Google SEO Ranking Factors

Google SEO Ranking Factors

by | 2 Mar 2022 | Digital Marketing, SEO

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Search engines present what they deem to be relevant search results to users looking up various keywords and phrases, and to do this, their automated algorithm programs ‘crawl’ web content continuously.

These crawls pull up a variety of data and intelligence on websites, using this information to understand what a site is about, who its relevant for and what it offers. The elements of a website that are scanned and used by the search engine algorithms to determine where and how to rank them are known as SEO ranking factors.

It’s not known exactly how many webpages or websites are crawled by Google’s systems daily, but we do know that hundreds of billions of pages are scanned continuously; primarily based on previous searches made by search engine users. The crawlers work through site maps, paying attention to the usability and performance of the site overall, links to and from it, changes made to pages it has crawled before, and the content on the site itself.

Each of these SEO ranking factors are taken into account and this helps the system decide where to display a website on relevant SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

What are Google’s SEO Ranking Factors?

There is a common misconception that the only influence on search engine ranking is the written content within a website – and this has resulted in lots of websites being full of content that is stuffed with as many keywords and phrases as possible.

While this was effective in the early days of SEO, technology has moved on vastly since and this activity is now penalised by Google. There are now over 200 SEO ranking factors for Google alone.

Google’s SEO ranking factors change continuously and the algorithm changes and tweaks daily; so it’s nigh-on impossible to hit exactly the right spot for top organic SEO ranking all of the time. The 200+ SEO ranking factors that Google currently refers to includes, by is by no means limited to:

  • Domain factors – security, keywords in domain, domain history, geographic registration
  • Page-level factors – keyword usage, tags and meta data, content, page load speeds, image optimisation, responsiveness
  • Site-level factors – site architecture, site uptime, site navigation, Core Web Vitals
  • Backlink factors – links to and from the site and the authenticity of the sites linking
  • User interaction – user behaviour, content interaction, traffic, bookmarks
  • Algorithm rules – geo-targeting, safe search, shopping results, YouTube results, local results
  • Brand signals – branded text, branded searches, linked social media accounts
  • On-site webspam – pop-ups and ads, poor quality content, hidden links, on-site spamming
  • Off-site webspam – site hacking, unnatural links, fake links, fake likes, spam traffic.

This variety in ranking factors highlights just how much ongoing work there is to be done to demonstrate to Google how useful and genuine a business’ website is.

Ranking Factors for other search engines

Google has by far the highest market share of search engines. However, there are audiences using search engines other than just Google.

SEO ranking factors aren’t made entirely public for all search engines, but all of the algorithms operate along roughly the same lines. There are some differences that should be noted, though, including:

  • Bing have commented publicly that social media is a very influential factor in their SEO
  • Yahoo relies heavily on Bing’s search algorithm and so optimising for Bing will too optimise for Bing
  • DuckDuckGo does not track users and so results are never based on search history
  • Baidu hugely favours domains registered in China
  • Amazon essentially relies entirely on keywords.

Generally speaking, it is best to follow all of the principles of Google SEO in order to rank on other search engines too.

The Importance of Optimising SEO Ranking Factors

Google is an increasingly competitive search engine with 8.5 billion searches carried out daily, so there’s no shortage of traffic. If businesses are to gain competitive advantage over competitors, they must focus on SEO to ensure that they rank higher, are more likely to be found online.

The Most Important SEO Ranking Factors for Google

Not all SEO ranking factors are equal. Although there is no complete transparency over which are exactly the most influential in ranking score, the most important factors are more user-focused than content-focused.

Google prioritises site security, responsiveness and its overall customer experience as a very important SEO ranking factor. This also includes the crawlability of sites – because if it can’t be ‘crawled’, it can’t be assessed for ranking in SERPs.

Content does form an important part of SEO, and Google now considers high quality content more eminent than the presence of relevant keywords and phrases; although they too do influence.

SEO management involves a careful and curated balance of all elements of a website in order to provide the best and most relevant user experience possible – and this acts as an extension of the brand’s overall customer experience. This makes good business sense and cannot be underestimated in its contribution to the overarching brand perception.

The Importance of SEO Keywords

The Importance of SEO Keywords

by | 28 Feb 2022 | Digital Marketing, SEO

Reading Time: 4 minutes

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of improving the quality of a website to make it rank higher in search engines, and be found by those searching particular terms or keywords. The higher the ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), the more likely users are to see and click onto the website.

The first step in the SEO optimisation process is to ensure that SEO keywords are used sufficiently and appropriately. But what are these keywords, how can you identify the relevant ones for your business and how should they be used?

What are SEO Keywords?

SEO keywords are words and terms users type into a search engine as a search enquiry. These same keywords in website content help the algorithm programs behind search engines understand the theme or topic of the website: which they can then match up with the same enquiries being typed in by users to display the most appropriate search engine results.

In more traditional terms, keywords are the index terms of the internet. Index terms are the theme or essence of a topic in a document, making up a controlled vocabulary for use in bibliographic records. Libraries and informational retrieval services collect, organise and disseminate documents in this way – and the use of SEO keywords is simply the same practice, but digitally.

Why are Keywords important?

Search engines have become a way of life for all of us and to ‘Google’ something has entered the everyday lexicon. With over 8.5 billion searches on Google daily (and plenty others on other search engines), businesses need to ensure that they’re present and prominent in search engine results to gain and maintain competitive advantage.

Many people default to an online search when looking for a product, service, experience or brand – making it a crucial marketing tool. There are few very businesses who will never be searched for online and so it’s critical to show up as a solution where customers are seeking one.

Different types of SEO Keywords

While the use of such themes online is usually referred to as keywords, there are a variety of different types of vocabulary used and they’re often not just single words. There are four types of intentional SEO keywords; that is, those defined by the intent behind the searching of them. These are:

    • Informational keywords – used to find the answer to a specific question or general information
    • Navigational keywords – used to find a specific webpage or website
    • Commercial keywords – used to investigate brands, products or services
    • Transactional keywords – used to complete an action of purchase.

For the words or phrases themselves, there are eight different types of SEO keywords:

    • Short-tail SEO keywords – keywords made up of three words or less. The most popular type of keywords by search volume but also the most competitive
    • Long-tail SEO keywords – keywords made up of more than three words. More specific searches than short-tail, but less popular by volume and less competitive
    • Fresh SEO keywords – a short-term and current keyword or phrase; that is, something that will be searched for a lot at a certain time (ie. For a news story or film release), but then will drop in searches sharply thereafter
    • Long-term evergreen SEO keywords – keywords that are relevant all the time. Search volume may fluctuate but not extremely
    • Product defining SEO keywords – keywords that explain and describe products
    • Customer-defining SEO keywords – keywords that reflect the person searching them
    • Geo-targeting SEO keywords – keywords that specify a geographical location
    • LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) SEO keywords – thematic keywords that are closely related to the main keyword used.

