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Category: SEO services

  • 10 things your SEO company won’t tell you

    10 things your SEO company won’t tell you

    Don’t fall for the slick sales-pitch or the expensive offices – Here are 10 things to help stop you getting ripped off

    Don't get ripped off by poor quality SEO
    Don’t get ripped off by an expensive poor-quality SEO company

    So, you’ve either paid for or are considering paying for search engine optimisation (SEO services) but you’re not sure what to expect or how to measure the results. This article helps dispel a few myths, and talk about the pitfalls to watch out for to make sure you get excellent, tangible results and value for money when you hire and SEO company. Follow the advice here to help stop your website getting penalised by Google, make sure you don’t get ripped off and help make sure to don’t spend more than you need to.

    1. There are keywords and there are keywords

    It’s easy to get to page one of Google. Here is a quick example: if you do a search for ‘jfjfjf’, right there in in position one, page one of Google there’s a YouTube video uploaded by someone called ‘GRRRRRR145’. If you’d like me to get you to page one, position one for the keyword ‘jfjfjf’, no problem. Of course I can do it for you… but what is the point? Just as I wasn’t searching for a video of a girl talking after breathing in helium when I typed in that phrase, neither will your potential customers be using that phrase to find your products and services.

    These poor quality SEO companies might get you to position one, but it will often be for the wrong phrases (keywords). It’s not a coincidence that there is very little competition for some these phrases – it’s because no one is searching for them and that is why it’s so easy to get you right up the rankings for them. This is what a lot of poor quality SEO companies will do when they promise you page 1 for your website.

    If you’re going to get to for first position on Google it needs to be a relevant search phrase or there is no point. Agree your keywords in advance, monitor their position, and make sure they’re words your customers will actually be typing into Google to find your products and services.

    2.The SEO effect often stops shortly after you stop paying for it

    The poor quality SEO companies will give you an endless list of SEO activity they will provide for you, but in reality, they’re often just focusing on inbound links. Why? Because that’s not only easy but it’s the way it’s always been done and the only way most of these companies know how to do it.

    The problem, however – and it’s a very serious problem – is that as soon as you stop paying for link-building, the effect starts to disappear. For example, high quality on-site SEO and articles linking to your site from high-quality sites will give you an excellent long-term increase in the Google rankings. poor quality links will at best do nothing for your long-term SEO and may even damage it by getting you penalised by Google

    When it comes to link-building, focus on quality not quantity.

    3. They’re trying to deceive Google

    Google has become clever enough to spot the type of SEO that poor quality sites create for you – because it’s effectively attempting to deceive Google. Now, more than ever, trying to deceive Google is a very bad idea as you’re likely to wind up getting penalised for it. Inbound links should certainly be part of your SEO strategy but they have to be natural links from high quality (and preferably relevant) sites. The poor quality SEO companies unfortunately don’t discriminate between good and bad sites.

    Not all links are valuable – poor quality inbound links can have a very serious detrimental effect on your Google rankings

    4. You can’t pick an SEO company based on price

    Cheap SEO isn’t necessarily bad SEO just as expensive SEO isn’t necessarily good SEO. That friendly, chatty guy you know has unfortunately just baffled you with bullsh*t. he’s told you that the SEO his company does is better than the SEO services provided by the ‘other’ companies, however, ultimately, you’re just going to get the same SEO as if you’d bought from the cheapest company you could find.

    Unless you get regular reports with tangible results showing you clear methodology, you won’t know whether you’ve been paying for good quality SEO or poor quality SEO until it’s too late.

    5. Google wants your site to be good quality, which doesn’t mean contrived inbound links

    If you’ve paid for SEO services in the past and have had a bad experience, there’s a good chance probably got the ‘poor quality’ stuff – probably at best just some poor-inbound links and not much more. Poor quality purchased links are effectively an attempt at deceiving Google and Google is smart enough to spot this and you may get penalised for this loosing position in the rankings.

