In this post, we talk about why SEO is important for personal brand website owners like you and give you some tips on how to increase your chances of ranking higher in search engine results.

But first, why does SEO even matter?

Why does SEO matter?

As consumers, whenever we’re looking to buy something (a product or a service), we tend to do our own research. And when we’re ready to make a purchase, credit card in hand, we head over to Google (or Bing or Yahoo) and check out the links for the top results.

So why does this matter to you as a business owner?

When your website appears at the top of the Google search results, you have an opportunity to drive more organic traffic to your website – i.e. traffic that’s not driven through paid-for advertising.

Search engine optimisation, or SEO for short, is what allows you to increase your online visibility, and, in turn, your sales. But in order for this to work, you need your website to come up in the search results on the first page of Google when someone types in a query that is related to your topic of expertise.

So what can you do to improve your chances of claiming those spots at the top of the search results?

User experience and SEO – is there a difference?

SEO can often become a technical and complicated topic. But it doesn’t have to be. [bctt tweet=”When you focus on delivering a great user experience to your audience, you’re ticking most of the SEO boxes because great user experience is exactly what Google aims to deliver.” username=”@Jammy_Digital”]

So if you want to get into ‘Google’s good books’, adopt a user experience mindset. In other words, focus on what a great website looks like in the eyes of your users, and you’re already setting yourself up for success when it comes to ranking.

How do smaller, service-based business compete with big corporates to rank higher on Google?

If you’re a small business and worry about how you can compete with bigger companies with larger budgets and more ‘SEO power’, here’s the good news.

By focusing on a specific niche within your industry and concentrating your efforts on creating a website that’s interesting, engaging, and valuable, you’re more likely to rank on the first page of Google for the specific search terms (or keywords) that relate to your business. 

If you create the right type of laser-focused content that is relevant to your users and your business, you have more chances of coming up at the top of the search results than some of the bigger companies that cover much wider areas and topics.

Let’s use an example to explain this. If you type a question into Google, you’ll want to find the best possible answer. Google wants to provide you, the user, with the answer that most matches your search criteria. So if a larger company doesn’t have the right type of content to answer that specific question but you do, your content may be picked over the bigger company’s.

Of course, other factors such as how old your website is or how much traffic you get also play a part. But ultimately, the best solution that Google finds is what gets presented first in the search results. This is why it’s much easier to think about SEO from a content perspective – always aim to answer your prospective clients’ questions in the best possible way. 

There are things you can do to optimise your website and increase your chances of ranking on the first page of Google.

1. Treat your service pages like your homepage

A lot of business owners we meet make the mistake of putting a lot of effort into their home page, but then neglecting their service pages. But when you think about it, by doing that, you’re missing opportunities. Every single page of your website (and, specifically, your service pages) can be optimised for search. And so can your blog posts! If you want to know more about this, read our article How to Optimise Your Blog Posts.

So if you offer a range of different services, create one page for each of your services and optimise each page individually.

To rank well on search engines, you’ll need to think about the content on these pages. What would your user be searching for? Try to give as much information as possible about your service (while still keeping your writing succinct and clear). Examples of things you could include on your service page are:

• An overview of your service
• Who the service is suitable for
• The main benefits of your service
• How much it costs for your service
• Case studies and testimonials related to your service
• The process/how you carry out the service
• Frequently asked questions about your service
• Related content such as blog posts, podcast episodes, guides etc.

2. Don’t forget about longtail keywords on your service pages

When you create individual pages for each of your services, you get to include the relevant keywords in each of them. This isn’t just great in the eyes of Google, but it’s fantastic for your users too, as they get to only consume content that’s relevant to what they’re after. 

As an example, let’s say you offer both editing and proofreading services. Having a page completely dedicated to your proofreading services allows you to include (and potentially rank for) different search terms or keywords, like ‘proofreading London’ or ‘proofreading service rates’, etc.

Including other, related and more specific keywords is a smart move because if you tried to rank for the search term ‘proofreader’, you’d struggle to get to the first page of Google. The term is too broad and generic, and too many other websites are ‘competing’ with each other to rank for that keyword. Plus, the search isn’t specific enough! What is the user trying to do? Find out what a proofreader is for a school project? Or trying to find a proofreader to hire?

