Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation is a long term marketing strategy. The goal is to generate consistent, qualified traffic for your website that allows your business to grow organically. How long it takes for your SEO campaign to start seeing results does depend on a few variables. We typically start to see results for our clients around the 3 month mark. For some clients we can get some very quick wins, and for others it can take a little longer. We always ask our clients to consider SEO as an ongoing activity for their business rather than a quick fix.

Nobody can guarantee rankings on Google. Beware of anyone that offers this or claims to have a special relationship with Google. We have a solid understanding of what works and what doesn’t, but even the best SEO professionals in the world don’t know exactly how the Google algorithm works. Our SEO campaigns are all about best practice, user focused strategies that are then tested and reviewed regularly to optimise your search visibility. We’re completely transparent about the work we do, and part of that is being clear that there are no guarantees.

There are literally hundreds of ranking factors that Google considers. The major components are having the right keywords, good quality unique content, optimal website structure and a great user experience. Beyond that there are many tactics to demonstrate to Google that your website is authorative and worthy of being on the front page. We can provide all of the technical elements required for a great SEO campaign, but you can focus on how to best serve your customers with information that they actually want. This is the key to good SEO.

When we start a SEO campaign for a client here at Pixeld we begin with keyword research. You might have some phrases in mind that you want to rank for, but it’s important to target search phrases that have a reasonable amount of volume and therefore potential to bring you business. Next we will audit your website to ensure all of the SEO fundamental are in place. We’ll begin a content strategy that identifies any gaps in your existing content and a plan to create content moving forward. Ongoing, we look at ways to promote your content so that users will find you, and Google will understand the value you provide.

SEO or search engine optimisation is the effort to appear higher in organic search results of Google. It’s typically a long term investment. SEM or search engine marketing is all about paid advertising (the results that show up the top with ‘ad’ next to them). You pay a certain amount every time someone clicks one of your ads. SEM can be used as a short term tactic to get immediate results and potentially be scaled back once your SEO starts seeing results. Both tactics have a place and are neither better or worse than the other.

There’s a common understanding that blogging does help your SEO, but what most don’t realise is that your content needs to be quality and targeted. Google will not rank very highly a series of short, poorly constructed articles that users get no value from. It’s definitely more important to focus on quality over quantity, but ideally you want both. The more quality pieces of content you have on your website, the more chance you have of being found on Google.

Google have pretty explicitly stated that your website needs to have a SSL certificate to be loaded over HTTPS. This adds a layer or security and trust for your website visitors, and Google heavily favours results that have this in place. Most hosting companies offer some form of SSL for free these days so there is no reason not to have it. Most browsers also now warn users if you don’t have SSL so you might be turning customers away before they can even load your website.

It’s important not to artificially stuff keywords in your website. Google is on to this tactic and is far more clever than that these days. Google is able to understand what your website is all about via a range of other factors. Instead focus on the overall purpose of your content and write naturally for users. However it is important to clearly add what your page is about in the page title, a H1 heading, your image ‘alt’ descriptions and preferably in the first paragraph of page content.