How Long Does SEO Take to Start Working?

How Long Does SEO Take to Start Working?

We’ve been using and executing SEO for a long time, and the question clients ask me the most is “How long before we are #1 in Google?

Mostly the answer is more complicated than the question.
To some extent, SEO gives immediate results in the form of fresh content, better organisation, but the majority of businesses are after something a little more long term and visible, usually a prime spot on page one of major search engines.

How long after you start SEO do you see results?

There are a lot of variables that play into how quickly you see results after you start doing SEO.
Baseline traffic, website design, domain age, meta descriptions, geographic location, competition, and target market all play into how quickly you can gain search engine traffic from SEO.

Generally speaking websites can see results in 4 to 6 months.
Obviously, SEO results grow over time. The traction you’re getting at 6 months typically is less than what you should be experiencing at 12 months.

Why so broad?
Typically that question is on a per domain basis. The SEO results your business is looking for (Local SEO, National SEO, Global SEO) is going to influence the types of SEO techniques that are performed on your site.
In short:
A local business website with 100 pages, running on WordPress, is different than a global eCommerce site, with millions of pages, running on Magento.

Can we speed it up?
Many factors determine how fast your SEO efforts will start delivering results. If you have a new website, new domain name and fresh content without a business history it could take a while. Sometimes up to six months before you see results.

The Rise
A new website and cold-start domain (with no history or activity…ever). Worked on consistently for 6 months can see drastic increases, represents what we call the rise and it typically happens after 6 months.
For some sites we posted an average of 2000 – 2500 words a month for six months. This is in addition to heavy on-site and off-site optimisation techniques and true organic link building.
We expect the traffic to continue to increase by 50% to 60% over the next 6 months. In short, don’t expect success to come easy. Unless you write some really awesome content and have a very niche and popular website.

Positive and Negative SERP Adjustments aka Fools Gold
Before the rise we have what is typically the equivalent of Fools Gold SERP increases. This is especially true for new websites. But not so much the case for websites that have been active and were just in need of SEO adjustments.
Some sites will see a consistent pattern of a giant jump followed by a nominal fall in ranking, then proceeded by a subtle change the following couple of months.
The long story of why we think this happens: With this particular site it was old but never worked on. So it had history with search engines but nothing to positively rank for. Which was due to content issues and normal SEO fundamentals.
But as we fixed the on-site issues and improved the content, search engines become excited to rank those pages. So they gave them a nice jump in the SERPs. But typically what happens is those search results begin to fall back and then settle/stabilise. Once the SERPs stabilise that’s typically where you start to see slow, but incremental changes, in search engine rankings as you implement your continued SEO strategy.
But this time those results are more stable and consistent. Typically they do not drastically jump around. Unless you have a bad update or something else catastrophic happen on your website.
The problem with the Fools Gold period is clients can become excited. Then quickly discouraged when the following month those results change.

SEO is an investment

Think of SEO as a fitness plan approach versus a roll the dice approach. Your efforts will begin to compound over time and gradually deliver greater returns the longer you do it.
To understand why it takes SEO a while to start working, let’s break it down and look at the parts:

What is SEO?

Success in SEO, as with most things in life, comes down to mastering the basics.
With that in mind, here are some SEO basics that everyone should understand.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It is the process of getting traffic from the freeorganic, or natural search results on search engines.
All major search engines such as GoogleBing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

Search Engine Basics
This starts with understands the three main types of traffic companies receive from search.

Map Listings – Google Maps started in 2005 as a way for consumers to find local establishments on the platform. It became the world’s leading map application with new features added on a regular basis.

Organic – Traditional search results from Googles search engine. We discuss more below about the algorithm that determines these rankings.

PPC – Pay per Click campaigns are when a company pays for their search engine rankings through ads. These ads are traditionally on the top and right of the Google search. Pay per click campaigns are also called Search Engine Marketing.

Four Determining SEO Factors

1. Keywords and Search Phrases
Keywords help you drive the targeted traffic that you want to your site. With all of the changes that Google has made over the past year, this means you need to create quality traffic that your visitors will like as well.
When you can do this successfully, you have the power to find the quality clients you want for your business. It is not easy, but with the ideas above you have the strategies to make it work for your business.

