Menu
Are you in Bishops Stortford and looking to increase your online visibility and Google SEO rankings to get more traffic revenue to your website?
Working with a Bishops Stortford SEO agency can be a great way to do just that. SEO agencies specialise in optimising websites for search engines, helping you to reach more potential customers and increase your SEO in Bishops Stortford. On this Bishops Stortford SEO page, I will explain the benefits of working with a Bishops Stortford SEO agency and how they can help you reach your search engine optimisation goals. Alongside this, I will detail in layman’s terms and not technical SEO terms, exactly what SEO is, what a Bishops Stortford SEO agency does and why you need it.
Eighteen’s Bishops Stortford SEO agency can help you create a comprehensive SEO strategy that is tailored to your specific needs. They can help you identify the best keywords to target, create content that is optimised for search engines like Google, and develop a comprehensive link-building strategy for backlinks. A Bishops Stortford SEO agency can also help you analyse your website’s ranking performance, identify key on page SEO, off page SEO and technical SEO areas for improvement, and track your ranking improvements over time. By working with a Bishops Stortford SEO agency, you can ensure that your website is optimised for search engine success and that your online presence is growing.
If you are looking for the best SEO company in Bishops Stortford — which you probably are if you are reading this — then Eighteen’s SEO agency in Bishops Stortford are the perfect SEO specialists for your Bishops Stortford business.
If you are reading this then you probably don’t need to be told how important SEO is. In Bishops Stortford, SEO is your one way ticket to actually being found by people searching for what you do. Anyone who has started a business or just a website in general will know that the old adage of “build it and they will come” was a lie, unfortunately. In reality, so in the world of Bishops Stortford SEO, it’s more like “build it and wonder why it ranks for nothing or on page 98 of Google and no one ever sees it.” Like I said, if you’re here, you know that without genuine search engine marketing efforts on your website, your business is going to be invisible in search engines. Answer me this: Have you searched for any of the below and found Eighteen?
For the sake of our SEO department, I truly hope you searched for one of the above Bishops Stortford SEO keywords that I am targeting with this page. If you did, that means they can sleep well this evening and not be berated by our board of directors. Selfishness aside, what it means for you is that Eighteen actually knows what the heck they are doing when it comes to ranking higher on Google in Bishops Stortford for your business! That’s what you want, right? That’s why you’re reading this. Great, now you and I have established that – I can go on to explain a little bit more about why exactly Eighteen is the best SEO company in Bishops Stortford.
A lot of brands that we work with at Eighteen, when we begin working with them, have an unhealthy dependency on paid advertising methods such as pay per click Google ads or Meta advertising through Facebook and Instagram. This dependency is because you know the adverts you run and paid campaigns you switch on get you conversions, right? But, at the same time, you’re very aware that, at any given time, these advertising platforms can suddenly increase the cost of your paid clicks and make it impossible to target who you want to target. You know what the beauty of strong SEO is? The fact that it is free traffic and you do not have to pay for any conversion or lead you gain from SEO traffic. Of course, you have to invest in SEO to begin with, but once our SEO experts have done the leg work, you can put your feet up and ease the budgets you burn on paid ads.
Did you know that 92% of searchers that need a local business pick one on the first page of Google? Well – over 99% of searchers do not click onto page two of Google. And, more than 90% of all pages in Google gain absolutely zero visitors. Lastly, over 70% of all clicks on Google go to the top five ranking positions and a whopping 32% of all clicks go to the website that’s ranking on position one. There is an absolute tonne of SEO information on this page below this but I could have concluded the page with those stats alone. If you own a business and now understand that, without ranking in the top five positions of Google, it is almost inevitable that you will never be seen by your target audience – what is stopping you from investing in SEO?
Eighteen understands that vanity metrics such as how many likes your Facebook page has or how many people have read your recent website blog are nonsense. They are not going to pay your bills, please your investors or look good on your bank balance are they? What is, though, is genuine return on investment from SEO. At Eighteen, we are the leading SEO agency in for a reason. Well, one of those reasons is because of our no-bullshit approach which allows our SEO experts to actually work with you on a human no-nonsense level while actually getting the work done to improve your SEO and increase your revenue. Simple.
The practice of search engine optimisation itself is the process of convincing search engines that you should be trusted as an expert in your industry, rank for your keywords and be returned in search results to users searching for what you do in your industry. So, by showing Google you’re an authority and industry expert, you show your industry the same, too. You will know yourself who the ‘top dogs’ are in your industry that always show up when you search for things in Google. You may feel some resentment towards them but your target audience likely feels trust towards them. That could be, and should be, your brand. Do SEO.
If you invest in SEO with a top SEO agency like Eighteen – and of course give it more than a couple of weeks! – then there’s no reason you should be concerned about how highly your competitors are ranking. Firstly, that would be our job to keep an eye on your ranking competitors. Secondly, unless you’re starting from scratch, are very far back from your competitors or are simply being unrealistic to who your competitors really are, there is no reason you can’t ‘crush’ their rankings and get your SEO above them. You have better things to do than search your keywords everyday on the way to your office and growl at your phone when you see what you know you are going to see – your SEO is not as good as theirs.
Any SEO agency worth their salt that provides SEO services in should, as an absolute minimum, complete and send you a monthly SEO report. It’s safe to say that you will like our reporting style and format. Every month, your SEO account manager will send a comprehensive SEO report that details all works completed in the previous month, why it was completed and what you can expect to happen because of it being completed. Alongside this will be a breakdown of all upcoming work to be completed and why. Detailed also will be a full-disclosure comparison of the previous month’s key SEO performance compared to the month prior to that – for complete analysis to both parties on if your SEO campaign is going in the right direction or not. Although please don’t panic. Your SEO account manager will understand and appreciate that you are probably busy and, if all is going well, probably don’t even care to read it! So, when you receive your monthly SEO report and have a call with our SEO experts to talk it through, they will only give you the numbers and stats that actually matter to you – such as revenue increases and conversions.
A team of Bishops Stortford SEO experts providing Bishops Stortford SEO services can help businesses of all sizes to increase their search engine visibility. By working with an experienced Bishops Stortford SEO company, you can benefit from their expertise in all areas of search engine optimisation that revolve around on page SEO, off page SEO, and technical SEO.
Partnering with an SEO agency in Bishops Stortford is essentially hiring an external marketing department that is hyper-focused on improving your website’s search engine optimisation with the key aims of improving relevant website traffic and new business or customers in Bishops Stortford. SEO should be at the heart of your brand’s marketing strategy and certainly the key focus in your digital marketing efforts.
If you are searching for an internet marketing company providing SEO services in Bishops Stortford, you likely fit the following:
Ultimately, if you landed on this page, you more than likely searched for “SEO company in Bishops Stortford” or a keyword variant of that and found Eighteen. If that’s the case, will you admit that Eighteen are local SEO experts in Bishops Stortford?
When it comes to optimising your website for search engine visibility and improving your SEO rankings, there is no better, faster, affordable and stress-free way than working with an SEO company that specialises in Bishops Stortford SEO. Bishops Stortford search engine optimisation services revolve around local SEO practices that improve your website’s SEO performance. These services can include keyword research, content optimisation, link building, and more.
