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Introduction

As a business owner, you’ve probably already heard a thousand different things that you can do in order to improve your businesses SEO.

And there’s a pretty good reason for that, that’s because there are now in excess of over 200 ranking signals that you can optimise.

So, your probably now thinking, if there are over 200 ranking signals, why concentrate on writing just blog posts?

Well, the simple answer is blog posts shouldn’t be the only form of seo that you do. Yet, most digital marketing agencies will state that content marketing is an essential part of the seo process.

So without further ado, let’s explain how blog posts can help to improve your businesses seo.

What does content marketing mean?

Content marketing can come in the form of written blog posts, infographics, video or just simply an article that has a mix of all of these.

Content marketing can be placed on a business’s website, and written in such a way that it doesn’t need to be changed often. This type of content marketing, which doesn’t change all that often, we in the seo industry refer to as being “ever green”.

Then you have content marketing which is more current, this is often added to the blog section of a website. This section of the website, “the blog section”, may get updated say once a month, once a week, or for some companies even once a day.

In a nutshell therefore, content marketing can be used to promote a business. If created correctly by your agency, it can also help to improve the businesses seo.

Websites that are updated with quality information do get rewarded

Now we know what you’re thinking, that is, if content marketing can help to improve a businesses SEO, well the more work that is added to the website, the better- right?

Well, in matter of fact no, is the answer to that question!

The reason being is this, whenever your creating content marketing you have to keep one word in your mind, and that word is “quality”.

The reason being is if your content marketing efforts are half-baked, and the content marketing doesn’t offer what us SEO’s refer to as “valuable” information, well this form of SEO that may just damage your websites rankings.

Meaning rubbish seo can actually result in the websites rankings going down, and not up.

Don’t expect results overnight

You may have just written a really long blog post, and now you want to see if all that hard work will now pay off, and your business will improve in terms of where it ranks.

Yet, we would say this, don’t be so hasty!

The reason being is that rarely will a website’s rankings improve from just one good blog post.

As any respected seo agency should tell you, it takes a lot of work, and a considerable number of high-quality blog posts in order to improve where a website ranks.

How many blog posts should we write?

So, we know what your thinking, your thinking how many blog posts are needed to get a business onto the first page?

Well, in a nutshell there is no exact answer to this question. The only thing that is for sure is this, its that in order to overtake the competition, your website must have stronger ranking signals.

This means your businesses website must have good blog posts, but these are only one part of the equation. You must also have good quality backlinks, onsite and offsite seo, etc, etc.

So, to summarise, adding blog posts should only be one part of an overall seo marketing strategy.

How many words should the blog posts be?

It used to be the case that a lot of seo companies once thought that blog posts should be 500 words in length.

However, many digital marketing agencies, including ours, now believe that longer blog posts can rank better.

With that said, you shouldn’t be writing your businesses blog posts just to meet a set word count.

If you do this, well you may just be creating a rather dull and boring read, and the reader may leave your website, which will result in a higher bounce rate.

We therefore think that blog posts should be written with a longer word count, but also be written so that they are interesting.

If you want more advice on how writing longer blog posts can help your businesses SEO, then why not have a read of this article.

Must be relevant

There’s simply no point in droning on about things that are not relevant to your business. Some businesses, and even some seo companies think that its important to publish a blog post to a set routine, that’s even if you have nothing useful to say.

Well, we think that this form of seo simply doesn’t work. It is far better to publish an article that will really help someone answer their question.

Whether that question is which winter boots to purchase, or how to find a respected local builder.

The advice must be useful, therefore if you’re just writing 500 words for the sake of it, well this isn’t likely going to help your businesses seo.

Must be white hat

Whether your writing a new blog post for your business, or creating new backlinks, all work must be white hat.

Why you should partner with a quality focused SEO agency

Google’s algorithm changes regularly, this means in order to implement quality white hat work, you should think about partnering with a white hat seo company.

Bounce rates

When writing blog posts for your business, its important to ensure that work is interesting to your readers.

You must also ensure that your businesses website is a source of good quality information.

