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The benefits of SEO to your business

Businesses and start ups face their own day to day challenges. Such as, limited time, SEO, shoestring budgets and staffing.

If one thing is clear, without online visibility and a robust SEO strategy your business may find itself facing additional difficulties. Including customers struggling to find and see your website or online ads.

We suggest you develop a strong brand and a successful online presence. Having a positive and proactive approach to your SEO will increase the amount of new customers engaging with your business. Leading to greater conversion rates. A few less things to worry about on a day to day basis!

Let’s look at some ideas on how you and your professional can help to build a winning SEO strategy that won’t bankrupt you. It’s important to mention that, a little creativity and dynamism and an acute understanding of the business- its objectives, goals, and target audience will go a long way.

Similarly, each business is different therefore, the approach you take with your SEO should reflect this. This is where your creativity should come into play.

Here are a few suggestions to consider with or without a pro:

Optimise your website

Your SEO optimised website will load faster, navigate more easily, and will display on different devices. This is paramount in a world where many people are researching, browsing and shopping on tablets and mobile phones.

Creating an online environment that is user friendly you will satisfy part of Google’s guidelines. This is because Google favours websites that offer its visitors positive experience which creates ease of use.

SEO has changed dramatically over the past decade. Therefore, it’s vital to recognise how much influence search engines like Google have on your website. Search engines can influence whether or not you have an online presence.

  • Create high quality and relevant content including blogs and articles
  • Provide appropriate and relevant on site information
  • Create an environment which is well structured and uncluttered to encourage longer visits
  • Solve your target audiences’ questions through your content… F&Q perhaps

Set up a Google My Business account

Google My Business is a free optimisation tool that will help to increase your local visibility. It will give you more control over how your business appears on searches and maps.

  • Build an account and fill out each section with relevant and appropriate information.
  • Use high quality images and videos.
  • Encourage clients to provide reviews and feedback to build credibility, trustworthiness and sales. You can reply to your customers comments, which is a great way of demonstrating how your business engages with its customers.
  • Provide office details, directions, contact numbers and operating hours.
  • Provide information about your business attributes for instance – free parking, access to wifi, wheelchair access.

Don’t fall behind stay updated

Google have implemented some huge algorithm updates over the past few years which have effected some well established websites. Similarly, they also roll out several updates on a monthly basis. The updates might not be ground breaking, but, unless you are aware of these, over time your website could become difficult to update. This why having a pro on your side will help to avoid falling behind.

  • Your website requires constant monitoring to stay up to date.
  • Be on the ball – understand major algorithm changes and how these will effect your website and its’ ranking.

Therefore, your business needs to have a long term SEO strategy in order to gain noticeable changes. It’s about ‘playing the long game’!

Conclusion

It’s really important to understand the needs of your business and how search engines influence and impact your website’s visibility. Being aware of other businesses like your own, being aware of what they are doing and how they are doing, it will help to develop and maintain a strong SEO strategy.

The more time and commitment you apply to your SEO the greater your results will be now and for the future.

for more information, contact us at:

proactivemarketing.solutions

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Will blogging really help my website and online visibility

Are you a small business with limited time on your hands, or do you feel like paying someone to create and publish blog content is like burning cash? The good news is, blogging does help your website and online visibility, so it’s worth a go.

You might be open to the idea of blogging, but are not sure whether the time you spend, will provide you with a return. And, other burning question, what on earth do you write about? … writers block anyone?

 

Is blogging worth the effort…

If you feel like you can relate to any of these then you are in the correct place. So, should you be asking one of your staff members to do blogging – the answer is yes. If you are a one-man band should you stay up till midnight writing or creating blog content instead of all the other jobs you’re balancing? Well, this really is up to you, but we can confirm that blogging does have huge benefits to your online visibility. So it might be worthwhile reaching for that mug of coffee!

We advise that your website has a place where you can add blog content regularly. If, you do not have a website, then you should, definitely, speak to your web design company and ask them to incorporate a place for your writing.

Free or not?

It’s well known that there are several free sites that provide great blogging spaces. You can upgrade on these sites and have a ‘www.business.com’ domain name instead of one that is tagged with the likes of ‘WordPress’. The issue here is not the clarity of domain name, but is more to do with your blog content being associated with your website. If you are trying to draw as many people as possible to your website, then the best place for them to land is on your website and not on a random blogging site. Makes sense right?

 

Long tail search queries

In most cases you or your web designer will have developed your site around keywords and specific search terms. But, its well known that we don’t always search for robotic terms like ‘decorator london’. We might instead, search for ‘experiences decorators who know how to deal with damp in London’. The more conversational search is called long-tail search queries.

