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Category: SEO tips

  • 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

  • What is the ‘passive voice’ and why is it important in Search Engine optimisation?

    What is the ‘passive voice’ and why is it important in Search Engine optimisation?

    If you’ve ever delved a little more deeply into search engine optimisation, you may have come across talk of the ‘passive voice’ in relation to page content. Or more specifically, why you should be avoiding using the ‘passive voice’ too much. For example, one of the most popular and widely used SEO plugins is Yoast which specifically warns against a use of the passive voice in more than 10% of the page text content. Therefore, we thought we’d take this opportunity to discuss exactly what the ‘passive voice’ is, and how to improve your page content for SEO. Don’t forget, Seven Creative is a very well established Sheffield SEO agency providing SEO services for many years. Give us a call if you would like help with your website optimisation 

    Sheffield SEO company - an article all about the passive voice

    What is the passive voice?

    “The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence.” – ef.co.uk

    The ‘passive voice’ is a grammatical construction which contrasts with the ‘active voice’ (the standard English sentence structure). A good way to explain this is therefore to contrast the two with examples.

    Let’s start with the subject who does something (verb) to a thing (receiver) e.g. the man (actor) throws (direct verb) a ball at the wall (receiver). In the passive voice, the actor and receiver are switched making the receiver the grammatical subject. The meaning stays the same, just the word order changes e.g. the wall had a ball thrown at it by the man. You can even omit the actor completely and say ‘the wall had a ball thrown at it’ which is still perfectly understandable but simply omits some of the information

    So why omit the passive voice?

    Well, this is an SEO article so it would be rude to not also talk about Google who are the largest and most sophisticated search engine. I say they’re a search engine put actually Google is an ad agency who sell access to us, the consumers, to the advertisers. To keep us loyal they need to provide us with the highest quality content. In other words, out of a thousand potential websites, they need to show us the best quality (and most relevant) ones first (this is page 1 of Google search results). As we humans prefer the active voice, Google therefore uses this factor in its ranking decisions (algorithm) and discriminates against sites that use the passive voice too much

    Firstly, the passive voice makes your sentence longer and wordier. Here is an excellent example from Yoast:

    1. The passive voice almost always makes your message less clear.

    2. Your message is almost always made less clear by using the passive voice.

    Secondly, using the passive voice makes your sentences more complex and require the audience to use more ‘thinking’ to understand it. Complex sentences mean more thinking which means it’s less likely you’ll get your message across

    So how do I swap to the ‘active’ voice?

    Almost every example of the passive voice has an active voice alternative so it’s simply a case of spending a little bit more time thinking about what you’ve written and re-writing those sentences that are wordy or more complex than they could be.

    When you rewrite your sentence to the active voice, not only will the verb form change, but also the actor and receiver will change places. Here are some examples:

    This blog post was written by me > I wrote this blog post (past simple)

    The website is being optimised by Seven Creative > Seven Creative are optimising the webpage (present simple continuous)

    The page will have been optimised by us > we will have optimised the page (future perfect)

    I could go on but I’m sure you get the gist!

    Are there exceptions?

    Not only is it sometimes just more logical to structure a sentence in the passive voice, but writing is an art, and you may simply prefer the passive voice.

    In other words, don’t avoid the passive voice at all costs. Rather, consider your audience in relation to your sentence and decide if the active voice may be a better alternative. However, to properly optimise your content for SEO purposes, aim for no more than about 10% use of the passive voice. Remember, in most cases, the active voice is easier to understand and that’s ultimately the aim of the game.

    A well search engine optimised website means better ranking and more leads

    Here at Seven Creative we’ve been working on SEO and optimising website for many years. If you’d like a hand with your site, give us a call on 0114 383 0711 or visit our contact section to get in touch

  • 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 

  • Improve Your Website’s Search Engine Rankings with These 5 SEO Tips

    As a business owner, you’re no doubt bombarded by spammy emails offering you SEO services from companies that promise they can get your website on the first page of Google. As a reputable Sheffield SEO company we know that no-one can really guarantee these results with 100% certainty. But there are certain things that you can do to help your website rank highly in the search engines, therefore increasing traffic to your website. 