    This about it like this – good quality SEO is about helping your site communicate well with Google – communicating your sites subject, purpose, products, services, geographical area, etc. Poor quality SEO is cheap attempt to manipulate Google into thinking your site is more important or authoritative than it really is. A poor quality site not only reflects badly on your business but also ranks badly. Therefore, logically, you should focus on quality with everything you do including your SEO

    A good quality site provides a good user experience. One of the things that adds to the user experience is good quality content. This is the first step in helping build natural, organic links. Of course, not every business is going to be able to get natural, organic links, but it’s something to bear in mind.

    If your site is built properly from the beginning, including good quality content, your site will naturally communicate your products & services clearly and therefore organically reflect its importance in terms of communicating with Google – no need to further SEO, Google will already have a clear picture of your site and rank it accordingly. The problem with most SEO in its current form is that is attempting to make sites appear more important that they would otherwise have appeared. obviously, Google doesn’t want this to happen!

    To conduct search engine optimisation properly you need to communicate clearly with Google, not attempt to deceive it.

    6. It’s really not rocket-science, or witchcraft, or magic – SEO is very simple

    Falling for the SEO companies ‘slick sales pitch’ about how their ‘technical approach’ is better than everyone else’s is probably just BS to get you to sign up. You do and you’re then immediately passed to some spotty 17-year-old account manager. And going with the company with the expensive offices means your money being spent on their business rates when it should be going on your website SEO.

    The reality is that SEO is not particularly complicated and doesn’t involve any ‘magic’. What it does involve though, when done properly, is a lot of time. Optimising images, re-writing content, creating SEO optimised articles, building good quality links, doing the search engine hand-shakes, etc. are all very time consuming which is where your money should be going.

    Don’t fall for the salesman, speak to the guy who’s going to be doing the leg-work to make sure they know what they’re talking about and you’re going to get value for money.

    7. There is website traffic and there is website traffic

    What use is a million visitors to your site if none of them are your target customer? Failing to do a comprehensive competitor and search analysis before beginning your SEO campaign might mean you get it completely wrong and wasting money could be the least of your worries!

    Badly optimised images and a badly optimised site combined with a lot of traffic can, for example cause your hosting account to become suspended or maybe worse!

    Optimising your on-site content and focusing on the correct key phrases from the start of your SEO campaign will mean you’re much more likely to get the right visitors to your site and you’re less likely to have server problems.

    8. Google continues to become smarter at spotting poor quality SEO

    From what I have seen over the past few years, I would say that this year is probably the last one you’ll be able to get away with poor quality SEO that focuses on link-building.

    Google continues to become smarter and, as we’ve seen earlier in this article, it doesn’t like to be deceived… but more importantly; don’t deceive yourself that poor quality SEO is anything other than attempting to deceive Google!

    Unless you know you’re getting high-quality SEO services, you are taking a very big gamble with your website!

    9. Protect your professional image

    Your reputation is vitally important and therefore you need to protect it. Allowing someone else to write and publish information about your company, pertaining to have come from you and without you having approved it could be asking for trouble.

    Are you sure the articulate guy who sold you the SEO services in the first place is the one also doing the writing? How much do they actually know about your business? How much time is spent on quality control?

    Simply focusing on quality as opposed to quantity gives you much more opportunity to make sure the information being published properly reflects your business.

    10. On-site SEO is your number 1 priority

    Every house starts with its foundations. Obviously, you don’t invite people round for a house-warming party until it’s built – that would be silly! And this is the same with your SEO. Failing to get the basics done properly at the start means you’re throwing away your money.

    Start with the foundations and build from there. The irony is, simply getting the basics done properly in the beginning will often mean that you don’t even need to spend anything on any further SEO!

    Get your website properly optimised and continue creating good quality content for it before you start your inbound linking SEO

    How do I get good quality SEO help & advice?

