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Beginner’s Guide to SEO

08/19/202203/09/2021 by scmarketing

With over 4.6 billion internet users worldwide, and over 7 billion searches on Google a day, making sure your website is noticed is a must. Which is why it’s important to consider using a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign to improve your online presence and make your website visible.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of optimising your content to improve its ranking on search engines results pages (SERPs), increasing your website traffic.

Search engines use bots to ‘crawl’ pages to gather information and place these pages in an index, where various factors are analysed to determine where they rank on search engines.

As a business, it’s important that you have a clear outline of what your objectives are before implementing an SEO strategy. Having an idea of what you’re striving towards will help formulate an SEO plan and the steps you’ll take to reach those goals.

If you’re unsure as to what your SEO objectives may be, think about what your business objectives are and how implementing an SEO campaign can help you reach those objectives.

Target audience

Your target audience are the people looking for your business’s services online.

Understanding your target audience is crucial to SEO, as you’re essentially tailoring your website to reach this audience.

A great way to better understand your target audience is to create an online persona. Think of your ideal customer and create a character based on that person – this will become your online persona that helps you tailor your marketing material including website content to target that person.

A few tips to help you create this persona include reflecting on the person’s goals and the challenges they may face trying to achieve them. Think of how your products and services may be the solution for those obstacles. These steps work together to help form a personality that gives you a better understanding of how your audience thinks and how you can market to them.

Our blog has further information to help you create an online persona.

Keywords

Once you have your target audience agreed and in mind, you can start to think of content for your website which will include keywords which will form a vital part of your SEO strategy.

Keywords are words and phrases that search engines use to determine what is on your website. When used properly, keywords can help boost how your website ranks on search engines, driving more traffic to your website.

With keywords it’s all about being specific to your business. With 53% of website visitors coming from organic search, thinking about what your target audience would type in the search engine function is a great place to start to help you create a list of the keywords for your audience.

However, a word of caution, excessive keyword use on a webpage can have an adverse effect on your rankings – this is known as keyword stuffing. So, high quality content should be fresh, unique and relevant to your target audience. Use your researched keywords within your web page which will help search engines understand what is on that page. Using the relevant keywords will ensure that visitors are getting the content they came for and not leaving too soon.

There are a number of keyword research tools online to help you work out what your keywords are, such as the Wordstream and Moz keyword research tools, and our how to improve onsite SEO with keywords blog also provides further insight on keywords.

Meta-descriptions

Another great SEO tip is to improve the quality of your meta-descriptions. The meta-description is a small snippet of text that appears under your webpage on search engines, to act as a summary of what the audience will find on your page and help boost click through rate (CTR) on SERPs. On search engines such as Google, the meta-description appears as a short paragraph below the web page title.

Good meta-descriptions are up to 160 characters and include targeted keywords.

Image optimisation

The optimisation of images on a website is also important and can be done in different ways. One way you can do this is by ensuring that every image has alt text – a written version of what the image contains. This helps:

When the image fails to show up for any unknown reason, as the alt text will be used as a substitute,
Screen readers as they read out the alt text to help the visually impaired better understand the page
Allowing search engines to crawl and rank your website

You should always try to include targeted keywords in your alt text as they’re another indication to search engines that your page is relevant to that search.

Optimising your images also includes making sure that they’re not too large, as the larger an image is the longer it may take to load. This may slow the load speed of your website and increase the bounce rate, the percentage of visitors that visit a page and leave instead of visiting other pages too. Research carried out by Google has shown that 53% of mobile users leave a website that takes longer than three seconds to load, further proof that you need to manage image size and load speed.

Link building

Link building is the process of having internal and external links throughout your website content.

Internal links to other pages on your website help by:

Easing navigation around your website
Enabling search engines to crawl your website more easily
Guiding traffic to specific pages
Improving engagement and time spent on your website

While internal link building focuses on connecting pages on your website, external link building is all about your website URL being on other websites which then direct back to your website – also known as a referring domain.