All SEO keywords need to be used and targeted adequately and appropriately to best ‘tap in’ to the search engine’s programming and rank well in results.

Finding the right Keywords for your business

It is imperative that businesses research properly into the keywords relevant for their brand, products and services in order to ensure that what they’re presenting matches up with what real customers are searching for.

This is achieved through the specific practice of SEO keyword research, which investigates and establishes exactly what is being searched and by whom.

There are a variety of keyword research tools available but their relevance and focus differs. Moz Keyword Explorer is considered a good ‘all-rounder’, and Semrush is favoured by SEO professionals. RankIQ focuses more on providing SEO-driven content and Jaaxy is a specialist service for affiliate marketers. Keyword Surfer is a newer tool that works as a browser extension for non-SEO professionals.

Keyword research needn’t be a lengthy process but it should be done properly to avoid the onward SEO strategy presenting incorrectly and resulting in little to no benefit. It is always best to consult with professionals before embarking on an SEO strategy to ensure that the keyword research has been done accurately and will inform the work positively.

Get support with Keywords and SEO Services

Woya Digital are always on-hand to help support with SEO services. We carry out a thorough SEO keyword research process before making any recommendations and will establish the target audience and ideal persona with customers before any work is initiated.

Our team work on a continuous learning cycle to keep abreast of all the latest Google updates and algorithm changes. SEO can be a tricky discipline to master but we thrive on the challenge!

On-Page and Technical SEO

On-Page and Technical SEO

by | 21 Feb 2022 | Digital Marketing, SEO

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Google processes over 8.5 billion searches every day. The rise of the internet as an everyday consumer tool has impacted hugely on business practices for firms of all shapes, sizes and types, and SEO is just one discipline that most simply cannot afford to ignore.

SEO forms a full-time role and profession itself, but for those who don’t have the time to invest into both the learning and practice of it, it can be a very confusing area.

The Definition of SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation: the process of optimising a website so that the automated algorithms behind search engines are able to understand what they are, who they’re relevant for and where to feature them in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

The exact process of SEO is an ongoing one that is completed continuously in line with all new content published and the updates made to algorithms. For the most part, SEO refers to the optimisation of business web presence for Google’s systems (after all, in most areas of the world Google holds the highest market share for search engines by a long way) but its practices do hold benefits for other search engines, too. For the purposes of this article we will be focusing on SEO for Google.

Two of the main types of SEO activity are on-page SEO and technical SEO.

Does SEO change over time?

Absolutely! Google makes tweaks to its algorithm constantly – and although there are no set public details around every system change, experts estimate there to be between 500-600 changes a year; which is almost two a day. While many of these changes don’t make significant differences to the way businesses should approach SEO, some do.

The sheer volume of change involved in the way Google works is why so many organisations invest in either hiring a full-time SEO specialist or working with an expert external team.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO, also sometimes called on-site SEO, is the optimisation of web content through the inclusion and correct usage of specific keywords and phrases. All written content on a web page is scanned regularly by Google and so is constantly monitored for relevance and authenticity. On-page SEO not only makes clear to Google what a website is about and who it’s relevant for, but also helps the algorithm decide where to rank it on SERPs compared to other similar sites – which are likely those of a business’ competitors.

What does On-Page SEO involve?

On-page SEO is primarily the creation of written content featuring the keywords and phrases searched by those relevant to the business, as well as the alignment of page-specific elements such as title tags, headings, content, and links internally and externally to the site.

On-page SEO used to be primarily achieved by the input of as many mentions of keywords as possible in a practice known as ‘keyword stuffing’. This was believed to demonstrate relevance to the algorithm and is still fairly widely practiced. This practice however is now detrimental to SEO performance – the system has evolved a long way since its origins and will websites will be penalised for keyword stuffing and for the production of inauthentic and inorganic content, rather than relevant, high-quality content.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the optimisation of technical aspects of a website in order to increase the ranking of its pages on SERPs. The elements to be optimised here are still technically ‘on-page’ such as the written content, but these are pillars that aren’t in word format that still contribute to search ranking.

Technical SEO is a fairly new discipline and something that unfortunately many businesses still miss the mark on. The usability of a website now forms a core part of Google’s ‘Web Vitals’ which form criteria a website must meet to rank highly.

What does Technical SEO involve?

The technical elements of a website that can be optimised permit a search engine to ‘crawl’ it faster and more easily, and present opportunities for easier access by users. This includes optimising site load speed, responsive in format to the device on which it is being viewed, that all site content is unique and not duplicated, that all links work and that the site is held securely without presenting any safety risks to users. All of these aspects affect the overall user experience of the site, and contribute just as much to the potential search engine rankings.

How to successfully integrate all areas of SEO into your business

SEO is an important tool for digital marketing and will transform a business’ success online. Its potential is not to be underestimated, and neither should the ongoing effort and work required.

Hiring a specialist SEO agency or expert is a prudent decision and different levels of involvement and activity can be managed depending on budget and the website scale. Woya Digital are an expert SEO team who understand the evolving needs of successful SEO. Get in touch with us to discuss your online business growth.

Does Social Media Affect SEO?

Does Social Media Affect SEO?

by | 16 Feb 2022 | SEO, Social media

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Digital marketing is a cornerstone of all marketing activity for modern businesses – and social media perhaps even more so.  Social media forms a large part of most business’ online presence and if it doesn’t, it should.

Organisations don’t need to manage a presence on every social media platform, but should definitely do so on platforms whereby their target customer would be or would expect them to be. This will have an onward impact on the overall business’ visibility through search engines (their SEO ranking) and so can combine to help elevate their content online, to gain competitive advantage.

SEO Basics

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation. These three letters refer to the process of optimising a website or other online content for search engines to help improve their ranking (how high up they appear) on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) in order to increase their chances of their online listings being clicked on.

In order to judge where content should be ranked in search result listings, websites are constantly ‘crawled’ by automated programs that judge a site on its:

    • Theme or niche
    • Quality of content
    • Target audience and relevant audience
    • Usability
    • Authenticity

These factors all help the algorithm determine an SEO ranking and judge where to feature the content in the search engine listings and who to show them to. This can then be further influenced by Google Ads and further digital marketing tactics.

Business SEO vs Business Social Media

SEO is a continuous activity carried out on a business’ website, made up by 3 focus areas:

    • On-page SEO
    • Off-site SEO
    • Technical SEO

On-page SEO refers to the production of high-quality relevant content that is appropriate for the business’ industry, sector, products and services. It is achieved in part by the use of suitable keywords and phrases; normally those that users would look up on the search engine if they wanted to find something related to the brand in question. This presents the relevance of the site.

Off-site SEO is the presence of links to the site from genuine and high-authority websites in order to demonstrate their trustworthiness and authenticity.

Technical SEO is the focus of maximising usability, accessibility and performance of the website to improve user experience.

