SEO

The difference between organic and paid for search engine optimisation

Paul TagentLeave a comment

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential component of any digital marketing strategy. It involves optimising your website’s content and structure to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more traffic to your site. The best and most effective SEO is achieved through combining both organic and paid methods as each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

What is organic SEO?
Organic SEO is the process of optimising your website’s content and structure to rank higher in search results pages naturally. It involves creating high-quality, relevant content that is optimised for specific keywords and phrases, as well as improving your website’s technical structure and user experience (UX). Building a strong, organic position in search is a long-term strategy that takes time and effort to implement, but it can yield significant results in terms of increased traffic, engagement, and conversions; 33.59% of people searching click the results that show organically.

One of the main advantages of organic SEO is that it is cost-effective in the long run. While it may take time and effort to see results, once you have achieved a high-ranking position in the search results, you can continue to generate traffic and leads without having to pay for each click or impression. Additionally, organic SEO can improve your website’s credibility and authority, as search engines like Google tend to favour sites with high-quality content and a strong user experience.

What is Paid SEO?
As it says, paid SEO, involves paying for advertisements that appear in search engine results pages. Paid SEO, also known as search engine marketing (SEM), involves creating ads that are displayed at the top of the search results page for specific keywords and phrases. Although the percentage of people clicking ads is lower than organic results, paid SEO can be a highly effective way to generate traffic and leads quickly, as you can target specific audiences and pay for clicks or impressions.

One of the main advantages of paid SEO is that it can generate results quickly, often within hours or days of launching a campaign. Paid SEO can also provide highly targeted traffic, as you can target specific keywords, geographic locations, and demographics. Additionally, paid SEO can be highly flexible, as you can adjust your campaign settings and budget as needed to achieve your desired results.

However, paid SEO can be expensive, especially for highly competitive keywords and phrases. For example, terms like ‘business services’ can cost over £60 per click. Additionally, paid SEO does not improve your website’s credibility or authority in the same way that organic SEO does, as search engines prioritise organic results over paid results.

In conclusion, both organic and paid SEO have their advantages and disadvantages, and the best approach will depend on your specific business goals and budget. Organic SEO is a long-term strategy that requires time and effort to implement, but can provide sustainable, cost-effective results. Paid SEO, on the other hand, can provide quick results and highly targeted traffic, but can be expensive and does not improve your website’s credibility and authority in the same way that organic SEO does. By understanding the differences between organic and paid SEO, you can make an informed decision about which approach is right for your business.

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Is Content marketing good for SEO

Paul TagentLeave a comment

A fact about content

Original and quality content gives Google and its spiders more to look at on your website aiding your organic SEO. This gives you a higher position in search and ultimately generate more clicks to your website, blog and/or online shop.

How and why?

Google likes to see activity on a website and a blog is likely to be the part of your site that you will most frequently update with new information to keep readers engaged.Each new article or post creates a new page with a new URL and hence, allows you to optimise it accordingly. Your content is also vital for building consumer trust, but also for Google SERPs (search engine page results). 

But why is organic SEO so important? 

Regular Content

Organic SEO matters because a staggering 75 percent of searchers don’t even click past the first page of results. If you’re not ranking on that first page when people search for what you offer, you guessed it — your website won’t get any traffic which ultimately means your site will struggle to bring you sales or enquiries.

This means that having well written, authentic and helpful content which gives the reader some value by, for example, answering a question, actually develops relationships with them. Similarly, written (or video) tutorials and how-to guides are a great way to engage your audience and help them. Most content on websites are factual – About Us, What We do, Contact Us….whereas the content you create on a blog or a video really allows you to create a personality for your company. 

Consumers look beyond traditional marketing tactics nowadays and crave more unique and engaging online content. Put simply, today, customers expect high-quality, consistent content from their favourite brands and this is why some organisations rank so well in Google. 

How often should content be generated?

Sit down for this, but ideally weekly. Weekly content is what is suggested by Google as the best way to see increased traction from your content marketing. But, if you are already posting content, it might be just as beneficial to go back and update that content first, especially if after a little while, you want to give certain posts a boost. This is because Blog post traffic is compounding, which means it gains organic results over time. This is why updating posts are important. This gives you more reads, more recognition, and possibly, more subscribers or ‘fans.’

Another way of using content is by engaging the services of an ‘Influencer,’ who is a personality endorsing your product or service via social media. I’ll write a post on this next.

