SEO Peak District (Search Engine Optimisation)

SEO, or ‘search engine optimisation’, is the process of optimising the technical and content elements of a website and individual webpages to improve search engine rankings and drive organic traffic. As webpage visibility increases, so too will the number of potential customers who click through to your website and view your products & services.

In its early days, SEO mainly involved optimising content, technical set up and site structure. These factors are still critically important of course but off-site factors such as customer reviews and backlinks play a major role in scaling up search rankings.

SEO is broadly split into 3 main areas:

On-page SEO
Includes elements that impact a site’s ranking performance that are hosted on your website’s content management system (CMS). For instance, webpage content, blog content, titles, headers, metadata etc.

Off-page SEO
Factors that affect page ranking performance that are hosted externally and not on your website. These include backlinks, user reviews, third-party articles, directories etc.

Technical SEO
Variables that impact the ability of Google or other search engines to read, crawl and index your website. These variables may include mobile friendliness, site speed, duplicate content, site architecture, structured data or site security (SSL-HTTPS).

SEO is a medium-long term strategy but the amount of time, hard work and dedication it requires is worth it if you’re looking for a steady stream of new sales leads in the future.

Marketers have many weapons in their armoury, but SEO is arguably the most effective marketing strategy to attract prospects and win new customers. Businesses that struggle to increase web traffic and have no in-house marketing or SEO expertise will benefit from a period of SEO strategising, website optimisation, content creation and offsite linking.

• SEO return on investment can reach 12x marketing spend. (Terrakeet).
• Effective SEO strategies can reduce the cost of acquiring new customers by over 87%. (Terrakeet).
• Organic first position in Google search engine results pages (SERPS) can result in a click through rate (CTR) of over 34%. CTR drops to 11.4% for third position. (Sistrix).

Taking advantage of the power of SEO can give your business a major competitive advantage and drive huge increases in website traffic that translate into leads, new customer relationships and revenue.

An SEO audit is an excellent way to discover and prioritise problems or weak areas on your website that are holding back organic search performance. Much like a car service, SEO audits looks under the bonnet to analyse how your site aligns with Google ranking signals (there are more than 200!) and compares it against the competition. All successful SEO strategies start with a comprehensive SEO audit by a competent professional.

What does an SEO audit measure?

• Domain characteristics and HTTPS issues.
• Web page engagement and keyword cannibalisation.
• Content quality, length and duplication.
• URL and content organisation/architecture.
• Check for page indexing issues.
• Structured data and schema markup.
• Technical SEO factors (code/image optimisation, XML sitemaps, Robots.txt, site speed).
• Internal and external link profiles.
• Mobile usability performance.
• Check organic traffic and user engagement (Google Analytics).
• Core web vitals.
• On-page elements (title tags, meta descriptions, H1/2/3 tags).

Contact me to book an SEO audit.

When I’m looking for legal services, a builder, private tutor or an investments manager, I will search for businesses within my geographical area and not those located at the other end of the country. For example, I may search for legal services in greater Manchester or SEO consultant in Stockport. Local SEO is an art in itself and enables businesses to rank well against locally based search terms. Businesses that are based in a physical location or serve a certain geographical area can benefit from local SEO.

Benefits:

• Online visibility – your business is more easily discoverable through SERPS by prospective customers.
• Web traffic is more targeted – you attract site visitors in your area that a more likely to purchase your products and services will increase sales conversion rates.
• More inbound calls – optimising Google Business Profiles alongside onsite content optimisation can lead to more enquiries and leads.
• Build trust and brand recognition in your area.
• Improved online competitiveness.
• A launchpad to extend your catchment areas.

There is no correct answer to this question as it depends on several factors. It can take at least 6 months to notice ranking gains from your SEO efforts with 6-12 months being an ideal timeframe. 12 months is a long enough period to assess the impact of SEO efforts and to justify ongoing investment into SEO marketing strategies.

However, like a diet, SEO is not a one-time thing that stops once you reach your target ranking (or weight!). It requires some effort every month to retain ranking performance and to keep growing your website traffic – whether that be consistent content creation & optimisation, off-page link building, or targeting of new keywords.

What factors affect ranking times?

• Your website history – new domains typically take longer to rank due to low domain authority and few backlinks. It may take another 3-6 months compared to an existing domain.
• Keyword/sector competitiveness – SEO gains can be realised more quickly in low competition niches where keyword search volumes are low. Conversely, sectors with high keyword difficulty (KD %) such as personal finance, gambling and SEO (incidentally!) can take years of dedication to reach Google’s first page.
• Time and resources – this should be obvious but the more time and effort invested in SEO activity the faster you will see results.

Generating valuable, insightful and engaging website content is central to engaging your audiences and improving search engine visibility. Whether that’s webpage copy, blog articles, product/service pages, videos or landing pages, all content should be tailored to the keywords you wish to rank for. High quality content remains the most important ranking factor in SEO, although technical optimisation and backlinks remain crucial to cementing top spots in SERPs. Investing in high quality website content is a fundamental strategy to attracting more customers and visitors to your website.

Benefits of high quality content

• Users stay on your website for longer.
• Improve user experience.
• You answer the questions users have (search intent).
• Generate high click-through rates (CTR).
• Generate inbound backlinks.
• Demonstrate E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness).
• Build search engine credibility.
• Better social media engagement.