SEO is for life, not just for Christmas

Posted on March 28, 2020 by Andy Poulton

I am frequently asked “when should I stop doing my SEO?” I suspect that this is because people are looking to stop either working on their website or paying somebody else to do the SEO on their website

The answer, which might not be easy listening for some, is that you can only stop when either you have taken over all of your competition, when all of your competition cease to exist, or Google stops updating the way it ranks websites and your business website sites at the top of Page 1

I agree that it would be great if one could create a website, ensure that it is fully search optimised, click “publish” and watch the magic happen as people flock to the website and make purchases or submit enquiries.

And a lot of businesses still think that this is the way that things should be done. Great thought, and money, is invested in the design, the content, the logo, the colurs etc but SEO tends to be at the bottom of the list.

I have lost count of the times that I have been asked to optimise a new website and spent time with the owner discussing the changes that are required to ensure that the site can be efectivly optimised, rather than just paying lip-service to the requirements.

Sometimes a root and branch rebuild is the only way forwards.

The reality is that SEO should be as an important part of the website planning, development and build as the thought put in to the logo, the colours used, the pages required etc. It should be there, from the beginning – not considered an afterthought.

And once optimised, many website owners think “that’s it, site optimised, job done”.

The problem is that it can take several months for the SEO to have an impact (see “how long does SEO take” for more info). And you will probably find that your site ins’t in the hallowed top spot on Page 1. Your site might not even be on Page 1 so more work will be required.

And while you are doing this, so will your competitors – they’ll be trying to beat your website and working on their sites so you will have to keep working on yours.

And then there’s all the changes and updates that Google makes to the way that it measures and ranks websites – you need to be on top of those in case any changes made by Google have a negative impact on your website. And Google makes, on average, 9-10 changes PER DAY, every day

You should ONLY stop your SEO when one of 3 states is reached

You take over ALL of your competition and prevent new startups from competing with you
Your business is so good that all of your competitors fail
You have reached the top of Page 1 and Google stops changing things

Daily changes to Google Search

In 2018 Google ran over 654,000 experiments. These will have been carried out by Google’s AI engines, trained external Search Raters and live tests. The outcome being 3,234 improvements to search, or 9 a day

We’ll never get to know, and understand, the majority of these improvements because most of them will be tweaks to the system. However, significant changes are often announced by Google or can be tracked by businesses interested in Google’s updates and quite a few people have published lists of known algorithm updates such as here, here and here.

The Competition

Carry out any search on Google and you’ll be presented with millions of results. Even a search for “jumpers for rats” returns over 6m results.

And we know, or should know, that a Page 1 result is all that really matters.

Why do Page 1 search results matter so much

That’s really simple to answer. Research shows that just 50% of Google users ever make it from Page 1 on to Page 2 of the search results and just 10% make it on to Page 3

Chart showing how many visitors to page 1 of Google and beyond. — *Image credit Backlinko*

Maintain, Maintain, Maintain. Keeping your site up to date

Once launched, your website is never “finished”. You need to be constantly checking to make sure that it’s performing as required, and investigating where it is performing poorly and put solutions in place.

You need to be frequently adding fresh content (a blog/news page for example), an “un-maintained site is a doomed site” as they say – and Google emphasise this on its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines:

Some websites are not maintained or cared for at all by their webmaster. These “abandoned” websites will fail to achieve their purpose over time, as content becomes stale or website functionality ceases to work on new browser versions. Unmaintained websites should be rated Lowest if they fail to achieve their purpose due to the lack of maintenance.

In 20 years of SEO I have only had to re-skill myself about 20 times to stay current and up to date. The ONLY thing that hasn’t changed is that SEO is always changing. If your website fails to stay current then your website will wither on the Google vine.

The good sites will prosper, the poor sites – owned by lazy businesses – will be left behind. SEO is not just for Christmas

If you want any help with your digital marketing please don’t hesitate to get in touch for an informal chat by email (andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk) by phone (01793 238020) or ask me on Social Media – Linkedin or Twitter and I’ll be only too happy to talk.Thanks for reading and I hope you stay well

Find me: https://seo.enterprise-oms.uk/ | andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk
Follow me: Twitter ¦ Linkedin
Phone me: 01793 238020 ¦ 07966 547146

Corona Virus & Marketing

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Andy Poulton

SEO, Email, Blog, Social Media page header

Don’t make knee jerk decisions with your marketing budget.

Remember, In the middle of the storm it can be difficult to see anything but chaos but the storm will pass. Your best defence is to do everything that you can to still be standing when the storm passes.

The purpose of this post is to give you some marketing things that you can be thinking about during these troubled times and to make an offer that will save you £50.00 on one of my services so that your website can come fighting fit on the other side of the Corona Virus pandemic.

When I was working as a business consultant during the 2008 recession I heard of many businesses who chopped their marketing budgets as a reaction to the turn-down. They then wondered why they weren’t attracting any new business and as their competitors recovered they were left behind.

Businesses that I was working with at the time recognised that there was an opportunity to step in to the gap left by companies which appeared to have disappeared. They took more considered action, reduced their marketing budget and put plans in place to ramp marketing back up once it was clear that the recession was coming to an end.