The benefits of working with a Bishops Stortford SEO agency are numerous. For starters, they have the expertise and experience in Bishops Stortford to help you identify the best keywords to target for your website based on metrics such as keyword difficulty and keyword search volumes. They can also help you create content that is optimised for search engine visibility, as well as build backlinks to your domain from relevant and authoritative industry websites that will pass good ‘link juice’ to your Bishops Stortford businesses’ domain name.
A Bishops Stortford SEO agency can also help you stay on top of the latest trends in the world of SEO and stay ahead of most SEO companies and webmasters. A Bishops Stortford SEO company will also ensure that you stay up to date on the latest Google algorithm changes and ensure that your website’s SEO becomes bulletproof to any penalisations and negative ranking changes from algorithm updates. When it comes to your SEO competitors in Bishops Stortford, SEO companies will keep you on your toes and compete with those you compete with by providing SEO insights and aiming to overtake them in the SERPs (search engine rankings). This can help you stay ahead of the competition in Google and ensure that your website is always visible to potential customers with genuine Bishops Stortford SEO expertise.
One huge benefit of having search engine optimisation at the heart of your Bishops Stortford digital marketing is the fact that SEO builds trust for your business and brand. In fact, the process of SEO itself is the process of convincing search engine algorithms that you are trustworthy enough to be ranked and returned to users searching for what you do. And, as a result of ranking highly for your website’s keywords, you become a trustworthy brand in the eyes and minds of your target audience. There is an absolute abundance of work and SEO practices that are involved in the process of becoming credible and authoritative in search engines. But, once you’re at the top of Google, you’ll thank yourself – or Eighteen, as the best SEO company in Bishops Stortford – for getting there!
Finally, working with an SEO agency in Bishops Stortford can help you save time and money. They can take care of the tedious tasks associated with Bishops Stortford SEO, such as keyword research, SEO audits, link building and content optimisation, so that you can focus on the other aspects of your business that you can have a greater impact on. Ultimately saving your Bishops Stortford business time and money while still ensuring that your website is visible to potential customers through a Bishops Stortford SEO specialist’s search engine optimisation performance.
Choosing the right Bishops Stortford SEO agency for your business can be a daunting task but when that is paramount to your local Bishops Stortford SEO success. It’s important to find an SEO agency in Bishops Stortford that understands your business goals and can provide the SEO services you need. Here are some tips to help you choose the right Bishops Stortford SEO agency for your business:
Before you hire a team of search engine marketing, it’s important to research their reputation. Look for reviews and testimonials from other brands they have improved the SEO of to get an idea of the quality of their SEO services.
Ask the SEO agency in Bishops Stortford that you have come across about their SEO experience and success in your industry and how long they’ve been providing SEO services to Bishops Stortford. It’s also important to ask about their specific experiences with on page SEO, off page SEO and link building, local SEO and technical SEO in Bishops Stortford. A top SEO company in Bishops Stortford should be able to provide you with an SEO marketing portfolio of Bishops Stortford SEO success in ecommerce SEO or local SEO.
Ask the Bishops Stortford SEO company to provide a detailed proposal outlining the search engine optimisation services they will provide and the timeline for completion. This will help you understand what you can expect from the Bishops Stortford marketing company and ensure that they are providing the SEO services that your Bishops Stortford business actually needs.
Make sure that the Bishops Stortford SEO agency you choose is realistic about what they can achieve for your business. It’s important to understand that Bishops Stortford SEO takes time and that results may not be immediate.
I am sure that it’s important to you that the Bishops Stortford SEO team you choose to work with have experience in the Bishops Stortford area itself. Well, what better way to improve your Bishops Stortford SEO than to work with an SEO company with Bishops Stortford experience?
By following these tips, you can ensure that you choose the right Bishops Stortford SEO firm for your business. With the right SEO agency, you can be sure that your website will be optimised correctly to implement a successful SEO campaign to hit the SEO goals that your Bishops Stortford business has.
If you are bored of irrelevance online and at the same time tired of the generic industry bullshit – Eighteen is the perfect SEO agency for you. Our team is created from over 23 years of SEO industry experience and the desire to do SEO in the right way, with no jargon, fluff or nonsense.
To be frank with you, as you are on the hunt for a Bishops Stortford SEO firm, any specialised SEO team will provide you with the following SEO services:
There seem to be two types of people: business owners and webmasters that are not even aware in the slightest that Google can penalise your website. Or, business owners and webmasters that are hyper-aware that they can receive a penalty from Google and live in perpetual fear of receiving one. Luckily for you, there is indeed a middle-minority of those two types of SEO agency, like Eighteen, that are simply aware you can receive one, know how to keep an eye out for them and what to not do to avoid them and then crack on with skyrocketing your Bishops Stortford SEO!
So how does your website even gain a penalty from Google? Almost always it is when your website has been reported for violating Google’s guidelines. This penalty can likely come in the form of algorithmic search engine ranking page actions whereby you will notice a severe or at the very least significant decrease in your SEO rankings and ultimately organic traffic from Google. Put simply, Google’s penalties and penalisations are their way of punishing and warning people for practising bad SEO practices and spammy links and websites.
A very common reason that someone may receive a penalty is because they have forgotten, or naively or arrogantly decided that Google is not clever enough to see their manipulation tactics. Well, Google is indeed clever and continues to gain further intelligence daily. So, a good rule of thumb to live by in the world of search engine optimisation is to never, ever, underestimate Google! Psst: this involves not, under any circumstances, abusing the use of AI content. Whether this is through any AI SEO tool. Even the most popular AI tool, ChatGPT, has some uses for your SEO but should not be used blindly or else you risk a Google penalty. Remind yourself that Google’s algorithms are built to reward only content that they discern is built to be helpful to users and punish or avoid content that they decide has been built with the aim of ranking. Currently, at the time of writing this Bishops Stortford SEO page at the start of 2023, Google states that they can detect AI content, such as that written through Chat GPT or other AI writing tools for SEO. They are also working on a variety of ways to detect AI content better, which is perhaps going to be made easier by Open AI software watermarking their content. A lot of the conversation in AI and SEO surrounds the question “will AI like Chat GPT take over, or end, Google?”. This question takes away from the fact that you should not be uploading AI-written content to your website under any circumstances as Google deems AI content for your SEO as spam.
What checks does Google complete to decide if your website needs penalising?
When evaluating a website, Google’s algorithms will look for a number of factors that may indicate that the website is engaging in negative SEO practices or black-hat SEO such as:
Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving, and the specific checks that are performed may change over time. It is important for website owners to regularly review and adhere to Google’s webmaster guidelines in order to avoid potential penalties.
What can you do to avoid carrying out any bad SEO practices and avoid getting a penalty from Google?
To avoid any penalties from Google, you unequivocally must ensure that you:
Ultimately, you must ensure that you follow Google’s webmaster guidelines. If you are curious how to work out if you have been hit with a Google penalty, and don’t want to work with a Bishops Stortford SEO agency for whatever weird reason, then read this Hubspot blog on how to know if you’ve received a penalisation. Google provides guidelines for webmasters to help them create high-quality websites that are beneficial to users. By following these guidelines, you can help ensure that your website meets Google’s standards and does not violate any of its policies.
Continually carrying out comprehensive SEO audits consistently is vital to any good Bishops Stortford SEO campaign. An SEO audit is one of the chief responsibilities of your SEO team which ensures that your site is audited and essentially ‘keeps an eye on’ its SEO health status. A good site audit is where the SEO agency analyses your website and every aspect of its SEO in order to identify any SEO problems you may have.