    For high quality SEO and making sure your web development is done properly, call Seven Creative today on 0114 383 0711 or contact us through the contact page

  • 5 reasons why it might be time to update your website content

    5 reasons why it might be time to update your website content

    5 reasons why it might be time to update your website content

    How long is it since the text on your website was updated? Have you been meaning to rewrite it for ages, but it keeps getting put to the bottom of the to-do list as more urgent work presses on your time? This is a common story for many website owners, however, it might actually be a good time to get your website content updated. Here’s why:

    1. Search engines love fresh content

    Google loves lots of recently updated content. Websites that regularly add new, unique content are often seen by search engines as more important, and more relevant to web users. That means, if you keep your website up to date, you should naturally rank higher in the search engines than a site whose content remains the same, or hasn’t been updated for quite a while.

    It’s also worth checking that your website copy includes the words and phrases that you would like to be found online for. Search engine optimised copy means that your website will be more likely to be found by search engine users when they search for a product or service that you offer, meaning more visitors to your site.

    2. A news section or blog is great for SEO

    Does your website have a news section? If so, when was it last updated? Adding and regularly updating a News page is a great way of keeping your website up to date with fresh content that search engines and potential customers will love.

    There’s nothing worse than checking out a company’s news page only to find that it hasn’t been updated for 6 months. Are they not very busy? Have they gone out of business? You might not think that your company has anything to shout about, but there are lots of things you could write a short article on. For example, a new product, a new member of staff, a great testimonial, or even industry news.

    3. Visitors trust up-to-date sites

    Regular, loyal customers who see you as a reliable and trustworthy business may be fairly familiar with your site. Why not give them something new to read when they next visit? Adding fresh material to your site on a regular basis means they will keep coming back to see what’s new!

    4. Your content is out-of-date or not accurate

    So your website copy has been the same since your site went live 3 years ago. If this rings true, you need to act, and fast. Businesses naturally progress and grow, and your website needs to reflect this. The chances are, you’ve developed your services, expanded your product range or gained the experience to specialise in a particular area. And it’s not just your business that may have developed, changes in your industry are inevitable, and keeping up to date with them is key to establishing trust between you and your customers.

    5. The contents is boring or not engaging

    Even the most brilliant content can become stale over time. The attention of online readers is incredibly short, you literally have a few seconds to grab them and make them want to keep reading. Your website copy may describe exactly what you do accurately, but is it lively enough to capture the attention of a reader and to keep them there?

    Content needs to be concise and captivating, getting to the point quickly, and providing the option for readers to find out more. Text should be in bite sized sections, making it easy to scan and process the information with little effort. Text heavy paragraphs that aren’t broken up by images or bullet points are a real put off too!

    I still don’t have time to update my website content!

    Getting an agency to refresh and rewrite website contents may be more affordable than you think. We’re based in Sheffield and are very experienced in writing copy for websites. We also specialise in SEO and SEO copywriting which is a very important consideration when updating your site. If you’ve been meaning to update your website copy but never quite got round to it, we can help.

    Call Seven Creative on 0114 383 0711 or get in touch through our contact page today.

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – what is a sitemap?

    Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – what is a sitemap?

    If you’ve ever looked into search engine optimisation (aka SEO) in any detail you’ll probably have come across what’s known as a ‘sitemap’. And if you are new to SEO, you’ll also probably be asking yourself ‘what is a sitemap’? A sitemap, in its simplest form, is a file (or files) that provide information about files and pages on your website. It normally site with your other files but it used by search engines to more easily & quickly discover the content on your site. It’s normally simply called something along the lines of ‘sitemap’ and will also normally have an ‘.XML’ extension – e.g. ‘sitemap.xml’. Sitemaps are read by search engines and this information is used to get a clearer picture of things like which pages & files there are on a website; and what type of pages & files theses are (for example, contact pages, downloads, or blog posts)

    A sitemap is designed to help your site communicate with Google and the other search engines by providing detailed information about your sites pages and contents

    What is a sitemap and why does my website need one?

