SEO Services UK
We Help Companies to Improve Their Google Ranking Using AI-Powered SEO services
SEO Services Perfectly Customized to Industry Standards
What exactly can I expect to get from YubeeOne SEO services?
In short, you get niche keywords with high search demands, ranking among the top in Google.
Keyword research
Keyword ranking
Traffic Growth
Performance Metrics
Engaging in fruitful partnerships for a successful outcome
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical.
Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially.
SEO services explained in short
Below is the core description that covers what we are focusing on when we deliver SEO services.
Quality content & prominence
Google expects sites on top 10 positions to have quality text which is backed up by third-party prominence.
Prominence refers to how well-known a business is and also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles, and directories).
YubeeOne delivers on-going services to build your Company online prominence. Is practically impossible to rank among top 10 positions without a high Trust Flow Score, that is exactly what your website get when we build prominence.
Visitor Growth
When your website has quality content added and backed up by prominence score, we also build something called Majestic Trust Flow Score.
In short, a higher Trust Flow Score backed up with quality content improves your rankings, and that bring visitor growth.
Google Analytics
Via Google Analytics, we can measure the success of organic traffic.
What is the increase in traffic and goal completions such as more leads, sales and inquires? What is the cost per acquired sale, lead, inquiry? (CPA)
SEO traffic provides on average 300% more clicks, inquiries and sales at one-third of the cost when compared to any other digital marketing channel.
Done right, it is the most profitable marketing channel online today.
Want Free SEO Quotes?
All the Lorem Ipsum generators lorem ipsum.
Our pricing plans
Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend.
Trial Plan
We understand that an on-going cost of SEO services can be scary until you feel safe and confident that SEO brings more income to your business than what it cost.
That is why we created a trial plan that allows you to test-drive our SEO services with a lowered barrier.
- 3 Keywords Optimized
- Keyword research
- Web site Analysis
- Monthly report
- Access to AI SEO Hub
€990Per Month
Popular
Advance Plan
The real money gained from SEO is when your website ranking for high competitive keywords that have a large market in search volume.
This required a bigger network of prominence and at higher levels from high authority third-party sources.
The Advance Plan get you covered and will improve your rankings and allows you to scale up the online incomes.
- 10 Kewords Optimized
- Keyword analysis
- Web site Analysis
- Monthly report
- Access to AI SEO Hub
€2990Per Month
Premium Plan
The premium plan is for clients that already got proof via the Advance Plan that SEO is the king of delivering most clicks and conversions (like a sale or inquires) with the lowest cost per acquisition. Now is the time to be even more serious about SEO by scaling it up with more keywords.
Many clients move funds from existing Google Ads budget and instead use the same amount to upgrade to Premium Plan.
- 15 - 20 Keywords Optimized
- Keyword research
- Web site Analysis
- Monthly report
- Access to AI SEO Hub
€4990Per Month
Organic vs Paid Search: Why SEO Marketing Generates More Clicks
Keywords to optimize the article for: organic vs paid search, SEO agency, SEO services
If you’re worried that your site won’t get any traffic if it’s further down in search engines, you’re right to think about this. In fact, 92% of people don’t even bother to click past the first page of results when making a Google search!
Fortunately, there are ways that you can get your page at the top of Google searches and drive traffic to your website. As someone who runs a business, you probably have heard a bit about organic vs paid search results as well as SEO services, but you likely are still a bit unclear about what this means. If that’s still hazy, then it’s even less likely that you know which is better for getting a higher volume of clicks on your business website!
Here, we’re going to define what each of these services is and what an SEO agency can provide. Then, we’ll compare and contrast these two kinds of services to figure out which is better for growing businesses. Read on if you want to be successful in growing your business and reaching potential clientele.
42% CTR (click rate) on position one in Google organic search
Top one positions in Google organic search strengthen your brand name
SEO provides on average 300% more clicks, inquiries and sales at one third of the cost when compared to any other digital marketing channel.
What Are SEO Services?
The best way to drive traffic to your webpage is by using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services. While you’ve likely heard this common term before, you may still be interested to learn what it means and how using this strategy can get you clicks. Read on to learn why hiring a reputable SEO agency is the right choice for any budding business in all industries!
Defining SEO
SEO is basically the optimisation of your place in search engines to put you onto higher pages than you otherwise would be. For example, if you were on page 5 of Google results before using SEO, you can bump yourself to the first page after hiring an SEO agency.
On the most basic level, SEO is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. It does this by increasing the visibility of your webpage to those who use web search engines like Google.
Keyword Usage
One of the main ways that these services boost rankings is by using keywords that relate to your goods and services and placing them into blog posts that go on your webpage.