So here’s where our advice of ‘niching down’ comes into its own. You might struggle to rank for ‘proofreader’, but you’ll have better chances of ranking for long-tail keywords (i.e. longer phrases or sets of words), like:

• How much does a proofreader cost?
• What does proofreading include?
• How does the proofreading process work?
• How long does it take for you to proofread my work?

Think of specific and targeted keywords that your ideal clients are likely to search for and build your web pages around those terms. 

3. Get Good at Content Marketing

Can you use your blog content to help you rank higher?

Absolutely!

Take us, for example. Over time, we’ve created blog posts that answer questions that our prospective clients ask us all the time. We’ve written blog posts, like:

• How Long Does It Take To Build A Website?
• Why You Need a Maintenance Plan for your Website
• Why New Businesses Shouldn’t Spend 1000s on a Website

By going deep into your content efforts and by creating regular blog content that is optimised for several keywords, you can increase the number of visitors that land on your website

How Do I Come up with Content Marketing ideas?

So how can you come up with ideas for content? Once again, think about your users (and user experience first).

Make a note of the questions that your prospective clients ask you on a regular basis and answer them through your content. If one person asks you, chances are that other people will want to know as well, so answer your questions ‘at scale’.

And if you’re just starting out and aren’t sure about what questions your audience might have, use Google! Have you ever noticed the section at the bottom called ‘Searches related to’?

Or you can use other free online resources to work out what keywords people are mostly looking for. A great tool (with a free trial) that we always recommend is KWFinder. You enter your chosen keywords and see how many people search for it each month.

Our top tip here is to create content for long-tail keywords that sound just like the questions your prospective clients may ask you. Things like:

• How much does a proofreader charge?
• What is included in a proofreading package?

Because these search terms are much longer and more niche, they’re likely to have less competition. In other words, less content has been written to answer those specific questions, which means that if you go after those keywords, you have a better chance of ranking.

Create in-depth content that answers your customers’ questions

Our most-successful blog posts go into a lot of details. And that’s not surprising, as, in the eyes of Google, longer pieces of content provide an in-depth answer to your search query. If you think about a topic from a user perspective and make a list of all the related and relevant questions someone might have on that topic, you’ll easily come up with a longer piece of content.

Also, in-depth content gives you opportunities to include more than just one keyword. And when the additional keywords are also terms that people search for, you have better chances of ranking!

Our most successful piece of content, (that gets more traffic than our homepage) is ‘Why Am I Not Ranking in Google, and How to Fix It’ 

This was as a result of constantly being asked this question. The blog post is over 3000 words, but it breaks the question down simply. 11 reasons why you’re not ranking in Google, with an explanation, then an explanation of how to fix it.

So think about the main question you want to answer with your blog post and then break it down, like the chapters of a book. You’ll then turn those related topics into sub-heading (just like we’ve done in this blog post) and include any related keywords in the sub-headings.

If you’re using WordPress or any other Content Management System, you can assign heading tags to these individual subheadings. These can be set as Headings 2, Headings 3, Headings 4, etc. And by doing this, you’re telling not only organising your content nicely for your users, but you’re telling the search engines how your content is structured, which can help you increase your ‘SEO power’. It’s a win-win!

If you want more details around how to optimise your blog content and your website pages for SEO, head over to our blog post: The Ultimate SEO Checklist for your Blog Posts.

Finally, Should I hire an SEO company?

And last but not least, here’s a question our clients ask us all the time. Should you hire an SEO company?

The answer is that it depends. If you have the budget and your business can afford it, you can. But it’s important that you first have a solid understanding of the SEO basics and are clear on what you’re paying for and what you want to achieve.

If you find yourself in a crowded market with a lot of competition and are struggling to stand out, hiring a good SEO company that helps you build high-quality backlinks to your website (through reaching out to influencers, guest posting, etc.) could work out for you in the long run.

But any good SEO company should either recommend content marketing or do it for you. By creating the right type of content (either as a page on your site or blog post) and optimising it, you will see an increase in website traffic. 

Would you like some help with your content marketing and SEO strategy? 