This put these clients in a prime position and they went on to prosper.

In these troubled times this is the action that you should consider. I know that times are dark, and likely to get darker, but if we don’t think positively and plan to still be here when the Covid-19 pandemic recedes then I know that some of us won’t be in business when that time comes around.

The role technology plays in business continuation

Working from home, and in self-isolation, will be new to many people. Technology will have provided you with an opportunity to work from wherever you, and your staff, are with the only requirements being a device (desktop/laptop, phone or tablet) and an internet connection.

Cloud based audio and video conference solutions help maintain teams and enable client communications. Skype, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Slack, WhatsApp and more prove both free and subscription options to communicate, train, make presentations and simply remain in touch.

As more of us work form home it’s likely that online search behaviour will change as more people mix business searches with personal during their working day.

How will your business cope?

As with any crisis, how your company responds is key, are you calm and taking action or are you panicking?

Either way, here are a number of things that you can be working on when faced with the current situation

Stay ahead of your competition

If you pause your marketing activities and your competitors don’t who do you think will be in a prime position when things begin to improve? Stay in touch with your clients using eMail, Video and Social Media, Keep an eye on search trends, are there any opportunities that you can make use of.

Remember that SEO is a long term strategy

I know that SEO is one of the services that I provide but it is worth remembering that it IS a long term strategy, taking weeks or months to have a proper impact so give your Search Engine Optimisation due consideration when reviewing your marketing budget. Google’s servers and algorithms won’t be taking a break.

Don’t buy cheap SEO

I know that it might be tempting to take up one of those “all you can eat” SEO offers at £75.00 per month but the risk to your business could be a lot greater than the small amount of money that you’d save. As the marketplace improves you could find yourself left with no rankings, no traffic to your website and possibly penalties from Google from trying to game the system.

Move offline marketing spend online

If people aren’t going out and about they are not going to be looking at advertising hoardings and billboards. They’re not going to be seeing “in-store” marketing either so think about whether you could shift some of your offline budget online to make up for this.

Understand search trends

By understanding trends in search you’ll be in an ideal position to leap on any opportunities and’or changes in direction. By keeping an eye on how people are searching you’ll be able to create content that meets the needs of those searchers. Google Trends is a really great way to stay on top of this

Produce more digital content

Consider using this as an opportunity to create those webinars you’ve been thinking of. By 2025 research is estimating that online learning will be worth about $158 Bn. Lessons learned now will be incredibly valuable going forward. Think about adding video conferencing and video calling to your communication options to reduce face-to-face meeting but stay in touch with key contacts, potential clients and your market.

Free 40 minute Website and SEO Consultancy

I’m still offering my Free Consultancy sessions and am more than happy to conduct them over the phone or by video link

Detailed Website and SEO Review – Special Offer

Save £50.00 on an in-depth website and SEO review

And if you want something to listen too, have a listen to some of my Podcasts, you can find them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and my website.

Find me: https://seo.enterprise-oms.uk/ | andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk
Follow me: Twitter ¦ Linkedin
Phone me: 01793 238020 ¦ 07966 547146

Have you heard of The SMOG* Test?

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Andy Poulton

It’s nothing to do with clean air but IS all about the readability of your website.

Did you know that the average reading age in the UK is 12-13 years and that a significant number of visitors to your website may have English as their second language?

If you haven’t given this any thought then you are probably losing visitors and business because your words could act as an impenetrable barrier and you could be losing custom.

Not only that but Google take more than a passing interest in readability.

There is a simple tool that you can use to calculate the reading age of your site and you really should apply this RIGHT NOW.

All you have to do is go to www.read-able.com, copy some text from your website that you want to test and paste it in to the “TEST BY DIRECT INPUT”

Your pages will be parsed through 6 different tests [including the SMOG* test] and the individual results will be displayed together with an average.

Take a look at the Readability Test results

As you can see, the test results for the text that I pasted show that the reading age is 15-16 years and so a little owrk is required.

The results are provided in both age and US Grade Levels and you can find a simple Grade to Age comparison here.

Alternatively you could also try the “Drayton Bird test” by reading your content out loud. If it sounds like one side of a conversation the you are probably on the right track, if it sounds stilted and disjointed you need to go back to the drawing board!

How to make your text easier to read

If you need help with making your text easier to read you could turn to the free Hemmingway App for help.

In the screenshot, above, you can see that the App has highlighted areas for improvement, and as you make edits you’ll see the reading age on the right-hand side of the page reduce, and the highlighted text will start to disapear.

After a “first pass” you can see that the reading age has already come down. And if I paste this text in to Read-Able you can see that the reading age has fallen to 12-13, much closer to the target, and achieved without any Dumbing Down

And if you need any help with your website, search engine optimisation, social media, email marketing or any other form of online activity then all you have to do is #AskAndyP

Ring Me:   01793 238020 07966 547146
Email Me:   andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk
Find Me:   Linkedin Twitter
Visit Me:   Bowman House, Whitehill Lane, Royal Wootton Bassett, Wilts, SN4 7DB

*SMOG – Simple Measure of Gobbledygook

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Monthly Archives: March 2020