Is there anything you’d like to know about? Drop me a line 01225 436426. 

Research your customer and use Google to target them

Paul TagentLeave a comment
Google. SEO

When it comes to knowing your customer, are there any seasonal trends that will allow you to focus on with targeted marketing or times the year where that service is required more than others like accountancy at the financial year end? Similarly, is there an existing media that is seen by your potential customers like a trade magazine or website? 

A great deal of success is down to the use of the little grey cells; the thought process, the rationale….the strategy. No one wins any prizes for launching a website.in 1 hour for £50. Take time to research your customer, their buying behaviour, their market, what they read, where they go etc. Take time to develop your ‘offer’ to them and take time to make sure your offer is going to resonate with them and take time to design it. 

Nowadays we only have to turn on the TV to see corporate companies offering to make a website in a few hours or to design a logo in 15 minutes. Surely something as important to marketing shouldn’t be signed, sealed and delivered in less time that it takes to do a gym workout? Not only that but we all know that Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are awash with pointless accounts published because they are free and easy to set up only to stand still after the initial posting stampede! 

Time is a valuable commodity whatever sector you are in so use it wisely. I remember an old road safety campaign that said. Stop. Look. Listen. Do the same with your marketing. 

Also, have a serious think about who is best placed in your organisation to do marketing. If it is you, do you have the time or the expertise or even the inclination? If it is someone else in the business whose job title is marketing, can they do everything an external specialist could do? Do they need support in specialist areas like SEO?

On the subject of SEO, please, please, please, invest in this area of marketing. Invest in a professionally designed and built website that can be optimised for Google. 

Remember, Google has a huge market share (over 92%) and it also has more than just the search network to display the results. There is a common misconception that Google finds websites. It sort of does, but it mainly finds pages. This means you MUST use other digital platforms to spread your message and attract your customer. Content marketing is vital when it comes to being visible online for example. These SERPS (search engine page results) can include organic search results, paid Google Ads results, blog posts, whitepapers and YouTube videos so do your research, construct a strategy and get marketing!

Local listings do help marketing

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As the struggle to get your business noticed continues, have you thought about local listings?

Basically, if your business has a physical presence, you must get it listed in all the major local directories. Quality directories are still important. Google just changed the name AGAIN. The new name is “Google My Business”. (Old names were Google Places, Google Plus Local, Google Local.) Google has the lion’s share of searches so this is your priority.

Listings in Google

Make sure you use exactly the same name, address, and phone number on every local listing. You can also upgrade your listings with images, videos, mentions of cities and counties you serve, categories that apply, coupons and deals.

Beyond Google there are many more local listing opportunities like Thompson local, Free Index . These are valuable links you can easily get that will help your business site or blog rank better. Even if you are an online only business, if you have a physical location to use do not pass up these listings!

Internet facts for marketing

Paul TagentLeave a comment

According to a recent Nielsen consumer survey:

  1. 86.3% of people indicated the Internet is now vital to their lifestyle
  2. 74% of people determine who to do business with locally using online computerised search engines such as Google and Yahoo
  3. 50% use Internet yellow pages to find new and existing products and services
  4. 65% still use printed yellow pages

The Internet is now the most popular way your existing and potential new customers use to find you. The survey also found:

  1. 67% prefer online yellow pages to traditional printed books
  2. 84% say using the Internet is a much faster way to find local businesses
  3. 63% say the business listings on the Internet are more current
  4. 86% had already used the Internet to find a local business
  5. 78% use the Internet more today than they did last year (Internet usage is still growing)
  6. 52% use the printed yellow pages LESS than they did two years ago
  7. Of those who indicated Internet use is vital, 90% had used the Internet to search for local businesses
  8. 80% of Internet users research their purchases online and 70% then buy within 20 minutes from home

Did you know that your existing clients and neighbours are using online directories instead of the yellow pages telephone book to look up phone numbers and find new businesses?

Get your business listed locally and reap the rewards!

What’s a page title or meta description…

Paul TagentLeave a comment

To help with all he jargon, the below 5 points defines the five
key parts of a Web site that should help in the search results process.

Page Title – The page title text is located between the open and close tags
within the tags. If the title does not exist or is less than eight characters,
the URL is used in place of the title. The page title is the first line of text
that people see when viewing the search results paragraph and is formatted with
a link to the Web site. Each Web page should have a different page title.100 characters is the suggested length.

