If you want to stay competitive in your business, you’ll eventually need to update your website because web design trends are constantly shifting. Maintaining your domain authority and SEO rankings is crucial before, during, and throughout the process of redesigning your website. 

You must take the necessary steps to not only maintain your SEO rating but also seek ways to raise it during this time. Here are six essential tips for retaining your SEO ranking after redesigning your website.

Employ a staging site

You shouldn’t give the impression that you’re unprofessional to potential consumers. Therefore, avoid working on your redesign using the live site because you’ll probably encounter issues while focusing on the layout and informational content of the new version. Using a staging site on your WordPress hosting, a localhost server, or even a different domain ensures that no one will see your modifications while the website is being created. 

Keep in mind that closing down your old website while you redesign it can irritate new visitors. Instead, keep it up and running throughout this time. A typical strategy is to redesign it and post it at another URL. In order to prevent search engines from unintentionally presenting it in place of the official website, noindex it. Finally, finish the redesign on that distinct domain.

Keep track of SEO

There are numerous search engine monitoring tools online that can monitor crucial metrics for your website, such as keyword ranks, historical keyword data, organic traffic, domain authority, spam score, backlinks, and so on. After the introduction of the revised website, observe any changes in organic traffic. 

To determine whether the new pages are successfully attracting new viewers or not, it’s also a good idea to review page-by-page analysis. So, don’t hesitate and choose the best marketing company in Sydney that offers a variety of SEO services that have been shown to improve ranks and drive visitors.

Take into account your competition

Competitor analysis is more than just knowing what your rivals are doing. It also involves recognizing how they’re carrying it out. Researching your competition’s website structure and how they’re using links, content, and keywords to rank higher in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) is part of SEO competitor analysis. 

With the help of this investigation, we can create your unique SEO strategy based on an industry standard. Find out what’s hot in website design and development right now. To learn some useful strategies, you should research the strategies of your competition. 

Include redirects

If you manage a WordPress website, you’ll need to support redirects to maintain a compatible navigation experience as your website evolves over time. The 300 redirects that site design must take into account fall into two categories: 301 redirects which are long-lasting changes made with website visitors and search engines in mind, and temporary redirects with the 302 protocol. 

For the sake of SEO rating, you must stay away from this one when redesigning. Links and bookmarks to the old site will therefore redirect to the new one as well. Simply redirecting users to the new home page will probably annoy them, so you should try to make existing links flow to the correct page or at least a page that’s similar on the makeover.

Maintain internal linking

Between internal and external web pages, internal linking serves as a bridge. Links are a crucial component of information sharing and site navigation. Keep all current internal and external linkages intact. If you want a website that is optimized for search engines, keep internal links as much as you can. 

Furthermore, in order to get a sense of the complete page, bots pay close attention to headings and subheadings. These headings serve as a guide for Google’s spiders. Examples of headers and subheadings are H1, H2, and H6. When redesigning the website, don’t fully modify them because they’re essential for effective SEO and contain keywords.

Retain stability

Try to maintain consistency between the layout of your redesign and the original. The familiarity will prevent confusion for frequent users. Use a layout visualization tool to map out the old headers and meta description tags of your current website. 

For this, crawling technologies like Screaming Frog, and others are employed which will aid in automatic web crawling. Maintaining your website’s structure and flow is crucial if you don’t want to lose all SEO ranking.

With these essential tips, retaining your SEO rankings won’t be a problem, and you won’t miss anything as your company grows.

What is Local SEO and How Does It Work?

Local SEO is a search engine optimisation (SEO) method that makes your company more visible in Google search results for those who are looking for it in your local area.

Local SEO may be beneficial to any company that has a physical presence or that services a specific geographic region. If you search Google for any essential keywords linked to your company and a map with three results underneath it (also known as the map pack) shows, local SEO may assist you in growing your business and increasing your customer base.

However, in order to understand local SEO, you must first grasp how Google works.

What was the evolution of search engines?

The early days of the internet were characterised by a small number of websites, which made browsing the web simple. When the internet began to grow in popularity, however, search engines were developed to help people discover the websites they were seeking more quickly and conveniently.