2. Your Domain Name
At the root level your SEO revolves around your domain name. Does your domain have keywords in it? Having a domain name with keywords in it can accelerate your SEO efforts. But its not a silver bullet technique. Even domain names with SEO rich keywords can rank horribly.
Did you just buy your domain name? Relationships built on the internet with search engines revolves around trust. Mimicking real life to determine trust search engines must determine you know what you are talking about. They also factor in the age of your domain to determine the legitimacy of you information, website and business.
Is your domain penalised? If you bought your domain name from a third party auction site its possible its been abused and discarded. If it was involved in malicious activity or black hat tactics and flagged by search engines it will take you a long time to reverse the damage.
Was your domain owned by a business outside of your geographical area? Sometimes when a business closes they sell their domain name. Perhaps your business has had the.org and now the .com is available. You might be excited because it was owned by a business in another state long before you started your business.
The only problem in the beginning is that domain has a long history with the previous business in their geographical location. While this won’t ruin your chances it does put a bit of a roadblock until you assume ownership and the internet begins to recognise the owners new address.

3. Your Business and Location
For starters every business should claim and list their business with Google. It’s free and a great tool for improving your businesses online presence.
What does your business provide? If you have a niche business serving a limited clientele you will see faster results if your clients are specifically searching for your services. For example your business only recycles cooking oil for restaurants in Fort Myers, Florida.
If you are in a more competitive field, like dentistry, you will have more competition. Not only are there more dentists than oil recycling companies, they are spending money to consistently outperform their competition.

4. Your Content
Your website content needs to do something remarkable. It needs to be written, so humans will enjoy it and Google will rank it. This is a tall order for any site to accomplish. It is a primary reason so many businesses give up in disgust after not receiving enough traffic early on in their SEO campaign.

More SEO Advice for Beginners
For more basic but also in-depth advice, Search Engine Land’s Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors, introduces you to all the key concepts you need to know.
Guide To Local SEO
As a companion to this post our Local SEO Ranking Factors explains the ranking factors and providing tips and advice on implementation.
Conclusion
As you can see, using search engine optimisation for your business is not a one size fits all task. The bottom line is that if you’re focusing on a small group of generic keywords, you’re probably not being found by most of the people who are searching for you.
Consistency is important when it comes to any kind of SEO. Stick with your marketing plan, even if you aren’t seeing noticeable results after month 4, time and commitment will get you the search engine traffic results you want to see.
If you want to Grow your business or need help with digital and social media marketing, we’d be more than happy to work with you.

You can contact us here

View our full range of marketing services that are tailored specifically for your business.

Website Design

Search Engine Optimisation

Social Media Marketing 

To see samples of our work visit our Projects page here.

2 Sons Marketing

Phone: +61 2 9822 9554

Mobile: +61 414 997 205

Email: info@2sonsmarketing.com

Sydney, NSW, Australia

 

Website Design and Social Media Marketing Bossley Park, Wetherill Park, Liverpool, Parramatta, Western Sydney, Mascot, NSW

Find Easy Blog Ideas Fast

Find Easy Blog Ideas Fast

Stuck for ideas for your next blog? 

Here are our easy ways to “come up” with blog content ideas.

The biggest problem is coming up with enough content for your weekly blog or newsletter. If you’re like many entrepreneurs and small business owners out there, you’re always short of time. You wear so many hats and have so many to-dos on your list that it seems like a complete waste of time to sit in front of a blank website waiting for ideas.

What you need to do is know what you’re going to write about before you sit down to create it!

Having a plan is very important is you hope to blog or write on a regular basis. Today I’m going to share how to generate 6 months of content ideas in 20 minutes or less.

The key is getting into your ideal clients’ heads, and thinking about the topics, issues, questions and problems that they have and want to know about most.

Take 20 minutes to sit and fill out this little quiz, and before you know it, you’ll have 6 months of great content ready to go!

What are 5+ keywords or search phrases that your ideal customer Googles?

What are 3+ questions that your ideal clients regularly ask you?

What are 3+ problems that you consistently solve for your ideal customers?

What are 2+ industry-specific words that your ideal client needs you to define or clarify?

What are 2+ common “myths” that your ideal clients believe about the work you do or your industry?

What are 3+ specific benefits/outcomes that your ideal customers enjoy after working with you?

What are 2+ goals that your ideal clients have when they come to you?

What are 3+ reasons your ideal customers give for working with you?

What is the top reason someone should work with you?

What drew you to the work you do?