Using tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush, SEO experts can see the highest volume keywords that people search in relation to your webpage. This basically refers to the keywords that people have clicked your site the most often after searching. By upping the number of times that this keyword is seen on your webpage, you can show search engine crawlers that you’re the most relevant page relating to those keywords.
Backlinking
A good SEO agency doesn’t slack off when it comes to showing these search engine crawlers that you have a reputable, high-quality webpage, either. A major part of this process is the use of backlinks, which are links inserted into keyword-optimised blog posts to relevant and reputable websites.
As long as you have quality backlinks- a fact that an SEO agency will confirm before putting them into the blog post- Google crawlers will recognise your site as credible, too. In associating you with other reputable pages, you’ll be bumped up to their level and beyond.
You also will reap benefits if other pages use your blog as a backlink! You can get other pages to link back to your website by purchasing guest posting services that pair you up with related pages. You can also simply form relationships with other companies who will request your page be linked to when they hire SEO professionals.
The Effects of SEO
SEO may sound like a lot of work, but it actually is no work for you. An SEO agency will do all the research on what keywords and backlinks to include, and they’ll also hire experienced professional writers to create original content that people are sure to be interested in reading.
Despite the fact that you need to do zero work to get SEO services, you’ll get many effects. Here are just a couple of examples:
Within six months, your page will move up a few pages in search engines.
The higher your webpage is, the lower it pushes your competitors. This will ensure that people use your services over those of your competitors.
More SEO professionals will use your page as a backlink for other page’s blog posts. SEO is a cycle- the more you invest in it, the more you’ll naturally gain!
The Benefits of Organic Rankings
Okay, so now you understand that SEO boosts your rankings in search engines and that it’s a tool that’s meant to help organic searches for your business. But what does it mean to rank organically? How does this drive traffic and ultimately lead to more sales for your company? Read on to answer these questions (and more)!
What Does It Mean to Rank Organically?
Ranking organically means that your page will get more traffic naturally rather than you having to pay for it. The traffic that your blog gets will be due to the fact that it’s high-caliber content, which benefits you in a few ways. First, when people click on your blog posts, they’re more likely to read what your site has to offer. This makes them more likely to seek out your services.
Furthermore, organic traffic is cyclical. Because you’ll rank highly in the keywords most searched before clicking on your website, you’re going to get more people clicking on your page with these already high-volume keywords. The fact that more people will click on your page means that your page will be even more linked to these keywords and ultimately keep it in a high-up position in the search results.
Basically, the higher that you rank organically, the higher you’ll continue to rank organically in the future!
Ranking Your Awesome Website
Also, if you want to boost the organic traffic of your website, you’re going to need to update your home page as well as your navigation. You’ll want a user-friendly site that appeals to the consumer.
This will keep people on your page longer and drive more clicks. They won’t leave your page too quickly to see what you have to offer, and you’ll sell more goods. Therefore, you’ll become more reputable to search engine crawlers.
In order to ensure that your website is up to par and can continue to rank highly, you’ll need to follow some general guidelines for web design.
Even if you aren’t an expert designer, you’ll still need to:
- Have an easy-to-use navigation page where consumers can click on the area of your site that they want to be taken to
- Incorporate graphics and visuals on your page- 73% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after seeing a video about a given service.
- Design with colours that people like- blue is the favoured web design colour among internet users of all ages and genders.
- Have a well-developed about page and detailed product/service descriptions
- Link to your SEO-rich blog posts from your home page
Organic vs Paid Search: The Throwdown
Now that you understand all the reasons why organic rankings are great, it’s time to take a look at the alternative: paid search results. Read on to learn more about what this means and whether or not using these services can compare to using those that generate organic traffic!
What’s Paid Search, Anyway?
Organic searches are those that come from other people finding your links among search results in Google. Your organic ranking goes up when the quality of your page rises and more people click on it. In contrast, paid search results are those that a business has paid to have appear at the top of search results in a search engine. It has nothing to do with the quality of the page or the traffic it garners.
Since ranking high organically is competitive and difficult for many small businesses, lots of companies have been turning to paid search rankings recently. However, this will ultimately be detrimental to their business because these rankings aren’t sustainable. You might pay to be placed higher in Google and still not be able to get high-traffic volume. Other pages will then rank above you organically.
Furthermore, as more and more people begin to invest in paid rankings, the prices get higher and higher. Eventually, your business would need to cut its funding in other important areas if it wanted to maintain its search rankings, which is generally a poor decision when trying to offer quality services.
Google Ads (and Why They Aren’t That Great)
Google Adwords sounds like a great concept in theory: write the ad, enter the target audience, use keyword rankings, and generate instant traffic.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality of Google ads.
