Search Engine Optimisation

The acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.

SEO takes time because there is no longer a quick and easy way to cheat the algorithm. Search engine algorithms have become more and more advanced and intelligent using ai with an emphasis on delivering users the most relevant, and highest quality and trusted results based on their search query.

Whereas when SEO first began all it took for your site to rank required stuffing your webpages with your chosen keywords and pointing as many links (no matter what the quality)  as possible to it to see fast results, things have changed – and you will be penalised and hence why SEO should be seen as long term marketing objective that pays dividends IF undertaken correctly.

Let us ask you a quick question “What do you think is an acceptable time to wait for a website to load? 5 seconds? 3 seconds? Or maybe less?

When it comes to your page and website Google has expectations for your website speed, did you know that:

• 47% of people expect your site to load in less than 2 seconds
• 40% will abandon it entirely if it takes longer than 3 seconds

Most people have short attention spans when searching online, so there is no point in ranking a site highly if users are clicking the result, waiting for 5 seconds for the page to load, and when it doesn’t, clicking straight back to search results.

Low time on site and high bounce rates (when a user visits a site and leaves without visiting any other pages) sends signals to Google that user experience is very poor on your site and this in turn in 2021 will cause you huge issues when Google rolls out its latest UX based Algorithm update..

Additional to this if your website page load speed is really slow, search engines might not bother crawling and indexing some pages at all.

According to Google:

“Google will reduce the amount of crawlers it sends to your site if your server is slower than two seconds.”

This means that search engines are less likely to discover your latest landing pages, blog posts or other updates.

Do you want to test your site out Google have a very hand tool to test site speed click here to try it for FREE.

Do you have a WordPress website that is a running slow, check out our latest blog pots on “How To Speed Up A WordPress Website” for an in-depth look at themes common issues that cause slow WordPress websites.

Only Google algorithms know exactly what factors determine how well your website and it’s page rank (how visible it is and what determines its position) in search results – there are some reportedly 200 different ranking factors!.

The way people search for a product is ever evolving and so has SEO.

A Google Search engine results is affected but many factors, these may include device, location, and a user’s search history, so what you and a business owner sees ranking in position one (the very first search result on a search engine such as Google and Bing), another may see in position 7, and conversely another prospective customer may not see your site on the on the first page at all!

Sort of…

Algorithms will determine what has caused a spike in traffic before assessing whether this is a signal that your site has something users are finding to be valuable.

Did an authoritative site share a piece of content you created which resulted in a bump in referral traffic? or was it simply a load of bots or spammers that have been paid to Google your business name or products multiple times and click the result to artificially inflate the traffic to your site?

Google & Bing have incredibly intelligent software and they want to serve a search result they trust so the latter activity is very liable to bring you a penalty and would also be classed as “Black Hat SEO”.

Link building is the process of actively seeking out online opportunities where a link back to your website can be placed and secured.

This could be

1. A directory website (Yell.com, for example – you only need a basic listing not their up sell)
2. Local business directories (if you have a physical location like Google My Business)
3. An association you or your staff are members of (GAS SAFE if you are an Gas Engineer, for example)
4. Companies that you partner with (as a supplier or reseller, for example)
5. Press coverage on an industry news site
6. A blog post or guest article on a site in your niche
7. Local online press coverage
8. Forums and Q&A sites
9. Blog comments

Link building used to be about quantity of links over quality (YES Google does look at the quality of your links, and in some cases the wrong kind of backlink will get you penalised) – now the opposite is true.

Link building takes a lot of time, effort and planning to be done properly, and has become integral part of Digital PR, as the emphasis is now placed on creating high-quality content and the disributing it with those who will find it interesting or noteworthy enough to link to.