In a search engine, when you write in a phrase, that phrase is matched to web pages that contain the keywords you entered in your search term. The search engine Google employed the same technique as the other search engines at the time, but it swiftly surpassed them when it became the first search engine to use connections between websites to determine which websites were trustworthy and had authority.

Today, Google considers hundreds of indicators, both on and off your website, in order to assess whether or not your website is relevant enough to show as a search result. Factors contribute to the formation of your "digital footprint," and each element has a distinct weight or value, which the search engine takes into consideration when combining results. Your digital footprint impacts whether or not you appear as a top result in a Google search when a user puts in a search query.

How does Google function?

The search engine Google analyses the pattern of several website signals, or ranking variables, such as the relevance of your site, when you enter a search word and returns a list of websites that match your search.

The majority of people are unaware that when they put anything into the Google search field, the search engine does not do a live search of the whole internet. The search engine is essentially looking through a cached copy that contains all of the websites that Google has found. The Google Index is the name given to this copy.

Google crawls the web with the help of little program known as "spiders" in order to compile the index. Essentially, each spider operates in the same way: it begins on a single page, then follows the links on that page, looks at material on subsequent sites, and so forth.

As web material is crawled and stored in Google's servers, the index is formed, and the index is updated as new content is discovered. The spiders operate on a mind-boggling scale, crawling billions of pages per second at an extraordinarily quick rate on an ongoing basis. This guarantees that the index is as current as feasible and that new sites and links are detected as fast as possible.

How Google ranks search results

Google employs a variety of techniques to rank hundreds or thousands of websites in the blink of an eye, depending on the situation. Algorithms are the terms used to describe these processes. When you search for anything on Google, an algorithm scans the index and delivers a list of web pages that match your search in the form of organic results. Those results are selected and ordered on the basis of the relevance, significance, and popularity provided by inbound links, among other factors.

The algorithm considers a variety of on-site and off-site elements in order to identify which websites provide content that is relevant to your search query. To begin, all of the relevant websites are added to the list, which is then prioritised according to their importance. Referencing the numerous on-site and off-site parameters once again, the algorithm evaluates which sites best answer your search query, and those sites are placed at the top of the search results page.

Improving your SEO has an impact on your website's relevance, prominence, and link popularity factors, among other things. If the appropriate aspects of your site's digital footprint are optimised, your site will appear higher in more search results, resulting in more visitors.

How Local SEO Works

What about organic search results for local businesses? After studying the behaviour of users through billions of searches, Google discovered that consumers looking for certain sorts of companies want results that are within a reasonable driving distance of their location. In order to account for this, Google's local search algorithm contains a proximity factor, which is a fancy way of stating that when you search for a local phrase, Google considers your location. Interestingly, this occurs even if the searcher does not include a city name or the phrase "near me" in their search query.

If you're at work and want to order a pizza for lunch, for example, searching for "pizza delivery" in Google's local SERPS returns a list of places near your workplace.

However, if you do the same search from home, you will see a completely different set of results. This makes sense when you consider that you need a pizza to be delivered from a nearby location.

Local search has been around for a long time, but it was restricted owing to the fact that most people used their desktop computers to do their searches. Because of the recent increase in mobile internet connectivity, however, mobile search has expanded, making local SEO very crucial for the success of any firm that offers local goods or services, as well as for the success of local marketers in general.

What is important for local SEO?

For search marketers, what does this signify is unclear. While the local map pack is displayed within the standard Google organic search listings, the main Google search results for local rankings and the results for the local map pack are powered by different algorithms than the standard Google organic search listings. A local company has the unique potential to be found in both the main organic search results and the local map pack at once.

If you're new to web marketing for your company, one of the most difficult aspects will be determining where you should concentrate your efforts in order to maximise their effectiveness.

The annual Local Search Ranking Factors poll, conducted by marketing analytics software firm Moz, features the top 35 to 40 local SEO professionals from across the globe. Its findings give the most in-depth understanding of the elements that drive local search visibility.

Localised content and local link popularity are factors in Google's traditional search algorithm, so it's important to create local landing pages for each of your locations- especially if you're a multi-location business-, where you should include not only your business name but also its details such as address and phone, as well as optimise their titles tags, meta descriptions, and follow SEO best practices. If you're a multi-location business, it's especially important to create local landing pages for each of your locations- especially if This should be taken into account as well when developing your content marketing and link-building strategy.