Search engines look at the quality of the links and the quantity to help give you a domain authority score. The domain authority is a report of how relevant your website is in any specific area or market. Websites with a high domain authority score will be seen as a more trusted source and rank higher than those with lower scores, so it’s important to increase your score where possible.

The best way of getting your website on another domain is through online directories and Google My Business is perhaps the most important online directory for you to be on. For more details on Google My Business, visit our Setting up Google My Business blog.

We’ve also listed some alternative directories to help you grow your list of online directories to be featured on.

Web design

How your website is designed has a larger impact on your SEO than you may think. Search engine bots emulate the behaviour of visitors, so if they see that users are leaving your page quickly due to bad user experience, your page will get ranked down. The opposite also applies if visitors have a good user experience your website ranking will increase.

That’s why having a well-designed website can be a strong contributing factor in your SEO strategy. The best websites:

Are easy to navigate
Have fast load speed
Create brand consistency
Are responsive

A responsive website is a website that adjusts its appearance according to the device it’s being viewed on. Websites are not only being viewed on desktop devices, mobile devices account for half of website traffic. This makes it clear that having a responsive website is crucial, as you can’t guarantee what device your website is going to be viewed on. Also, responsive websites load much faster, this improves user experience and helps your website rank higher in search engine results pages – Google certainly favours websites with faster load times.

As a digital marketing agency, we offer web design services tailoring a website to the needs of the business.

Landing pages

An SEO landing page is a specific page on your website used to convert visitors into leads. Landing pages usually have the following:

Succinct content with keywords relevant to your target audience
Bold calls to action (CTA)
Forms – for lead generation
Thank you pages – to continue the conversation and market something else to your leads

Landing pages are a great way to gather data whilst also generating leads. When creating landing pages, it’s important to pay attention to how visitors interact with the web page. For example, if you see that your page has a lot of visits, but the conversions aren’t matching this could mean that the layout of your page needs to be reworked. We would always recommend creating a specific landing page if you progress with a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaign.

SEO agency Croydon

There’s a lot to consider but we hope this guide has given you a good overview of the type of activity you can implement to kick start an SEO campaign for your business.

By incorporating SEO into your marketing strategy, you can enhance brand perception and online presence as it helps your business rank better in search engines. This can help generate a better rate of enquiries due to improved visibility.

If you feel you need support in getting your website optimised, then get in touch with Smart Cow Marketing to discuss your SEO needs further.

SEO mistakes to avoid

08/19/202203/02/2021 by scmarketing

Your website is the centre of your digital world and right now it is the go to place for most people searching for products and services as COVID-19 has ushered along digital transformation at some pace. So, being found online is crucial.

This is why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a key element of your inbound marketing strategy. SEO will help generate website traffic through various tactics such as completing meta descriptions and H1 tags. As well as writing fresh and relevant content for your website in the form of a blog with researched keywords and good navigation including internal links. The list goes on (we’ve listed further resources at the end of the article for you to tap into to help with your SEO campaigns) however for the purpose of this blog we wanted to highlight what to avoid so that your website is not negatively impacted.

Link building – Quality vs Quality

Link building is an important part of an SEO strategy. External links helps indicate to search engines that your website should be visited as they indicate importance and relevance.

However, these links need to be relevant and from trustworthy sources to build trust with prospects. So, the better quality of link from a trusted website is more likely to indicate to a search engine that you are a good quality website to show up in search results.

So, the main thing to remember is that it is quality over quantity. Understand and know the referring domains.

More on how link building can improve optimisation.

Don’t do nothing

It’s worth remembering that a search engine should be held in high regard like any other visitor to your website. So, you need to indicate to all visitors that you are current, relevant, knowledgeable and most importantly that you are open for business.

If the content on your website is out of date this will impact on where you appear in search engine results pages. The more people that view your fresh and unique content will help indicate to search engines that you are a good quality source of information relevant to return in results pages.

Update your website frequently, add new blogs, images, links and downloads.

Don’t copy content

Don’t infringe copyright. Respect fellow businesses. You are all trying to do the best you can to attract more customers. With blogs being a key part of an SEO strategy, you will ideally be uploading at least 2-3 blogs a month and much more if you have the time. But your content needs to be unique. You can’t copy an article as you will infringe copyright laws and incur penalties. Not only that, a search engine will see that it is duplicate and plagiarised content and this will go against you with organic search results.