This technology is rife with issues, the most important being that your ads don’t ever actually reach your target audience. When you use Google Ads and similar paid search technologies, you can bid on two kinds of keywords: broad keywords and longtail keywords. A broad keyword for a company that sells web design services would be something like ‘web design.’ A longtail keyword would be something like ‘small business web design in London.”
However, there are rules that define the type of keywords that a company can actually use based on its current level as a company. A small business may not be able to afford longtail keywords and therefore start showing their London agency to people in Cardiff.
There are also only so many aspects of a company that can be entered into one keyword. The above longtail keyword may sounds specific, but it truly isn’t. What types of web design services does this hypothetical company offer? We don’t know, and neither does Google. This will generate no interest and people will immediately click out of the website.
You also can’t enter demographics on paid search technologies. With organic searches, you can target specific browser languages or specific countries. However, paid search ads like Google Adwords don’t let this happen. You’ll only be able to target basic ages or genders.
The Final Verdict
So, the final verdict on whether organic vs paid search is superior? Organic traffic is better by far.
Here’s the basic run-down:
High-volume keywords and backlinking, both key SEO strategies, have been proven effective time and time again. Paid searches use none of these strategies and therefore won’t drive your page up search engines in the long run.
Because organic rankings are driven by site quality, innovative pages like yours should have little trouble ranking. The need for a quality webpage also will help to drive inspiration and innovation so that you keep moving forward.
Organic search results are more inexpensive, cost-effective, and sustainable in the long term than paid ones are.
You’ll be able to actually reach your target audience with paid search, while you’re likely to reach the wrong people with paid rankings.
Hire an SEO Agency Today!
Using organic vs paid search services to rank your business web page may sound like a difficult decision in theory, but in practice, it’s a no-brainer. Organic search rankings are not only better for placing your page above the competition in search engines, but they also help you reach the target audience that you most need to reach.
Now that you know the benefits of using SEO services to generate traffic for your website, it’s time to invest in these services. Click here to contact us and ask any questions you may have about the organic search services that we offer. As an SEO agency with 20+ years of experience, and we deliver SEO services for high competition keywords following 100% Google guidelines.
Choosing our agency is a wise choice if you aim for the top position for keywords with high competition, so we look forward to hearing from you soon!
Here you can read about 9 Reasons Your Business Should Outsource to an SEO Company
What SEO Means For Your Business
Basically, SEO helps people find you, and your products or services online consistently, without the need for paid advertisement.
It can help previous clients trying to find you online via a Google search. They type in your company name and out pops a detailed result pointing to multiple pages of your site, a GMB (Google My Business) listing if you have a service-based business or office, and multiple social profiles.
Being able to find a business easily is one of the smaller benefits of SEO but a very important one.
We have had local businesses call us up in the past asking why are they not showing up in Google for their brand. A quick search showed their website had little to no branding and was setup in such a way that a search engine had no way of telling what their website was even about, let alone that they were a business offering services.
Of course there is a much bigger and more beneficial side to SEO and that is the constant traffic and resulting leads that your website experiences when it is placed high up in a SERP. And when we mean high, we mean top 1-3, preferably first as that receives 42% of all traffic for that search term (stats from Ignite Visibility). While this statistic is dependent on buyer intent and niche, it is mostly in that range.
Think of positions on Google like a business location. I’m gonna need you to get your imagination going for this one, so rev up your mind’s eye and follow along.
You have a fantastic store selling the best donuts in town. Your food tastes amazing and what clients you do have, love it and your business. Trouble is, your store is located down the end of a dirt road where only the occasional truck drives past.
You have little visibility and little traffic coming through your door. This directly reflects on your sales rate.
You may have the best donuts in town and you’re able to cater for everyone but it doesn’t change the fact that no one actually knows that you and your delicious donuts exist.
At the end of the day, your business is in trouble.
So, you got the business side of things sorted but no one to do business with, what do you do?
Change location!
Move your business into the busiest street in town where there is more visibility and a high amount of hungry traffic seeing you. That traffic and visibility will drive numbers through your doors and increase sales.
Problem solved.
So to bring this back into the digital world (no donuts sadly), a poor ranking in Google is like having a business that no one can see and no one comes to. Anything after page one is seriously affecting your business, anything after page two or three may as well be nowhere.
The average Google search lasts less than a minute, that is how much time you have to capture a prospective client into your sales funnel. That is not a whole lot of time, especially if you are back on page two and the person is in a hurry. They won’t have time to click around every result and then go even further to page two, three, five, etc.
Ask yourself this:
When was the last time you went beyond page one to find something?
I don’t remember when I did and I practically live in Google search.
So, we know that in order to make more money and help build awareness about our brand/company, we need to get more visibility to it.
Of course, SEO does not grow on trees nor does it develop naturally so that is why SEO Agencies exist. We offer SEO as a service and therefore it is an investment on your behalf to help build the business.