Completing SEO audits are vital to your Bishops Stortford SEO performance as they help you understand how well your website is performing in search engines and what exactly will be stopping your SEO, or hindering your SEO, from ranking you in Bishops Stortford higher than you currently are. If you do not decide to hire an SEO agency – you may benefit from reading the following to clue yourself up on what to do next:
A good SEO audit should look at the following SEO areas:
An established Bishops Stortford SEO company should complete SEO audits for you at least every three months and ideally every month. This is due to the importance of auditing your site for the following:
In summary, SEO audits are an essential stage of any good Bishops Stortford SEO process that will allow you to identify any areas you should address to boost your SEO performance.
Ultimately, the choice between in-house SEO hiring and hiring an SEO agency will depend on your company’s needs, resources, budgets and goals. I of course understand that investing in SEO is daunting, but hopefully, after reading this Bishops Stortford SEO page, you will agree that you’ll have to choose an in-house SEO department or external SEO outsourcing. Which will it be for you?
The SEO agency in Bishops Stortford should have link building at the epicentre of your SEO strategy. Put simply, link building in SEO is the process of acquiring new inbound links (backlinks) to your website from other websites. The process of link building is carried out with the ultimate goal of increasing and improving a website’s domain authority and its credibility and reputation in the eyes of Google. There are myriad practices that your SEO specialists in Bishops Stortford should be completing in order to gain backlinks for your SEO strategy which are all discussed later in the SEO outreach part of this page. In regards to link building, it’s important to remember that the quality of referring domains and web pages inbound linking to your website is more important than the volume of links. It is categorically better to have a lower number of higher quality backlinks than to have a larger number of lower quality inbound links. Search engine algorithms identify a website’s links for two reasons:
It’s highly likely that, if you have some awareness of SEO but perhaps are not sure who the top search engine marketing agencies in Bishops Stortford are, that you still know what link building is. However, the general consensus and awareness of link building has a lot of negative connotations. The fault of this entirely lies with SEO agencies and black-hat SEOs throughout the decades that employed spammy link building tactics. Luckily, Google is increasingly more intelligent and punishing when it comes to search engine marketers implementing negative SEO practices. However, spammy link building does indeed still go on to this day and sometimes unpunished – until they get caught of course. At Eighteen, link building is a thorough and comprehensive manual process involving genuine SEO outreach tactics. Not the alternative, which would involve us, like some SEO companies do, outsourcing guest posting and securing inbound links through link farms and PBNs (private blog networks).
Ultimately, Google sees link building as a ranking factor and uses a website’s inbound links to determine the quality of the page that is being linked to due to an inbound link being a trust signal to Google. When a website has many high-quality inbound links, it can be a sign to search engines that the website is popular, trustworthy, and relevant and therefore rank it higher in search results, as search engines often prioritise websites that are trusted by other reputable sources. Link building, therefore, is one of the most important factors of SEO and should be an active focus by your SEO agency.
Strap yourself in, here are some (well, more than some, 100 to be exact) facts about search engine optimisation (SEO):
If you think about outreach in digital marketing you may assume it is in regards to public relations and digital PR. However, SEO outreach is a bit different. SEO outreach is the process of reaching out (that’s where the outreach bit comes from!) to other websites, bloggers, and industry influencers in order to build backlinks to your own website. Backlinks are links from other websites to your own, and they are an important factor in search engine ranking algorithms because they indicate that your website is popular and trustworthy. By building backlinks through SEO outreach, you can ultimately improve your Bishops Stortford SEO visibility and ranking of your website in search engine results pages by improving your domain’s authority.
There are a number of tactics that can be used as part of an SEO outreach campaign, including:
The goal of these tactics is to get other websites to link to your website, either by publishing a blog post on their site that includes a link to your site, or by fixing a broken link on their site and replacing it with a link to your site.
It’s important to note that SEO outreach should be done in a natural and authentic way, rather than using spammy or manipulative tactics. This means that you should only reach out to websites and influencers who are relevant to your industry and have a good reputation, and you should provide them with valuable content or resources that they will be interested in sharing with their audience.
By including SEO outreach as part of your Bishops Stortford SEO strategy, your SEO agency is ultimately aiming to improve your website’s domain authority and backlink portfolio of your website. Backlinks and domain authority are an incredibly significant ranking factor and signal to Google when it comes to their algorithms deciding your website’s reputation, trust, authority and expertise.
Would you start cooking a meal without any ingredients? You can certainly try. But, you will feel a bit silly when you turn your cooking appliances on and find out that your kitchen cupboards are empty. Well, this is the situation if you try to sit down and write a piece of SEO content for your website without carrying out any comprehensive keyword research. You may write, but whatever you read once you have finished is likely to make you feel sick!
Keyword research is vital to creating well-written SEO optimised content to signal to Google what keywords you want to rank for and why you should rank for it. Keyword research is a key part of SEO and content marketing where you aim to discover and analyse the keywords and phrases that people search online. Why is keyword research important? Keyword research is important for the simple fact that it informs you exactly what your desired target audience is searching for and how much they search for it. A good SEO agency will have access to several keyword research tools such as:
The SEO agency, when carrying out their keyword research for your industry and specific topic of content, will be able to identify the keywords your target market’s user search for and exactly the monthly search volumes of those keywords.
Alongside this benefit of keyword research, comprehensively researching the keywords your audience use to search for what you do can allow your SEO agency to analyse your competitors and the keywords that they are targeting with their own Bishops Stortford SEO strategies. By analysing the keywords that your competitors are targeting, you can get a sense of the SEO strategies they are using and the demand for their products or services. This can help you develop a more effective SEO strategy and stay ahead of the keywords and rankings in your industry. To summarise, keyword research is something that should be done comprehensively, continuously and consistently if you have any desire to improve your SEO and actually write content for SEO well.
Every man, his Mother, dog and fish has heard of the phrase “content is king” – there is literally no term that has been used and is still used more in digital marketing. The thing is, that’s for a reason – it’s true; as much as I don’t want to admit it due to its overuse! Why is content so important for SEO? Well, Google’s algorithms are developed, updated and focused on rewarding websites that publish content and web pages with the purpose of helping the user who is searching for them. This is well known because of Google’s ranking factors, what they tell you to do, and what they tell you not to do. For example, Google states clearly that if they discern you to have published content in the aim of ranking, as opposed to in the aim of serving the user, then it will not be too pleased! Also, what better way is there to inform Google that you are an expert in what you do than to show them through your content being long-form, well-written, authoritative and reputable. So, what should your SEO agency in Bishops Stortford actually do for you when it comes to content?
When it comes to content for SEO, a lot of the focus naturally surrounds writing and optimising new and fresh content for your website. However, any SEO agency in Bishops Stortford worth their salt will understand the importance of optimising the existing content that has already been published on your website and regularly complete the on-page optimisation of these existing web pages. What do I mean when I say SEO optimised content? SEO optimised content is when you use on-page SEO optimisation techniques to make your website’s content keyword-rich, well-written, easily accessible and readable and as valuable and helpful as possible to your readers. If working on your SEO in Bishops Stortford is not a new venture for you and your website then you should already have well-written content on your web pages. However, it is likely that this existing content is not optimised properly, well-enough or with any new on-page SEO optimisation practices that are now available to you.