The best way for google to find your website, in response to these search queries, is through blogging. For example, the decorator may have written a blog on ‘the best ways to manage damp issues’ or ‘the best paint products in 2019’.

If these questions are searched, then the likelihood that your site will pop up is much greater. This is compared to only having information on your website and homepage. If you are struggling to think of content, it might be useful for you to consider the questions your customers have asked you in the past and write about them. Create blogs around the answers to their questions.

In summary the more content that you produce – the less likely your website will appear stagnant and the more likely you will rank better.

Humanise yourself and show off your expertise

In an ever growing and rather over crowed market, especially online, it can be difficult to stand out. Everyone is claiming to be and do wonderful things for you, and it can hard to identify whether companies really know their onions, or whether they are substandard. Through blogging you can reach out to you potential customers and speak to them- humanising yourself. But, also you can demonstrate your expertise and knowledge, which is another positive to consider.

So, you are helping search engine users find you with your blogging, and you are showing them your human side as well as sharing your expertise. The next reason for really considering blogging is, Google. Yep, you heard me right. Google have a lot of authority when it comes to its users using the search engine. Google rewards you with greater ranking and visibility when you publish new and fresh material.

Finally…

We think, it is fair to say, that blogging has few negative sides, apart from perhaps the time, creativity and money it may require you to invest. But blogging cannot be ignored as being a new age nonsense. It is one of the best ways to increase online visibility and help with your SEO.  All we would suggest is that it is something that you do at least a few times a month, preferable weekly. Momentum is an important factor in blogging. Creating content once a year isn’t going to have much impact and may in fact make your website appear dormant. Refreshing and publishing regularly is quite a commitment but will provide you with a real return.

If you have any questions, we would love to chat.

Let’s talk at www.proactivemarketing.solutions

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How Do I Get My Business To Come Up On The First Page Of Google?

If you have been wondering how to increase your visibility on Google, or why your website doesn’t show up using specific search terms which are relevant to your business…

Then this blog series will seriously help you out! This time we will cover the role social media can play in increasing your visibility on Google.

Did you know…

You probably already know about the importance that Google plays in your business leads. Otherwise you most likely would not be researching it. However, did you know that 75% of people will not click through google pages and will only take notice of the first page. Believe it or not, 93% of people who make searches do so using search engines. And this is why you can’t afford to be ranking on any Google page- only the first.

Social media and your online presence

One way to be seen on Google is to increase your social media presence. By building and maintaining your social media accounts you will be creating some useful assets that will help enhance your online presence. Looking after your social accounts is not only useful for your online presence, but they will also help to increase user engagement. Furthermore, your socials will provide a space to project content into the wider community which will help you achieve greater visibly once more.

If you feel that you are wasting time on the ‘soft stuff’ by posting on Facebook or tweeting on Twitter, when you could be chasing good old business- you aren’t. Try to remember that you ideally want to gain a presence on the first page of SERPS (search Engine Results Page). By carrying out these tasks, potential clients are more likely to find you when they make search queries in Google and other search engines.

Follow our steps

Here are a few ways you can maximise your social media accounts so people will find your business on Google more easily.

We suggest you:

  • Link all of your social media accounts to your website and business emails. Don’t just pick a few of the main accounts like Facebook or LinkedIn, include them all to pass authority on to them.
  • Optimise all of your accounts to achieve greater engagement. You can do this by, using high quality images for your branding. Ensure all the sections such as ‘about us’, ‘name’, and ‘region’ are all fully populated by quality and in-depth content.
  • Keep your accounts updated with at least one post per day. The purpose of this is so your users and potential clients don’t think your account has been abandoned. Basically, you want to have an appearance that says ‘open for business’, not ‘closed down months ago’.
  • Use hashtags (#) to increase visibility making you more easily discoverable.
  • Engage well with your users on social media, responding to feedback, reviews and comments. Demonstrate to your followers that you are interested in their interactions and what they have to say- positive or negative.
  • Show an interest in other people’s posts, by commenting on and sharing content. This will help to spread your brand and reputation.

Finally…

Follow these steps and they will help to build your online presence which will support you with greater visibility. It is really important to have no loose ends and half populated accounts. Link all of your accounts to your website and emails. Finally, try not to underestimate the role social media plays in ranking more highly in search engines. Read our blog ‘If SEO blows your mind: Read this’ for more specific advice on SEO.

For further advice or support please feel free to contact our friendly team.