

For example, you should mark-up your businesses name, address and phone number using schema.

Then you should create plenty of good quality business citations with the help from a white hat agency.

If this seo work is implemented correctly, then it can really help your businesses seo.

Introduction

When we are buying something for our business, say a new desk, well, we expect that desk to be delivered by a set date.

And this is often why when a business owner is investing in SEO, they often expect that as soon as they start paying for seo, they want to see results.

So, with this in mind, some businesses ask each marketing agency whether they guarantee results or not.

And to the bewilderment of some business owners, they quickly find that most agencies do not. Also, the ones that do, well often the business has to be rather cautious that the marketing agency isn’t using black hat seo.

So, here’s why many seo agencies, including ours, do not guarantee results.

Why we and most agencies don’t guarantee results

The simple fact of the matter is your business may be up against competitors that have been investing for a lot longer.

That’s to say, you may have a group of competitors that have recognised that being placed high on Google is important to their business, so they may have started investing in seo many moons ago.

With this in mind, these businesses may have already invested tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds into online marketing.

This means that the business may have hundreds, if not thousands of good quality backlinks for example.

This means that the benchmark to beat may already be very high.

So, a start-up business, or a business that wants to start investing right now would be rather unrealistic to think they could catch-up in a very short period of time with such companies.

Also, perhaps, the companies online marketing spend just isn’t even close to want the other businesses are spending. So, in a nutshell, its important to be realistic about what can be achieved with the marketing budget that your business has.

Are your ambitions realistic?

Sometimes some businesses think that organic seo is a bit like PPC. That’s to say as soon as they invest, they expect their business to be at the top.

However, larger businesses especially recognise that this is not the case. It takes a lot of work to get a business onto the first page of Google within the organic business listings. Also, when the business does get there, it’s often a constant slog to try and keep the business there.

And having to implement so much seo work is understandable, as the businesses that are on the first page of Google often have a massive competitive advantage over those businesses which are not.

That is why some businesses are willing to plough considerable amounts of money into SEO.

Why some agencies promise the earth

There are always going to be some marketing agencies which offer super cheap prices, and state that they can sky-rocket your business to the top of Google.

Yet, you must ask as a business owner, why are these agencies offering such cheap prices?  

Often it’s because some marketing agencies are using rubbish seo methods which will mean that the business could incur a penalty.

Google penalties

This means that sooner or later your business will incur a penalty if it uses black hat seo. A penalty can mean that your website drops, in terms of where it ranks. If the seo is really rubbish quality, then the website may get removed.

Often business owners do not know that these penalties exist, yet after the website has been hit by a penalty, they will then know what a Google Penguin or Google Panda penalty is.

And often a business will not be able to recover quickly from such a penalty, that’s to say it often takes ages for the website to get back to where it once ranked.

Also, if you pay a marketing agency to fix the problems caused by the penalty, then this may take a lot of time, and therefore cost a lot of money.

For example, low quality backlinks can trigger what’s called a Google Penguin penalty, which will mean that the rubbish quality backlinks will need to get disavowed.

This can mean that a marketing agency may need to spend a lot of time disavowing the backlinks, and therefore this may cost a lot of money.

Can we help:

If your business requires white hat seo, then we can offer your business organic or local seo. Why not give us a ring today?

Introduction

When a business owner is looking to find the right SEO agency, it’s common to become confused by all of the marketing jargon that’s often used.

That’s to say when reading about seo on an agency’s website, often a lot of confusing jargon is used.

Sometimes this doesn’t stop when the company request a quote. That’s because more often than not the quote can accompanied by jargon that will explain what the company will do.

One such term that marketing agencies quote is that will correct 404 errors, and then implement 301 redirects.

This may sound rather complicated, but it is not. It is our agencies approach to explain things clearly, so if you would like to find out more about what a 301 redirect is, then this is the blog post for you.

What exactly is a 301 redirect?

Have you ever landed on a broken link? For example, you may have been shopping for a new appliance, say new washing machine, and you find a website that offers the item at the right price.