Social media platforms enable users to create and share content with others; widely considered the digital form of socialising. Social media channels are important marketing and communication tools with which to link with both potential and existing customer bases.

How Social Media Supports SEO

While content published on social media sites is ‘crawled’ and read by search engines, it is done so in a different way and doesn’t act as a primary factor in SEO ranking (unless perhaps there is no other mention of the company online and no dedicated website).

Social media content for a business influences the company’s overall SEO ranking in several ways:

External links back to the main business website

While social media profiles linking back to a brand website aren’t considered ‘high authority’ links, they do help prove to the search engine algorithm that they’re an extension of the brand’s presence online (although this is different for comment or link on a brand by the social media company itself, which would be considered high-authority).

This proves to the algorithm that a brand is being talked about, and in some cases recommended, by others and so it is considered relevant to certain audiences.

Reinforcement of brand presence

A business being mentioned or linked to anywhere externally is a positive factor for SEO as it proves the perceived trustworthiness and niche (or sector) the business operates in, to the algorithm. This reinforces how and when a business should be displayed in search engine rankings.

An organisation that is mentioned in numerous places online is likely to hold a much higher SEO ranking than one which has its own website but has no further mention on the internet.

Reinforcement of authenticity

Social media acts as a fantastic discussion tool for communities and where a business is mentioned, this discussion further proves that it is relevant for an audience. Where reviews or ratings are set up this helps demonstrate to the algorithm that genuine customers for the business exist, and so reinforces its authenticity.

Where there is a constant brand interaction with members of a social media channel, this too reiterates the genuine connection of the business with customers.

Strategising Social Media and SEO Marketing

Social media and SEO are separate disciplines within digital marketing, and there are certainly specialists in both. However both should be approached with the same focus – to ensure that they are in sync and complement each other.

Woya Digital’s expert team are able to offer advice and SEO and social media support, and can help ensure that both on-site, off-site and social media content all combine to best boost your chances of appearing as high as possible on SERPs – even before any paid advertising is considered. Get in touch and let’s talk through your business’ online idiosyncrasies – there’s lots that can be done!

Things That Hurt Website Rankings

Things That Hurt Website Rankings

by | 14 Feb 2022 | SEO, Digital Marketing

Reading Time: 4 minutes

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a digital discipline and an ever-evolving practice; forever at the mercy of Google’s daily changing algorithm and user’s shifting appetites and attitudes.

Ranking on Google isn’t a simple task nor is it a static one, and there are many reasons why a website may not appear as prominently on the search engine results pages (SERPs) as businesses may like.

If you find that your SEO efforts are letting you down and not working as well as you’d like, read on. There are many factors that impact website rankings on Google and not all of them are obvious.

Domain Authority

While it was for many years considered a vast disadvantage in SEO terms to buy a brand domain name and launch a new website, it is not necessarily the domain age that influences how Google ranks it in its listings; but rather, the authority.

When a new website launches, it will usually contain some relevant content but it is only over time that it accumulates a library of high-quality, appropriate content as well as backlinks from other websites. A website that is well populated with content and referred to (ie. linked to) by other sites is considered to have high authority by the Google algorithm.

This means that the search engine’s automated systems believe it to be a reliable source of information for its users and a trusted online presence. A domain with good authority will find itself with a higher ranking on Google than one without.

How to fix it

Domain authority takes time to build. Webmasters can improve their website’s authority through the continuous publishing of relevant, timely and high-quality content as well as through the build up of backlinks from other appropriate domains. This requires ongoing work as a cycle of improvement.

Unoptimised Site Technicalities

SEO is often misconceived as simply a case of publishing lots of written content with relevant keywords included, but ranking on Google now involves many more factors than just search terms.

On-site SEO is also required for a site to rank well, and this includes a whole host of technical aspects that sit ‘behind the scenes’ of a functional website. On-site SEO allows for the easy ‘crawl’ of the site by Google (that is, its automated programs to scan and compute it) as well as demonstrates how good a user experience the site provides.

On-site SEO includes relevant alt-text for images, working internal links between pages, fast page loading times and responsive display to the device on which it is being viewed. Ranking highly on Google highly is very difficult to achieve if a site hasn’t optimised its technicalities.

How to fix it

A ‘health check’ of a website can be undertaken to ensure that it is readable by Google’s bots and also that it works well for users. Every image should have appropriate alt-text, every page should load quickly, all links should work and every page should be created with responsive design to ensure correct formatting no matter the size of the screen being used. It is always worth consulting with a professional in regards to on-site SEO to ensure all aspects are covered.

Unoptimised Site Content

A primary factor influencing a site’s ranking on Google is its content. In order to decide how and where to list a website on its SERPs, Google must be able to understand the topic of the site and match this up with the search terms used by users to present them with the most relevant results.

If a site publishes content that is not clearly relevant to its business niche, is likely of too short a length to be helpful, or is of poor quality, it will not favour it.

How to fix it

Brands should look to position themselves as thought leaders in their fields with the continued publication of high-quality appropriate content. Thorough keyword research should be carried out to identify how users search for the brand, product/s and/or service/s, and content provided throughout, tailored to match.

Violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines

The Google Webmaster Guidelines are a set of rules that stipulate conditions to be met in order to be ranked on Google SERPs.

Many websites are inadvertently in breach of these guidelines because of the use of Black Hat SEO tactics. Black Hat SEO is the manipulation of search engine algorithms in order to rank higher than would otherwise be the case. This often includes the practice of ‘keyword stuffing’ (inclusion of multiple relevant terms even where the resulting text is nonsensical), paying for backlinks and/or paying for false traffic.

Violation of the Google Webmaster Guidelines can result in a website being removed entirely from Google (being ‘no-indexed), being ranked lower down than usual or being blocked from buying paid ads on SERPs.

How to fix it

Once a site has been ‘no-indexed’ or identified as being in breach of Google Webmaster Guidelines, it can be extremely difficult to rectify the situation and prove to Google that it is deserving of new trust. It is always best where mistakes have been made or guidelines breached to consult with a professional in order to strategise how best to work with SEO moving forward.

Woya Digital have a whole team of SEO experts on-hand who can advise and devise plans for recovering from poor SEO performance to rebuild authority, trust and a positive professional reputation. No matter what has been done in the past we are confident that we can help rectify the situation.

What is a Google Penalty?

What is a Google Penalty?

by | 20 Jan 2022 | Digital Marketing

Reading Time: 4 minutes

It’s very rare for a website not to be reliant on Google for traffic, and with 5.6 billion searches a day through the site, organic search is a critical channel for almost every domain on the internet.

This makes it imperative for those responsible for managing websites to ensure that they understand the latest Google updates and algorithm changes, and that they shift and shape their web presence to meet its needs. If they don’t, they may be hit with a Google Penalty – and this is to be avoided at all costs!

What is a Google Penalty?