So, this means if you were to focus too much on the seo, and neglect answering the question, then your website is likely to have a sky-high bounce rate.

If your unsure what the term bounce rate means, let us explain, it simply means when a visitor lands on your website, then decides to more or less leave straightaway, this will increase your bounce rate.

So, for example, let’s say you’re a high-flying divorce lawyer, and you start to write blog posts writing helpful tips and advice regarding the divorce process.

Yet, you decide not to pay a rather fancy seo company to do the work for you, instead you write the blog posts yourself. It’s just now they are rather complicated, and full of words describing the divorce process that the average person wouldn’t have a clue about.

Well, you guessed, if the reader does lose interest, the websites bounce rate is likely to be sky-high.

Remember when writing blog posts that often people skim-read to get the part they want to find an answer to.

And also remember that sometimes, if the blog post isn’t written correctly, its likely to lose the reader’s attention.

Onsite SEO

It’s important to remember to add a bit of onsite seo, that’s when writing blog posts. This means you should add alt tags, meta descriptions, meta titles and also internal backlinks for example

Google Analytics

Whenever you write a blog post for your website, you should monitor its performance. So, for example, you may want to see how many visitors it gets, what’s the bounce rate like, and how long the average visitor spends reading your blog post.

Google’s Algorithm

Google’s algorithm receives loads of regular changes, this means that whatever seo you are implementing, you need to stay on top of all these changes.

This is often why so many businesses outsource their seo to seo businesses like us.

Google Panda

There are loads of algorithm changes that you should be aware of before implementing seo, however, when it comes to writing blog posts for your business, there is one in particular, that is the Google Panda update.

Introduction

Most businesses now face fierce levels of competition online, so it’s more important than ever to have the edge.

This means businesses, and seo agencies alike are constantly racking their brains as to how to obtain better rankings.

It’s also no longer just a matter of getting a business onto the first page and then job done. That’s to say no digital marketing agency can rest for very long, the reason being is some websites are so good at generating sales, that the customer of that site may totally ignore the competition.

That’s to say for some businesses they make it a walk in the park for the customer to find what they want- so why would they consider anyone else?

So this is why its more important than ever that your website stands out, that’s while the visitor is deliberating over which website to click on.

A great way that you can standout is to have a ton of good customer reviews. Just like the brightest and tallest flower in the garden, you will get the most attention, the most clicks and hopefully the most sales.

So how do you become the best flower in whole garden, well have a read on, we shall tell you more.

The importance of business reviews

It used to be the case here in Britain that if we wanted to find a business, well we would get on the phone and ask friends and family for a recommendation.

Some of still do this, yet most of us now just get out our smartphone and have a look at which businesses we like the sound of.
So it should come as no surprise that in a recent survey found that “85% of consumers have as much confidence in online reviews as they do in personal recommendations”- https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey/

So there you have it, business reviews are important, and they are important for two reasons.

Number one, us seo’s know that loads of positive reviews can increase the CTR of a website, which means the click through rate. Meaning when a person is scanning over all the different websites, yours can standout more if it has positive reviews, which may well show as a star rating.

Number two positive reviews can help to generate trust, that’s to say a visitor may well like a few businesses, yet you may just clinch the deal if your website has a load of people singing its praises.

And actually there’s a third benefit as well, that is if your business has loads of genuine reviews, well Google will pick up on this, and the algorithm will use this information to work out where your business should be placed.

So positive business reviews can help to improve your local seo as well.

 
Where should a business be obtaining reviews to?

Well, we are glad that you asked as this is a common question that our seo company frequently get’s asked.

As an agency we always recommend to clients that they tell their customers to leave a review on the company’s Google My Business account.

So for example, if you have a happy customer that’s expressing how pleased they are with the overall level of service offered, why not ask them to leave you a review on the company’s Google My Business account.

Pasting a link to your Google My Business page also increases the chances of the customer leaving a review for you.

Is there anywhere else other than Google My Business that we should be obtaining reviews?

Quite simply put, every single positive review will help. The reason being is you have to place yourself in your customers shoes.