List any other topics, issues, ideas that you think would resound with your ideal client.
Now that the quiz is over you have 26+ relevant, valuable content ideas for your blog or newsletter. So, if you aim to deliver content on a weekly basis, you’re all set for the next 6 months!

If you want to grow your business with digital and social media marketing, we’d be more than happy to work with you.

You can contact us here

View our full range of marketing services that are tailored specifically for your business.

Website Design

Search Engine Optimisation

Social Media Marketing 

To see samples of our work visit our Projects page here.

2 Sons Marketing

Phone: +61 2 9822 9554

Mobile: +61 414 997 205

Email: info@2sonsmarketing.com

Sydney, NSW, Australia

 

Website Design and Social Media Marketing Bossley Park, Wetherill Park, Liverpool, Parramatta, Western Sydney, Mascot, NSW

Tips to Optimise Your Site for Local Search on Mobile

Tips to Optimise Your Site for Local Search on Mobile

People that are new to SEO are often wondering whether mobile and local search go hand in hand.

Mobile and local search are a powerful SEO couple. When optimizing your website for mobile devices as a general SEO practice, you should optimize it for local search too.

Based on a comScore study, 61% of mobile users are searching for local things, and 58 % of respondents consider local search results reliable. Which means that the majority of websites have to be optimized for local SEO and mobile search.

All too often, the reason for the poor search results is a drawback of basic settings. By doing the following quick fixes, you will make sure that your mobile website is well-optimized for local search.

Tip #1 – Localise your SEO efforts

Everyone who serves their business communities face-to-face should care about their local SEO. Among these are brick-and-mortar businesses with physical locations (dentist offices, barber shops, real estate agencies, etc.) and service-area businesses operating in a certain geographic area (electricians, repair services, and so forth).

Today localization has a slightly different meaning. It is not just about changing a state, a city, a geographical region or a headline of your business, it should focus more on a neighborhood or a smaller locale. It includes everything from claiming a business listing to confirming that your business location appears in Google Local search. While also managing reviews, online ratings, and local-centric social media engagement.

On-page factors

All localized websites, even if they have a public domain, should create header tags and unique URLs for their specific location. Adding your region in your URL is a strong signal.

You should have a landing page for your location, specify the region name in the URL, and add toponym to the semantic core. If you have different locations, you can create a page where you can list each of your locations with a link to a map or with an H1 tag.

Creating a page with the contact info with the full address, postal code, phone number and store hours listed is a key differentiator. You can do this by adding your NAP to your Schema.org markup.

Google My Business

Once you are done with on-page factors, you should keep an eye on Google My Business to attract users’ attention to the fullest extent.

Your Google My Business Page should include your address, working hours, phone number, images, popular times, reviews, and links to your pages. Here’s our Google My Business account: 

Google-My-Business-2-Sons-Marketing

Make sure that the content on this page is consistent with your brand, the categories and description are on point, and the images are in high resolution.

Social signals

Links from social media sites are getting more and more juice, so updating your business social profiles on a regular basis is important. Adding social sharing buttons for a specific location could also prominently increase your local Google-search unit.

Online reviews

Once users find your business, they might check the reviews from your customers posted on different online directories, social media, forums, etc. The more reviews you get in your region, the better your local SEO will be.

Local search external location signals

External location signals involve the visibility of your NAP and other business information on online directories, such as Yellow Pages, Yelp, TripAdvisor, CitySearch, BBB.org, etc. It is essential to have the right NAP, as these online directories will extract your information from that. Some people also keep track of your reviews on these websites, and you should also pay attention to them.

Tip #2 – Be mobile-friendly

Today a growing number of mobile users look for local businesses every day. Based on comScore’s 2016 Mobile App Report, total digital media time increased by 53% in 2016, and 80% of that increase was due to mobile apps. That means that we need to adjust to this new world with mobile-focused efforts.

Check if your website meets Google’s requirements.

You can do this with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Online businesses need to make content available to their audiences where they spend most of their time. The focus is to have a mobile responsive website that will actually end up helping SEO and engaging with mobile users.

Make your mobile users satisfied and follow one of these methods:

  1. Responsive web design (RWD) – the server always sends the same HTML code to all devices and CSS.
  2. Dynamic showing – the server responds with different HTML (and CSS) on the same URL depending on the user agent requesting the page.
  3. Separate URLs – different URLs for displaying the site on the desktop and on mobile devices (i.e. example.com and m.example.com)

Check your mobile and desktop rankings.