Whichever SEO agency you hire to provide SEO services in have the responsibility of identifying the key pages on your website that may need re-writing, re-structuring or re-optimising to ensure the maximum SEO potential of that existing content is achieved in order to rank higher in Bishops Stortford. Eighteen are the leading SEO company in Bishops Stortford and therefore have an in-house team of content writers that will stress about this so you don’t have to!
If you currently focus on SEO rankings in Bishops Stortford or outsource your search engine optimisation to a Bishops Stortford SEO firm then you should have a content strategy in place that is led by keyword research and being written and published regularly to improve your SEO.
A great content strategy – led by keyword research – for your SEO should take into consideration the following:
By creating a content strategy and updating it regularly, the agency you hire to carry out your search engine optimisation services in Bishops Stortford will be able to effectively analyse, strategise, plan and execute SEO content that can light a fire under your technical SEO and off-page SEO and increase your rankings. An effective content strategy for your website can involve, based on your website and industry:
Lastly, creating content in line with a good content strategy ensures that the content your Bishops Stortford SEO experts write is consistently in line with your brand’s tone of voice which will help you to build trust, brand recognition and credibility with your audience.
I have said it a few times now, purely because it is something we are proud of at Eighteen, but we are the leading search engine marketing agency in Bishops Stortford mainly due to our in-house content writing team. Without our SEO copywriters, our SEO team would be twiddling their thumbs! Caveat: that’s not entirely true, there’s plenty for an SEO agency like Eighteen to keep ourselves occupied with, without worrying about content, but having content at the heart of your Bishops Stortford SEO efforts is what makes the difference between ranking slightly okay in Bishops Stortford and ranking position one in Google in Bishops Stortford.
If you showed me a website that frequently uploads fresh content that is well-written, long-form, authoritative and utilising internal and external linking effectively, I will show you that website is dominating their search engine rankings. Therefore, if you are not brave enough to allow regular content elongating your web pages and pushing the boundaries of your website’s page designs to fit it on, as well as have tight purse strings to not invest in SEO content writing in the first place, it is almost inevitable that you will struggle to rank at all, let alone increase your SEO rankings from where it is now to where you want it to be.
If you are bored of irrelevance online and at the same time tired of the generic industry bullshit – Eighteen is the perfect SEO agency for you. Our team is created from over 23 years of SEO industry experience and the desire to do SEO in the right way, with no jargon, fluff or nonsense.
If you are a business that is paying for an SEO agency in Bishops Stortford, at the very least, you will expect to know what you are paying for, right? This is why SEO agencies complete SEO reports for their clients. Although, hilariously, to tag onto the aforementioned type of amateur Bishops Stortford SEO company that charges flat rates or low-cost tiered packages for SEO services, they are also the type of SEO firm to inform you that marketing reports are a paid extra…
Alas, a monthly SEO report should not be a paid extra and should be an absolute minimum feature of your SEO retainer with a search engine marketing company. Without question. Unless they don’t do it, then you should have many questions!
A top SEO company in Bishops Stortford should complete SEO reports with the following in mind:
All of the above SEO performance statistics that should be detailed inside your monthly SEO report should be compared directly to the month prior to the month that is being reported on. Although, sometimes, perhaps due to seasonality reasons, it is more relevant to complete your monthly SEO report as a year on year comparison.
As a top SEO firm in Bishops Stortford, Eighteen understands that vanity metrics such as social media likes and generic website visitors mean nothing to you and your business. On the other hand, your brand’s KPIs (key performance indicators) and statistics that are relevant for you to measure genuine ROI (return on investment) from your monthly SEO retainer are what you actually care about. So, a good SEO report, such as the ones our SEO team complete and send to our client’s every month from Eighteen’s SEO department, highlight the things that actually matter to your ROI such as the conversions gained and revenue generated directly from SEO traffic. Of course, our SEO managers detail absolutely everything, too. But, they understand that you are likely busy and do not care for all the SEO jargon and dozens of different numbers so give you a TL:DR (too long, didn’t read!) version of your SEO performance, too.
At Eighteen, we call ourselves the leading no bullshit SEO agency. It would be barbaric for me to say that Eighteen believes in a no bullshit approach while also spending entire days and weeks at the start of each month stuffing pages of fluff and jargon into a monthly SEO report that most clients would likely not even read anyway. So, due to several notable SEO agency leading efficient systems Eighteen use in-house with our Bishops Stortford SEO teams, our SEO department are able to:
All within a day or two of a new month ticking over… Somehow – and honestly we are not entirely sure how we have done it, either – Eighteen makes working with an SEO company in Bishops Stortford quite enjoyable and worth it! I know, crazy, right?
You and your fellow Google-using humans can see images on websites. But, Google can’t. Instead, search engine algorithms rely on reading an image’s alt text (also known as alt tags, alt attributes or alt descriptions) and file name of the image itself.
What are alt tags? Alt tags are a way of describing the contents of an image on a webpage using plain text. Alt tags are also an alternative to displaying the image when the image cannot be displayed for some reason, such as a slow internet connection or an error on the webpage. They are particularly useful and important for web page users with visual impairments and reading disabilities as they provide a text-based description of the image that can be read aloud by any screen reader assistant software. Lastly, alt tags help search engines understand the contents of your web page and what the image is. Ultimately, utilising alt tags is an extra way to inform Google of what you’re aiming to rank for and show your expertise in. Therefore, optimising images effectively is a key part of on-page SEO optimisation.
Like image content, video content can, and should, play a role in your Bishops Stortford content marketing and digital marketing strategies for SEO performance. It’s key to remember that search engines crawl and index video content that is on your website, just like they can for images. Video, like content, can further aid your SEO efforts to inform Google why you are an expert in the content you are publishing in your industry and why you should rank higher in Bishops Stortford for your keywords.
How does video content benefit your SEO?
Overall, video content for SEO is incredibly effective and should be considered as part of your SEO work in Bishops Stortford. Video for SEO can be a valuable tool for improving the overall SEO of your website as long as, as with everything in SEO, it is relevant, appropriate, authoritative and well-done.
Firstly, what is CRO? CRO, the abbreviation for conversion rate optimisation, is the rather-niche expertise that top Bishops Stortford SEO companies seldom have in their arsenals. Eighteen, though, are lucky that our SEO department is fully equipped with CRO knowledge to aid SEO campaigns large and small. As, improving a website’s ability to convert its visitors is important for any size of site, whether it gains 100 visitors a month or a million. Conversion rate optimisation is all about maximising the potential of key actions gained from the traffic you generate. This could be filling out an enquiry form, making a purchase, or simply subscribing to a newsletter. Another significant benefit of conversion rate optimisation is that, after implementing genuine CRO, it improves the overall user experience (UX) of your website by simply making it easier for its visitors to take the actions you want them to do. As you are probably aware, there are few things more frustrating in the online world than when you finally discover a website that looks like it can give you what you’ve been looking for only to find out a button, form or action doesn’t work. You are left thinking “does this company not want me to pay them?!”