    Your main website navigation is how your website visitors find their way around your website, however, these links may not always provide the whole picture to visitors. For example, there may be pages that aren’t particularly relevant to a visitor so they may not be shown these. However, the website owner may actually want all the website pages to appear in Google (as this is an important source of website traffic for many sites) so a sitemap is a fast way of letting the search engine know things such as the following:

    • Which pages & files exist on a website
    • When each page was last updated
    • How often the page is updated
    • Alternate language versions of the individual page
    • For video, how long the video is, what is the appropriate age rating, what is the video category
    • For images, what is the image of, what type of image it is, and what is the image licence

    Having a sitemaps is particularly important for:

    • Sites that contain pages or areas that are not available through the site navigation
    • Sites that use technologies such as Ajax, Silverlight, or Flash which can’t be ready easily by search engines
    • Sites that are very large meaning web crawlers may miss some of the new or recently updated content
    • Sites that have a lot of pages that are isolated or not well linked together
    • Sites that have few external links for example, new websites)

    What does a sitemap look like?

    Sitemaps for newer websites are often dynamically generated so change when new content is added. They use the XML mark-up which is like HTML but don’t have any styling information attached. Looking at the raw file may be confusing, but an XML viewer will show you the file in a more user-friendly format. Some internet browsers have an in-built XML viewer. Here is are the sitemaps for this website:

    Here is another example of a simpler sitemap:

    This particular site is quite big which hundreds of blog posts, articles, images and pages so the sitemap structure is quite big

    Website sitemaps are a very established part of a website structure (having been introduced in 2005) and continue to be important for search engine optimisation purposes. If you want your site to index properly within search engines, then making sure your sitemap is up-to-date and working correctly a very important part of your activity

    Is my website’s sitemap up-to-date?

    There are several ways to find out if your sitemap is up-to-date – some fast and some a bit more fiddly and slow. Some sites may not even have a sitemap which may be a problem from an SEO perspective. The best way to find out for certain is by asking an SEO expert to have a look.

    If you’re looking for an SEO expert or an SEO company in Sheffield for help with your website and its search engine optimisation (SEO), please give us a call on 0114 383 0711 or visit our contact section

  • The quick guide to the basics of SEO

    Search engine optimisation (or SEO as it’s more commonly known as) has many definitions but I prefer to describe it as the practice of improving your visibility in search engines for relevant search terms. Better visibility can be called higher rankings (or closer to page 1, result 1) and relevant search terms are words or phrase directly connected to the purpose of a website. Incidentally, Google describes SEO as ‘the process of making your site better for search engines’. The noun ‘SEO’ is used to describe someone like me who makes a living improving the search position of websites e.g. ‘I need to hire an SEO to get my site ranking’. It’s also quite common to use SEO as a verb e.g. to SEO a website or page.  

    This guide will focus on Google as they’re by far the largest search engine.

    1. Check your site is on Google

    Do a Google search for ‘site:’ followed by your website URL, for example, to find out if the website sevencreative.co.uk is on Google, search ‘site:sevencreative.co.uk’ (click here to see the results)

    If your site isn’t there, it’s probably due to one of the following reasons:

    • You don’t have any indexed links to your site
    • Your site is very new
    • Your site (or server) either blocks Google from indexing it or the search engine simply can’t read your site
    • Google has blocked your site from the search results (there could be lots of reasons for this)

    If you’re not sure why your site isn’t on Google when you think it should be, it might be time to call an SEO expert. Get in touch with us on 0114 383 0711

    2. Making your website content good for visitors makes it good for Google

    “Make your site interesting and useful” – Google

    Your website text and images need to be clear and relevant, and the titles and higher-up-the-page content is more important than the stuff lower down the page. For example, if the title of the page was simply ‘welcome’, it wouldn’t provide any real value to your visitors, it doesn’t mean anything out of context, and it probably has very little to do with the purpose of your site. Let visitors know what your site does quickly and efficiently in all titles and text with relevant narrative images. The title of this page is ‘The do-it-yourself guide to the basics of SEO’ and it’s a page about the basics of SEO. You know what the page is straight away and so does Google.

    When I explain to someone how to write a page I tell them there are three types of visitors you’ll get – those who skim the page quickly looking for the words and phrases they hope to see, those who will take the time to read every single word, and those who use are more included to use pictures to understand what a website page is about. Get the purpose of the site in the headings, explain the purpose well in the other content, and explain the site well with illustrative and relevant images. You need to cater for all these three people. In doing that you’ll also be catering for Google.