Once Google announced that they started testing their mobile-first index, mobile rankings have become important for everyone. This makes total sense as mobile rankings differ from desktop. To check your mobile rankings with precise accuracy use SE Ranking SEO Software or similar software that handle this SEO task with ease and precision. 

Tip #3 – Promote the right pages

When search engines identify different URLs leading to the same web page, it creates a variety of problems for the website eventually resulting in a rankings drop and possible penalty. Try a few of the techniques below to help search spiders find the page that’s relevant for a specific search query.

Canonical attribute

To prevent duplicate content issues, you should add to relevant pages the element with rel=”canonical”. The search engine determines this web page as the primary one, and it will be shown in the search results.

Tip: However, use the canonical attribute as the last resort to avoid duplicate content. Before trying this element, you should try the following solutions:

  • Use multiple CSS files to make mobile versions of your web pages.
  • Put 301 redirects from your old pages to your new pages.
  • Update your robots.txt file with the list of unnecessary directories from search engines.

It is essential to use the canonical attribute the right way. If you put the wrong URLs, it can have a detrimental effect on your search engine rankings.

Breadcrumb navigation for product pages

Breadcrumbs serve as a great visual aid showing the location of the user within your site’s hierarchy. Without breadcrumbs on a product page, it’s difficult to find a collection of products that often causes users to get stuck on the product page.

It is essential for users to find certain products regardless of whether they are reaching the product page from a different part of the website or from another website.

Hierarchy breadcrumbs work well for search, non-linear paths and promotions because users can easily turn their attention to linear product browsing. 

A combination of these quick fixes between local and mobile search will help you improve your search rankings and sales results. Make sure to integrate these tips into the creation of your mobile site and become the king of local mobile search.

We hope if you were not familiar with SEO strategies, that at least now you know it’s possible to help your business gain more exposure. If you would like to discuss your business SEO with us, you can contact us here.

View our full range or services that are tailored specifically for your business.

Search Engine Optimisation

Website Design

Social Media Marketing 

To see samples of our work visit our Projects page here.

People that are new to SEO are often wondering whether mobile and local search go hand in hand.

Mobile and local search are a powerful SEO couple. When optimizing your website for mobile devices as a general SEO practice, you should optimize it for local search too.

Based on a comScore study, 61% of mobile users are searching for local things, and 58 % of respondents consider local search results reliable. Which means that the majority of websites have to be optimized for local SEO and mobile search.

All too often, the reason for the poor search results is a drawback of basic settings. By doing the following quick fixes, you will make sure that your mobile website is well-optimized for local search.

Tip #1 – Localise your SEO efforts

Everyone who serves their business communities face-to-face should care about their local SEO. Among these are brick-and-mortar businesses with physical locations (dentist offices, barber shops, real estate agencies, etc.) and service-area businesses operating in a certain geographic area (electricians, repair services, and so forth).

Today localization has a slightly different meaning. It is not just about changing a state, a city, a geographical region or a headline of your business, it should focus more on a neighborhood or a smaller locale. It includes everything from claiming a business listing to confirming that your business location appears in Google Local search. While also managing reviews, online ratings, and local-centric social media engagement.

On-page factors

All localized websites, even if they have a public domain, should create header tags and unique URLs for their specific location. Adding your region in your URL is a strong signal.

You should have a landing page for your location, specify the region name in the URL, and add toponym to the semantic core. If you have different locations, you can create a page where you can list each of your locations with a link to a map or with an H1 tag.

Creating a page with the contact info with the full address, postal code, phone number and store hours listed is a key differentiator. You can do this by adding your NAP to your Schema.org markup.

Google My Business

Once you are done with on-page factors, you should keep an eye on Google My Business to attract users’ attention to the fullest extent.

Your Google My Business Page should include your address, working hours, phone number, images, popular times, reviews, and links to your pages. Here’s our Google My Business account: 

Google-My-Business-2-Sons-Marketing

Make sure that the content on this page is consistent with your brand, the categories and description are on point, and the images are in high resolution.

Social signals

Links from social media sites are getting more and more juice, so updating your business social profiles on a regular basis is important. Adding social sharing buttons for a specific location could also prominently increase your local Google-search unit.

Online reviews

Once users find your business, they might check the reviews from your customers posted on different online directories, social media, forums, etc. The more reviews you get in your region, the better your local SEO will be.

