Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate at Google, goes over best practices on how to get started with rich results and how to use Search Console to optimize your search appearance in Google Search.
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Working in SEO we have to answer questions like ‘why is SEO important?’ every time we get onto the topic of job roles.
We usually brush over the topic, making dramatic, over the top claims such as ‘without SEO no one would be found on Google’, but the truth is SEO is essential for all companies. From the local plumber with a five-page website to the biggest management consultancy firm with over a thousand URLs, every business, big or small, can benefit.
When most people search for something on the internet, they tend to head straight to Google. According to Statista, as of June 2019, Google held 87.64% market share in search engines in the UK. Bing, the next most used search engine, only had 8.2% market share.
If you’re targeting new customers, growing your rankings organically is crucial. Although establishing a loyal client base is very important, SEO will bring in new clients. Your website will be easier for new customers to find if you are ranking for keywords instead of just your brand name. As potential shoppers will search for keywords rather than specific companies. SEO is vital if you’re looking to grow your business and expand your clientele.
Whilst targeting Google might be obvious, using a professional agency might be less so. Although there are many blogs and tutorials on SEO online, the tips and tricks can only go so far and how up-to-date or accurate is the information. Not only do digital marketing experts have the training and specialised knowledge, but they also have access to specific software that will allow them to research the keywords most relevant to your business. An SEO specialist will then target the keywords most relevant to your products or services and bring in the right traffic.
One of the most frustrating things about working in SEO is the constant shift in the Google algorithm. Every day, Google changes the way it ranks websites and crawls them for relevant content. For instance, once upon a time, mentioning the keyword as many times as possible on a page, was standard practice for SEO consultants. Recently, however, Google has changed its algorithm to limit ‘keyword stuffing’ – referencing the keyword as much as you could.
Doing SEO for a website is a full-time job. If the Google algorithm changes without your knowledge, your rankings will start to drop. An SEO consultant will know the latest changes to the algorithm and edit your website accordingly, keeping your website on page one of Google.
Finally, SEO is particularly important because if you are not on page one of Google or in the top ten, you will not get the required organic traffic at all to grow your business. As most people are lazy and want instant information, they are unlikely to scroll further than page one. As there are so many companies competing for page one, if you don’t focus on maximising your SEO, your website will not receive much organic traffic.
There are many benefits of paying for SEO services, as you’ve read above. Being on page one of Google for your chosen keywords is one of the most effective ways of broadening a client base and bringing in more traffic to your site, something relevant for all businesses, big or small.
One of the most frequently asked questions we get asked as a business is ‘how long does SEO take?’
Usually, this is a question proposed by potential new clients wanting to know how long it will be until they see results. Looking into the answer to this question, Google suggests approximately 4-6 months. However, this is a generalised answer and does not take into consideration your current situation. For some companies, it may take between the advised times but for others, it could take longer.
There are many factors which need to be considered and therefore it is a much more complicated process than people make it out to be. It isn’t a ‘do once kind of thing’ and it’s done. It requires you to be able to continually work on the optimisation of your website because like everything in the technological world we live in, things are changing daily.
The Google search engine is constantly working to make improvements to the way the information is gathered and the SERP results delivered back to users. This means as an SEO company we are constantly following the guidelines being set out by search engines like Google and ensuring our client’s websites are following these requirements and more.
The result from working consistently on a websites search engine is optimisation in continued growth.
An improvement in organic results can look different between an agency such as Chameleon and a business. To an SEO agency, an increase in rankings could be an indicator of success. On the other hand, to a business, results might mean receiving conversations from their organic traffic. Due to this, it is imperative to understand that SEO is a process and therefore until your website appears within the top half of page one within the Google’s search results, it’s not likely to drive the results business owners require. However, every step taken to achieve these results is positive progress.
There are many elements you need to consider in order to get your website ranking in search engine results and therefore to determine how long it will take for SEO to take effect, you will need to know where you are currently. Some general questions which you may ask yourself are, what keywords do you rank for and what position do you rank currently? As well as knowing where you are now, you may also want to consider where you want to be and the budget you are willing to put into search engine optimisation to achieve online success.
To further complicate things, it is a moving target. By this we mean, there are frequent SERP algorithm changes which have an effect on your rankings, competitors SEO campaigns and other variables which all contribute towards your end goal. All of these have to be taken into consideration when estimating how long SEO will take for your website.
To summarise, in selected cases we have found SEO to start working virtually instantly. However, for the majority, it can be months, even years to reach your goal depending on the keywords you are targeting.
Our SEO consultants are happy to have a chat regarding your current organic ranking positions, where you want to be and the required budget involved to achieve success.
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This Hangout on Air covers what advertisers should know about Quality Score. The quality of your ads is measured to provide both users and advertisers with a good experience. Learn about the important elements of ads quality and how you can improve your Quality Score.