Yet, when you click on the link, it directs to a page that says “404 error”- this is a broken link.

Often this happens when a business sells new items, so there old stock is no longer advertised, and so the page is deleted.

However, sometimes a business will not want a visitor to land on a 404 page, so what they do is redirect the visitor to another page.

So, for example, if the 404 page was for a certain brand of washing machine, the 301 redirect may take the visitor to another washing machine manufactured by the same brand.

This is obviously beneficial for the business, as otherwise the visitor may have bounced off the website, and chosen a competitor to purchase the washing machine from instead.

Why should 404 pages be avoided?

404 pages can annoying for customers, as when they want to find a product or service, they do not want to land on a 404 page.

Plus, you may have backlinks that are sending “link juice” or “link equity” to that page, so if there is a 404 the link juice cannot be passed to that website.

As any good seo company will tell you, good quality backlinks are important. If some businesses were to lose their backlinks, then this often means that the website would drop in terms of where it ranks.

Backlinks are therefore an important ranking signals. This means if your website has a 404 page, then your marketing company, or website designer may want to add a 301 redirect, this is so link juice flows to the new page.

Permanent redirects

If a business has to use redirects, then sometimes the seo business will advise that 301-redirects are used. The main reason is that 301-redirects are considered a permanent redirect.

White hat

Whatever seo you are implementing, its important that all of the work is white hat. That’s to say, before any 301 redirects are implemented, then we recommend that you speak to a white hat marketing agency first.

Can our digital marketing agency help your business?

No matter if you are a small business, that requires local seo, or you run a global business, that wants to sell more products all over the world, we can help.

We are a white hat agency. We use the very best seo methods.  If you would like to obtain a quote, then why not give us a ring?

Introduction

There are so many businesses that simply haven’t invested in SEO as of yet. Some businesses may have preferred to stick to marketing methods that they know have kind of worked for them in the past.

But with more and more people now finding the products and services straight off their smartphones, well can your business afford not to invest?

And if you’ve been delaying because you fear seo will cost an absolute arm and leg, you should fear not.

That’s because there are now tons of good quality agencies, and some, like us charge a rather modest fee.

So, what you waiting for?

Reply: A few more facts so we can understand the process more!

Do not fear, now marketing agency has this covered, here’s four facts that we think your business should know about organic seo.

#1 Organic seo does take quite a while to implement

If you’re looking for you’re a marketing method which will bring you overnight marketing success, well organic seo isn’t likely going to be for you.

That’s because organic seo takes time. And when we say time, well we kind of mean its an ongoing process.

Yet, before you get deterred, lets give you all the facts.

All the businesses on the first page of Google will have got there because they are the most relevant businesses for that keyword. These businesses will also have the strongest ranking signals.

Now who determines this? Well its not a person, it’s an algorithm.

And because there are so many businesses that what the top spot, well you guessed it if you invest in organic seo, your business faces constant competition

Also, there’s the benchmark that your competitors have already set, this means if a business thinks they can get onto the first page in a very short amount of time they are often mistaken, and here’s why.

Your direct competitors, the ones on the first page of Google, well they may have been paying an seo agency for years to develop their website. So, its important to be realistic in terms of how long it will take to beat your competitors.

Now not all agencies make that clear from the start, do they?

Nope, that’s because often some agencies want to grab the cash, and then get the website to rank for terms that are unlikely to get you business. That’s just to show they have achieved something.

So, for example, if you run a dental practice, well the agency may get you to rank for “dentists that are the best in the business for teeth whitening near me”- hmm when really you just want to rank for “dentists + city”.

#2 Your website can go up, but it can also go down

Some businesses believe that once they have reached the top of Google, that they will stay there.

This is not true. What will happen is your competitors will want to get the top, so as soon as their website is stronger, they will overtake your business.

That’s to say a business only stays at the top if it has the strongest ranking signals.

#3 White hat seo is a must

You may have heard of this term “white hat” yet you may not know what it means. Well, in a nutshell white hat seo means the work should be of quality.

Now we use the word “should” here, that’s because as you would expect, some agencies say they implement white hat work when they do not.