A Google Penalty is a theoretical tag linked to a website that negatively impacts its SEO rankings. This means that its organic position on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) is lowered from a previous position, or un-indexed entirely. The exact impact of the penalty varies and the combination of factors for this new position is unknown.

A Google Penalty is inflicted on a website when the algorithm picks up on an aspect of the site that doesn’t meet its preferences or terms and conditions. This may be the usage (or suspicion) of black-hat SEO tactics, loading speeds that don’t meet the algorithm’s preferences, or the publication of poor-quality content that doesn’t reach the minimum required standard.

Why Do Penalties Happen on Google?

Google’s mission is “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and to deliver users with the most appropriate and accurate search result for their query every time. It’s for this reason that they update their algorithm continually; to ensure that they’re able to provide the most relevant query at the top of every user’s search, integrating new smart-learning and tech into their programming to refine this.

Of course, few businesses operate entirely isolated from other competition or resources. So, on top of the accuracy of the content presented, Google also ranks on SEO factors such as security and speed to present sites that deliver a positive user experience as well as pertinent information. This acts as a differentiator for similar or competing websites and further refines the search results.

How to Identify a Google Penalty

Most website owners will recognise a Google Penalty when they spot a significant drop in their ranking positions or organic traffic levels amongst their analytics figures.

Traffic does fluctuate (in some industries more than others; particularly seasonally) and so it is unrealistic for businesses to assume this would be in a continually upward trend without significant intervention and work, but a decrease, providing there is no change in effort, often highlights an issue.

There are Google Penalty identification tools available online which can help diagnose where and when a website was hit with a penalty, but these tend to only focus on major algorithm updates – presenting the best possible estimation for when the penalty was installed. This provides an indication of which update is responsible for the change but is unlikely to identify exactly which one.

With Google implementing a change or two to its algorithms every week, it can be exceptionally difficult to find the exact issue. It is always recommended that websites owners work with SEO experts to properly understand whether their declining SERP position is a result of poor SEO practice, misdirected digital marketing efforts, or a full Google Penalty.

Why Does Google Issue Penalties?

In order for Google to achieve its mission, it needs to present the safest, most relevant websites with the best user experiences to its users.

Issuing Google Penalties allows for those it doesn’t believe to meet their standards to still be present on the SERPs but not to be presented as priority; not compromising on their conduct or quality but still allowing their users to make an informed decision as to which links to click and which websites to visit.

How To Correct a Google Penalty

The scope of every Google Penalty varies and an SEO specialist will be able to advise on the best course of action to take.

Generally speaking, remedial action should be taken immediately to remove or change the offending issue. If content has been stuffed with keywords, these should be deleted and replaced with high-quality genuine copy. If loading speeds are too slow, visual content should be reduced and speeds improved. Whatever the issue, it should be tackled directly as quickly as is possible – but not without compromising any residual quality that may remain on the site.

It is always better to take the time to do it right than it is to do it quickly and still not enhance the quality of the overall domain.

If black hat SEO tactics have been used, remedial action may be more difficult than a quick fix. In these instances, a fresh and comprehensive SEO strategy will need to be implemented over a long-term period with a specialist and continued focus.

Once the webmaster believes the issue to be fixed, a new indexing request can be made to Google using its Search Console facility and fetch and render tool. This requests that when the Google algorithm has capacity, it will re-crawl the site and judge it again to re-assess its ranking position. This should re-position the site if improvements have been made but if the Google Penalty is severe, further action may still be required.

Get Help with Google Penalties

Woya Digital employs a team of SEO specialists who make it their professional business to keep up-to-date with all of Google’s algorithm tweaks; be it a small change or a major full update. This ensures that the team are able to not just identify when and why a Google Penalty has occurred, but also how best to rectify the issue and continue on from a newly strengthened SEO position, presenting competitive advantage and increased business exposure.

For all your website support and SEO needs, get in touch with us!

 

SEO vs PPC: How to Pick the Right Digital Marketing Weapon

SEO vs PPC: How to Pick the Right Digital Marketing Weapon

by | 17 Jan 2022 | SEO, Digital Marketing

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Successful marketing is more than a one-hit-wonder and takes a long-term strategic effort. So, while we’re here to talk about SEO vs PPC, let’s be clear – the answer isn’t going to be straightforward or universal!

There are many variables to finding the optimal way to tackle your digital marketing, PR, and advertising, depending on (just as a few factors) your sector, aspirations, the market climate and what you have to spend.

Ultimately, the correct approach for your business depends on, well, your business, so it’s impossible to give a blissfully easy answer without a fair few caveats.

Here, the Woya team compares all the pros and cons, costs and benefits, side by side to help you decide where best to invest your budget.

The PPC vs SEO Debate Explained

Before we get into the details, let’s clarify the context behind these powerful publicity cousins.

    • PPC (or pay per click) is paid advertising you can choose to use on Google Ads, search engines and social media to drive traffic to your site.
    • SEO (or search engine optimisation) is an organic, systematic method of optimising your website and digital assets to naturally steer a larger user base to your business, primarily through direct hits on search engine enquiries.

While you can do both simultaneously, you’ll usually want to have a priority to dictate how you channel your resources.

Benefits of PPC as a Business Digital Marketing Resource

Paid advertising and organic searches might look the same to a casual user on the SERP (search engine results page). Still, they are considerably different, and you’ll get a varying response.

Consumer trust and click-through rates heavily favour organic search results since users know paid ads are promotions.

But, that doesn’t mean that PPC doesn’t have some advantages:

    • Paid searches take pole position right at the top of the page, with the user initially seeing the top four on a PC or laptop and the highest three on a mobile device.
    • Ads are under your control, so you get to decide what contact info, location details, sales points, or pricing shows in that space – whereas organic search picks and chooses the bits of content from your site it thinks are most relevant.
    • Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are a great way to enrich your PPC promotion with a visual to show users what they’re about to click on, pushing up click-through rates.

You can decide how much you’re going to spend per day, so you’ll rarely see your clicks soaring (possibly without corresponding conversions!), resulting in a hefty dent in your bank balance without the sales to match – provided you set a fixed budget.

Targeted Online Ads Through PPC

One of the key reasons businesses invest in PPC is that it’s a form of sharply honed advertising where you select parameters to control who sees your ad.

The idea is that you’re only paying to advertise to people that match your demographic, selected against criteria such as previous visits, audience location, search language and specific keywords.

Behind that, you get a wealth of intelligence about how your marketing is performing, with things like:

    • Tracked conversion rates.
    • Information about the best performing keywords.
    • Reports on the cost per click and conversion.

You can feed that analysis, often sourced through Google Analytics, back into your wider marketing strategy, and gain knowledge that you wouldn’t have with an organic search.

Pitfalls of PPC in the Wider Business Advertising Framework

Let’s balance out those plus points with a look at the disadvantages.

The first, perhaps obvious problem, is cost. While you can manage PPC campaigns, it requires time, effort, and regular tracking.