Stamping Out The Lies
First, I’m going to clarify the misconceptions and falsehoods surrounding SEO and set the confusion straight. Not everybody hears about SEO right at the beginning of their business from people who know what it is and that’s okay.
This section is going to prevent you from making some of the huge mistakes we commonly see and save you loads of money trying things that probably won’t work.
I’m going to lay out for you some of the misconceptions I’ve heard from other people. These are the types of lies that can stop people from ever wanting to try SEO again due to bad experiences. However, if you learn how to do it properly, with the right guidance, your whole perception of it can change for the better.
**Disclaimer**
Often times, you’ve heard these things from a colleague, marketing/IT person, friend, family member, business partner, web company, at a networking event etc. Please understand that most of them aren’t intentionally lying to you, they’re likely just repeating what they’ve heard in an attempt to help you.
It’s also possible that the people making these claims have come to believe that their experience with SEO was positive even though, data-wise, it may not have been.
My goal here is to help you understand SEO well enough to come to your own conclusion about whether SEO is worth looking further into.
Be aware when you read what I’m telling you, that some of this will counter what you’ve been told. In fact, if you’re still reading, I hope some of it does. I’m not here to attempt to take anyone down or make anybody look bad, there are lots of SEO companies who are excellent and who have our utmost respect.
Now that that’s out of the way, we can get into our misconceptions!
Misconception #1: SEO is Cheap
From what I’ve seen, this one is mainly spread by business groups on Facebook. Someone posts and asks for advice on SEO and, in response, they’re besieged by comments from companies trying to sell their services. Then you get assertive business owners putting in their two cents with their experience on the topic.
Then, instead of help, the person who asked in the first place has a host of people with their conflicting comments, debates and arguments about who’s right when, often times, nobody is.
Not to mention the constant spam emails in your inbox with their cheap deals “just for you”, making people think that this thing they don’t fully understand is just some sort of marketing ploy for small startups or preventing those quiet periods for a few hundred a month.
What do you really have to lose at that price? Remember how your friend said their business selling earrings for dogs got amazing results from this really reasonable SEO company. The only problem is that you don’t actually know how well they’re doing. You don’t know their low-cost SEO company improved their business at all.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: If you’re spending €99 – €1000 on SEO, you’re not getting SEO, you’re just wasting your money.
It’s like buying a washing machine that saves on water by having you wash all of your clothes before putting them in. It’s a waste of energy, money and time.
€99 per month SEO or whatever other “Special Offer” you get hit with will get you nowhere. That is basically one hour (or less) per month that some self-proclaimed SEO expert will spend on your site.
€99 per month SEO or, in fact, any of the “Special Offers” thrown at you that you’ve been considering, won’t help you. You’re, essentially, buying an hour, maybe less, per month that some self-proclaimed SEO expert will spend on your site.
That’s only twelve hours in a year! If you really want to invest €99 anywhere, you’d be better off buying a year’s worth of ads.
Frankly, anything less than €1900 per month for SEO in a medium-sized city, or someone’s offered you a special for less than that, I’d think about looking somewhere else for a better solution.
Shocked at that price not cutting it as affordable SEO?
Yes, I know, many people I speak with have that same reaction.
Does that sound like way more than what you’ve been told elsewhere?
That usually means one of two things:
- Inadequate understanding of SEO and the significance it holds.
- Your business isn’t yet at the stage where it can really compete in the SEO game.
Both situations will benefit a lot from continuing through this article. You can also learn to do SEO on a budget and get quality results, but it is not easy.
That’s not to say that, in either situation, you won’t benefit from continuing through this article. It is possible to learn how to do SEO on a budget and get great results, but it may not be easy.
SEO is a battle. It can be sneaky and, if you’re not completely aware of what you’re getting into, it can be overwhelming.
To anyone venturing into the world of SEO, I’d suggest reading SEO articles and watching videos published recently (in the last year) from a reliable source. Stay away from Yoast SEO plugins and SEO books full of old advice that no longer applies. SEO can change in the blink of an eye so it’s important to stay informed and to change what you’re doing accordingly. This leads us into our second misconception…
Misconception #2: SEO is Simple
As with anything, if it was easy, everybody would be good at it. If everybody could do SEO well, everybody would implement it and be swimming in money. Just think about it, this entire article is only explaining what SEO is. So, learning how to do it successfully is going to take a lot of time, focus and dedication but it is doable.
In an ideal world, you might be able to watch a few old YouTube videos and read an article or two about SEO and know everything you need to know. Unfortunately, you’ll need a lot more than that to be successful and convert your efforts into money.
