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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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A must read: The breakdown of Google’s algorithm Hummingbird

What is Google’s algorithm Hummingbird update all about? Let’s take a closer look…

What is hummingbird?

The Google update, Hummingbird, came into force in September 2013 but unlike other updates like Panda and Penguin, Hummingbird is more of a complete change of approach. Its been named Hummingbird due to its precision and speed.

The purpose of hummingbird is so Google can interpret natural language and respond effectively. It has taught Google to understand our intent when doing a search. Rather than looking at each keyword, Google can now look at the whole search query for context. Once Google has analysed its users search query it focuses on delivering us greater localization of results, which in turn, gives us answers which are relevant thus useful. In summary hummingbird is designed to improve the quality of its answers.

Why has Google implemented the Hummingbird updates?

For those of us old enough to look back ten years ago and remember where we were technologically it is clear why we might need these updates. A decade ago social media platforms were beginning to evolve and gain popularity, but we weren’t using voice searches or mobile phones to do searches on Google. Times have changed. Social media platforms are now central to our everyday lives and, with 40% of smartphone users benefiting from voice recognition to text its no wonder Google has applied these updates. We are literally talking to Google throughout our day. Therefore, Google have made changes to ranking, online content and links with the purpose of improving our experiences.

After all, search engines like Google are there to serve us and be as helpful as possible. As humans we adapt and change all the time and if technology wants to keep up, the likes of Google, also need to stay relevant.

What changes need making since Hummingbird?

If your ranking has been affected since hummingbird we would advise you change the way you use keywords and begin to implement long-tail and conversational terms. Hummingbird no longer uses seed/ head keywords which means site owners and marketers need to evaluate current and previous content with the intention of weaving in long tail keywords. Sites which have focused on
long tail keywords have experienced greater success. Using phrases like who, what and where are proven to help with ranking as these are the types of organic language that people are using when typing and speaking. Additionally, by ensuring your site is mobile-friendly and running at a good speed will give you better ranking.

 

Let’s recap on Hummingbird

Finally, Hummingbird is all about making Google more human. It aims to deliver the highest quality and relevant sites in response to your search query needs. Google has gained an ability to interpret our vague searches and colloquial tones of voice but nevertheless you still want to create a sense of clarity throughout your site as you want Google to direct users to your site because its clear you have the answers. Google have been reasonably transparent about the updates which means we can make changes to our sites if our ranking has been affected. However, it has been said that the Hummingbird update hasn’t had too many negative results.

To discuss Googles updates further and how we can help to increase your ranking contact us today!

www.proactivemarketing.solutions