Using CRO to improve the conversion rate of your website can also indirectly improve your SEO, believe it or not. The simple fact that boasting a high conversion rate on your site is a sign of a well-designed and user-friendly website, which is a ranking factor that search engines use to determine the quality and relevance of a website, can indirectly boost your Bishops Stortford SEO. One last benefit (before I get carried away) of implementing CRO in your SEO campaigns is that a high conversion rate can lead to an increase in organic traffic, as satisfied customers are more likely to recommend the website to others and return to the site in the future. Bosh. Optimise your site for conversions, guys.
Web development is crucial to your SEO because it dictates how easily a search engine can crawl and index your website. The difference between a website that is void of bulky out-of-date code, is lean and small in size, has simple and well-built pages and loads fast compared to a site that is old, clunky and slow is astronomical when it comes to your technical SEO in Bishops Stortford and how Google will rank you in SERPs. In 2023 and beyond it is no longer possible to have even slightly average SEO for your website without having a good web developer on hand.
Here are a few specific ways in which web development can impact SEO:
At Eighteen, we are armed with a cavalry of web developers that build perfect websites and quickly fix and put out fires on websites that are not so perfect.
Close your eyes and picture this scenario (don’t actually close them, as you won’t be able to read the scenario, so open them back up): you’re mucking around on your website, as you do. Pretending to know what you’re doing, as we all do. You finish doing what you thought you were doing and click ‘publish’. Then, all of a sudden, boom. Your site breaks. You don’t know why your website broke, what broke it or how to unbreak it. You’ve never felt so panicked before in your life – this must be exactly how the damsel in distress in an old school horror movie feels when the weird hairy man with an axe finally breaks through her kitchen door. If you have a website, or business in general, and have never had direct access to a top web developer that you trust, you will know this panic I speak of. In the same vain, if you have or currently do possess the ability to pick up your dog and bone (also known as phone) and ask a wizard-like person to commit some wizard-like wizardry on your recently broken website by the non-wizard that is you, then you will understand why the definition of comfort is: a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.
In 2012, serpIQ, a now non-existent company, completed a study on the average content length of web pages that ranked in the top ten results in Google. What they found was that the website ranking position one for a keyword, on average, had 2450 words on their page. And, the results ranking second had page lengths just above that at around 2500 – likely aiming to compete with the page ranking above them.
As recent as 2021, a new word count study was completed using the Sistrix SEO tool. The abstract of this study is that, since 2012, websites that are ranking in the top ten ranking positions in Google have roughly 400 more words of content on their web pages than before.
2012 word count study of number of words on the page that ranks position:
2450 words on page
2021 word count study of number of words on the page that ranks position:
2855 words on page
Any data and studies aside – even if you are not aware of what the best search engine optimisation agencies in Bishops Stortford are, you probably know enough about SEO to understand that the basic concept of it is to convince Google you are enough of an expert in your industry to rank for keywords that you are talking about on your web pages. So, how do you plan on doing this without writing lots of content about your industry’s topics? That may sound like a flippant rhetorical question but you will be surprised at the sheer amount of website’s that have been created, had their title tags optimised with their keywords and then questioned as to why they do not rank! Well, you have to optimise your website for keywords in order to rank for them. If your web pages are thin in content and only have a few paragraphs on there because you believe your brand should look ‘minimalistic’ and ‘to the point’, that’s fine, but don’t expect to rank for your keywords in Bishops Stortford. If SEO is optimising for keyword rankings, then you should set yourself up for keyword success by adding more keywords and variations of your keywords to your pages within long-form well-written authority content. It’s as simple as that!
In the world of SEO, webmasters use SEO terms such as keyword ontology and semantic keywords.
What is ontology in SEO?
In search engine optimisation, ontology refers to the practice of organising and structuring the content of a website in a way that helps search engines understand the keyword relationships between different concepts and topics. This can involve creating a hierarchy of pages, using categories and tags to group related content, and providing clear labels and descriptions for the pages on a website. Writing your SEO content with ontology in mind ensures that you include as many semantic keywords, relevant keywords, and related keywords and phrases as possible in order to provide the ‘full-picture’ of the topic that you are writing about to Google. For example, I wouldn’t just spam the same keywords and content about the fact that “18 growth is the best SEO company in Bishops Stortford”. Instead, I would write everything that I know, in Eighteen’s unique way, about everything to do with SEO and Bishops Stortford. SEO being done this way shows the ‘full-picture’ to Google when it reads your content and shows that you actually do know what you are talking about!
What are semantic keywords in SEO?
Semantic keywords are words and phrases that are closely related to the particular topic you are writing about and that help to provide context and meaning to this content on a website. Semantic keywords are often used in SEO to help search engines understand the full picture and ontology of your SEO content and ultimately improve its ranking in search results.
What has all your Bishops Stortford SEO content rambles got to do with web design, though?
If you don’t know the relationship between long-form SEO content and web design then I fear for when you discover this first hand! If you have had to discover this first hand, then you must have gone through what every SEO, content writer or website owner goes through when they have a perfectly fine website design and web pages with their cute 500 words of templated content on there until it all-of-a-sudden has an SEO agency like Eighteen in Bishops Stortford come along and inject a few thousand words on to it! As you can imagine, putting thousands of new words onto a page only designed and built to look good with a few hundred words is where the battle and compromise between SEO, content SEO and web design becomes important. To understand this battle, let’s look at the two fighting factions.
A web designers ideal website:
Keep in mind that a web designer that isn’t working in-house at an SEO agency in Bishops Stortford will design and build a website with design as the important factor.
How any good Bishops Stortford SEO agency translates that with their SEO brain:
Keep in mind that what an SEO agency and its SEO consultants are experts in and therefore focus on is ranking websites in search engines and ultimately getting websites from irrelevant to seen by their target audience.
Keep in mind that any consultant or agency providing SEO services to the Bishops Stortford area will design and build websites with search engine optimisation (crawlability, indexability and ranking ability) as the important factor. Although not the only factor, of course, as amongst their SEO focus, any search engine marketer worth their salt will also keep in mind user experience, user interface, conversion rate optimisation and general marketing and digital marketing ability.
So, now we know what each party in battle is working with…
Nobody. Absolutely no one. That is why I used the word ‘compromise’ in the subheading of this section. Without a compromise between long-form SEO content and the design of your website and then subsequently a Bishops Stortford SEO agency that feels frustrated at a web designer and a web designer that feels frustrated at a Bishops Stortford SEO agency – then your battle is likely leaning in the direction of one party. What you do not want is one of your website’s pages to be stuffed with blocks and blocks of boring-looking content. No one will read it, and even though Google will, they won’t like the format of it. Also, even if a user does read it, they’re not likely to read it for long or carry out any actions you want them to do. Likewise, if your website’s page is beautiful and has a small bit of content that is easily readable, then no one on the web is likely going to see that page! So, the word to summarise this situation is, and will always be, compromise!
This is a genuine question I have been asked, rather smugly, several times – by the way! Although this is not a stupid question at all and is a very fair inquiry into SEO content.
The image above – although you probably don’t know it yet and I will explain why – answers that question. First, I will explain what the different metrics measured by the SEO tool SE Ranking actually mean.
Domain Trust is a score (developed by SE Ranking) that shows how likely a domain is to rank in search results. To calculate it, SE Ranking looks at the number and quality of a website’s referring domains and backlink profile. Domain Trust ranges from 1 to 100, where a higher score indicates that the domain has a better chance of ranking in search results.