Local search external location signals

External location signals involve the visibility of your NAP and other business information on online directories, such as Yellow Pages, Yelp, TripAdvisor, CitySearch, BBB.org, etc. It is essential to have the right NAP, as these online directories will extract your information from that. Some people also keep track of your reviews on these websites, and you should also pay attention to them.

Tip #2 – Be mobile-friendly

Today a growing number of mobile users look for local businesses every day. Based on comScore’s 2016 Mobile App Report, total digital media time increased by 53% in 2016, and 80% of that increase was due to mobile apps. That means that we need to adjust to this new world with mobile-focused efforts.

Check if your website meets Google’s requirements.

You can do this with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Online businesses need to make content available to their audiences where they spend most of their time. The focus is to have a mobile responsive website that will actually end up helping SEO and engaging with mobile users.

Make your mobile users satisfied and follow one of these methods:

  1. Responsive web design (RWD) – the server always sends the same HTML code to all devices and CSS.
  2. Dynamic showing – the server responds with different HTML (and CSS) on the same URL depending on the user agent requesting the page.
  3. Separate URLs – different URLs for displaying the site on the desktop and on mobile devices (i.e. example.com and m.example.com)

Check your mobile and desktop rankings.

Once Google announced that they started testing their mobile-first index, mobile rankings have become important for everyone. This makes total sense as mobile rankings differ from desktop. To check your mobile rankings with precise accuracy use SE Ranking SEO Software or similar software that handle this SEO task with ease and precision. 

Tip #3 – Promote the right pages

When search engines identify different URLs leading to the same web page, it creates a variety of problems for the website eventually resulting in a rankings drop and possible penalty. Try a few of the techniques below to help search spiders find the page that’s relevant for a specific search query.

Canonical attribute

To prevent duplicate content issues, you should add to relevant pages the element with rel=”canonical”. The search engine determines this web page as the primary one, and it will be shown in the search results.

Tip: However, use the canonical attribute as the last resort to avoid duplicate content. Before trying this element, you should try the following solutions:

  • Use multiple CSS files to make mobile versions of your web pages.
  • Put 301 redirects from your old pages to your new pages.
  • Update your robots.txt file with the list of unnecessary directories from search engines.

It is essential to use the canonical attribute the right way. If you put the wrong URLs, it can have a detrimental effect on your search engine rankings.

Breadcrumb navigation for product pages

Breadcrumbs serve as a great visual aid showing the location of the user within your site’s hierarchy. Without breadcrumbs on a product page, it’s difficult to find a collection of products that often causes users to get stuck on the product page.

It is essential for users to find certain products regardless of whether they are reaching the product page from a different part of the website or from another website.

Hierarchy breadcrumbs work well for search, non-linear paths and promotions because users can easily turn their attention to linear product browsing. 

A combination of these quick fixes between local and mobile search will help you improve your search rankings and sales results. Make sure to integrate these tips into the creation of your mobile site and become the king of local mobile search.

We hope if you were not familiar with SEO strategies, that at least now you know it’s possible to help your business gain more exposure. If you would like to discuss your business SEO with us, you can contact us here.

View our full range or services that are tailored specifically for your business.

Search Engine Optimisation

Website Design

Social Media Marketing 

To see samples of our work visit our Projects page here.

What is SEO and Why its Important

What is SEO and Why its Important

Having and applying a SEO strategy can Boost your Sales.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) seems pretty easy to many. You simply pick a few keywords, and bam! Your page is optimised for SEO.

Not really, not yet.

People understand the basic principles of SEO, but a lot has changed in the last decade.

The SEO that we know and love today is not the same SEO that we knew and loved (or hated) 10 years ago. That’s why SEO is something marketers should continue to define, and redefine.

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This makes your website more visible to people who are looking for solutions that your brand, product, or service can provide via search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

What has changed is the techniques we use to improve our rankings. This has everything to do with the search algorithms that these companies constantly change.

Some other frequently asked questions about SEO strategies today.

How Does SEO Work?

SEO works by optimising a website’s pages, conducting keyword research, and earning inbound links. You can generally see results of SEO efforts once the webpage has been crawled and indexed by a search engine.

A closer look: There are a ton of ways to improve the SEO of your site pages, though. Search engines look for elements including title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links (also known as backlinks). And that’s just to name a few.

Search engines also look at site structure and design, visitor behaviour, and other external, off-site factors to determine how highly ranked your site should be in their SERPs.

What Is an Organic Search?