If you’re looking for some support with your content marketing or SEO strategy, why not join our membership, Make Your Mark Online?

In January, we’re starting our 90 Day Challenge, where you write one piece of content a week for 90 days and we’ll review it, telling you what you need to do to improve it for SEO.

What is the Membership About?

If you’re after an ‘agency-level’ website (but without the agency price tag) and want a WordPress website that ranks, gets you more traffic, and delivers you more sales, that’s exactly what we help our members do.

We offer video courses, weekly live Q&A calls, a private Slack group, and member-only resources which include a handy SEO planner. Come and check it out, and if you have any questions, just give us a shout!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to make your service-based business website rank higher on Google appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s a decision that we didn’t take lightly but one that we are happy with.

SEO has been a huge part of our business, and it’s going to be an interesting transition going forward.

Did we fall out of love with SEO? Did we have a bad experience? The answer to both questions is NO.

We love helping our clients get incredible results (who wouldn’t) this is why it took us a long time to make this decision. Stopping something you enjoy doing, and are good at, is difficult for anyone.

Even if you’re doing it for the right reasons.

1. We love building websites

We want to focus all our efforts on building the best websites possible.

I actually started my journey as a web designer 5 years ago. I only added SEO to the mix later on once I learned as much as I could about it.

Learning SEO and getting great results for our clients has helped us build better websites. They tend to rank better, they’re more user-friendly, and we can advise our clients what they could do to improve SEO.

My real passion has always been in building websites. Taking an idea or basic sketch and turning into a reality is what excites me. Creating a website from nothing and see it make money for a client is the best feeling in the world, and we want to spend more time doing this.

Another part of what we love about building websites is seeing the finished product. It’s true; a website is never truly “finished” but there is a point where we launch a new website and hand over the reigns to our clients.

At that point I feel a sense of accomplishment.

However, the very nature of SEO means, it’s never-ending. It’s a continuous service that happens month after month and it never really feels complete. Although this is very profitable, I still miss that sense of completion that I get from my web design projects.

2. We didn’t want to hold anything back

We’ve always tried to be as giving as possible when it comes to our knowledge. SEO is a topic I personally love to talk about and could do so until I was blue in the face.

However, when you offer a service like SEO, there’s always a feeling that I should be saving some of the information for my paying clients. Surely the REALLY valuable stuff should be given to paying clients only…right?

NO!

This is another reason we gave it up. We didn’t want anything to be held back when speaking to clients and prospects.

Our goal is to be 100% transparent with our audience, and now we’ve taken money out of the equation, we get to spread our message without any filter.

And I feel really excited about it.

3. We want YOU to learn SEO rather than pay for it

SEO is easier than you think.

Over the past 4 years since I’ve been offering SEO, I’ve realised that Google are making it easier for small businesses to have an impact on the web.

SEO is easier to understand and less technical than ever before.

There are thousands of SEO blogs out there giving free advice on how to optimise your website for search engines. Not to mention all the books, video courses and podcasts that offer guidance too.

Content management systems like WordPress, Weebly and Shopify allow you to optimise your own website easily and start seeing results within weeks.

It’s far more cost-effective for you to learn and understand the basics and try your hand at at it first.

Even if you decide to hire an SEO agency later on, you’ll be able to understand the work that has been carried out. You’ll have a better grasp of what and why things have been done and save yourself some time and money in the process.

4. We get to spend more time helping our clients

We’re developing a new online training centre for our clients where we’ll put together a series of videos and downloads that will help them understand SEO better.

When you hire us to build your website, you’ll have the opportunity to join the training centre and learn everything you need to know to drive more organic traffic to your website.

We’ll teach you everything we’ve learned over the years, and you can implement it yourself without the need for an SEO company.

Now that we’ve stopped providing SEO services, it means we have more time to invest in training.

5. We are still offering SEO consulting

Although we are not taking on new SEO projects, we are not going anywhere, and we can still help you with your SEO strategy.

We offer hourly 1-2-1 coaching via Skype, and we also offer a website critique service where we’ll review your website and send you a video with our feedback.

These services allow us to help more people for a one-time fee. No contracts, no monthly fees, just 100% help and advice tailored around your needs.