Small PPC budgets can run out in seconds, so if you want to capture market share and grow brand awareness on a big scale, you’ll equally have to invest a big amount.

If you find that you can’t keep up with the costs, your ads discontinue immediately, and any growing lead gen stops, so PPC is only as solid as the money you’re willing to pour into it.

The PPC Bidding Wars

Bidding wars are common, if not expected when using PPC.

Competitive keywords are in high demand, and it’s often the case that the largest players with huge marketing budgets knock out smaller rivals like a set of bowling pins.

Any time you launch a new PPC ad, you’re pinching a slice of the pie from somebody else, and if you have to keep upping the stakes to stay ahead, it can be disastrous.

Managing a Successful PPC Campaign

We’ll not get into a huge amount of detail here, but the multitude of PPC search advertising options can be more trouble than they’re worth.

For example, you’ll need to monitor results continually to compare text ads, graphics and product listings, refining your promotions even several times a day to get the most from your advertising spend.

PPC ads don’t run autonomously, and there are zero guarantees of results. Businesses need to invest time and knowledge in optimising every campaign, reviewing things like:

    • Search engine positioning
    • Click-through rates
    • Quality scoring
    • Keyword bids

People costs can include hiring a marketing agency or having a PPC team member who takes responsibility for your promotions, so it’s not just a question of paying some money to Google and hoping it will do the rest.

Finally, be aware that PPC is pretty easy to replicate.

If you’re running successful ads, it’s likely a matter of time before a competitor gets involved, potentially draining your returns, bidding against you, and potentially copying your sales funnel with minimal effort.

Advantages of Organic SEO to Drive Business Growth

Next, we’ll turn our attention to SEO – organic growth that is the gold standard of marketing best practises and often used alongside PPC as a sustainable advertising strategy.

It isn’t easy to pin down SEO into one series of steps since it’s a field that blends creativity with analytics, brand differentiation with audience engagement, and sales with social value.

SEO as a Growth Strategy

The objective of SEO is to enable your business to rank naturally on the SERP – hence the term organic.

Organic searches best match the search enquiry and appear underneath the paid ads or shopping pages. They are reliant on search engine bots to crawl your site, evaluate the quality of your content, index it, and then assess your authority.

The Google algorithm considers a huge number of markers to do so, and a digital marketing team will look at:

    • Content marketing – publishing, creating and advertising targeted content.
    • Technical SEO – the performance and capacity of your website infrastructure.
    • On-page SEO – web page content, links, keywords, headings and title tags.
    • Link building – building backlinks and internal links to establish authority.
    • UX – the customer experience when interacting with your site, products and services.

Ranking isn’t simple, and SEO is complex, not least because it involves many elements. The continual algorithm updates mean you need to balance those factors against each other and can’t stay still.

The Pros of SEO

While SEO takes time to generate results, there are multiple advantages.

Organic SEO is cost-effective, and although you’ll pay for expertise from digital marketing professionals, the clicks and conversions cost nothing. It’s often a great option for small or growing businesses because you can manage your monthly outgoings, potentially scaling your company exponentially without a corresponding spike in promotional costs.

Essentially, SEO is sustainable. Your returns don’t stop when you stop paying, and you can build on a strong ranking to showcase your business to customers around the clock.

If you’ve optimised your site and keep contributing valuable content, you’ll usually see fairly stable rankings, whereas PPC ads fluctuate wildly depending on price competition.

Other benefits to consider include:

    • Flexible content creation targeted to each step of your sales funnel without prioritising middle-ranking keywords to get the best return for your ad spend.
    • Increased click-throughs – customers know that paid ads aren’t the results Google thinks they want to see. The average organic result gets ten times more clicks than paid ads, even though they’re displayed underneath.
    • Positioning – visibility is key, and if your content regularly crops up through organic searches, you establish trust and brand authority, with ongoing positive benefits.

Most users place far higher credibility on organic searches and skip past ads because natural results are perceived as more trustworthy.

The strategic advantage is that, although it takes more time and effort to gain organic search visibility, once you’ve established yourself in this way, your competitors can’t copy your techniques, they can’t buy you out of the market, and they can’t nab your engaged customer base.

Relying on PPC isn’t something we’d recommend (not that it doesn’t have a well-earned place in a well-rounded digital marketing approach!), but it’s more a tool to boost sales and visibility than a way to get ahead of competitors.

The Downside of Relying on SEO to Grow Your Customer Audience

As with anything, there is a flipside. Organic traffic, as we’ve mentioned, isn’t a lightning-fast outcome.

If you’re beginning a new SEO campaign, you need to be conscious that mega-corporations like Amazon and eBay may dominate popular search terms. Of course, the same applies to PPC, where you’re going to be competing directly on a cost basis for the same keywords!

The other caveat is that organic SEO requires sustainable, ongoing expertise and talent, tackling tasks such as:

    • Creating valuable content assets to achieve visibility.
    • Handling safe, credible link-building challenges.
    • Analysing data, conversions, and stumbling blocks in your funnel.
    • Technical SEO to ensure your site or app loads fast, works flawlessly and provides a great level of responsiveness and interaction.

As an ongoing process, organic SEO means making tweaks and improvements as you go. It isn’t ever possible to optimise a site 100%, and leave it be – there is always work required.

Choosing Between SEO vs PPC – the Conclusion

Both PPC and organic SEO are valuable and can make a profound difference to your business performance, brand awareness and bottom line – but neither are resources you can use once and forget as a standalone, one-off project.

SEO is an investment in the ongoing success of your company. It typically means working with an experienced digital marketing team to create a future-proof strategy and work through that methodically, targeting all of the many elements of organic search.

PPC is a great way to jump to the top of the Google page, but it should be used carefully for lead-gen or to develop a good understanding of the data behind your traffic.

As a quick recap:

PPC SEO
Costs Each click costs you money - although you can set a spending limit per day. The initial investment required is higher than to launch a new SEO strategy. Clicks are free but require time and effort to build a strong presence. Costs are scalable since SEO doesn't cost more the faster you grow - it is more cost-effective over the long run.
Speed Instant results (until your campaign ends, or you're out-bid). Promotions show only until your budget has been utilised, so it may be time-limited. Takes longer but is then sustainable, long-term. Organic results show 24/7, 365 days a year, without manual intervention.
Targeting You can tightly target ads to hit specific audience demographics. Extensions to ads can enhance results. Targeting is based on keywords throughout the sales funnel. There is no control over regularly rolled-out algorithm changes.
Returns When ads are turned off, you lose visibility. People costs are lower if you manage PPC in-house, but you pay for both campaign management and click charges. SEO attracts around 10 x the clicks of a paid ad. There isn't a guarantee that your strategy will outperform competitors, but a rival business can't copy your funnel or buy out your ranking.

For most businesses, the goal is to create a hybrid strategy to capture the advantages of both SEO and PPC, utilising the data analysis available through PPC to inform a cohesive SEO approach.