Also taken into consideration are location-based factors such as having a business listing in Google My Business, local citations from data aggregators, and review signals - which should be published by your local customers 

- which are all taken into consideration in your local oriented SEO rankings. As a result, you should include these factors in your local SEO efforts as well.

Not to mention that there are SEO tools specifically designed for local search, which can assist you in developing local oriented SEO audits, which can include everything from conducting local audience-focused keyword research to creating and managing Google My Business listings and business profiles as well as Google posts to monitoring your inclusion in local packs.

In this algorithm, website content is important, just as it is in Google's standard search algorithm; however, location-based variables such as Google My Business, citations, and review signals are also taken into consideration.

Start using SEO to your advantage

Having gained a better knowledge of search engine optimization fundamentals and how Google ranks local search results, you can begin to focus on signals that will maximise your site's digital presence in the local oriented search environment. As a consequence, your company will appear higher on the results page, increasing the likelihood that more prospective clients will discover your company.

Several things impact your visibility in these searches, but it's important to remember that local search is a dynamic and evolving field that's always evolving. You can use Moz's yearly survey to keep track of which signals are becoming more and less important as time goes on, and to help you develop your strategy playbook. Once you begin to improve each critical signal area, you will be able to serve a greater number of people in your geographic region and thus grow more quickly.

When it comes to SEO, Google makes it very clear that duplicate material is to be avoided at all costs.

Google's duplicate content checks are something we should be aware of. Everything is under their watchful eye. You may, however, add material to your website without negatively hurting your search engine rating if you have a basic grasp of how search engines work.

Google frowns upon duplicate content for four reasons.

As a general guideline, it's a good idea to always post something fresh and original. Don't use stuff from your own archive. The material you're providing may be seen as duplicate content by Google, which might harm your SEO efforts.

To what end do search engines look for unique material?

Indexing and presenting as much unique stuff as possible are the search engine's responsibilities. The trustworthiness of a website, as measured by Google's search engine ranking, may be impacted by a website's usage of unique material. If you want your material to be found, it must be unique and relevant, and you should keep an eye out for any instances of duplicate content.

Websites that avoid keyword stuffing and don't use duplicate material are now rewarded by search engine algorithms, which have gotten more smart. User-centric content is what they're looking for.

When it comes to building a website, why do webmasters choose to include unique content?

Google ranking is a critical factor in ensuring that your website can be readily discovered online. However, having a relevant and interesting website with minimal or no duplicate material has additional benefits. The following are some additional advantages of running your material via a duplicate content checker:

Credibility

As a brand, you get credibility when you give accurate information in a timely way.

As a respectable website gains a following, it may begin receiving backlinks from other websites. 

Sometimes it's impossible to avoid republishing stuff that is already out there.

It's possible that you'll need to repeat the same information about your services on many sites. In order to tell Google to do on-page SEO on one of these pages, canonical tags might be utilised. In the absence of canonical tags, Google will pick whatever page of your site it wants to include in its search results. Using canonical SEO is a strong approach to reduce the influence of duplicate content SEO on your search engine rankings.

Spammers will face penalties.

Although search engines have to deal with a lot of spam, they do a fair job of indexing original material. Duplicating filters have been created to sort and remove material that the search engine already knows about in order to achieve this goal Not a punishment, just a filter. If a search engineer discovers spamming or fraud on a site, he or she may apply penalties based on an algorithm.

Having a well-maintained online presence

Avoid copying and pasting from other websites to guarantee that your online material is unique. Researching online to see what information is currently being utilised is a good idea, but creating unique content is even more critical.

You may find a lot of article writing services online, but be wary of those with low prices. With a local writer, you'll have an edge in the Australian market if they take the time to develop unique material. Few writers will devote the time and effort necessary to study in order to produce distinctive material if they are paid poorly or given an unrealistic deadline. Writers that are experts in their fields will guarantee that your website has a polished online presence and that the unique material they produce contains relevant keywords and descriptions.

What is the price of good SEO?

This is perhaps the most common question business owners ask about SEO services. Most of you are not going to like it, but the answer is: It’s complicated.