Page Trust is a score (developed by SE Ranking) that shows how likely a page is to rank in search results. To calculate it, SE Ranking looks at the number and quality of a page’s referring domains and backlink profile. Page Trust ranges from 1 to 100, where a higher score indicates that the page has a better chance of ranking in search results.
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. It provides context about the page that the link is leading to and helps users and search engines understand the destination of the link. In SEO, anchor text can be an important factor in how search engines evaluate the relevance and authority of a webpage. SEranking shows the complete number of anchor texts that are used in links to the domain that is being analysed.
Referring domains are unique websites that link to a specific webpage. The number of referring domains to a webpage is often used as a measure of the web page’s popularity and authority. In search engine optimisation. Receiving links from many high-quality referring domains can improve the search engine rankings of a webpage. SEranking’s backlink analyser displays the total number of referring domains that link out to the analysed domain/URL.
Backlinks are links from external websites that point to a specific webpage. These links are also sometimes called “inbound links,” “incoming links,” or “external links.” Backlinks are important for search engine optimisation because they can help search engines understand the relevance and authority of a webpage. Receiving backlinks from high-quality, reputable websites can improve the search engine rankings of a webpage. SEranking’s backlink analyser displays the total number of backlinks that link to the analysed domain/URL.
No-follow links are links that include a special HTML attribute called the “rel=nofollow” attribute. This attribute tells search engines that the link should not be followed and therefore used as a factor in their ranking algorithms. No follow links can still be followed by users and can still provide value in terms of traffic and user experience, but they do not pass on any SEO value to the linked webpage. No follow links are often used when linking to low-quality or untrusted websites, or when a website owner does not want to pass on their own SEO value to the linked webpage. SEranking’s backlink analyser displays the ratio between DoFollow and NoFollow backlinks.
Do-follow links are links that do not include the “rel=nofollow” attribute. These links pass on what is known as “link juice” or “link equity” to the linked webpage, which can help improve the search engine rankings of that webpage. Do-follow links are the opposite of no follow links and are the default link type for most websites. If a link does not include the “rel=nofollow” attribute, it is a do-follow link. Receiving do-follow links from high-quality, reputable websites can improve the search engine rankings of a webpage. SEranking’s backlink analyser displays the ratio between DoFollow and NoFollow backlinks.
EDU links are links that come from websites with the “.edu” top-level domain (TLD). This TLD is typically reserved for educational institutions, such as colleges, universities, and research institutions. In SEO, EDU links are often considered to be high-quality, authoritative links because they come from reputable educational institutions. As a result, many SEOs believe that receiving EDU links can help improve the search engine rankings of a webpage. However, it is important to note that EDU links are no different from any other type of link in terms of how they are evaluated by search engines. The ultimate quality and value of a link depends on the content and relevance of the linking webpage, not just the TLD of the website. The total number of backlinks from .EDU domains that link out to the analysed domain/URL.
GOV links are links that come from websites with the “.gov” top-level domain (TLD). This TLD is typically reserved for government agencies and organisations. In the world of search engine optimisation, GOV links are often considered to be the pinnacle of domain strength to receive as a backlink because they come from reputable government sources. As a result, many SEOs believe that receiving GOV links can help improve your SEO. The total number of backlinks from .GOV domains that link out to the analysed domain/URL.
Now you know what the metrics on the screenshot are, let’s look at what the numbers themselves are for BT.com:
Their domain’s ‘domain trust’ = 90
Their domain’s ‘page trust’ = 24
Their domain’s ‘anchor texts’ = 2,300
Their domain’s ‘referring domains’ = 316,500
Their domain’s ‘backlinks’ = 16,600,000
Their domain’s ratio of do-follow to no follow backlinks: 89.7% do-follow to 10.3% no follow
Their domain’s .edu backlinks = 2,200
Their domain’s .gov backlinks = 130
A quick and short explanation used for why long-form content is beneficial for SEO is because it informs Google that you are an expert in what you are talking about. Well, websites and brands that have severe longevity in their industry, are nationwide companies or even global well-known brand names, do not frequently aim to figure out how they can convince Google they are good and reputable at what they do. This is almost always because of the tectonic strength of their domain, which likely has amassed from being an industry leader with longevity and having a strong reputation offline and online leading to copious amounts of strong referring domains and backlinks!
If you wonder why a website is ranking really well without doing any content – it really is that simple. It’s not because they’ve worked with an SEO agency in Bishops Stortford like Eighteen for the last decade, it’s because their domain’s strength props them up so well that they don’t need to worry about informing Google of many keywords with their keyboards. I guarantee that if you are frustrated about the vastness of content you will likely have to produce to rank well – you do not have 16 million domains pointing to you like BT. So, if you’re not on the scale of a site like that, you best start, or keep, writing! There’s no other way around it.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of improving the ranking of a website on search engines like Google or bing; but let’s be honest – mainly Google! The process of Bishops Stortford SEO involves on-page Bishops Stortford SEO, off-page Bishops Stortford SEO and technical SEO practices. All three of these areas regarding your Bishops Stortford SEO revolve around the aim of increasing your presence in search engine results pages. There are myriad SEO factors that can impact a website’s ranking on search engines, including the quality and relevance of the content on the website, the use of keywords in the website’s content and metadata, the user experience of the website, and the speed at which the website loads; amongst many other SEO factors discussed on this Bishops Stortford SEO page!
Ultimately, to optimise a website Bishops Stortford SEO, it’s paramount that you complete keyword research and frequent SEO audits to identify the terms and phrases that people are using to search for what you want to be found for and to audit how well your Bishops Stortford SEO campaign is doing that. The website’s content should then be optimised for these keywords you have found in a natural and informative way, and the website’s metadata (including the title tags and meta descriptions) should also be optimised to include these keywords, too. In addition, the website should be easy to navigate and should provide a good user experience for visitors while being incredibly fast, lightweight and above-all helpful for the user. Your website should also be easy to crawl and navigate for Google, too. You can aid Google’s crawling of your site by optimising your website’s sitemap (sitemap.xml file). Your frequent Bishops Stortford SEO audits should highlight to you exactly the areas that are stopping your website from being completely optimised for Bishops Stortford SEO and show you the SEO issues on your website for you to address and fix as soon as possible.
I know you said “in short, what is Bishops Stortford SEO?”, with the important part of your question being “in short” but that’s quite a difficult answer to make short and I am an SEOs after all so you will have to bear with me! An incredibly significant aspect of Bishops Stortford SEO is building high-quality backlinks to your domain from other reputable and relevant websites. This can help to improve the website’s ranking on Google as it indicates to their crawlers, spiders and algorithm that your website is trusted and authoritative. For local Bishops Stortford SEO rankings, one of the most important ways to build links is through directory and citation listings. These listings are authoritative online directories that inform Google and searching users in Bishops Stortford that you are indeed a genuine reputable company that should be recommended to people searching for whatever you do in Bishops Stortford.
To conclude, SEO is an important part of any online marketing strategy – and arguably should be at the epicentre of your digital marketing in Bishops Stortford – as it can help to increase the visibility and traffic to your website and ultimately lead to more sales for your business. If you’re not currently doing Bishops Stortford SEO, then you’re a bit silly, mate, really.