    Pro tips: Aim for at least 300 words per page if you can and be sure to give all your images ‘alt’ descriptions to explain to Google and those using screen readers what they are about.

    3. Make use of the ‘description’ meta tag – this explains to Google what the page is about

    This information is not displayed as part of your web-page but it used by Google to understand and display what your page is about.

    4. Optimise your images

    This is surprisingly important from an SEO perspective. Crop, size and compress your images to load quickly on your website. If you don’t have Photoshop try GIMP – it’s a free image editor

    5. Make your site mobile-friendly

    For many sites these days, most of their visits are by people using their smartphones. If your site isn’t able to be read and used properly by people using smart phones, your site may be penalised by Google

    6. Use your Google My Business page

    Yes, Google use this as a signal about whether your site is legitimate or not. Improve their content and they’ll improve your rankings.

    7. Make sure you have a sitemap and submit it to Google

    A sitemap is an index of all the pages on your site you’d like Google to visit (and also sometimes those pages and directories you’d order not be included in the search results). This is very important as it allows Google to know about pages that it might not necessarily find very easily.

    Sitemaps are commonly in XML format which is a simple but formal way of listing repetitive information in a file that allows the search engines to read it. Sitemaps are commonly in the same directory as the site’s index file and are normally simply called something along the lines of ‘sitemap.xml’. The main sitemap for this site is located here: https://staging.sevencreative.co.uk/sitemap_index.xml

    Not all sites automatically have a sitemap – sometimes you need to create one yourself and upload it to your site. If you’re using WordPress there are several plugins that will do this for you like Yoast or Google XML Sitemaps.

    8. Make sure you have an up-to-date and functioning robots.txt file.

    A “robots.txt” file tells search engines which files and folders it would like it to be able to access and asks it to not access others. Whether or not the search engine follows these requests, however, is a different thing. Google, however, does use the Robots.txt file and is therefore very important to get your site indexing properly. This file, which must be named “robots.txt”, is placed in the root directory of your site.

    Do you need a head start with your SEO?

    Give us a call here at Seven Creative if you need a head-start with your SEO. Whatever the age or subject of your site we can improve its position in the search results. Call us on 0114 383 0711 or use our contact form

  • The origins of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

    I’ve been working with websites since before search engine optimisation (SEO) was a ‘thing’. I originally taught myself HTML as a young teenager using a book I found lying about by Carol Vordernman and the rest, as they say, for me at least, is history. I’ve been providing SEO in Sheffield & further afield now for many years. The first of the more sophisticated search engines to start ‘crawling’ the web and using ‘back-links’ to help evaluate a website was BackRub (later Google) back in 1996. It ranked pages using citation notation, meaning any mention of a website on another site would count it as a kind of vote toward the site it pointed to. In other words, basic things like how many links and the quality of those links to a site would improve its ranking and thus the search engine optimisation industry was born.

    Sheffield SEO (Search Engine optimisation)
    Sheffield SEO (Search Engine optimisation)

    It was very easy to manipulate search engines in the early days

    Back in those early halcyon days, the world wide web was not widely understood and search engines were very easy to manipulate. As businesses began to see the potential of the internet, ‘experts’ appeared who promised to get them ‘up the rankings’. It was actually very easy to do using techniques such as keyword stuffing (for example, a hundred instances of a phrase, right at the bottom of a website, in white writing and on a white background or hiding keywords in the source code) and it actually worked! This, in conjunction with very little search engine competition, created a very profitable business for many SEOs. However, this situation meant that a poor quality site could often easily rank better than a good quality sites – and Google certainly didn’t like being manipulated. Google therefore developed & improved their search algorithm to spot ‘keyword stuffed’ sites and the big change came when they released the infamous Penguin update in 2012 – overnight, many poor quality and keyword stuffed websites dropped out of the search results.

    The new Penguin rules were:

    • Show all of your content.
    • Never stuff keywords in your text or in your images’ ‘alt text’.
    • Don’t use lists of keywords to promote your content.