The price of SEO can vary hugely from as low as $99 a month or less to as high as $5000 or more. Yes, there is this huge difference in SEO services available today. Let’s find out why there is such a huge gap.

The Difference Between Good SEO And Bad SEO

Before we can compare the hugely varying price of SEO quoted by different companies, we ought to know what we’re buying for that price.

However, not all small business owners know much about SEO. When price is the only factor they can really appreciate and compare and they tend to go for the cheapest price, soon after they realise everything isn’t right.

We have often heard the same kind of concerns from business owners who hired cheap SEO services.

“I am paying $299 a month to my SEO agency and I have no idea what they are doing”

“I have been paying for SEO from last so many months yet my ranking has not moved an inch”

“My traffic has nose dived since I started working with this SEO agency”

“Google hit my site with a penalty and my site has disappeared from the rankings”

Clients come to us with these problems all the time. Without exception, the culprit is their dirt-cheap SEO service provider.

What Can Go Wrong When You Hire A Cheap SEO Agency?

There are many things that can go wrong when you work with a cheap SEO service. Outsourcing your SEO services overseas is extremely risky and will cause issues with your website.

So, here’s what happens when you hire a cheap SEO agency in Australia:

After you pay the upfront fee, nothing happens. They do nothing. Period.

Your agency outsources your account overseas, where $5/hour SEO worker play havoc with your website.

Your agency builds hundreds of links overnight on irrelevant or low-quality domains; Google’s Penguin flags your site and your ranking plummets.

They seem to be taking forever.

They ask for more money.

They are not responsive and ignore your communication.

They bind you in a contract.

Working With Cheap SEO Agency Can Actually Be Ridiculously Expensive.

Here’s why: Cheap SEO agencies damage your website/ traffic/ revenue and your business. Fixing the issues caused by bad SEO takes time and money, causing losses on top of the loss already incurred by the lost traffic and revenue.

The cleaning up task turns out to be more expensive. In the end, you lose money, rankings, and most importantly time – which can’t be compensated.

Thus, cheap SEO turns out to be ridiculously expensive. It’s a big mistake to hire an SEO agency based only on price.

The Problem With Cheap SEO

All businesses work in the same way. If you offer good quality products or expert services, you can’t sell them for cheap because you have invested a high cost in maintaining a certain quality. So, of course, your prices can’t be very low.

The same logic applies to the SEO agencies. In one line – cheap SEO services blatantly steal people’s money. They focus on getting more and more customers. They have more customers for less – and that’s how they survive. But if you are one of their customers your business will surely not grow as expected.

If you are wondering why the cheap SEO doesn’t work, here’s why: 

They only focus on getting more and more sales or customers.

They have hardly any resources to do SEO or customer service.

They have a very small SEO budget to reinvest in your growth.

They can’t afford to hire quality content writers, developers, SEO experts.

They don’t share any analytics or performance reports with the customers.

They can’t afford any high-impact activities that drive organic traffic

They can’t do quality link-building outreach.

They don’t have the experience or the expertise to offer tested strategies and systems.

They end up using poor quality content and black hat SEO techniques that will harm your website and business.

Good SEO Vs. Bad SEO

Good SEO need professionals putting in several hours of work each day for months and years. Professional work hours don’t come cheap and neither does good SEO.

However, that’s not to say it must cost an arm and a leg. But before we discuss the price, what does quality SEO mean?

Quality SEO is an elaborate process that includes several activities.

1. Market Research

A quality SEO agency will research your company, customers, competitors, products, industry, and more.

2. SEO Audit

The SEO audit uncovers your website’s current standing (in terms of ranking and traffic) so you know where you want to go and which areas you need to work on.

3. Strategy Development

Based on the research findings and competitor analysis, your agency will formulate SEO strategies for strengthening your online presence.

4. Keyword Research

Selecting the right keywords is critical to the success of any SEO strategy. Keywords tell search engines what your site is about. They tell your customers what content is there on your pages. Your agency should target relevant keywords with high volumes and low competition, but it’s easier said than done.

5. On-page Optimisation

Your agency will use the keywords to create your site structure, page titles, and meta descriptions, apart from addressing a myriad of technical aspects that influence page speed. They should recommend strategies for reducing the bounce rate and increasing engagement on your site.