What happens now

So what does this mean, is the last time I’m going to talk write about SEO?

Nope.

I’m planning on writing a lot more SEO content for my audience; I want to start recording more videos and creating ebooks too. I just want to give away my knowledge, rather than save it for my SEO clients.

Summary

It’s never easy cutting a service from your business. Especially one that’s been very profitable over the years. I made this decision even though it went against my business instincts. I went with my heart instead. And I’m happy that I did.

If you want to take advantage of our website critique service, hit the button below. We’ll send you a 30-minute website critique video telling you how to improve your SEO.

Over to you

Have you ever made a decision that didn’t make sense on paper? Maybe like me, you chose to go with your heart rather than your head. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we’ve stopped selling SEO appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

I totally get it…you’ve got a great-looking website, you’re proud of it, but you’re frustrated.

No one can find you on Google.

You could have the best-looking website in the world but if people can’t find you online you won’t get any enquires or sales.

As a web design agency who ALSO specialise in SEO, we get asked these questions all the time by potential clients:

– Why can’t our prospective customers find us on Google?
– What do we need to do to get our website on the 1st page of Google?

Google is the number one most visited website and it drives the majority of search traffic to websites in the world. That’s why it’s so important to have a strong presence in search results.

It’s really important that you as the business owner understand what’s wrong with your website and what you can do to fix it.

Having reviewed hundreds of websites over the past few years, I’ve found that there are 11 main reasons why your website is not ranking well in search results.

So, if you are frustrated with the performance of your website, and you want to fast track to the solutions to fix it, you’ve come to the right place.

1. Competitors

Let’s face it. Some industries are more crowded than others, and some of your competitors might have a huge marketing budget behind them. This is why you might not be ranking on the first page for your main keywords.

How can you check for competitors?

A simple Google search for your main products or services will give you some indication of the size and weight of your competition.

Take a look at the search below for “beds for sale”.

As you can see, the number of results is ridiculous (over 173 million). Although lots of these results aren’t relevant, you’re still competing with the likes of DFS, Argos and Dreams. These are all huge organisations, and the chance of you getting your small-business website on the first page is slim to none.

What can you do about your competition?

You could try to focus on a particular segment of your target market.

Rather than trying to rank nationally for the keyword “Beds for sale” you could instead focus on a local audience, such as “Beds for sale in Manchester”.

If you go after a smaller market, there’s less competition and more chance of ranking higher for that geographical location.

Another option would be to find a niche within your industry. Rather than aiming for “Beds for sale” you could go for “Children’s beds for sale”.

There is far less competition for more specific searches, and you stand a better chance of performing well in search results.

You have to be realistic, and if your competitors are all large organisations, then you may have to adjust your strategy. You’ll thank me in the long run.

2. Google has not indexed your website

If you have a brand-new website and you’re not showing up on Google, it may be because Google hasn’t listed you yet.

How to find out if your website is indexed.

So, how would you know if your website is listed on Google?

You can find out by using the following prefix in a google search.

site:yoursite.com  (without the “www.” and “/”)

If you can see your website showing in search results and you’re at the top, you have nothing to worry about. This means you are indexed. Usually, you will see a full list of all your web pages, and that’s what you’re hoping for.

On the other hand, if you’re not at the top or showing up at all then the likelihood is that Google hasn’t indexed your website yet.

How can you index your website with Google?

Google should eventually find your website anyway, but it can take a few weeks. Not only that, if something is wrong with your site you won’t know about until weeks down the line.

The best thing you can do is to add your website to Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools) and provide them with your sitemap.

This will tell Google which pages you want to show up in their search results and speed the process along. It will also tell you if there are any technical errors on your website.

3. Your website is not mobile friendly

There’s no doubt about it. Mobile usage is overtaking desktop, which is why having a mobile friendly website is vital. If you don’t, it will seriously impact your rankings in mobile search results.

Ideally, your website should be “responsive”, this means when your site is viewed on a mobile phone or an iPad it will take the shape of that particular device. It shouldn’t be hard work and require any dragging and pinching. This is bad user experience, hence the reason Google will punish you.

How to find out if your website is responsive

To find out if you have a responsive website visit Google’s very own Mobile Friendly Test tool and enter your website URL.