    If you’re interested in a bit the internet history, you click here to read the official Google Webmaster Blog post entitled ‘Another step to reward high-quality sites’ from 24th April 2012

    SEO in 2020

    Roll on to 2020, and although SEO or search engine optimisation is still a thing, it’s actually almost unrecognisable compared to what it was in those early days. Nowadays we need to focus on providing value to the audience. This, in theory anyway, means that the audience will engage with it and the ‘signals’ (such as social shares, time spent on a site, inbound links) will naturally happen. These signals are what Google use to decide where your site should rank.

    Here is a list of good SEO practice from Google’s perspective in 2020:

    • Help Google find your content
    • Tell Google which pages shouldn’t be crawled
    • Help Google (and users) understand your content
    • Manage your appearance in Google Search results
    • Organise your site hierarchy
    • Optimise your content
    • Optimise your images
    • Make your site mobile-friendly
    • ‘Promote your website’
    • Analyse your search performance and user behaviour

    I’m not going to go into detail here about exactly what these ‘guidelines’ mean as each one warrants its own 1000 word article, however, the rules basically mean that you (as a site owner) and Google (as a search engine) need to meet in the middle. Google does as much as it can to ‘understand’ your site and you need to do as much as you can to help Google ‘understood’ your site.

    However, it all becomes a lot easier to understand when you consider the following facts:

    • Google is first and foremost an advertising agency
    • In order to remain as profitable as possible, Google need to provide the best value to it’s customers (the advertisers) by providing the biggest and most relevant audience (allowing more targeted ads which improves the ROI)
    • Google’s value therefore is in the audience it provides for its advertisers
    • The audience will naturally gravitate to the best search engine experience which includes:
      • High quality
      • Relevant
      • Fast
      • Trustworthy
      • Choice

    Therefore, the better your experience, the more likely you are to use their services.

    The only company who would be potentially able to do this better that Google is Facebook. However, the reason Facebook currently can’t compete is:

    • We don’t trust them anymore. The Cambridge Analytica scandal had a lot to do with this. Their app is also far too intrusive. For example, if you have a recent Android phone, have you tried removing or even disabling the Facebook app that comes pre-installed?
    • Their results aren’t always relevant or high-quality. The content is user-generated or created by advertisers so there often simply isn’t enough choice, quality or relevance

    More importantly than that, though, is that many of us can live quite happily without Facebook but how many of us can cope without a search engine?

    Improve your search engine rankings

    Google is a fact of life but your website languishing on page 4 isn’t. You’ve seen that good search engine optimsation is no longer ‘smoke and mirrors’, rather it’s a combination of providing quality to your audience and communicating effectively with Google. Time-consuming maybe but certainly not rocket-science (or should that be ‘rocket-surgery’?) If you’d like to know where your site can be improved, give us a call on 0114 383 0711   

     

  • A definitions for common online advertising & SEO jargon

    If you work in the field of web design and search engine optimisation, you simply can’t avoid a whole host of acronyms, abbreviations, and general jargon. However, I’m also conscious that what is familiar and perfectly clear to me, is not necessarily also that clear to everyone else. Therefore, this quick post simply defines some of the most common jargon you may come across whilst discussing or reading about PPC advertising, SEO, web design, or marketing.  

    EMD – exact match domain. These are domains that exactly match the keyword phrase they are targeting, for example, the domain sheffield-electrician.co.uk is targeting the search engine term ‘Sheffield Electrician’

    CTR – click through rate. This measurement is usually described and used to measure the interaction between the audience and the required action (the ‘click’). The click-through-rate is most commonly used when evaluating the effectiveness of a PPC campaign, for example, a sponsored Google PPC advert may receive 1000 impressions in a day but have only a 5% click-through-rate. The number of people who see the ‘link’ divided by the number of people who actually click on that link give you the click through rate.

    CRO – Conversion Rate Optimisation. This practice refers to changes made to a website or advert to attempt to positively influence the site visitors behaviour in terms of the site goals e.g. to make an enquiry, or to sign up to a newsletter.