6. Off-page Optimisation

On-site SEO is only half the picture. You have to create backlinks, solicit reviews, and publish content on quality domains and social media in order to rise to the top of the search listings.

7. Content Development

The last time we checked, content was still the king of online marketing for example: explainer videos. Your content must be relevant, unique, consistent and high quality. A good SEO agency will ensure that.

8. Analytics and Reporting

Quality SEO is never a shot in the dark. Your agency should keep you informed about the results so you can measure how your investment is paying off.

Now, do you think you can buy all of these services from an overseas provider? As they say, good things are never cheap and cheap things are never good!

How To Avoid Getting Ripped Off By SEO Agencies?

Do you still consider your investment in SEO an expense? The truth is good SEO pays back many times over than what it costs. But that doesn’t happen overnight. You have to wait for a few weeks or months before the results start showing up.

If you want quicker results, maybe you should go for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Let’s talk business. Great SEO is a logical process that involves many different activities, as we just described above. Performed by professionals, these activities take time and cost money. Add to it the expense of customer services and overheads, and you can see why quality SEO cannot be the cheapest SEO available.

How Much Does Quality SEO Cost In Australia?

SEO agencies can charge you on an hourly basis, project basis or retainer basis. The retainer model is simplest of all and the most common as well. You are charged a fixed retainer fee each month. Agencies like it because it gives them a predictable cash flow and spares them the trouble of having to price a myriad of services individually. The client can monitor the results each month and see if your agency is really worthy of their dollars.

Can A Small Business Afford Quality SEO?

Absolutely, YES!

But you have to spend more money than you spend on dining out or buying dog food.

Here are the typical SEO price packages available in Australia:

$99 to $299 Per Month

We won’t be surprised if someone offered you SEO for less than $99. But, you should be ready for some unpleasant surprises. It’s simply not possible to deliver services AND make a profit at this price.

Most probably, you will not receive any services, which is still better than receiving bad SEO. (Overseas companies)

$500 to $2000 Per Month

You can actually get decent SEO services in this price range, but don’t expect fireworks. It’s a startup budget and works well for small or medium-sized businesses. Of course, the problem is you will find plenty of companies offering SEO in this price range.

Here are your cues: look for SEO companies that have an office in Australia and can be tracked easily.

Also, pick an SEO agency with the best Google reviews and testimonials as those reflect their work. Like us. We pack more value than $1000 to $3000 plans offered by most other agencies.

We are based in Australia and highly confident about our work.

Our clients have seen up to 3x increase in revenue, with our result-driven and quality SEO services.

$2000 to $5000 Per Month

Larger websites with a countrywide or state-wide business area might need to spend $2000 to $5000 on SEO each month. This seems fair as they have a larger audience to cater plus at this level SEO works hand in hand with brand management.

Above $5000 Per Month

The sky is the limit from there on. Global brands spend millions of dollars to stay on top of their competitors, but you’re not quite there yet. So decide what you can afford to spend, in the light of what we just discussed.

Help Your SEO Agency Help You! In order to get the best out of your agency, you should know the SEO process and goals that you want to achieve. Any good agency will give you a detailed plan with a price quote before they begin. Do not hesitate to ask them what different terms and activities would entail.

Most importantly, ask them how much more traffic and sales you can expect as a result of their efforts. Log into your Google Analytics and see where your traffic and conversions are going.

Remember, a great SEO agency doesn’t only get you better rankings and more traffic. It also gets you more conversions. The results are exponential.

Key Takeaways For Business Owners

Never buy cheap SEO services. They’ll either not work or will turn out to be extremely expensive in the not-so-long run.

Read a few articles about SEO on HubSpot, SEOMOZ, SEMRush and other reputable websites.

Learn about what you need from your agency. Many business owners have been burned by bad SEO from overseas companies.

Do not hire SEO services from overseas. You will work in different time zones and will not be able to track the performance.

A huge advantage of hiring an SEO agency based in Australia is that you can call them during your business hours. The turnaround time can be smaller and you can actually work very closely with their resources.

Interview your prospect agencies and discuss their offering in detail. Ask them to tell you what to expect.

Don’t trust hardcore numbers and ironclad guarantees. They never work simply because it’s impossible to predict the exact results. However, quality SEO is always good for your business.