Organic search refers to someone conducting a search through a search engine and clicking on a non-paid result. Organic search is a search marketing channel that can be used as part of inbound marketing to increase website traffic.

A closer look: In present-day SEO, you can’t simply include as many keywords as possible to reach the people who are searching for you. In fact, this will actually hurt your website’s SEO because search engines will recognise it as keyword stuffing — or the act of including keywords specifically to rank for that keyword, rather than to answer a person’s question.

Nowadays, you should use your keywords in your content in a way that doesn’t feel unnatural or forced. There isn’t a magic number — it all depends on the length of your keyword and article.

What Is SEO Strategy?

An SEO marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan to get more visitors to your website through search engines. Successful SEO includes on-page strategies, which use intent-based keywords; and off-page strategies, which earn inbound links from other websites.

A closer look: Before you create a new site page or blog post, you’ll probably be thinking about how to incorporate your keywords into your post. Whenever you create content, your focus should be on the intent of your audience, not how many times you can include a keyword (whether it’s long tail or short tail) in your content.

To satisfy intent and rank well in the long term, build your SEO marketing strategy around topics, not keywords. If you do that, you’ll find you can naturally optimise for important keywords, anyway. Understanding your target audience and what interests them is key to attracting relevant visitors to your website through search engines.

What Is Organic Traffic?

Organic traffic is unpaid traffic that comes from search engines such as Google or Bing. Paid search marketing does not increase your organic traffic numbers, but you can optimise your website using inbound marketing software to gain more visitors.

A closer look: One of the biggest changes in the last decade is the way other user behaviours shape the SERPs a user sees on search engines. And today, social media can have a big impact on your organic traffic trend line. Even just a few years ago, it didn’t make a difference who was finding your content through social search. But now SEO takes into account tweets, retweets, Google+ authorship, and other social signals.

Social search also prioritises content and people that are connected to you. That could mean through a Facebook friend, Twitter follower, or connection through another social network. Sometimes social search will even prioritise content that has been shared by an influencer. Social search understands that you may be interested in content that your network feels is important to share, and therefore it’ll often get surfaced to you.

This all means when you’re thinking about your SEO strategy, you need to think about how your social media strategy fits into the puzzle, too.

What Is Direct Traffic?

Direct traffic consists of website visitors that come to your website by typing the URL into their browser, rather than coming from another website, a search engine, or social media.

A closer look: Think of search engine optimisation as “search experience optimisation.” It’s not just important for your users to find your website — it’s important for them to stay on your website, interact with your content, and come back later. Direct traffic doesn’t just increase your “page authority” in the eyes of Google; it creates more opportunities to turn someone, who first discovered you organically, into a customer.

SEO actually takes into account whether or not your visitors are staying on your website and engaging with other content. If you rank well for a keyword and attract a visitor who isn’t relevant, it won’t actually help your website.

Think about your visitors and the content they are looking for more than how many people you can attract to your website.

The Importance of SEO

SEO is important because it helps people find information and discover pages on the world wide web. SEO is especially important for businesses as it ensures they’re answering their audience’s biggest questions on search engines, while driving traffic to their products and services.

A closer look: In the past, SEO success was measured by whether or not you were ranked high on the first page of Google. But even if you ranked well for a term, does that actually mean you’re going to see results?

You might rank really well for terms that aren’t ideal for your business. So you appear high on search engines, get a ton of traffic, but then your website visitors realise your company isn’t what they were looking for. You don’t convert customers from this traffic, and ranking high for this particular keyword is essentially fruitless.

Also, you don’t necessarily need to be in the top three slots to be successful. In fact, if you rank well on subsequent pages, you may still have a high clickthrough rate, albeit less traffic. That’s great news for marketers who can’t seem to bring pages into those top slots or off the second page.

We said it before and we’ll say it again: The amount of traffic to your page is less important than how qualified that traffic is.

How Much Does SEO Cost?

SEO can cost between $300 and $500 per month if you do it yourself with a keyword research tool. It can cost between $75 and $150 per hour for a consultant, and up to $10,000 per month if you hire a full-service marketing agency. Small businesses generally spend less on SEO than big brands.

A closer look: An SEO cost can mean one of two things: the investment in your organic search strategy, or how much you pay for paid search engine marketing (SEM) services like Google AdWords. If you’re paying for a tool, consultant, or marketing agency to help you optimise your web content, your bill can vary wildly with the depth of the services you’re receiving.