    Search Engine Optimisation (SEO services) from Seven Creative
    Search Engine Optimisation (SEO services) from Seven Creative

    SEO is an abbreviation of search engine optimisation. This is the process of improving the ranking of a website in the results pages of a search engine for certain keywords in order to get more organic traffic to the site. When carried out properly, search engine optimisation provides valuable results that make a significant improvement to the amount of traffic your website receives. With that in mind, here are our top 5 SEO tips that will help to improve the ranking of your website in the search engines.

    1. Write Interesting, Engaging Content

    Interesting, engaging content has never been more important for SEO on your website or blog. Great content helps to establish you as a thought leader in your industry, and an expert in your field. Search engines prefer fresh, original content that engages users, and writing relevant content that users find interesting will not only engage users, but also build your credibility. And as you become a trusted resource for information, users will be more likely to buy your services.

    2. Share your Content on Social Media

    Another great way to boost your SEO efforts is to share your content on social media. The more your content is shared, the more links and traffic it will receive. Therefore, the more popular and relevant it seems to Google. Use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest to promote your content, and get it shared by other users. Do your best to promote your content on relevant forums, blogs and newsletters too.

    3. Optimise Meta Data and Tags

    Optimising your titles, meta-tags, meta-descriptions and images for SEO is a must for on-page optimisation. Title tags are used on search engine results pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given web page, and are important for both SEO and social sharing. Titles should be a concise and accurate description of a page’s content; getting it right is really important for both the user experience and search engine optimisation. Also, remember to use ‘Alt text’ for images, because without them, your images won’t be read by search engines, meaning that they’ll have no SEO value whatsoever.

    4. Optimise Content with Keywords

    When creating content, focus on writing great content for human readers that includes keywords and phrases to help search engines find it. But make sure that you use these keywords naturally; cramming them in where they don’t make sense or don’t read comfortably could be detrimental to your site.

    5. Use Analytics to Monitor Performance

    After all this hard work, you want to know whether or not your SEO efforts are working, right? The best way to keep track of your success is to use a tracking tool such as Google analytics to monitor the traffic coming to your website. This will enable you to pinpoint the keywords that are driving traffic, identify the pages that have had the highest numbers of visitors, and figure out which pages your customers are converting on. By keeping your eye on your analytics, you can make regular tweaks and changes to optimise your results.

    Sheffield SEO Company and Marketing Agency

    Although carrying out successful search engine optimisation takes effort, it can bring real traffic to your website. Taking these steps will certainly help you on the way to increasing the amount of web introduced business you generate. If you need some help, or would simply like to chat to an expert, Seven Creative can help. Give us a call on 0114 383 0711 or email us at info@sevencreative.co.uk to find out how we can help to grow your business with quality SEO services in Sheffield.

  • Google’s New Hummingbird Update Completely Changes How Your Website is Found

    2013 – Google has just announced its ‘Hummingbird’ algorithm change, which is the latest overhaul of its search engine formulas aimed at better answering internet users’ complex queries and affecting many website’s search engine optimisation 

    Searches based on meaning

    The new algorithm is set to return better search results when users make more complicated requests, therefore keeping up with longer, more advanced search queries. Instead of the search engine returning pages that match a few words, Hummingbird is set to take into account the sentence as a whole and return searches based on its overall meaning. As people’s reliance on Google grows, users enter more complex questions into the search box, not just a few words that are related to a specific topic.

    Google’s Senior VP, Amit Singal has confirmed that the new algorithm has been in place for about a month already, although Google only announced it officially yesterday.

    ‘Entirely new algorithm’

    Unlike Panda and Penguin, which were changes to parts of the old algorithm, Hummingbird is an entirely new algorithm. Singal has confirmed that it is the most dramatic alteration in 3 years,  when Google switched to ‘Caffiene’ in 2010.

    Most importantly, Google’s advice with regard to search engine optimisation remains the same, focus on original, high quality content. Which is exactly what we do here at Seven Creative!

    For more information about search engine optimisation services, call Seven Creative on 0114 383 0711