They know when their buying an item that is super easy to fake business reviews, yet on the other hand multiple websites that all have detailed reviews written by genuine customers, well this will give you the edge.

The businesses that do have fake reviews, well often a lot of customers can see straight through a fake review. Normally the author of the business review that is fake will go over the top singing the praises of the business, is a tell-tale sign.

Also if all your reviews are clumped together in just one place, well this may not look too genuine neither.

As you can imagine if you many happy customers, well they are going to leave positive reviews all over the place. So as such, if you have customers that are seeking your businesses advice, and asking where should we leave our business review? Well why not diversify, and ask your customers to leave reviews across multiple websites.

Take a look at this article, it recommends 22 websites where customers can leave a review.

How important are obtaining business reviews

We think very important, the reason being is that most seo agencies now think that business reviews are also a ranking signal. This means that business reviews are a factor that is weighed into the mix when working out how important your website is.

Yes, you guessed it, the website with the strongest “ranking signals” well that business will be ranked at the top.

Yet there are not just one or two ranking signals, there are hundreds. Business reviews are therefore just one element out of hundreds that are considered.

Will fake business reviews work?

No. It’s as plain and simple as that. We would never recommend writing fake business reviews, the reason being is Google’s algorithm will be able to spot a fake review, and this means that your business may no longer show up for the map listings.

For example, say you run a pet store, and your write a fake review, then your business may no longer show up for “pet stores near me” for example. So you could be losing out on business.

How should my business be obtaining business reviews?

We always recommend to clients that they ask customers when they know are very happy with the service the company has offered.

So when sending a company invoice for example, you may wish to write whether or not the customer is willing to also leave a business review.

Will obtaining business reviews greatly improve our local seo?

This depends, obtaining business reviews should only be considered as one part of the work that is needed to carried out in order to improve a business’s local seo.

This means there’s much more things that also need to be improved and optimised, such as the following:

·        Optimise the businesses Google My Business account

·        Build quality business citations

·        Onsite seo

·        Content marketing

·        Offsite seo

How can our business obtain help with our local seo?

If you would like further seo advice, then why not give us a call?

Introduction

It’s pretty easy to find a fair price on most items that a business needs. That’s because most items are rather generic.

This means that when your office needs to kitted out with new desks, well it’s pretty easy for the business owner to spot if they are getting a good deal or not.

Yet with seo things are different. The reason being is that a business may have recognised the need to start investing in digital marketing, yet when they start to ring around the local seo agencies, they may spot that prices vary massively.

So comparing quotes kind of becomes a game of comparing apples with pears. But do not fear, as our helpful agency is always on hand to offer advice.

Let’s have a look at some of the factors that most agencies consider, that’s before they offer a quote.

The level of competition

For those business owners in the know, they will understand that businesses are ranked according to how strong the websites “ranking signals” are.

In a nutshell there are over 200 ranking signal per website, and the search engines like Google are constantly checking how strong your businesses ranking signals are.

As you can imagine, the businesses that have invested in seo for a long time, well their ranking signals are likely to be very strong.

And this needs to be kept in mind, the reason being is in order to overtake the competition, your websites ranking signals need to be stronger.

Now, its also important to remember that your competitors may have invested in seo for many years. This means if any business expects instant results, well they are being unrealistic.

Yet time and time again business owners fall into the trap of choosing an agency that promises the earth for next to no money.

That’s to say they falsely believe that one agency is as good as the next. They may also believe that if a company offers to do the work cheaply, and states they can meet a companies marketing targets, well what can go wrong?

Well in matter of fact a lot can go wrong. If you invest in cheap seo then your business could be issued a penalty.

What happens is the search engines algorithm may detect rubbish seo, i.e spam, and then the website will be slapped with a penalty.

The penalty could be costly to recover from, the reason being is you may need to employ another agency to fix the rubbish seo the previous agency implemented.

What can therefore happen is a business may see its rankings fall, or sometimes if the seo is really poor in quality, the website may well get deindexed, which means removed altogether.

So in nutshell, don’t opt for the cheapest agency.