Much depends on your company, what you’re trying to achieve, and the nature of the market you’re trading in.

Still, in a pinch, it’s best to start with developing SEO targets and identify where you can add in PPC to contribute to hitting those objectives.

If you’d like more information about the pros and cons of SEO vs PPC or help to establish the right ways to get started with a powerful, long-standing organic SEO strategy to support business growth, please get in touch with Woya Digital. Our experts offer a range of SEO packages and support structures, targeted advice, and everything in-between as an accomplished organic SEO agency!

The Importance of Business Content Marketing

The Importance of Business Content Marketing

by | 15 Jan 2022 | Digital Marketing, Content Marketing

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Content marketing is increasingly acknowledged as a vital component of an overall marketing strategy in creating and furthering brand awareness to attract customers both online and off.

Content marketing is particularly important for growth and visibility in ever-crowding markets and looking up any successful brand online today, you’ll undoubtedly find a whole host of multi-model content spanning various platforms.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the creation of relevant, useful and educational content for a business’ target audience, consistent with its overall branding and positioning. Content should ideally be multi-modal to span different content consumption habits and preferences as well as to enhance SEO ranking and may include: blogs, e-books, audio files, videos, images, infographics, white papers or full content libraries that customers (potential and existing) will find useful.

Content marketing is often primarily pushed out to market online but may also involve offline communications; dependent on the audience and their preferences. For this reason, content marketing often forms part of a wider digital marketing strategy.

Why is Business Content Marketing important?

Content marketing has numerous benefits for businesses of all types and sizes and continues to prove itself as valuable for marketers across all industries.

As an activity, content marketing focuses directly on improving engagement between customers (or potential customers) and a business; in the long term aiming to increase sales, nurture customer loyalty and to encourage repeat custom. This engagement comes through the interaction customers have with the content being created and published; be that reading it, listening to it, viewing it, watching it or even better, sharing it onwards with others. If the content is pitched and created appropriately, the target audience will consider it to be of value to them and so will interact with it.

Content marketing can help position a brand as a thought leader or industry expert. In creating and providing educational and informative content, even if it is not of a specialist or especially technical nature, businesses are able to cement a reputation as one that can be approached for knowledge or guidance in their field, and that they can be trusted. It is this tangibly useful and valuable content that creates a connection with consumers and dependence on the business that promotes loyalty.

Great content produced and published online may be shared widely; furthering a brands exposure to an ever-growing audience. This furthers organic digital reach and increases the amount of people exposed to the business’ branding.

Content marketing also has positive benefits for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) purposes. Google and other search engines use algorithms to read through digital content to reinforce a website’s theme, location, relevance and authenticity; promoting its chances of higher ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). In addition, with the latest update to Google’s algorithm, the Multitask Uniform Model, all types of content can be understood by the programming and so a variety of media used will only seek to enhance organic search performance.

It is clear that content marketing provides fantastic value not just to the business’ target audience online but also to the business’ bottom line. It is estimated that content marketing as an activity costs up to 62% less than traditional marketing but delivers three times the leads.

What Type of content should form a Content Marketing Strategy?

For many years, content marketing has simply involved the writing and publication of blogs on a website but with devices improving in function, mobile network speeds improving in capacity and speed, and attitudes toward content types changing, it now involves much more.

We are seeing a shift in short form written content to long form with articles of 1,000 words and more becoming more prevalent; and being read more as users recognise the value in investing the time to consume them. In conjunction with this, studies prove that consumers are more likely to engage with content that includes data and analysis as they respect the specific detail included.

Google’s latest algorithm update will, for the first time, analyse and understand multi-modal media types and so will favour the ranking of a brand with a variety of content available. This reinforces the importance of businesses offering their content in different modes; appealing to and being accessible for as many people as possible.

Strategising Your Business Content Marketing

Many businesses create and push out blogs on themes related to their brand niche ad hoc, whenever they’re able to but with no rhyme or reason in their topic or placement. This makes the success of such content largely down to luck.

Taking the time to lay out a proper content marketing strategy allows for the production of strong, long-lasting assets that serve the brand long-term. This involves the planning of content spanning different types, topics and platforms to carefully curate helpful and valuable resources for consumers.

How to put together a Content Marketing strategy

A business looking to compile a comprehensive and effective content marketing strategy must first define their mission and goals, outline their target audience and understand what they wish to achieve with the content they produce. Content can then be planned on a tailored basis to cater for specific personas; giving them the information they need in a form they’ll understand and enjoy on a platform they use.

A timeline should be created to map out the planning, creation, management and publication of content across all channels with a joined-up approach for consistent (and therefore recognisable) branding. Finally, the results of content marketing should be measurable so that the business is able to understand its effectiveness. Without this, there can be no real mark of success.

If you are looking for support with your content marketing strategy and execution, you’ve found the right blog! Head to our Woya Digital website to find out more about us and then get in touch to discuss with us how we can help you grow your business with effective content marketing.

 

 

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How Much Does SEO Cost in the UK?

How Much Does SEO Cost in the UK?

by | 10 Jan 2022 | SEO

Reading Time: 8 minutes

We all get that SEO is crucial for search engine visibility, digital presence, brand awareness and business growth – but what does SEO cost in the UK?

Business owners need to understand the parameters that make the most difference to pricing.
Here’s why:

    • Over half (54%) of small businesses budget ZERO for SEO. That’s a massive problem and a forecast of slow, painful growth – if any at all.
    • Many companies, particularly older, long-standing organisations, don’t understand the relevance of SEO, either ignoring it or being oversold services that won’t touch their bottom line.
    • There’s something like 3.5 billion Google searches every single day. Falling behind or missing out on the power of SEO means that those in the know leave everyone else for dust – when catching up really wouldn’t have been that difficult!

SEO pricing isn’t always straightforward, and that’s why it’s difficult to answer a straight question, what does SEO cost in the UK? Basically it’s difficult to put a tag on a service that could send a small start-up into the stratosphere – or crash and burn if it isn’t done right.

The Woya SEO team has put our heads together to show you some real-life averages to explain how much you should realistically budget for SEO.

Got questions? Get in touch, we’re here to help!

The SEO Divide: Price vs Perception

Like most digital specialists, our talented SEO team will tell you that many clients don’t have a firm grasp of exactly what SEO is or what it’s there for – and that’s understandable!

There’s a huge difference between SEO and pay per click (PPC) ads.

Many companies assume that they’ve ticked SEO off of their to-do list by setting up a couple of Google campaigns, maybe a Facebook ad here and there, and sitting back with tightly crossed fingers.

However, real SEO – a carefully crafted digital marketing strategy chasing organic growth – is about that gold standard whereby customers find you all by themselves without being funnelled into an advertising loop they didn’t ask for.

Now we’ve clarified, let’s get down to the pounds and pennies.

Standard SEO Pricing Structures

There isn’t a right or wrong way to charge for SEO.