It will show you either as a pass or a fail.

How can you make your website responsive

If a web designer created your website, speak to them about making it responsive. If you’re lucky, it won’t be too expensive!

If you use WordPress and manage your website yourself, you could install a new WordPress theme that is responsive. You may also be able to keep the same theme but buy an additional plugin to make it pass the mobile-friendly test.

Worst case scenario, you may have to have your website re-designed. It’s not always easy to convert an old website, and it might be easier to spend the money on a new design entirely.

It is extremely important to have a responsive website, for both SEO and user-experience.

4. Meta tags not optimised

Search engines use Meta data to work out what your website is about. Each one of your webpages will have its own set of meta tags and they can be optimised to describe the content on that page.

Some of this information will actually show up in search results so you need to know how to change it as it’s often the first thing your visitors will see before they click through to your site.

Your Title Tags and your Meta Descriptions

How can you check you meta-data?

You can use this tool to collect a list of your pages along with their meta tags. Simple paste your URLs into the box and click submit. You’ll be able to download the full list and see what Google can see.

Provided you are using a Content Management System such as WordPress you will have access to update your meta tags very easily using the settings for each page.

How can you improve your Title Tags

Your Title Tags are extremely important and they WILL impact your search engines rankings depending on what you include within them. Here are a few tips:

• Include the keywords you want to rank for
• Keep the length under 55 characters to avoid search engines cutting it short
• Use a sentence structure like “Bed Sales On Single & Double Beds” rather than “Beds | Single Beds | Double Beds | Cheap Beds”

How can you improve your Meta descriptions?

You meta descriptions don’t count towards your rankings but they do count towards your click through rate. This is why they are important. Here a few tips:

• Ask a question? This is a good way to entice your potential visitor e.g. Why is my website not ranking in Google?
• Keep the length under 155 characters to avoid search engines cutting it short
• Include a call to action to or phone number to make it easier for people to get in touch

WordPress SEO

If you are using the WordPress platform, then you can install the Yoast SEO plugin and make changes very easily.

For more On-page SEO tips you can read this article.

5. Poor content optimisation

Have you optimised your website content for search engines?

Believe it or not, Google does actually need your help. We’d like to think that they have all the answers, but in fact, you have some work to do yourself.

There are over 200 indicators that Google use to rank your website in search results. Most of which can be improved by adding and editing different elements on your website including your meta tags like we mentioned in step 4.

How can you find out if your on-page SEO is bad?

You can use my free tool to check your SEO Score. Input your website URL and place the keyword you want to rank highly for and hit enter.

It will give you a score out of 100 and tell you which areas need your attention.

How can you improve your on-page SEO?

I would recommend that you focus on one main topic for each page of your website. Everything from the page headings, image file names and internal links will need to be considered if you want strong search engines rankings.

6. Not enough quality content

I honestly believe that high-quality content makes the biggest difference in how well your website performs when it comes ranking highly.

Your website needs to have a good amount of content to perform well in search results. I’ve seen this time and time again. People pay £1000s for a brand-new website and then let themselves down with poor-quality content.

It’s recommended that each page on your website should have at least 300–400 words of content. This will give Google enough confidence that the information on that page is somewhat valuable. Any less than that and your website is probably not going to rank well.

How to check the word count on the page

You can use this tool to count the number of words on each web page. I would recommend that each page on your website should have at least 300–400 words of content. However, there are no hard and fast rules about this.

For instance, most of the pages on my website contain 500–1000 words, and some of my blog posts are over 2000 words long (including this one).

I personally find that the longer the content, the more helpful the information. There is an extra SEO argument for more content. The more content = more opportunity to include more keywords.

How can you fix it?

You can simply edit your existing pages to increase the number of words. You could even pay a writer to produce your content on a regular basis. Prices for a copywriter tend to be around £100–£200 per page depending on the time it takes and the research involved.

Here are my four tips to writing better content.

• Create helpful content that educates your audience.
• Direct your writing at your ideal customer
• Focus on your customers problems and help them fix them
• Stop talking about you so much

7. No high-quality backlinks

Backlinks are exactly as they sound. LINKS that point BACK to your website.