The amount of time it takes for Bishops Stortford SEO to work can vary depending on a number of factors, including but not limited to these five things:
In general, it can take several months to a year for Bishops Stortford SEO to start working, although in some cases it may take longer. There are several things you can do to speed up the process and improve the effectiveness of your SEO efforts:
Make sure your website is optimised correctly for Bishops Stortford SEO: This includes having well-written, unique and relevant content, using keywords in your content and in your website’s meta tags, and having a clean and easy-to-navigate website structure.
Keep in mind that Bishops Stortford SEO is a long-term process, and it’s important to be patient and persistent. It may take some time to see the results of your efforts, but by following best practices and continuously working to improve your website and its content, you can eventually see significant improvements in your search engine rankings.
As I keep mentioning, building links to your website is a key part of improving your SEO in Bishops Stortford. Link building is the process of acquiring backlinks (also known as “inbound links”) from other websites to your own. These backlinks can help improve the search engine ranking of your website, especially for local search terms. Here are some strategies for building links for your local SEO in Bishops Stortford:
It’s important to note that while link building can be an effective way to improve your Google rankings in Bishops Stortford, it’s simply one aspect of what should be a comprehensive and thorough Bishops Stortford SEO strategy that you are carrying out. It’s also important to ensure that you have a well-designed and user-friendly website, relevant and high-quality content, and a strong online presence in general. Ask yourself: why would you point loads of signals and signs (backlinks) towards a place (your website) that has nothing worthwhile to see (bad content and a poor website)? If your website is fast, your technical SEO is seen as healthy by Google and your website is packed with well-written helpful content relevant to your industry, then building backlinks to your website’s domain will dramatically improve your Bishops Stortford SEO.
Google Analytics is a free SEO analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It is a powerful tool that can help you understand how visitors find your website in Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages), their behaviour and interactions on your website, and identify areas for improvement.
To use Google Analytics to track your SEO, you first need to sign up for a Google Analytics account and install the tracking code on your website. This will allow Google Analytics to collect data about your website traffic and provide you with insights into how users are finding and interacting with your site.
Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, you can use the following steps to track your Bishops Stortford SEO:
By using Google Analytics to track your SEO performance in Bishops Stortford, you can get a better understanding of how users are finding and interacting with your website, and make informed decisions about how to improve your online presence.
Okay, let’s get down to brass tax. If you Google “SEO agency costs” you will see a range of answers regarding SEO agency costs anywhere from £50 one-off fees to £50,000 a month! However, the truth is that any Bishops Stortford SEO agency worth their salt will give you a bespoke quote based on your budget, goals and existing Bishops Stortford SEO benchmarks.
You should be wary of any SEO agency in Bishops Stortford that displays costings on their website. In particular, when a Bishops Stortford SEO company shows their costings in a tiered format such as ‘bronze SEO tier’ et cetera. Why should you be wary of these SEO companies?
Well, any tiered or set ‘package’ from any marketing agency is simply a cookie cutter approach. There is categorically no ‘one size fits all’ SEO service. The only place you will find this type of SEO service is on platforms like Fiverr, UpWork and PeoplePerHour where ‘sellers’ list their services as a ‘package’ that you purchase and then wait a set delivery time to be told your service has been delivered.
Ultimately, if you genuinely want to improve your SEO in Bishops Stortford and work with a Bishops Stortford SEO company, you want them to provide a service to you that is completely bespoke to your situation and needs, right? The alternative is an SEO service provided to you that is also provided, in the exact same way, to anyone else who works with said imaginary SEO agency – which I guarantee you don’t want and guarantee your Bishops Stortford SEO will not benefit from.
In general, SEO agencies charge based on one of the following three costing models:
It’s important to keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process and it can take time to see results. It’s also important to choose an agency that is transparent about their pricing and their process, and that can provide you with clear, measurable results through SEO reporting.
So what does an SEO agency actually cost? A genuine reputable SEO agency will cost, on a monthly-retainer basis, anywhere between £250 per month to £10,000 + per month. Ultimately, the cost of the SEO agency will differ based on your current situation, SEO goals, budget and the expertise of the SEO agency you are getting a quote from. As is the case with anything but even more so with digital marketing and SEO: cheaper never means better, one-off projects are not what you need and you do indeed require continual monthly SEO support, and anyone charging cheap rates or tiered packages will not provide a bespoke service appropriate to what you need.
The golden time frame most used as the response to this question in the world of SEO is six months. However, what that doesn’t mean is that you will stay completely where you are until ~182 days pass! The beauty – and necessary evil – of SEO is that the website traffic and conversions you gain from SEO are entirely free in comparison to other methods of gaining targeted traffic such as pay-per-click ads or social media marketing. The caveat of course is that you have to make the investment and input the resource into getting into the ranking position to gain the relevant traffic first. Which, as everyone finds out when they begin SEO, is not a quick process. Therefore, those that succeed when it comes to SEO are those that have the willingness to be consistent in their investment and work while maintaining the patience to not see a fast return.
The time it takes to see results from SEO efforts can vary greatly depending on a number of factors, including the competitiveness of the industry, the quality and quantity of the website’s content, and the website’s existing search engine rankings. In general, however, it is not uncommon to see some results within a few months of implementing SEO efforts, although it can often take longer to see the full benefits of an SEO campaign.
That being said, SEO is a long-term strategy and it is important to be patient and consistent in your efforts. It is also important to keep in mind that SEO is just one aspect of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, and it is important to consider other tactics such as content marketing, social media marketing, and paid advertising as well.
It is possible that your search engine optimisation efforts could be negatively impacted if you engage in practices that are considered to be against the guidelines set by search engines like Google. Google’s guidelines are designed to ensure that search results are relevant, accurate, and useful to users and therefore its algorithms are wired to reward practices that aim for this and achieve this and punish those that are not.
Some common negative (also known as black-hat) SEO practices that could result in a penalty or negative impact on your SEO include:
It is important to avoid these and other unethical practices when optimising your website for search engines. Instead, focus on providing valuable, high-quality content and building natural, relevant links to your site. This will help you to achieve long-term success and avoid any potential penalties.
If you work with the right Bishops Stortford SEO agency *cough* Eighteen SEO agency *cough* then no, you should absolutely not have to write your own content to aid your SEO campaign. Any SEO agency worth its salt will have its own internal team of expert content writers that specialise in more than just copywriting – but writing copy that ranks!
There will likely be some fear and resistance from the client’s side when it comes to letting your SEO agency write content for your website, perhaps down to the fact that, of course, you will be the expert in your industry, not your SEO agency. Therefore, when it comes to your SEO agency writing content for you, there will inevitably be some back-and-forth to ensure the tone of voice of the content and the understanding of your business and niche is completely understood. Although, once both parties work together on the first few drafts of content, there’s no reason that your SEO agency should not be a better writer of your content than you. That, paired with the agency’s SEO knowledge and ability to write and optimise content for search engines and SEO results, will ultimately free up your time, free you from stress and maximise your investment and SEO potential.
Overall, it is important to have a clear understanding of what you expect from your SEO agency and to communicate your needs and preferences to them. This will help ensure that the work they do for you is effective and meets your expectations.
The flippant answer would be to not worry about it and leave it to your SEO agency! After all, that’s their job. In fact, if you know of a Google update that has been announced or rolled out, ask your SEO agency if they have heard it and if they haven’t, well… I’ll say no more.