Woya goes for fixed-price PAYG packages with itemised services because, well, we’re all about transparency and inviting customers to select the support they need!

That said, there are three core ways to structure pricing, and none are bad, per se.

    • Hourly SEO Costs: Charging per hour is simple, provided you have clear expectations about what your SEO contractor will achieve in that 60 minutes. Most SEO agencies won’t bother with hourly pricing, but it’s common with freelancers.
    • Monthly Retainers: Monthly costs work if you want an ongoing service with a fixed price, as long as you know what you’re getting for that cost and which services are included.
    • Project SEO Costs: Charging per project focuses on achieving a specific goal or producing a particular piece of work to contribute to a broader SEO strategy. The key here is to agree on the scope of the work in writing from day one and then make sure the project costs align with the anticipated returns.

What does SEO cost in the UK?

Ok, so when reviewing average SEO costs in the UK, we’ve got a basis of understanding, and we’ll explain more shortly about returns on investment, but let’s pause to take stock and talk about quality.

Like everything, you get what you pay for.

There’s a vast range out there:

    • DIY SEO means, of course, doing it yourself. You can pay for various subscriptions that offer to deliver keywords or other basic tools to help you along the way.
    • Low-cost SEO is at the introductory end; usually, the minimum required to make a dent.
    • Mid-level SEO is more common, perhaps with an agency that offers specific services. This option is more reliable than anything cheap and not-so-cheerful but can have limitations and won’t generally be a comprehensive, long-term collaboration.
    • High-end SEO is your shining SEO-shaped star and what you expect from established digital marketers who offer best in class performance and exceptional skilfulness.

Before we crack on, we’ll look at a couple of the pros and cons to watch out for, along with the average SEO costs.

DIY SEO Costs

Primarily used for: Small businesses, start-ups, or self-employed traders who want to do what they can without any expense.

    • Pitfalls: SEO is a huge sector of proficiency, so it’s improbable that you’ll make any progress without investing some serious time into learning.
    • Average cost: £0 (aside from any SEO tools you subscribe to).

Low-Cost SEO Prices

Primarily used for: SMEs perhaps getting started with a content marketing plan, needing suggestions and initial ideas about improving their websites.

    • Pitfalls: Anything low-cost might not be worth paying for at all. It’s not unusual for online service providers to offer crazily low prices that often fail to achieve results.
    • Is it really low-cost, with average cost: £20 – £110 per hour, based on freelancer rates. Buyers might be lucky, but without sustained and consistent work, it’s unlikely to yield significant results.

Mid-Level SEO Costs

Primarily used for: Established businesses with a content strategy that needs refining to build a stronger brand presence, or just starting SEO after over reliance on paid solutions such as Google Adwords.

    • Pitfalls: Success depends heavily on the experience and abilities of the SEO agency – so it could be money well spent or a drain on your budget. Look for experience, case studies and reference clients to support success stories.
    • Average cost: £750 – £2,500 a month.

High-End SEO Prices

Primarily used for high-volume online businesses, eCommerce retailers and companies needing dexterous support to identify and fix technical SEO challenges or get ahead in a competitive market.

    • Pitfalls: There aren’t many SEO agencies with the right experience, technical proficiency and creativity to deliver.
    • Average cost: £2,500 – £9,000 a month (plus costs) or more depending on the site size and team needed to deliver the project.

Psst, while we’re far from your average SEO agency, you can sneak a peek at our packages here if you’re so inclined!

Let’s dive into returns next, so you’ve got an idea of what you might expect to make, depending on what you’re spending.

Calculating Investment Returns on Professional SEO Services

Any business investment has an element of risk and a corresponding return – which is what we’re aiming for.

It can be complex to try and quantify what you’re getting out of your SEO spend, but let’s look at some of the options to try and pin down your returns.

Comparing Organic Traffic Volumes

Organic traffic is a big deal in SEO, and the better your content and strategy, the higher those web hits will climb. Checking out your metrics is relatively simple:

  1. Type in your most important keywords in the Google Keyword Planner.
  2. You’ll see some figures, such as the monthly average search volume.
  3. Compare the hits to your monthly traffic, and you’ve got an idea about how well you’re doing.

It’s also worth checking out where direct competitors are falling on the search engine rankings, compared to your site, to see who’s outperforming you (for now).

SEO Revenue Returns

Turning website visits and organic traffic into sales figures is equally vague, but if you’ve got access to your income metrics and your conversion rates, you’re off to a good start.

If you have a Google Analytics account, it’ll help, showing things like how many leads translate into an actual sale – this is usually somewhere around 2% for retail and 5% for lead-gen as a rough guide.

Compare monthly traffic, conversion rates and sales, and you should see a correlation where revenue rises as your organic search results improve.

The trick with SEO returns on investment is that you’re not going to get instant outcomes or see a sudden leap in profits in the first 24-hours, and probably not in the first 24 days, either. Honestly be prepared for it to take months and be alarmed if an seo agency is saying otherwise.

SEO needs to be embedded in your digital assets and pages to make cumulative gains.

You can’t get onto the fun bits without having a solid framework – things like fast web loading speeds, a good base of backlinks, effective information architecture, keywords and metadata on your web pages.

If you’re in doubt, we’d say it’s best to consult a real SEO agency (or get in touch with Woya).

Any great SEO agency will be happy to discuss realistic returns and expected timescales, so you’re better informed about what you should anticipate.

Is Low-Cost SEO Worth Paying For?

Let’s be clear that there is a toss-up between budgets and outcomes.

SEO isn’t something you can master by watching a few YouTube videos. After decades of experience, our capable team still focuses on keeping up with new trends, harnessing new technologies and adapting new techniques.

While there are plenty of individuals and companies claiming to offer effective SEO for minimal costs, it’s never, in our experience, worth spending anything on.

Worthwhile SEO requires:

    • Research and diligent analysis.
    • Expertise and exacting skills.
    • Time and knowledge.
    • Action and regular reporting.

Ultimately, cheap SEO could do more harm than good. Unethical methods of forcing algorithms to return unrealistic results could work short-term but result in penalties that mitigate your growth ability.

The Risks of Unsuitable SEO Practises

We’re here to talk about average costs and won’t get into white hat vs black hat SEO, but let’s clarify that Google algorithms remain crucial to SEO performance.

The data that matters includes:

    • Anchor texts
    • Content quality
    • Keyword density
    • Backlinks
    • Guest posting
    • Core web vitals
    • And everything else in between

Search engine algorithms themselves are fairly basic in principle, but the underlying mechanisms are anything but.

Sites that use underhanded SEO methods, such as buying spam backlinks, will more often than not be recognised by Google and punished accordingly.

A loss of organic traffic will have a severe impact on your ability to sell or gain brand reputation, no matter how much money you throw at paid ads.

