How Do I Know If My SEO Is Working?

By Peter Brittain on July 21, 2020 in SEO

The fact is that even if you know absolutely nothing about the SEO process, the means should be in place for you to be able to measure the success of any SEO campaign created for you. If not, then alarm bells should be ringing.

From the outset, if you ever come across an SEO agency or consultant that does not give you any way to check what they’ve done is working, be very, very wary of working with them. After all, if they were that good, would they not be putting their results front and centre for you once their SEO campaign has been implemented?

Let us assume you have employed an SEO agency whose previous results and testimonials indicate they can get you results, how are those results going to manifest themselves, in terms of measuring success?

One way could be to micro-manage so that you check every single piece of data. However, for most business owners, especially those who value their time, that might be regarded as overkill.

By that, we mean if you want to check hourly for how much traffic you are getting, you can, but it is not necessary, or indeed useful. Checking data to that degree is not an effective use of your time, and in fact, even the SEO experts do not check data that often…well most of the sane ones do not.

There are basically three result areas that will give you a strong indication as to whether an SEO campaign is achieving its objectives, and they are rankings, traffic, and leads/sales.

Google’s Top 10 Ranking Factors In 2020

By Peter Brittain on June 15, 2020 in SEO Rankings

It is hardly surprising that many website owners who do their own SEO often feel like their head is spinning trying to keep up with Google’s ranking factors. Truth be told, many seasoned SEO experts often feel the same way.

Hopefully, we will not make you feel too dizzy as we highlight Google’s top 10 ranking factors for 2020.

#1 Content still rules as Google continues to reward websites that publish quality content over those that produce sub-standard content.

#2 Mobile over desktop is how the world has moved in terms of consuming online content and that is why Google now indexes mobile sites first. That means if your website is not mobile optimised its ranking is going to continually drop

#3 Page load speed has become more important due to mobile indexing and it means that websites that load quickly have a distinct advantage over clunky websites that take ages to load.

#4 Freshness is a ranking factor that many are blissfully unaware of, so their old, stagnant content does nothing for their ranking. If, instead, they updated it, and even included the present year, Google will look upon it a lot more favourably.

How To E-A-T Your Way to The Top Of The Search Engines

By Peter Brittain on June 5, 2020 in Ranking Factors

Hopefully, you will have already realised we are not talking about eating food to help your SEO, much as that might appeal to us all. Instead, the acronym E-A-T stands for Expertise – Authority – Trustworthiness. Given that E-A-T is something that Google’s algorithms are focused on, it is something every website owner needs to understand.

Those three words mean that Google has moved on from just looking for quality content. A quick point to make here is that does not mean that you should let your standards drop and stop producing quality content. That requirement has not been abandoned, however, Google are taking things a step further.

Google is continually striving to make its search engine results as close to the user’s intention as possible. Taking that stage further means they want the destination that users arrive at to give them the best user experience possible.

Put yourself in Google’s shoes for a moment and imagine you had to determine what websites are going to achieve that goal, and which are not. How about fake news websites, or websites with lots of content, but otherwise full of affiliate offers for sale?

What about those with misleading sales messages or hyped up claims? And, how about websites that look like they offer content, but it is really just sales copy dressed up as content?

How to Keep Visitors on Your Website Longer

By Peter Brittain on May 18, 2020 in Conversions, Website UX

Here are 5 Ways To Ensure Your Website Visitors Stay Longer.

Within the SEO and online business communities, a lot has been written about Google’s continuing mission to make its search engine results exactly match the intent of the person entering the search. In fact, a lot of what has been written has come from Google itself.

They have moved from simply ranking websites based on how relevant they are to the search term to them giving higher rankings to websites where the evidence is that user experiences will be greater than on other websites.

As it is impossible for Google to survey every single person to ask them about their experience, Google instead tries to establish it using data it receives back from the destination website.

There are numerous data points that all feed into Google’s ‘user experience’ score. These include bounce rate, which checks whether visitors take one look at a site and then click away, whether a website gets bookmarked by visitors, and dwell time, which is what we are going to focus on.

Dwell time tells Google how long visitors stay on each page of the website, with logic telling them that if dwell time is high, the visitor likes the site, and if it is low, maybe not so much.

For website owners, this means that they need to do all they can to encourage visitors to stay. Here are 5 simple ways it can be done…

Using Video As An Integral Part of Your Marketing and SEO

By Peter Brittain on April 22, 2020 in Video SEO

If you own a local business and you are looking for ways to gain a marketing advantage over your competitors, then you must consider using video. Video, and its ability to give SEO for your website a huge boost is something that most businesses are completely unaware of.

The truth is Google absolutely loves video and given it owns the biggest video website on the planet, YouTube, it is little wonder that videos rank very highly in their search results. But it is not just for Google’s benefit and your website’s rankings that you should be using video, it is due to the fact that your customers and potential customers love video too.

To prove this point, the next time you are in a busy area of town stop for a moment and look around to see what everyone is doing. It is an absolute certainty that many of them will be walking, standing, sitting or even having a conversation whilst at the time looking at a mobile device such as a phone or tablet.

This is the world we live in today where handheld devices have almost become as much a part of us as the hands that hold them. While there will be all sorts of different reasons for looking at one of these devices, the primary ones will be social media, communication, and entertainment, with videos often being the main source of that entertainment.