Okay, serious answer now. There are a few ways you can stay up to date with Google’s algorithm updates:
It’s important to keep in mind that Google makes hundreds of algorithm updates each year, and most of them are minor and have little impact on search results. It’s more important to focus on creating high-quality, relevant content and building a strong website overall, rather than trying to optimise for specific algorithm updates.
Yes, site speed can affect your SEO. Search engines like Google use page load time as a ranking factor, so a slower-loading website may rank lower in search results.
In addition to potentially affecting your search engine rankings, a slow-loading website can also negatively impact the user experience. Users are more likely to bounce from a website that takes a long time to load, and high bounce rates can also affect your SEO.
There are a number of factors that can contribute to a slow-loading website, including large image files, unoptimised code, and using a slow hosting provider. To improve your website’s speed, you can optimise images, minify and combine files, and use a content delivery network (CDN). You can also consider using a faster hosting provider, especially if you have a large, traffic-heavy website.
Yes, the user experience of your website can affect your SEO performance. A positive user experience can help improve your website’s ranking in search results, while a negative user experience can hurt your ranking.
There are several factors that contribute to a good user experience, including:
Overall, it’s important to focus on providing a good user experience for your website visitors. This will not only help improve your SEO, but it will also lead to more satisfied visitors and potentially more conversions.
Google’s algorithm is a complex system that at its core and put very simply, is used to sort through billions of pages on the web, index them in its memory and return these indexed webpages, ranked, in search results to a user when they input a search query. Google’s algorithm takes into account hundreds of factors to determine the relevance and credibility of a website and how it should rank in search results for a given query.
Some of the factors that Google’s algorithm considers when ranking websites include:
These are just a few of the many factors that Google’s algorithm takes into account when ranking websites. The specific factors and their relative importance can vary depending on the location and the specific search query.
“The number of websites in the world today is estimated at around 1.72 billion. In 2020, there are 58 billion unique indexed webpages in Google search, up 38.1% in five years. In 2013, Google reported that the 30 billion pages in its index, and they crawled 100 billion pages a month, some with higher return frequency of course.” – Source: WorldWebSize, Statista.
It’s worth noting that Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving, so the factors that it considers and their relative importance may change over time. Google also doesn’t disclose the full details of its algorithm, so it can be difficult to know exactly how it works at any given time.
Google My Business (GMB), now known just as Google Business, is a free tool provided by Google that allows businesses to manage their online presence on Google. Google Business is important for Local SEO because it helps improve the visibility of your business on Google Maps and in local search results. When you claim and verify your Google Business listing, you can provide information about your business, such as your location, hours of operation, and contact information. This information helps potential customers find your business more easily and can increase the chances of them visiting your physical location or contacting you.
In addition to helping with Local SEO, Google Business also provides other benefits to businesses, such as:
Overall, Google Business is an important tool for businesses looking to improve their Local SEO and connect with potential customers through Google.
It is the requirement and responsibility of an SEO agency to provide a report detailing the work they have completed, why it was done and what you can expect to happen from it alongside what is planned to be done next in your SEO campaign. This detail should be paired with transparent data dashboards detailing your Bishops Stortford SEO performance compared to the benchmark statistics outlined when you began your SEO campaign and also compared to the month or year previous to the time period that is being reported on for accurate analysis.
Some of the key metrics that an SEO agency might report on include:
If you search this question in Google or look at a handful of other SEO agency websites, you may see some state that an SEO report comes at an extra cost to the actual SEO service. If you see this, do yourself a favour and let out a laugh and then move on. Your SEO agency should transparently report to you with no exceptions.
It is standard practice for an SEO agency to require a contract when working with a client. In fact, if you are looking to work with an SEO agency, you should be looking to sign a contract, too. A contract helps to establish the terms of the relationship between the SEO agency and the client, including the scope of work, the duration of the contract, and the fees that will be charged.
A contract can provide protection for both the SEO agency and the client. For the SEO agency, it ensures that they will be compensated for the work they do, and it can also help to prevent misunderstandings or disputes over the terms of the relationship. For the client, a contract can help to ensure that the agency delivers on its promises and provides the agreed-upon level of service.
It is important for clients to carefully review any contract before signing it to make sure they understand the terms and are comfortable with them. If there are any provisions that are unclear or that the client disagrees with, they should raise these issues with the agency before signing the contract. It may be possible to negotiate changes to the contract to address any concerns.
Would you hire a plumber and expect him to fix your bathroom from your garden shed? Jokes aside – yes, in order to perform SEO work on your website, an SEO agency will need access to your website. This can typically be accomplished by giving the agency access to your website’s content management system (CMS) and through providing FTP access to your website’s server files.
It is important to ensure that you trust the SEO agency you are working with and that you feel comfortable giving them access to your website. Make sure to ask about their security measures and how they plan to protect your website and its data. It may also be a good idea to set up a separate user account for the agency with limited permissions, rather than giving them access to your main account.
Keep in mind that SEO work involves making changes to the content, structure, and other elements of your website in order to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results. In order to do this effectively, the SEO agency will need to be able to access and modify various aspects of your website.
No, an SEO agency cannot guarantee you SEO results and certainly not within any specific time frame. It is generally not possible for an SEO agency to guarantee specific results, as the success of an SEO campaign depends on a wide range of factors that are beyond the control of the agency.
Additionally, search engines like Google constantly update their algorithms, which can impact the visibility and ranking of websites in search results. This means that it is difficult to predict with certainty how a website will perform in the search results over time.
While an SEO agency can take steps to optimise a website and improve its ranking in the search results, it is important to be realistic about the potential outcomes and not expect guarantees of specific results. It is also important to work with an SEO agency that is transparent about its strategies and approaches, and that is willing to provide regular updates on the progress of the campaign.
To conclude, an SEO agency cannot, and should not, guarantee SEO results. However, they should still be confident and display their competence in achieving the agreed-upon SEO objectives.
Google does not directly care what platform your website is built on. The platform that you use to create and publish your site through is not a ranking factor or consideration in Google’s algorithms. However, there are pros and cons to using different platforms such as WordPress, Squarespace and Wix. The pros and cons to Squarespace for your SEO revolve around the website building functions being incredibly easy but that it has several limitations when it comes to SEO optimisation. Likewise, for Wix SEO pros and cons, it’s key to understand that Wix is a very-easy WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website builder for beginners in the website world.
Your SEO agency should certainly aim to do this and It is possible for an SEO agency to help improve your website’s ranking in search results and potentially rank above your competitors. However, it is important to keep in mind that the process of improving your search engine rankings is not an exact science and cannot be guaranteed.
There are many factors that contribute to your website’s ranking in search results, including the quality and relevance of your content, the usability and accessibility of your website, and the overall authority and trustworthiness of your domain. An SEO agency can work with you to optimise these and other factors in order to improve your search engine rankings.
It is also important to keep in mind that SEO is a long-term strategy. It may take some time for the efforts of an SEO agency to have a significant impact on your search engine rankings. It is also important to note that your competitors may also be working to improve their search engine rankings, so it is possible that they may continue to rank above you even if you are working with an SEO agency.
In summary, while a top SEO agency in Bishops Stortford can help improve your search engine rankings and potentially rank above your competitors, there are no guarantees and it is important to have realistic expectations about the process.
Copyright © 2024 18 Growth Ltd. All Rights Reserved | Company Number: 14196269