Meta Description – The meta description tag describes the content of the Web
page. The meta description tag is located within within the tags and formatted
as follows:

Each Web page should have a different meta description tag. – Maximum length is
150 characters.

Body Text – The body text contains the first 300 characters found on the website.
Active Search Results stores the first 1,000 characters of the website and uses
the first 1,000 characters in its indices to provide search results.

Meta Keywords – The meta keywords tag provides to the search engine words to
index the site. Web searchers will type in words to search on and the closer
those words are to the meta keywords on the Web page, the higher the ranking
will be for that Web page. – Maximum length is 100 characters.

Page URL – The Web site’s URL is displayed as the last line of the search
results paragraph to make it clear where the title link points to.

Hope this helps….

tags within the

tags. If the title does not exist or is less than eight characters, the URL is used in place of the title. The page title is the first line of text that people see when viewing the search results paragraph and is formatted with a link to the Web site. Each Web page should have a different page title. – Maximum length is 100 characters.

Meta Description – The meta description tag describes the content of the Web page. The meta description tag is located within within the

tags and formatted as follows:

Each Web page should have a different meta description tag. – Maximum length is 150 characters.

Body Text – The body text contains the first 300 characters found on the website. Active Search Results stores the first 1,000 characters of the website and uses the first 1,000 characters in its indices to provide search results.

Meta Keywords – The meta keywords tag provides to the search engine words to index the site. Web searchers will type in words to search on and the closer those words are to the meta keywords on the Web page, the higher the ranking will be for that Web page. – Maximum length is 100 characters.

Page URL – The Web site’s URL is displayed as the last line of the search results paragraph to make it clear where the title link points to.

SEO is not just a box ticked

Paul TagentLeave a comment

When it comes to getting the best from your website, a lot of emphasis should be placed on how it performs in search and, just as you’d expect to scope out a website design and development project, so too must you scope out a search engine optimization effort.

In Bath Marketing Consultancy’s opinion, SEO shouldn’t be something that is just asked for as a generalist service from marketing companies. It is an essential part of online marketing and, if organisations are prepared to spend money on their websites, they should also be spending money on ensuring that the site is found.

So, questions that I would normally ask clients and/or prospects are –

  • Who’s going to write the content?
  • Who is responsible for PR efforts?
  • Who is handling social marketing?
  • Who’s doing link building?
  • Who’s restructuring the website, as necessary?

Yes, the foundations can be done during the actual website build, but ongoing SEO is the key to success. Work with a specialist, agree a budget, allocate who is doing what and then work together to achieve your goals.

Search Engine Optimization – what not to do.

Paul TagentLeave a comment
Play with a straight bat.
Following on from my previous article about what to do for SEO, please find Bath Marketing Consultancy’s list of don’ts –
1. Avoid cloaking – Cloaking is when you give your visitors one page and then give search engines another page. Google and its friends want to see and index what your visitors see. Getting caught cloaking can have dire consequences on your site ranking.
2. Avoid keyword stuffing/spamming – This is stuffing your webpage with keywords that are only intended at tricking the search engines. Google is wise to this so, to get the best outcome, just write your text, with keywords in mind, towards your audience.
3. Avoid using flash or javascript for your navigation methods – Search engines usually can’t read these, or read them well enough to be dependable. Always use standard html links to be sure your site is easily walk able by search engine spiders.
4. Don’t submit your webpage url too often, if at all – You can submit your url directly to search engines, though search engines prefer to find your website via a backlink or incoming link. Resubmitting weekly or monthly can heavily damage your ranking with the search engines.
5. Avoid the “quickly get submitted to thousands of search engines” deals – While many of these do what they say, keep in mind that 98-99% of all search engines are powered by Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Just keep these 3 in mind and you’re covered.
6. Don’t forget backlinks – Link popularity plays very large into how your site is ranking by search engines, and is always a key element of SEO. Miss the backlinks part, and your SEO will suffer quite a bit.
7. Avoid excessive graphics and flash presentations – This is not to alter how the search engine looks at your site (directly), but at how your visitors view your site. There are many ways to make an effective website without overloading your visitors, and if a website takes more than 5 seconds to load, you will likely lose your visitor before they even get to visit your website.
To me SEO is about ticking the right boxes and making things relevant and easy for Google. Yes, there are tricks of the trade, but playing with a straight bat and making your site relevant, trustworthy and, above all, trustworthy will really help in effective SEO.