    PPC – Pay Per Click. This refers to a type of advertising where the advertiser only pays an agreed amount when their link (usually on an advert) is clicked.  Google ads are generally paid for on a PPC basis these days.

    PPI – Pay Per Impression. This refers to a type of advertising where the advertiser pays an agreed amount based on their advert appearing a pre-agreed  number of times, for example, Facebook adverts are often sold on a PPI basis, for example, you pay per 1000 impressions. This form advertising does not rely on interaction (for example, people clicking on the advert link), the advert merely has to appear on a page in front of someone.

    SMM – Social Media Management. This refers to the activity of managing the social media activity by or on behalf of an individual or organisation

    SMO – Social Media Optimisation. This refers to optimising the  social media activity, usually in relation to supporting the main business activities.

    SERP or SERPs – Search Engine Results Page(s). This refers to the results returned by the search engine according to your search query. For example, a search on Google for a word or phrase will return a SERP  – i.e. a results page with links to websites relevant to the

    SEO – Search Engine Optimisation. This is the practice of both making changes to a website to allow it to be indexed properly by the search engines according to its purpose and for increasing the traffic visiting a website.

    SEM – Search Engine Marketing. The process of gaining traffic to your website and increasing online visibility

    Have I missed anything from this list?

    If I’ve missed anything from this list, let me know through the contact form or by email 

  • October 2015 – Seven Creative turned 10 years old!

    October 2015 – Seven Creative turned 10 years old!

    Happy Birthday to Seven Creative
    Happy Birthday to Seven Creative

    10 years ago Seven Creative was established, and since then, we’ve helped over 300 local, national, and international business grow

    To celebrate our birthday, we’d like to tell you a little about some of the services you can use to grow your business, show you a little market insight, and give you a little something for free

    Email Marketing

    Email Marketing from Seven Creative
    Email Marketing from Seven Creative

    Email marketing continues to be, for most businesses, by far one of the most cost-effective ways of generating leads… and it’s oh, so simple!

    Not only can we provide you with a super-simple email marketing system, we can also support you with the email content, the email template, the images, and even supply you with a marketing list of targeted prospects. We can even do the whole thing for you if you’d prefer!

    Get in touch on 0114 383 0711 and let us give you a quick run through the system for free

    Mobile friendly web

    Wordpress updating and maintenance by Seven Creative
    WordPress updating and maintenance by Seven Creative

    Mobile search continues to become increasingly important following Google’s ongoing algorithm updates. Many business now reporting over 60% of their site visits come via mobile devices!

    Why not find out how mobile-friendly your site is and if it’s being penalised within the rankings by Google for poor mobile-support.

    We’ll happily do a quick site evaluation for you for free to let you know what steps need to be taken to increase mobile compatibility and what are your priorities. Give us a call today on 0114 383 0711 for more information. 

    Social Media for Business

    Social Media Management by Seven Creative
    Social Media Management by Seven Creative

    It’s here and it’s not going away, but can you afford to ignore social media? Did you know that around 64% of adults aged 50 to 64 use Facebook with 70% of them logging in daily – and they’re a lot less cynical than younger demographics.

    Also, 44% of online women use Pinterest, 28% of adults use Instagram, and 20% of the entire population use Twitter.

    How much is your CPA? I’d put money on that potentially being a whole lot cheaper with a good, solid, consistent and efficient social media strategy in place – and that’s where we can help

    Pick your channels well, create a solid strategy, and post good quality content and you can’t go wrong.

    We can coach you through the setup, show you how to use the channels effectively, and help you put together a solid social media strategy to raise your profile and generate leads

    Get in touch today on 0114 383 0711 and we’ll give you a free social media 101 to get you started

    WordPress maintenance and updating

    Wordpress updating and maintenance by Seven Creative
    WordPress updating and maintenance by Seven Creative

    WordPress is huge – accounting for over an estimated 58% of all content-managed websites online at the moment… and into 2016 this figure continues to grow!

    What many web developers don’t tell you, however, is that WordPress requires a lot of ongoing maintenance. As the biggest CMS it naturally becomes a target for hackers, but do you know if your site is safe and up-to-date?