The problem is that since those videos and that article from 2015 were put up, things have changed. Things will continue to change. If you aren’t ready to accept that fact and either try to keep up or find someone who can, you’ll fall behind.
SEO can be confusing and difficult to get right. It can be like spinning plates. You have to consider every single moving part, while keeping an eye on the different types of data you’ll have to understand and assess. SEO is more than putting plugins on a site and writing content. There are a few hundred more factors and tasks to think about and then you’ve made a start. Unless you have practice and proper technique, it can be a staggering task to perfect.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to learn. If you’re in an industry that doesn’t have much competition or in a smaller area then carrying out what you’ve learned from a dependable source can get you some major successes. You just have to be ready to take in a lot of new information.
Misconception #3: SEO is a Sure Thing
This one seems to come from the spam emails who promise “100% guaranteed SEO services for the highest rankings on Google for the one time price of €99!”
It’s nonsense. These people have no idea what they’re talking about or doing. For the most part, these emails come from outdated email templates from ancient SEO outreach courses from 2012 and for some reason, they still attempt to use them on unsuspecting business owners.
As with most forms of marketing, you can’t promise results or placements in Google. Good marketers, like good SEOs, won’t agree to do the work without a comprehensive analysis of your current business situation and goals. Why take on a client if they don’t see a way to improve the numbers and recoup your investment. It could be because the budget is too low to allow any meaningful improvement or because the account isn’t a good fit – if they can’t do anything for you, they won’t take you on.
Occasionally, there are exceptions. For example, sometimes I know I’ve worked in a similar industry to the one I’m being asked about so I know what to expect and what improvements I can realistically give. I’ll do a little research, and if I spot a hole in the market and I know I can make a marked improvement, I’ll happily take the case on. It’s important to be careful with this, though, as not everybody is this experienced.
Misconception #4: SEO is Impossible
On the other hand, there are people who refuse to consider SEO as an option and will encourage you to do the same. More often than not, these are people who’ve experienced inadequate (probably cheap or underpaid) SEO companies or they’ve tried it themselves and had a tough time, leaving them with a bad taste in their mouths. They’re angry about failing and every time the topic comes up, they insist it’s impossible for everybody because it didn’t work for them.
Quick Tip: Ask why they feel that way and listen to what they have to say. It’s important to know that their opinions are tainted by bias and usually aren’t proof of the potential SEO can have when done right.
The other situation where you’ll come across people saying that it won’t work is from other forms of marketing. It could be a social media marketer, ads manager, web designer or your in-house marketer but if they don’t completely understand SEO, or they want you to hire them instead.
When you do real research and assess what you’re up against with proper budgets and expectations, SEO can work very successfully for anyone.
Myth #1: Start With The Essentials And Do The Rest Later
I’ve come across a lot of people, usually startups, or businesses with limited marketing budgets, who tend to assume that in order to be successful in SEO, you can start with the essentials and come back to it when they’re ready. Of course you can do it that way but it likely won’t provide you with many, if any, results.
The only exception being when you want to appear on Google under your brand name, unless your business’ name is an “exact match phrase”, meaning your brand has a name that people are already vying for on Google. Usually, this will either be because it has a high search volume or it’s known to create conversions.
That mentality of doing the bare minimum in SEO often comes usually comes from web design packages or platforms saying things like “Basic SEO Included!” as if it’s a little addition or deal that they’re giving you out of the goodness of their heart when, in reality, it’s just an upsell used to take a little extra of your money.
SEO is a constant moving target and you can not do the bare minimum and expect any results, no matter what people say, you will waste time and money doing it this way.
SEO is constantly moving and if you plan to only do the bare minimum, you can’t expect the same results as if you were to invest your time and energy into learning or if you were to hire a professional. In fact, you can’t expect any results at all.
Myth #2: Your Web Company Can, and Should, Offer SEO
I’ve seen loads of web companies attempt to add SEO to their design & marketing packages or attempt to add “Basic SEO” in with whatever you buy.
Again, not ripping on any competitors or trying to make web agencies look bad, but just stating something all too common. If you belong to a web agency and are doing this just realising that you are making a bit of a mistake, let’s talk and sort out a potential partnership to actually get your clients ranked after you build their site Not all web companies are created equal. Not all web companies fully understand what they are doing when they decide to provide SEO to their clients. SEO is much more involved than a small add-on service so don’t let them fool you into believing otherwise.
As I said before, my goal here isn’t to insult anyone or make them look bad. Instead, I’m merely stating something I’ve seen time and time again. If you are part of or belong to a web agency that does this, it’s important to realise that you’re making a mistake. It would make more sense to partner with a professional, such as myself, to ensure your clients actually end up ranking after you’ve finished building their site. Lots of web companies completely grasp what they’re doing when they make the decision to offer SEO to their clients. There’s much more to SEO than a small add-on, even if some people may benefit from you believing otherwise.