The quality and volume of your backlinks are a strong sign of how trustworthy and reliable your website is. Search engines take this into account when listing your site in search results.

Quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to gaining backlinks. A link from a relevant website in your niche is a lot more valuable than 100 links from low-quality websites.

How to check your backlink profile.

There are a few tools that will show you which websites are linking back to yours.

Free Backlink Checker is a free tool that will give you a list of websites link back to yours.

Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO and Ahrefs are paid services that will give you a lot more in the way of metrics and will show you which links are your most powerful ones.

Usually, you can start a free trial to test out the software.

How can you build more high-quality links?

Over time you may naturally gain some links from other websites. However, you can’t rely on this.

How to earn backlinks

If you focus on providing valuable and high-quality content, you will increase your chances of exposure. Providing the on-page elements are optimised as I discussed in step 4 and 5, more people will find your website and want to link back to it.

You can also reach out to other website owners in your space and share your content with them. Hopefully they will link back to it. At the very least you could ask them if they would allow you to write a piece of content for their website and include a backlink within that.

8. No social media activity

If you have a website but don’t use social media, it could impact your search engine rankings. A lack of social media activity is another sign that your website might not be as credible as your competitors. Much like backlinks, social media engagement adds to your overall trust factor. In a nutshell, the more social, the better.

How to audit your social media activity?

Visit BuzzSumo and paste your website URL into their search field. This will show you the most shared content on your website. It is a paid service, but they will show you some information for free.

How can you improve social media engagement?

Make sure you have social media profiles for your business, and you update them regularly with links back to your website. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms so it would be good to start with these if you haven’t already.

Social media tips

• Focus on providing consistent, high-quality or entertaining content that will increase shares.
• Share your new AND old content across your social media accounts.
• Add social media sharing buttons to your website
• Add Tweetables within each article in order to increase engagement further.

9. Bad Website Builder

If you have built your site yourself using a DIY website builder, you may have difficulty ranking in search results.

I understand the appeal, drag and drop website builders provide an easy and cheap way to create a website within minutes. There’s one problem: I’ve rarely seen a high performing DIY website in search results.

I believe it’s because these tools create a lot of excessive code that will impact the performance of your website.

Here are a few reasons why your DIY website may not rank well.

• Your basic SEO options are limited
• Your web pages generally take longer to load because of all the extra functionality
• You get far fewer SEO plugins compared with other platforms

What can you do if you have a DIY website?

Try your best to optimise your website using the previous steps in this article and make sure your page load speed is under 5 seconds. Aside from that, there’s not a lot you can do. It’s a quick and easy way to get online but don’t expect a flood of traffic.

We recently wrote an article where we compared DIY websites vs web designers. Feel free to take a look to find out more.

If you love your DIY website but are worried about losing the style, then don’t be. Most web designers will be able to build you a website that looks the same, but it would be a lot more efficient.

10. Poor page load speed

Google expect your website to load quickly to keep their users happy. This means under 5 seconds. Any longer than that and you could risk being penalised by Google.

How can check your page load speed?

You can find out how long your website takes to load by visiting Gt Metrix and entering your URL. It will give you a time, and as long as it’s under 5 seconds you’ll be OK.

How can you speed up your website?

Along with the load speed in seconds it will also give you a score out of 100 and give you the exact issues with your website.

You can then take the relevant steps to speed up your website. This may involve,

• Leverage browser caching
• Optimising images
• Enable gzip compression

If this sounds a bit too technical, we can help. We do offer a website speed up service if you’d like us to help. Feel free to contact us to arrange this.

11. A Formal Penalty

Not to confuse you but there is a difference between “having your website penalised” and “being hit with a penalty”. Up until this point we have only discussed issues that will cause Google to devalue your site. On occasion, Google may issue a formal penalty.

Getting your website hit by a penalty is rare. But if you have performed well in search results in the past but not anymore, this may be a sign that Google has taken action against your website.

The two most common ways to get your website penalised by Google are:

Over optimisation (on-page): This usually means you’ve tried to cram your keywords into every URL, Heading, Title tags, Alt Text, etc. This kind of tactic isn’t natural, and it doesn’t work anymore. Using the same keywords robotically throughout your website will raise a red flag with search engines.