    We’ll be able to tell you very quickly if your site is likely secure and show you steps you may need to take to secure it further.

    We’re also very experienced in developing and maintaining WordPress sites so we can also provide updates and maintenance if required. Get your free audit today

    New content and articles

    Content creation services from Seven Creative
    Content creation services from Seven Creative

    We now have to cater for a generation of internet consumers who have an increasingly short attention span due to having been bombarded with mediocre content – they expect quick fixes and instant gratification. According to a recent study by AOP, the attention span of many of your site visitors is often as short as 8 seconds it’s getting shorter!

    It’s therefore vital that you create and present fresh, concise, well written, and engaging content for your audience through all your communication channels including email marketing, your website, and social media to increase your ROI and avoid simply becoming part of the ‘noise.’

    …but you’re busy running your business and simply don’t have the time to do it. Therefore, why not let us do it for you? Get in touch for a free content strategy review including a proposal for the ongoing creation of new, fresh content.

    Anything else?

    Internet Marketing by Seven Creative
    Internet Marketing by Seven Creative

    Of course, the services listed above are just a few of things we can offer – after all we’re a full-service agency – so please don’t hesitate to get in touch if there is anything we may be able to help you with.

    From Chris and the team, thanks for being part of our first 10 years and here’s to the next 10

  • 5-Step Guide towards SEO Satisfaction

    Adapting to the evolving world of SEO remains a constant challenge. Yet it needn’t be something that causes frustration. By sticking to clear, concise strategy you can look forward to improved web rankings – and ultimately more genuine traffic to your site.

    Sheffield-SEOYou can minimise the impact of algorithm changes by taking care to publish optimised, organic, useful content on your site. Not only will this always be well-received by Google; it will also retain customers visiting your site for longer (also great for SEO).

    Whether you’re looking for one-off SEO site work, or ongoing content production, you need to make sure that you pick the right company to carry out the work for you. As Sheffield SEO experts, we at Seven Creative are well-placed to help:

    Identify Your Goals

    Before you start an SEO campaign, make sure that you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. If you work within a competitive trade, for example, you’ll be more likely to see page 1 results by targeting one of your niche services. Similarly, adding a geographical focus to your activity can also help you maximise the benefits of SEO.

    View SEO as a Long-Term Marketing Strategy

    Integrating SEO into your marketing budget can pay serious dividends – but the effect you’ll feel won’t always be immediate. For monthly campaigns in particular, it needs to be something that you invest in for the long term.

    A re-work of your website can improve your positions fairly quickly depending on how competitive your keywords are, but if you then don’t continue to add regular, organic content -whilst your competitors do – you’ll soon find yourself sliding back down the SERP’s.

    Make Sure You Get Reports

    The world of SEO can sometimes seem like smoke and mirrors. If you’ve had a bad experience with paid services previously, that will only be heightened. A company that provides you with detailed, transparent, monthly reports can be worth their weight in gold; and you’d be wise to choose such a firm to carry out any SEO work that you need.

    Have a Blog and Update it Regularly

    Business blogging is great for your brand image; as it will help you to establish yourself as a leading voice within your industry. When optimised correctly, this content is perhaps the most important factor with relation to how the Google Algorithm deciphers your website.

    Fresh and engaging news articles, case studies and blog articles are the best way to show the search engines that you have something of value to offer on your site, so this really is an opportunity not to be missed.

    Optimise Any New Content You Publish

    Whenever it comes to adding new content to your site, make sure that it’s optimised for the search engines. If you’ve hired an SEO company for one-off site work but now want to try it yourself, it’s essential to maintain good practices such as adding descriptions and alternative title text to any new images you add to your site.

    SEO Sheffield from Seven Creative

    Maintaining practices such as the ones mentioned here will stand you in good stead for your SEO campaign. To implement the strategy, it’s well worth hiring professionals and we at Seven Creative are here to help.

    Our SEO experts in Sheffield can provide you with engaging web copy; that will stand the test of Google updates to fire you up the rankings – and then keep you there. Please don’t hesitate to call us today on 0114 383 0711 to find out more.