Quick Tip: Ask why they feel that way and listen to what they have to say. It’s important to know that their opinions are tainted by bias and usually aren’t proof of the potential SEO can have when done right.
The other situation where you’ll come across people saying that it won’t work is from other forms of marketing. It could be a social media marketer, ads manager, web designer or your in-house marketer but if they don’t completely understand SEO, or they want you to hire them instead.
When you do real research and assess what you’re up against with proper budgets and expectations, SEO can work very successfully for anyone.
Myth #3: SEO is essential
Though my opinion is somewhat biased and I will always try to find a way to make SEO work for every business, I admit that not every business needs SEO. There are so many other forms of marketing that can generate amazing results for your business.
SEO is for the long term. If you want a long term marketing strategy that will create a steadily increasing flow of traffic and revenue, then SEO is definitely for you. But if you’re just looking for quick short-term results, you may be better off looking for something else.
I hope, after reading this article, that you’ll be better equipped to make your own decision on whether you need SEO or not.
What Does SEO Stand For?
SEO is an initialism that stands for Search Engine Optimisation, but in order to understand what it actually means we’re going to have to break it down further.
Search Engine:
First things first, what’s a search engine? If you went looking for the answer to that question, most people would end up using the biggest search engine in the world to find it: Google!
As of February 2020, Google controls an impressive 92.04% of the Global Search Engine Market Share.
When talking about SEO, in almost all cases you should assume that we’re talking about Google as it’s, by far, the biggest. For comparison to that huge percentage Google holds, Bing holds 2.45% and Yahoo holds 1.62%.
Explaining how a search engine like Google works is a topic that probably would need its own article, but quite simply, Google has an extremely complicated job to accomplish a relatively uncomplicated outcome: Show people the best results related to what they’re looking for.
Optimisation:
When talking about SEO, optimisation means improving, tweaking, editing and modifying for the best results possible. To be specific, I mean websites that we want to show up right at the top of Google’s search results.
So, Search Engine Optimisation basically means that you make it simpler and easier for search engines to find the information people are searching for on your website and display it for the user.
Search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo are basically just lines of computer code that look around the web, finding results that suit a search term most accurately and display their findings on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). There are billions of websites to choose from but the goal of the search engine is to give the user the best information available for their search query.
SEO is an initialism that stands for Search Engine Optimisation, but in order to understand what it actually means we’re going to have to break it down further.
Search Engine:
First things first, what’s a search engine? If you went looking for the answer to that question, most people would end up using the biggest search engine in the world to find it: Google!
As of February 2020, Google controls an impressive 92.04% of the Global Search Engine Market Share.
When talking about SEO, in almost all cases you should assume that we’re talking about Google as it’s, by far, the biggest. For comparison to that huge percentage Google holds, Bing holds 2.45% and Yahoo holds 1.62%.
Explaining how a search engine like Google works is a topic that probably would need its own article, but quite simply, Google has an extremely complicated job to accomplish a relatively uncomplicated outcome: Show people the best results related to what they’re looking for.
Optimisation:
When talking about SEO, optimisation means improving, tweaking, editing and modifying for the best results possible. To be specific, I mean websites that we want to show up right at the top of Google’s search results.
So, Search Engine Optimisation basically means that you make it simpler and easier for search engines to find the information people are searching for on your website and display it for the user.
Search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo are basically just lines of computer code that look around the web, finding results that suit a search term most accurately and display their findings on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). There are billions of websites to choose from but the goal of the search engine is to give the user the best information available for their search query.
What Does Google Want To See When Ranking Websites In SERPs?
How does Google know what its users want? Answering this question technically can be complicated, but I’ll give you a hypothetical scenario Google might find itself in when comparing which website should be displayed first.
In this scenario, we’re looking at two consultants in similar locations in London who’ve just finished building their websites. Think about which one you’d want to see:
Sid makes his website by himself. He’s been told he needs a website so he makes a simple one, just so that he has an online presence and people can start to find his business online. He hopes his website will generate calls, leads and sales.
He buys a website, callsidtheconsultant.com and creates a single page website about his business, about 350 words in total about his services and the quality of his business with a phone number and a gmail address at the top.
Sid didn’t want to pay for a proper online presence, so his website takes 30 seconds to load when you visit it and, sometimes, it doesn’t load at all.
Pete is in a similar situation, but Pete has a little more experience with marketing than Sid so he invests a bit more time and money into his online presence because he realises that it’s a direct reflection of his business. He buys petesconsulting.com and gives his website six individual pages about his service. Every page is detailed and helpful for anybody looking for a consultant.
The “About” page is trustworthy with clean, professional-looking photos of him. The homepage is easy to navigate to what you want to see and the contact page clearly states where he is, his opening times and how to contact him.