Google also has a human review system, so even if the bots don’t pick up an SEO shortcut, it will come to their attention if you use random links, keyword stuffing or anything similar.

Our takeaway is that if you cannot pay for SEO, it’s probably better to invest your own time into learning some of the simpler techniques.

Although it might be a slow, gradual approach, it’s likely a better deal than wasting cash on cheap SEO that could be disastrous.

The Intrinsic Value of Outstanding High-End SEO

At the other end of the scale, premium SEO can be costly. However, that depends on the agency you work with.

We like to challenge market trends by offering PAYG packages without knuckling down behind retainers or minimum-term contracts, but that isn’t a proposal you’ll find everywhere!

The big difference is that an advanced SEO team can work wonders and make a remarkable difference to your online fortunes in multiple ways:

    • Managing Google penalties (if you’ve fallen foul of the issues we mentioned just now). Careful analysis can uncover ways to potentially resolve those negative impacts.
    • Fixing technical SEO issues on your site by adding new functionalities, optimising your analytics, or crafting new strategies to resolve the problem.

If you’re operating in high-volume or competitive sectors, rely on digital traffic to generate revenue, or want to boost your brand beyond all recognition, this is the only real way to go.

Outperforming the market is possible but relies on skill, expertise, and creative approaches to tackle the unique challenges you face while sometimes adopting aggressive strategies to get past the competition.

Finding the Balance – Creating an SEO Budget

By this stage, we’ve got a decent idea in response to what does SEO cost in the UK, the vast difference between cheap and high-quality, and why it’s well worth investing as much as you can in getting the best professionals on your team – within reason.

It’s important to determine the budget available and how much it is worth investing in a specific business or branch.

There isn’t a catch-all answer since the best approach depends on the site, the potential growth available, and how competitive your industry is.

The first step is always analysis – even if it isn’t the most exciting aspect of SEO organic growth! By understanding where you stand in the grand scheme of things and taking the time to compare that to your closest rivals, you generate a firm knowledge about the suitable techniques available to get the edge.

We’ll say it again – there are no shortcuts here worth taking.

If it’s worth doing, it must be done right, so never rush into SEO looking for a cheap deal or a quick fix since it won’t turn out well.

If you need more advice about SEO, for a transparent answer to what does SEO cost in the UK, guidance about how much it’s worth investing in your site, or to have a general chat about the opportunities out there, please get in touch with the friendly bunch at Woya, and we’ll steer you down the right path.

Google My Business Setup and Optimisation

Google My Business Setup and Optimisation

by | 18 Aug 2021 | SEO

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Google My Business is a hugely beneficial marketing tool for local and small businesses who need to be found online. It can prevent companies getting lost in the tens of thousands of related search results when internet users near them research into something similar.

We’ve published before about why small and local businesses need a presence on Google My Business, but here we guide you through your Google My Business setup and optimisation process: to benefit your local SEO and help grow your local business online.

Remind me: what is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a business marketing tool aimed at local business owners to help build them up a web presence on what is increasingly a busy and crowded marketplace online through the Google search engine. Google My Business presents address, website and contact details for a local business in a prominent feature when a related term is searched on Google. GMB also powers Google Maps, so it’s essential to get this right.

What benefits are there to Google My Business?

Google hosts over 3.5 billion searches on a daily basis; so for small local businesses, it can feel difficult to be seen amongst all the competition. Google My Business listings improve local SEO by targeting those searching from or for the geographical area relevant to the local business and presenting plenty of information on the company in an easy to read and prominent position on the front page of listings.

What is the cost?

Google My Business is completely free to set up! While some businesses do choose to go on and invest money in various advertising options with Google, this is a separate expenditure and is completely optional. Providing your Google My Business listing is completed sufficiently, further advertising is by no means a necessity.

Setting up Google My Business: Step-by-Step

To set up your free Google My Business listing, first go to www.google.com/business.

You will be taken through a range of steps in order to setup your account and input all relevant information. This includes:

  • Business name
  • Business category
  • Geographic location (for face to face service or an office presence)
  • Where customers can be served
  • Premises address
  • Contact details.

Once this detail has all been added, you can publish this listing and the data will be processed by Google.

A Google My Business profile must then be verified to be publicly listed – and this proves that the business owner is genuine. Claiming the profile through verifying it allows the listing to display a Google Maps location and to share posts.

There are currently two ways to verify a profile; but for many, only one method is available. Verifying by postcard, whereby Google sends a physical postcard with a bespoke code on it to the business’ address for them to then input into the site’s dashboard in the back-end; is the most common method of business verification. The address listed on Google must match exactly where it is to be received. Verification by postcard can take up to 14 days, and if it hasn’t arrived by this point, a new one can be requested.

Some businesses are given the option to verify their profile by phone. If this method is applicable, it will be displayed as you click through to the verification process. This allows for an automated phone call with a confirmation code to be read through it to be made directly to the business phone number listed. This can take place immediately.

There have been trials of verification through a smartphone app and via email, but neither of these methods have yet been rolled out to all of those applying.

Without verification, your Google My Business account will remain inactive and options are very limited. In order to optimise its presence, verification should always be sought.

Once verification has been completed, photos should be added to the business listing. Even if there are not physical premises to photograph and feature, something related should always be added. Google’s own statistics show that businesses with photos receive on average 35% more click-throughs to their website than those without; and photos have a beneficial impact on local SEO.

Once My Listing is live… what next?

Once your profile has a successful listing on search results, it doesn’t mean the job is done and work can halt. Instead, there’s lots of ways to optimise the profile to keep local SEO consistently high and ensure that the listing is shown to as many people as possible. These include:

  • Adding and updating relevant keywords to the listing
    • Keywords are always required for decent SEO, but when included in a Google My Business listing, will further increase the chances of it being displayed to those searching for something relevant
  • Uploading a logo, cover photo and photo/video content
    • Regularly updating and adding content demonstrates a consistent and regular commitment to delivering up-to-date information, which Google recognises and rewards with favourable algorithm prioritisation
  • Encouraging regular reviews
    • Reviews are displayed alongside business information, and the higher the average score, the better. Sending out a link to review the business to existing customers alongside the management and response to existing reviews shows that the business is authentic in its customer care standards
  • Publish offers, events, products and services
    • Google users are used to convenience and so like to be presented with as much information as possible with as little effort as possible. Ensuring a Google My Business listing has as much up-to-date data on it allows interested users to access all the info they need in one place
  • Make use of customer insights
    • Google provides user insights to all Google My Business clients. These allow for those using the service to better understand their audience and their browsing habits, as well as to identify how and why they interact with the business. This presents opportunity for continuous improvement and optimisation.

A Google My Business presence should remain as up-to-date and relevant as possible in order to demonstrate the activity of the company to both Google itself and its users. The impact this will have on local SEO, and therefore custom, is hugely beneficial – so if you haven’t started already, why not?

If you’re a local business looking for further support with your GMB listing and local marketing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Woya Digital team.