Unnatural link building (off-page): Gaining links back to your website is important, but you have to do it the right way. Buying links, swapping links, poor-quality links and unnatural anchor text is another way to get your site penalised.

How to see if your website has been hit with a penalty?

Login to your Google Search Console account. Once you’ve selected your website from the list, you can use the menu on the left-hand side to navigate to:

Search Traffic > Manual Actions

Hopefully, it will say “No manual webspam actions found,” which means you have NOT been penalised.

How to recover from a penalty by Google

If you have suffered a penalty, it is NOT the end of the world, but it will require your immediate attention.

Google will inform you why they have penalised your website. Once you have fixed the particular issue, you can then submit a “reconsideration request” to Google. Google will then check to ensure you have corrected the issue. If everything is OK, they will remove the penalty.

In Summary

There are so many things you can do to improve your visibility in search results. Most of which can be done by you without the need of an SEO company. The more you understand about your website, the easier it will be if you do decide to hire someone later on in the process.

Over to you

Are YOU finding it difficult to climb onto the first page of Google? Now that you’ve read the article, do you feel a little clearer about what you need to do? If you’d like a step-by-step action plan to rank on the first page of Google then, check out our SEO Starter Pack below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Before you focus on external link building or creating a great content marketing strategy, you need to ensure that your on-page SEO is in tip-top condition.

On-page SEO – 3 Top Tips for SEO Success

Martin, Jammy’s founder, talks in his video about the top three things you need to get right in order to improve your on-site SEO. Making your website look great is important.

The functionality, the call to action, the brand, colours, copy, images etc. all make a website – but what is the use of a good-looking website if someone can’t find it?

When you complete your website any good web designer will release it to the search engines and it’s crucial that your on-site SEO is as perfect as it can be at this stage.

Top Three Things You Can Do…

1. Optimise your page titles/meta descriptions

This, in our opinion, is the single most important aspect to on page SEO. You’re telling Google exactly what each page of your website is about – you’re essentially giving it a title.

What we would recommend is including your targeted keywords in the title tags.

Title tags and meta descriptions are easy to spot in search results and you can clearly see what the company is promoting.

2. Include 400 words of text on each page

We know, we know. Sometimes copy isn’t the most exciting of things. But Google needs to understand what your page is about, so you need to tell it.

By including text on your website you’re showing Google what product or service you offer. If you include your keywords within your text (naturally, not by stuffing them in!) then even better.

If you’re worried about your page being too text heavy, then use little boxes at the side or different functionality within your website to break it up.

3. Optimise your images

A particularly important tip for those who run an online shop.

Often, shops find they get a lot of traffic from Google images, so it’s really worth taking the time to name your photo properly and include your keywords. It’s also worth doing this with the alt text.

And that’s it. If you have any questions at all, just comment in the box below.

We’ll have another video for you very soon!

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 3 Top Tips For On-Page SEO appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of gaining higher rankings for certain targeted keywords.

SEO is not magic, it’s a well thought out, tried-and-tested method of essentially, giving Google exactly what they want, so they prioritise your site over your competitors.

Remember, the organic search results are listed just below the Google’s Ad results. It’s clear what a Google ad as it says the word ‘Ad’ next to the listing – web users have become savvy to this and often ignore these results.

Why is SEO so important for businesses?

Some facts…

Did you know that 70% of people click organic search results as opposed to paid ads?

Did you know that 93% of online experiences start with a search engine?

And did you know that 75% of people never scroll past the first page of Google?

Some pretty impressive statics and as you can see, it’s very hard to argue against the benefits of SEO, but some business owners do ask, what does all this mean?

How can SEO help you?

Well, it’s quite simple, the more relevant web visitors you gain to your site the larger your profits. Ultimately, SEO is a powerful, complex and rewarding lead generating activity.

Everyday someone searches for YOUR products and services online and, providing your website is easy-to-navigate with a clear call to action, you could easily see a massive increase in leads and sales.

If you want to find out how we can help you increase your visibility online get in touch today for a free consultation.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post What is SEO? Search Engine Optimisation Explained appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.