Pete also creates a social media presence for himself, creating profiles on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. He makes sure to create consistent and fitting content for those pages and linked them all to his website.
Pete also works hard to create a list of glowing testimonials on his Google and Facebook pages, both of which are linked back to his website. The website uses a few premium services which means that it’s online 99% of the time and it loads in under 4 seconds.
So, which website do you think would serve the user best?
Of course, it was Pete’s website – petesconsulting.com!
But now Sid has a problem. How is he going to beat Pete in the search? The answer, of course, is Search Engine Optimisation!
In this scenario, Google is going to choose Pete’s website over Sid’s website because it has more SEO factors completed.
There are more than 200 factors that Google takes into account when deciding where to place a website. It’s not just about content and website speed but lots of varying factors differing degrees of complexity.
Does 200 seem like a lot? We record at least 800 different variables that potentially strengthen a website’s bid for a top-ranking spot, correlate the data by analysing the top 100 sites for the term, and then figure out which elements are the easiest to take advantage of in a particular industry for a particular phrase.
It’s not simple or easy but it’s a large part of what makes us different from our competitors and it’s the one of the things that helps us give our clients consistent and dependable results.
The more of these factors that a website has right, the more favourable position a search engine would give you.
These factors directly apply to search queries.
If a website is set up well to talk about dog groomers in London, then it will show up in a good position when someone searches for “dog groomers in London”.
Your content can also show up for derivative keywords and synonyms. So even though you only say “dog breeders in London” on your website, if you get things right you can also potentially show up for:
London dog breeders
Dog breeders London
And even
Dogs for sale London
Puppies for sale London
Showing up for many related keywords is greatly beneficial but usually, the challenge is deciding on which keywords to target in your website content, how frequently they should be used.
Another challenge is working out which keywords have the potential to make you the most money. Often times it can be a great solution to try running Google Ads and test the market with experiments to find your money keywords. Once you have the data on what converts traffic into cash, you can make better decisions on what you want to rank for in Google organically.
An SEO specialist can do this analysis for you and tune your content to show up for the most commonly searched term so that you show up for the juiciest search terms first and show up for some synonym keywords as a bonus.
The more words your website shows up (Ranks in Google) for, the more traffic you get to your site.
More Relevant Traffic = More Leads.
Basic SEO Factors For Your Website
In case you are curious, there are some very basic SEO factors that Google looks for in a website.
For example:
- A Fast Website – Site loading speed is very important as it serves the information quickly. A site loading time of one to three seconds is optimal across both Desktop & Mobile.
- Correctly Labeled Pages – A page about Dog Breeders In Auckland should be labeled as such in the URL (Universal Resource Locator) e.g. www.dogbreeders.com/london–dog-breeders
- Words On The Page – A 500 word article about dogs in Auckland is more detailed than a 100 word article and is deemed more useful for the user.
- Trust – Google and your users must be able to trust the content they are reading and the websites they are visiting. There are a wide range of trust factors to consider but the most basic ones are: Generating reviews and legitimising yourself as a business online.
Truth be told, there aren’t that many “basic” SEO factors. I was struggling to come up with those examples without going into things like proper header titles, Meta Tags, permalink structure, hyperlinks, anchor text, structured data, and, last but not least, backlinks.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to know what that gibberish means to understand SEO. But it pays to make sure that your SEO specialist does!
What are White Hat SEO & Black Hat SEO?
You may have heard about White Hat and Black Hat SEO before, but what do they really mean? What should you look out for and which one is best for your business?
The original concept of White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO comes from the association with ethical and unethical tactics to achieve a certain goal.
White Hat SEO is someone who works ethically and follows Google’s guidelines to the letter about what they deem as being acceptable and not crossing any boundaries to reduce any risk of a penalty.
Black Hat SEO has a load of negative associations and they are often referred to as spammers, scammers, or unethical hackers, which isn’t always the case.
This came about back when Google was a lot easier to manipulate and gain favourable results simply by spamming and stuffing in a load of content on your website through various tactics. This all worked very well until Google got more technically advanced and released a few major updates such as Penguin & Panda in 2011 & 2012.
I won’t go into the details of these updates in this article, but the purpose of them was to provide a better search engine for the users while combating the spam that was rampant and causing havoc.
A downside to these updates was that it also wiped out a large number of legitimate businesses that got caught up in the wave either due to being sold on the tactics that worked at the time or through figuring out how to manipulate Google themselves.
These two Google updates changed the entire way people looked at how searching works and there became quite a divide in those that try to find loopholes in Google and exploit them, and those who follow the rules and try to win at SEO that way.