Why should we pay monthly?

One of the most frequent questions that most agencies get asked is this, why do we have to pay monthly?

Simply put when your business reaches the top, there will be loads of businesses that want to take that position from you.

So once your business reaches the top, your competitors seo companies will be working to see how your business has done this. Then as they add more seo strength to their websites, your website will move down.

This is why the process is a constant one.

What’s this term “white hat” mean?

When comparing quotes, you may find that some quotes are somewhat similar, yet some others are very low.

This could be because the cheap quotes are looking to spam the algorithm, which simply means to cut corners. This can result in a website incurring a penalty because low quality seo methods have been used.

On the other hand really good seo consultants, well they can often be thin on the ground in most cities.

So to attract talent, the agencies normally have to offer very good salaries, and this is reflected in the quotes that are often higher.

A respected agency should be using white hat methods. This means they will be using the very best methods, which can take a great deal of time to implement.

Does it matter which city my business is based?

The simple answer is yes it does. The reason being is that there are some cities, like London where the level of competition is much higher.

So as people are looking for say an emergency plumber, there will be hundreds, if not thousands of businesses that want to appear for that valuable term in London.

This means that some businesses will be paying substantial sums to an seo agency in order to optimise the businesses website to appear for the term “emergency plumbers London”.

So as you can imagine the prices for seo can vary massively depending on which city your  business is based within.

If you would like a no obligation quote, then why not give us a ring?

Introduction

Whether you’re running a swanky digital marketing agency within Cardiff, or you’re an employee and you’ve been tasked by your manager to write a few articles for the company blog- one thing’s for sure, that is the work has to spot on.

Sure, there’s always going to be those annoying seo agencies, that decide to spurt out content marketing articles with the attitude that the quality simply doesn’t matter.

Well, in matter of fact that’s not the approach to take. Google’s algorithm is especially good at spotting work which could be deemed as being “spammy” and therefore low quality.

This means if you’re repeatedly plugging the same phrases over and over again, or your simply writing content that no one wants to read, well sure enough your rankings are likely to plummet.

So this article offers some helpful pointers:

Quality not quantity

Whilst writing your latest content marketing creation, you might think to yourself, hmm how many of these articles do I have to write?

So, you start to look at some of the local competition, and to your amazement you find that they have been busy blogging and adding new articles as regular as clockwork.

You may even dash off to your boss’s desk, eager with the news and blurt out that the competition have been such busy bees.

This is when your boss may decide to make a decision that could have the potential to damage your businesses seo performance well and truly! That’s to say they may state do not worry about the quality and writing detailed articles, instead aim for quantity!

This is like trying to put out a fire with petrol, it’s not going to end well.

Instead when it comes to all things that are seo related, and especially content marketing in particular, instead you must focus on producing quality.

I.e articles that people really want to read, that they will find useful. Not marketing waffle aiming at spamming the algorithm.

For example say you were a manufacturer of a power tool, let’s say a cordless drill, and in order to optimise your website you start thinking about content marketing you could be writing.

Now a really rubbish seo agency would say that it’s important to keep writing about cordless drills, and to keep plugging those terms over and over again. Which is a one way street to incurring a penalty.

So what you be doing instead? Well that’s rather simple, you should be thinking about generating written articles that help your target customers.

So what do they use their drills for? Perhaps a common DIY problem would be how to hang an internal door easily.

If you were to instead write a really interesting DIY article on how to hang a door, and you mention naturally in the writing what cordless drill to use, well guess what? This type of content marketing works a lot better.

The reason being is this, more people are likely to want to read the article, they may share it on social media, and another website may offer a backlink, all this helps a business with its seo.

Must be useful

Our most useful nugget of advice that we can dispense is this, when writing content marketing make sure that the information is useful.

So many businesses get this wrong, writing content marketing that doesn’t, or very loosely relates to the business will not help with the business’s SEO.

Also, sometimes the work is empty waffle, so not really answering any questions, and just written to satisfy a 500 word count.

This is no good, think quality, also offer information that will really help your customers.