Ultimately you are the thought leader in your field so talk about what you know. Help solve your customers and prospects challenges by giving them tips and advice. All the things you know about. This then comes from the heart and makes your brand authentic and trustworthy. Plus, with good quality unique content, this will help you in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Poor meta descriptions

The meta descriptions are ways to assist search engines in understanding what the page is all about. They can also provide the valuable first few lines in a search result listing – that little paragraph under the title that you can see when your search is returned to you. By not completing this you are failing to let search engines and potential visitors understand what they can read about on that specific page. So, when you complete it on the backend remember to include keywords relating to what is on that page.

Keyword stuffing

So, you’ve established your list of relevant keywords – those phrases that you want to be found for in search engines results pages. You’ve created a content marketing schedule of future blogs and you start to upload them to your website with keywords included. What you must not do is stuff that content with keywords. It will be repetitive, lack thought and knowledge. The content will not engage, it will not be insightful and therefore will end up with your bounce rate increasing. And, most importantly, search engines don’t like it.

Search engines will then penalise you for creating an article that is not relevant to your business. Readers might also feel cheated into reading a pointless article and this will go against you with search engines and lost prospects!

So, be thoughtful with your content and remember quality over quantity. It’s more important to have a quality read with one keyword over anything else as people will return to read more, people will share your article which will encourage new website visitors.

Broken links

Broken links in your website can have a detrimental effect on your website’s performance. Keep tabs on this through tools such as Semrush which can alert you to broken links. Fix them as soon as you can to avoid confusing search engines and creating a poor customer experience.

Not set up for local SEO

Make sure that you are set up on Google My Business – you may as well tell the biggest search engine that you are open for business, your website, contact details, address latest updates and offers. This will point back to your website providing a quality link. Repeat this process with other directories and make sure y our contact details are consistent. Watch our video alternative directories to Google My Business to help with your SEO.

SEO Croydon

So, you’ve got the idea of what to avoid. SEO is about attracting leads which includes search engines. In a nutshell, it’s important to create quality, unique and relevant content for your website to help improve your online presence in organic search and help drive traffic to your website.

We can work with you on your digital marketing strategy including a mix of tactics such as, web design, SEO services, social media management, Pay Per Click (PPC), email marketing and CRM – read more about our marketing services.

SEO agency resources

4 simple steps for SEO improvement

07/08/2020 by scmarketing

Time is of the essence when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), as it is a long-term strategy. This sometimes puts people off from even starting to do anything in the first instance as it can initially be a daunting prospect.

So, we thought we’d gather some quick steps to help boost your organic rankings in search engine results. These aren’t necessarily quick wins – as it does take time for you to start seeing the benefit of website optimisation activity. But these are easy actions that can help you in the long-run as well as set a precedence and routine each time you upload any new content to your website.

SEO to boost your results in search engines

1. Meta titles and descriptions

Check that your meta titles and meta descriptions are complete on the backend.

Your meta title is the bold text you see for a website when you search for something online. To help you write the title think of it as if you are simply telling the person searching exactly what they will find on that page.

The title is also a key indicator to Google about the page content so with an explanatory title this can really help Google find the best matched pages for that search. Keep the meta title under 60 characters.

The meta description is the descriptive paragraph you will find directly under the title in search. Stick to between 120 and 158 characters so that the description doesn’t get cut off. Add in keywords you would want your business to be found for as this helps boost you in search too.

Depending on how many pages you have on your website, including blogs, this may take some time to do. But, now you are aware of its importance for SEO then set goals per week of completing a certain number of blogs until you have done them all. Then once you have achieved that, make the process completing the meta titles and descriptions part of your content marketing. So, when you write a blog ensure that you also think of the meta title/description at the same time.

2. Alt text / description

If you have images on your website, then these will want an alt description. This describes the page design and image content. These descriptions may well have already been completed at the web design and development stage. If not, just start to add the descriptions.