The Problem With Modern White Hat SEO & Black Hat SEO
Google and SEO have become so complex and ever changing, that it is nearly impossible to get a straight answer from Google about anything they do. Any announcement or update to their algorithm has been gone over with a fine-tooth comb and everyone has their own interpretation of what is right and what is wrong.
Google does not want you to know how their search engine works, they simply want you to stop trying to rank organically, give up SEO, and start advertising. They don’t care what hat you wear or how ethical you are. They still hate you.
There is no straight cut line between white hat SEO and black hat SEO anymore. It is more a sliding scale of how much you really want to cross the line and get results.
Modern white hat SEO is a complete lie and sales tactic to make you think that you are buying into something “ethical” and “right”. The whole purpose of SEO is to manipulate your website so that Google favours it over your competitors. If you want to be the best, sometimes you have to do what it takes to get results. white hat SEO alone will not get you consistent reliable results efficiently.
In most industries, white hat SEO alone will not get you consistent reliable results efficiently and that is simply because of what your competition is doing. You may want to stay 100% white hat but due to you lacking in the black hat factors that your competitors are doing, you’ll likely never see a top 3 position.
Did You Know?
Any form of link building is considered black hat. Any time you ask for a link or purchase a link – that is considered black hat as it goes against Google guidelines. If your SEO agency is outreaching to legitimate businesses for backlinks, or buying citations for your website, that is already black hat.
One other thing to mention about black hat SEO and ethics is that there are some people who offer services based on outdated or spammy techniques.
Most often their knowledge is based on courses that were questionable to begin with and not up to date with Google’s algorithm changes. Such “SEO Courses” are generally designed to rank a website fast, with no regard to long term results or longevity. For a business or any legitimate enterprise, such tactics should never be applied unless you know exactly what you are doing and understand what is involved.
These novice SEO’s may have the best intentions to rank your website, but their lack of knowledge in all forms of SEO and understanding of Google may end up harming your site. This harm can be anywhere from getting your website ranking worse than it already was or face a manual penalty from Google. A manual penalty often includes de-indexing from Google entirely depending on the severity of what they have done.
We take a different approach and don’t call ourselves white hat or black hat. It is a sliding scale and we start (and try as best we can) to stick to the least risk possible.
Are we ethical? Yes! As much as possible. But how do you define ethics when you are trying to take over your competitor’s position in Google? – The prime real estate for relevant traffic and leads… and a good part of their income.
What about if your competitors are doing completely nasty or tricky things to achieve the results they have in Google? Is it ethical to report them and have them shut down – Potentially causing massive stress and financial harm to them? Do you reverse-engineer their strategy and replicate it for your website? Or do you stick with a “white hat” approach and generate content hoping that Google will one day rank your site. It could be in six months, it could be in six years.
Ultimately this is your decision, not ours. But just know that most “white hat” agencies don’t often think about these things.
Generally, we look at the data. We look at the competition and try to figure out what they are doing. Our strategy often starts with your brand and establishing authority in an industry. When it comes to optimising and out-ranking your competitors, we start with over 800 different data points that we track. We optimise your website to compete as best as possible with structure, content, keywords, code, layout and many more on-page factors. Most of the time this leads to great jumps in improvement. From there, it can get a little grey if necessary.
We stay up to date with the latest strategies that work, from the private black hat groups where we can’t discuss information publicly about what they are doing, through to the latest private SEO testing groups that are pushing boundaries with single variable testing on supposed ranking factors.
So to apply it back to you, it pays to hire an SEO agency that you can trust and one that can stand by their work. Trust can come from their website, where they have clear business addresses, photos of their people and clear information about their service, but it also comes from past reviews, being able to show evidence of them generating results and rankings, and being able to discuss with you what your goals are and why you want SEO in the first place.
Such factors can go a long way towards seeing whether a business is legitimate or not and if they can actually deliver quality and reliable Google rankings.
Hiring someone based off of their outreach email that offers an amazing deal is not a good road to take. Such emails are nearly 100% sent from an overseas company that you will never be able to find once they have damaged your site or simply done no work at all.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you are now completely confused about black hat or white hat SEO and whether SEO is worth it at all if all you’ll end up doing is disobeying Google. Just know that it is not all as bad as it sounds as long as the company doing the SEO for you has a solid history of results, and knows what they are doing.
If you want to stick to Google’s guidelines verbatim for whichever reasons you have, then any form of SEO is essentially black hat. Going in and making changes to your website content because you feel it will help you rank – that’s black hat. So essentially it doesn’t come down to which hat you wear but how far you are willing to slide that scale.
There are plenty of safe tactics that help rank sites without damaging them. After all, SEO is a booming industry and the world’s biggest brands spend millions on it every year. In one way or another, they won’t be obeying that rule book 100% either.
