SEO Blackpool – Search Engine Optimisation

SEO Blackpool Search Engine Optimisation is all about helping your website to be found organically through ‘Search’ on the major search engines such as Google and Bing.

We operate from the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire.

When you perform a Google search you will be presented very quickly with a list of results. First, you may well see ‘sponsored’ results or Google Adwords advertisements (these are covered by our Search Engine Marketing service). Below these, you will see the natural or organic results – which more often than not will be highly relevant to your search term. By making search results highly relevant, Google and Bing encourage usage – leading to more traffic and more potential sales of pay-per-click advertising.

Read this – ‘How SEO Works (or how it should work) – and what it costs‘.

SEO Blackpool – How Do I Make My Website Rank Higher on Organic Search?

This is the question that almost every website owner asks! The truth is – only Google probably knows the right answers! – but from our experience, our testing and our use of the best SEO data analytics software in the business, we can make educated assumptions.

How SEO Works (or should work) and What It Costs

Search Algorithms Are Clever

Google’s search algorithm has hundreds of ranking factors, each with hundreds more sub-factors. It is constantly evolving and aiming to produce bang-on high quality results on search which are free of spammy, low-quality websites.

How Can My Site Rank Higher?

Simple. Content, Authority and Infrastructure. If your site is lagging in the rankings it is probably deficient in one or all of these 3 most important ranking factors.

Beware Of Snake-Oil Salesmen

There are many firms out there who will promise to upgrade your search listing rank to page 1 of Google. The vast majority are seo snake-oil salesmen who will take money off you for several months and deliver nothing of value. In many cases they can downgrade your website by using black-hat search engine optimisation techniques such as spurious link-building or keyword spamming. The days of spamming page content with keywords and having links from thousands of worthless directories, forums and blogs have long gone.

We perform website audits almost every week on behalf of clients to check the work done by so-called SEO experts. Very rarely do we find much evidence of any proper SEO work actually being done. Proper SEO work takes skill, time and effort.

Pay-Per-Click vs Organic Search Engine Optimisation

Pay-per-click online advertising (Google Adwords) works very quickly and effectively when set up correctly. Organic SEO takes planning and patience, but when done correctly is well worth the effort.

We work very closely with Google to deliver highly targeted and effective Adwords Campaigns. Fortunately for us, most Adwords campaigns are run rather badly, we see budgets being wasted, the wrong keywords being used and a general misunderstanding of the basic principles.

We can make Google Adwords work efficiently for any business – and provide an excellent, measurable return on investment. As far as Organic SEO goes, it’s true, we have taken several local firms from nowhere to page 1 within a couple of weeks or so on local search terms (mainly by correcting website infrastructure and optimising content) – but generally you should be prepared to be in for the long haul on a professional organic SEO campaign.

A sensible plan for online marketing is to begin by combining a pay-per-click campaign such as Google Adwords with an ongoing SEO strategy. This offers instant results whilst building a foundation for the future of your business.

As your organic search engine rankings rise, relevant keywords can be turned off in Adwords – thus either saving your marketing spend or releasing some budget to target other keywords or strategies.

We currently have SEO Blackpool clients spending as little as £10 a week on Google Adwords and some spending hundreds per week. We ensure that all are getting amazing results for their spend.

#1 – KNOW THE KILLER SEARCH PHRASES FOR YOUR BUSINESS

To begin, you will need to know the keywords and phrases that your potential customers are using to find your products and services on the internet. One tool for this is Google Adwords – simply open an account and poke around. You can quickly build up a list of the most powerful search keywords and phrases, along with – importantly – the amount of times each one is used per month.

Much guesswork goes into keywords, where there is absolutely no excuse to not actually obtain the facts. After all, there is not much point in spending hours and hours to optimise your website for a search phrase that might only get used a couple of times a month.

Once you have a list of the most important search phrases for your products and/or services, remember to check them regularly. Trends do change over time.

To save you hours of your time, we do offer a keyword research service. We use Professional SEO tools costing thousands of pounds per year to provide the very best analytics for our clients, giving them the edge over their competition. Ask for details.