Yes, $10,000 sounds scary, but 40% of businesses today are actually spending less than $1,000 a month on SEO.

What Is Paid Search Engine Marketing?

Paid search engine marketing refers to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. This enables you to pay a search engine for text ads shown at the top and bottom of search engine results pages after someone conducts a search. It is used to increase website traffic and gain more customers.

A closer look: You can actually pay for top rankings on Google SERPs by registering for a free account on Google AdWords. You’ll then select various keywords you’d like to rank under, and pay Google each time a user clicks on your result. This is called PPC search engine marketing, and your ads will be noticeably different in their appearance than the organic results below them.

The average cost of a paid search campaign on Google can be less than $1 per click, but, naturally, the more popular the keyword, the more you might pay.

How to Do SEO

  • Conduct an audit of your website content.

  • Use keyword research tool to identify the keywords with which people are finding you.

  • Target new keywords you’d like to rank for.

  • Develop new content and optimise existing content.

  • Monitor your website’s performance.

  • Purchase inbound marketing or SEO software.

  • Examine the web pages that are performing well.

  • Look for opportunities to earn inbound links from similar websites.

  • Monitor your change in rankings and traffic.

It’s still the same thing it was 10 years ago — a bunch of tactics that, if you employ them, will help you rank better in search engines. It’s just the tactics we now use that have changed. If you’re new to SEO or would like to speak to use about your website and SEO strategy, you can contact us here.

It’s up to us to stay on top of the rapidly changing trends, and remember that ultimately, the goal of search engines is to deliver the best experience possible to their end-user — searchers. If you keep that goal in mind with your SEO strategy, you’ll find your choices pay off, even if you’re not totally up to date on every single nuance of search engine algorithms.

View our full range or services that are tailored specifically for your business.

Website Design

Search Engine Optimisation

Social Media Marketing 

To see samples of our work visit our Projects page here.

Google Mobile First Indexing

Google Mobile First Indexing

What is Google’s mobile first indexing and why should you care.

Do you have a mobile-friendly website?

If not, you might be in trouble. Google’s “mobile-first” update could see mobile websites appear earlier in the search results.

Google has rolled out a new algorithm update that could see mobile-friendly website appearing higher in google’s search results than desktop-only websites.

The update will rank webpages based on the quality of their mobile content, so if your mobile content isn’t up to scratch, your ranking in the search results could get hit, along with your website traffic, website enquiries and website conversions as a result.

You might think, “most people visiting my website aren’t using mobiles.” 

The bad news is the change is going to update the search results for both mobile and desktop users.

What does mean for your business? Basically, having a quality mobile version of a website will be more important than ever. The good news is that you have time to make sure your site is up to scratch.

Here’s what you should consider when evaluating your website for Google mobile first indexing:

1. Your website should be mobile responsive (mobile friendly) : if you don’t already have a mobile responsive website, get one now! A responsive website contains design elements that adapt to different screen sizes – from the widest desktop down to the smallest mobile and every size in between. That’s how you know if your website is mobile friendly? Check your website on your smart phone or tablet. If it looks, works and is readable on a smart device you could be safe. 

2. Optimise your website’s speed : website loading speed has always been important for SEO. Now it’s even more important with google’s mobile-first update. Try using google’s free mobile site speed tool to see how your webpage is performing. 

3. Create content for mobile devices : make the written content on your website easy to read by using short sentences and and easily digestible paragraphs. The layout of your website should also be clean and minimal wherever possible, with good use of white (blank) space. 

4. Say no to pop-ups : Google is planning to penalise websites with intrusive mobile pop-ups.If you have a pop-up on your website (an offer sign-up box, for example), consider integrating this into the body of the page instead.

5. Test, test and test : to some this may seem obvious, but one of the most important things you can do to ensure your website is ready for google’s mobile-first index is to test extensively on mobile devices. Keep an eye out for site speed, ease of navigation, and general layout and usability on mobile devices. Use tools like Screenfly to test your website at different screen resolutions – which you should do any time you make changes.

Related article: How website design has changed

Increase your online visibility, reach and engagement with2 Sons Marketing.
Want to get more reviews for your business online, while also getting found by more customers? It’s time speak with about your website, search engine optimisation or social media marketing. You can contact us here

View our full range or services that are tailored specifically for your business.

Website Design

Search Engine Optimisation

Social Media Marketing 

To see samples of our work visit our Projects page here.