What will happen however is if the business doesn’t invest in an agency that offers quality work, then the algorithm may place a penalty on that business.

That’s to say low quality seo will mean the website incurs a penalty.

#4 Think about where your agency is located

Some businesses choose an agency that’s based miles and miles away from there business. And sure the agency may well send you a monthly seo report, so you are in know regarding how well the SEO is going.

Yet, every now and then you may wish to meet the agency, so having to hop on a train and then grab a taxi may get slightly annoying.

So think about where the marketing agency is based, and normally you will be able to find many good agencies based in most cities within the U.K.

Can we help

You may now be sold on the idea that your business requires seo? If so, why not give us a ring?

Introduction

Most business owners now recognise that if their business is not on the first page of Google, that they can sometimes be at a serious disadvantage.

That’s to say, whether you retail designer clothing, or you sell dog food online, if your business is not on first page of Google, well you could be missing out on a lot of sales.

Yet with that said, there are still a lot of businesses that do not know how to get their business onto the first page of Google.

To help you, we are going to explain what SEO (search engine optimisation) is, and why it’s important to invest in a white hat agency.

Crawling and Indexing

First things first, you have to make sure that Googlebot can crawl your website. Googlebot is used by Google to read your businesses website, and notice changes that have been made.

So, for instance, let’s say you run a dental practice, and you start to offer a brand new service, such as teeth whitening.

Well, you may add a new page to your website to advertise this service, add it will be Googlebot that will spot this new page, and then index the new teeth whitening page.

Then the algorithm will decide where to rank your business. For example, if the page has a lot of backlinks, and these links are good quality, then this page may well rank of the first page of Google.

Your seo agency should make it as easy as possible for Googlebot to index your website, this means designing a site map. This will inform Google of every page that is on your company website.

Also, sometimes Google will not be able to crawl some websites, this may well be because your company website is not live. Perhaps it has been taken offline while improvements are made to its design for example.

Or perhaps the website designer has left the “no-index” tag on by mistake, and Google cannot crawl the website.

Whatever the reason, if you want your website to be placed on the first page of Google, one of the first pieces of work that will be needed, is to make sure your website can be crawled.

So, this means before the long process of seo begins, your seo consultant must ensure that the website can be crawled.

Also, when major changes are made to the businesses website, often it’s the marketing agency that will request a recrawl. This is often completed by using Google’s Web Master Tools.

Google’s algorithm

Once a website has been indexed, its then up to Google’s algorithm to work out how important the website is.

For example, if you looking to purchase a new kitchen, and you searched for “kitchens + city” then the most relevant business that is selling kitchens in that area will be returned.

Yet, how the businesses are ordered, in terms of where they rank on the first page of Google, well that is dependent on how strong the websites ranking signals are.

Now there are more than 200 signals, so the business that has the strongest backlinks, the strongest content marketing and the strongest ranking signals, well that business will be ranked at the top.

There will always be competitors that will want their business at the top of Google as well. So, this means that there will be a lot of businesses competing.

This is why SEO is a constant process, and the businesses that stop investing often get replaced by businesses that are implementing seo.

Google hates spam

From reading this blog post your probably now thinking that SEO sounds like a lot of work, are we right?

Well, the simple fact of the matter is that digital marketing can be hard work. This is often why you have some businesses that try and cut corners, and invest in cheap seo.

However cheap seo is often a false economy, that’s because if the work is of a rubbish quality, then often the business will incur a penalty.

If you’ve heard of the Google Penguin and Panda updates in particular, then you will know that a website can sometimes see its rankings drop sharply, that’s straight after a penalty is imposed.

In a nutshell, Google only wants to reward businesses that invest in quality seo. Google wants to provide the best quality answers to its customers.

This is why its only worth using a white hat digital marketing agency.

Does your business need help with its online marketing?

Whether your business requires local seo, or national seo, we can help. We have experienced marketing experts that work for our agency.

We also work with a wide selection of businesses that range from dentists, through to e-commerce retailers.

If you would like to find out more regarding how online marketing can help your business, why not give us a ring?