#2 – CHECK WHERE YOUR WEBSITE RANKS NOW

You will need to check exactly where your site currently ranks for each keyword or phrase. The recommended way to do this is to use a tool such as ProRankTracker. For free, this tool will automatically give you regular reports on where your site ranks for up to 20 keywords or phrases. For around £10 a month, you can track up to 250.

20 keywords is ‘just’ enough for most small local businesses. Having 250 allows you to explore further and even to check the rankings of your competitors.

You could, of course, just do your own searches in Google. The problem here is that you will get skewed results. Google remembers who you are, which sites you visit and a whole host of other information about you. The chances are that your own site – which you visit regularly – will appear artificially high in your searches.

ProRankTracker will also suggest new keywords and phrases for you, based on your website content. A very useful tool, highly recommended. As standard, we set this up for free for all new SEO Blackpool clients.

#3 – INFRASTRUCTURE – Does your website tick all the search engine boxes?

Google (with around 80% of the search market) and Bing provide web developers with sets of guidelines which help us to create or upgrade a website with search engine optimisation in mind. Some 90% or more of websites out there do not comply with these guidelines, meaning that they are appearing much lower down the search rankings than they should be.

A search engine robot program does not care how pretty your website looks, all it cares about is being able to index it quickly and efficiently.

Is your page indexable by Google and Bing? If you ensure that your website is linked to Google Search Console, you can check this easily.
Do all your links work correctly? Check each link on each page. Broken links will cause your site to be marked down.
Is the HTML structure of each page correct (eg. meta-title, meta-description, h1, h2, h3, body)?
Does it load quickly? TIP – Use Google Pagespeed Insights to check, it will give you a score and most importantly give you tips on how to increase the speed.
Is it mobile-friendly? With mobile usage now exceeding traditional desktop computer usage on the internet, Google now ranks mobile-friendly websites higher when a search is performed on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Use Google’s Mobile Friendly Checker for this.

Contact us for an SEO evaluation of your current website. We can give you a list of pointers which, if acted upon, will guarantee short and long term improvements in your rankings.

Use this tool for some analytics into your existing website…

#4 – CONTENT – Is your content well-written, original and useful?

Content is King with Google and Bing. Your website content needs to show authority on the subject in question, be original and actually be useful to readers.

Consider exactly what your potential customers want to know, and give it to them. Do they want prices, advice, information, entertainment or something else?

Copying and pasting content from other websites is no good as eventually your site will be marked down for duplicate content.

Your content can be structured to include favoured keywords and phrases (the words your customers are searching for), along with related keywords and phrases. Content should be written for the user though, and not just with a search engine robot in mind. Spammy content will be downgraded.

Do not forget important content such as your address and contact information (!), your location (with directions if relevant), and statutory information such as ‘Terms of Service’, ‘Privacy Policy’, ‘Refunds’ (if you are selling anything from the website) and the legal status of your business (Ltd., Sole Trader, Partnership etc.)

Use your own images. If you can, use your own original images if they are up to scratch. If not, you can consider hiring a professional photographer or you can use a Stock Image Library – our favourite is the Adobe Stock Library (high quality images are just £5.99 each). Pixabay and other similar websites provide plenty of images for free, although generally these are of lower quality.

Never copy images from the web for your business website as you could be fined by copyright holders (many of whom actively search out illicit use of their images across the web).

No News is Bad News. For most businesses it will be relevant for you to have a News or Blog section on your website. Seach engines like finding new content every time they scan your site (typically every week or so).

If you are running an e-commerce website, adding new products or a special offer at least every week will do.

If yours is a brochure or information site, find some news to post every week. This could be in the form of client reviews, advice, information on a new service or product or a blog of how the working week has progressed and how you have helped your customers.

Video is Great! Video content relevant to your business is perfect – and loved by search engines. Film simple ‘how-to’ clips, product demonstrations, testimonials from clients or just a short tour around your premises. Videos can be hosted on your own website, or hosted for free on Youtube, then embedded into your site.

You can improve the content of your website yourself, or have your staff do it. Alternatively, contact us and we can come up with a monthly plan geared around optimising your website for search and creating new content.