3. Fix broken links

Internal links help Google and your visitors understand your web page and navigate your website with ease.

However, there’s nothing worse than clicking a link that doesn’t work so now is the time to do a quick audit of your website and fix any links that are broken. If you don’t really have any links to other pages on your website, then we would recommend that you conduct this task as soon as possible. Make it easy for your visitor to get in touch with you and find useful information simply by adding in links.

For future blogs you write remember to always think of link building when you upload the blog to your website. Again add this to your process checklist.

Don’t forget – make sure you have links to your social media channels on your website.

4. Google My Business

Make sure your Google My Business page is up to date. If you don’t have one, then now is the time to create this. This is a quality directory on the most popular search engine so help Google find you.

SEO digital marketing agency

We’ve not touched on keyword research in this blog as we wanted to really give you those quick hit wins that you can conduct yourself for website optimisation.

Check out some of our previous blogs with more detail on SEO and keywords if you want to discover more.

If you need help on your digital marketing to kick start your SEO campaign and improve your online presence in search results then get in touch with us for your free consultation or a free website audit.   

We’re an SEO agency in Croydon specialising in SEO marketing for accounting firms and local businesses looking to grow with quality leads.

8 website updates for accounting firms

05/01/2020 by scmarketing

With all the change and uncertainty right now, as an accountancy practice your main concern is servicing your existing clients offering the most-timely advice as and when updates are announced by government that could assist your client base.

Importantly it’s also the key time to maintain your presence online to continue building that groundwork that is the necessity of any lead generation strategy. In time, when circumstances change, and businesses start to grow, it’s the firms and suppliers that have provided helpful advice that will be remembered and be seen as the go to company for new business.

So, what can you as an accounting firm do to optimise your website to help maintain your position in search rankings? Here’s our top website tips to help you kick start a great Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign for your business to get your website seen.

1. Is your website easy to navigate?

Check that your accounting services are clearly visible in the menu so that there is an easy path for visitors who reach your homepage. Show your key services on your homepage and a call to action to read more, download information or get in touch.

2. Do you have enough internal links on your website?

This is another navigation tactic. Make sure that you are making it even easier for visitors to find information on your website. Embed links into keyword phrases.

3. Complete your H1, H2 headers

This helps search engines work out the theme of the page to return the right answers to the searcher.

4. Complete your meta descriptions

This neat little paragraph is what you read when you search online. Keep to under 160 characters and make sure it’s relevant to the content on that web page.

5. Be image-led on your website

Help create stand-out with good photography and video content. But, make sure images are the right size and you have completed the alt tag on the backend as this will help site speed and prevent visitors leaving your site.

6. Create a content plan

A solid basis for any website optimisation strategy is to develop a content marketing plan. This should include a regular schedule of information such as blogs that can be drafted and uploaded onto your website. Search engines love fresh content. It helps position you as an authority in your sector.

However, ensure that you are using good keywords within your content. By this, we mean phrases that you want to be found for when people search for you. If you include these important phrases in content, in particular headings, then it helps you to be found when people search. Such as ‘Annual Accounts for construction firms’ or ‘Tax returns for a sole trader’. Think of who your target audience is and write content for them.

This has only touched the surface, so if you want to delve a little deeper into SEO as part of your digital marketing strategy then do get in touch for a free consultation via Zoom.

7. Calls to action

Calls to action (CTA) should form a key part of your content marketing strategy. These are best placed above the fold, the space before the visitor has to scroll down. Make sure you have a bold CTA so that it stands out and use design to make it clear that it’s a clickable link.  

8. Get a free website review

With so many factors affecting whether and where your website will be found on google search, complete our form to get a free website audit. This free review provided by Smart Cow Marketing will provide you with some interesting results to help with your inbound marketing.

Navigating your digital marketing journey

If you want the task of fixing these issues taken off your hands, then we’d be happy to assist you further with your digital marketing. Just get in touch about what your digital marketing requirements for your accountancy practice.

Smart Cow marketing specialises in digital marketing for accountants helping firms improve online visibility to attract potential clients through online marketing.