#5 – LINKS – Relevant, High Quality incoming and outgoing Links

Links used to be the ‘be all and end all’ of SEO. Thousands of links into your website used to mean success in SEO – but now the algorithms have evolved.

Links from spurious websites actually harm your ranking. This most commonly happens after a business has paid an overseas ‘SEO Expert’ a few dollars to rank higher. This situation can take a long time to recover from and can cost far more to put right than the original deal.

Concentrate on High Quality Links both in and out. The obvious incoming links will be from Social Media such as a Facebook Business page, Google+ page, Twitter account, Google Maps, Youtube, Pinterest, Tripadvisor, Press Release sites and the like. Trusted directory listings also help to solidify your ranking, but beware of paying often extortionate amounts for these! Links from suppliers, clients and trade bodies are excellent, these add considerable credibility.

If your content is really original, authoritative or entertaining then links to it will happen naturally. A great SEO manager will organise stunning content which appeals to your audience and will then invite other quality websites to link to it. This is a win-win, your site gets a quality link and the linking site gets new content.

If your News items or Blogs are up to scratch you can provide an RSS Feed. This is a bit of code which other websites can include on their pages to show your news or blog feed – with every item linking to your site.

A favourite strategy is to search the web for sites with broken links. Often you can enlighten the webmaster about the broken link and then suggest a new link for them, covering that content.

NEVER EVER PAY FOR INCOMING LINKS! Google really does not like this!

For outgoing links, again the main ones will be to your Social Media accounts, but also consider trade bodies which you are a member of. For your news items or product info pages, provide a link to an authority relevant to the information. If you see a great article on your subject somewhere else, do not be shy about linking to it.

#6 – USABILITY, LOOK & FEEL

If you have done all the hard work above, it would be a crying shame if visitors are put off when they land on your site. Use friends and family, plus customers and suppliers to rigorously test your site and offer feedback. The pickier the better!

A menu system which works equally well on desktop and mobile devices is crucial. If your site has many pages, add a search box.

Consider your colour scheme and any other features which make visiting your website a positive experience.

CTA’s – Calls To Action – are imperative and need to be clear and concise. CTA’s include links to other pages, sign-up forms, ‘buy now’ buttons, contact forms and simple ‘call me’ buttons.

#7 – PAGE LOADING SPEED

With the massively increased usage of mobile devices, website page loading speed is now a huge issue. Google ranks faster websites higher, simple.

Use PageSpeed Insights from Google to obtain a speed score for your pages. In the Green is great, anything else does need looking at.

Reasons for slow loading pages

Non-optimised images. Huge images will slow performance. Images need to be processed and optimised before using on a website.
CSS stylesheets can be overly large. Ideally these should be minified or compressed.
Javascript code can slow performance, again this can be compressed.
Low quality and cheap hosting will have an effect on speed, especially shared servers which host thousands of sites.

Fortunately, most websites can be dramatically improved. We can make almost any site reach the green zone, ask for details.

#8 – ORDER A SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION REPORT

We can provide an expert analysis of your website’s infrastructure and search engine friendliness. There is no fee for this and you should recieve your hand-typed report within a few days.

We Manually Check

Your PageSpeed
Look-and-feel from a client perspective
Page indexing
Code infrastructure
Rankings for search keywords and phrases relevant to your business

We Advise and Recommend On

Simple improvements that can be made today
What you should be prioritising

Fortunately, most websites can be dramatically improved. Our recommendations will make any site perform better in organic search.

Why Is This Service Free?

Good question!

Firstly, we are not particularly pitching for work. We are busy enough and do not take on just anybody who makes an enquiry (no offence!). If, however, we think we can make a genuine difference and a significant return on investment for you, we will let you know.

Secondly, actively reviewing other websites keeps our skills honed.

Thirdly, we occasionally spot something really obvious which can have a major influence on your online success. This makes us feel good.

#9 – SEO BLACKPOOL, LANCASHIRE – WE SPECIALISE IN LOCAL

We can ofer a unique insight into local Blackpool SEO. We know the facts and figures on monthly Google searches for every type of business in Blackpool and Lancashire – this gives you a real edge over your competition.