Measure your progress at regular intervals. Monitor your rankings and traffic and see if you’ll be reaching your goals according to your plans.

Make calculated interventions where required. These can include a change in target keywords, beefing up on-page content, or adjusting your budget.

Your agency will manage it for you but you should know what’s going on. If you’re a small business with branches in several cities, good SEO can cost you $3000 and up a month.

With us, this cost is much lower. We have helped many local businesses with our quality SEO services without burning a hole in their pocket. You can talk to us and get a free no-obligation price quote.

Finally, don’t be in a rush. SEO takes time but it’s worth the wait. If you want quick results, consider paid search as an option.

There are no tricks or secretes when it comes to local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

The goal is to make your website as clear and user friendly as possible. Google has an advanced algorithm that is updated daily to try and find the most relevant site to what people are searching. We focus our local SEO strategies on making it as clear as possible to Google what your business does and where you are located. This strategy combined with an amazing mobile friendly website design will give you a massive edge over your local competitors and push your website to the top of Googles search results.

Here are some of the key aspects of local on page search engine optimisation. By reading this short article you will be equiped with the basic knowledge of creating a successful local SEO strategy for your business.

Keyword Research

The first and most important step in any successful local search engine optimisation strategy is to research keywords. You need to really focus on finding keywords that are related to your product or service, have a decent amount of traffic and are not overly competitive. When your website is brand new it has no ranking or authority online, this means you will need to focus SEO efforts on long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are much easier to rank for and are generally less competitive. For example, trying to rank your website for a keyword like ‘mens clothing’ is going to be almost impossible. But trying to rank for a long tail keyword alternative like ‘affordable but stylish mens clothing’ will be much easier.

Website Performance

The next step to a successful local search engine optimisation strategy is to make sure your website is SEO friendly. If your website’s code is poorly optimised for SEO the Google bots will not be able to crawl and index it correctly. Make sure that the formatting of every page is correct with a clear hierarchy for text, images and links. URLs need to be relevant to the keywords you are trying to rank for and easy to understand. Technical SEO is very difficult and time consuming. If you are not willing to put in the time and effort to do it correctly you are better off looking to a professional SEO company to help out.

Money Pages

Money pages are specific pages on your website that focus on the most important keywords you are trying to rank for. They are called money pages because these pages are designated to promote the products or services you offer. By creating a web of linking pages on your site that point back to your money pages you will be able to gain more authority for keywords you are trying to rank for. As your website grows over time you can link more and more pages back to the money pages. The most important page on your website is always the home page it and it should focus on the primary keyword you are trying to rank for.

Targeting Keywords

Every web page on your website has many different areas that need to include the keyword you are trying to rank for in the local search engine optimisation strategy.

Page URL

Include the main keyword or phrase you are trying to rank for in the URL for the page. Google will read the URL of the page to check it is relevant for the search query. An example of this would be something like /affordable-dog-grooming-service/ if you were offering dog grooming.

Page Title

The page title is where you should use the main keyword you are trying to rank for. You want to have the keyword at the start of your page title if possible. Make sure that the page title makes sense when being read by a human.

Main Heading (H1) Tag

The main heading of your page should contain the keyword you are trying to rank for. It is recommended to only use the (H1) tag once per page. Every other heading on your page should move down the hierarchy starting with a (H2) tag.

Image Titles and Alt Tag

You should always have at least one image on every page of your website. It is important to properly name your images while including the keyword you are trying to rank for. The image alt tag should also be used and have the primary keyword included in it.

Page Meta Descriptions

The page meta description is sometimes picked up by google to be displayed in the search results. It is important to describe to the searcher what your page is about and how it is relevant to the search they have performed. If you are using WordPress for your business website consider downloading a plugin which will easily allow you to edit the meta description for each page on your website.

Page Content

Each page on your website should have a minimum of 600 words about the topic you are talking about. You should include your targeted keywords as much as possible while still making the article easy to read. Make sure that your article contains something of value for the reader and is unique without being copied directly from another source. It is often worth hiring a content writer to create articles for you if writing is not your primary focus.

Consistent Content

An important part of your local search engine optimisation strategy is to make sure that the topics you talk about on your website are consistent. Everything you offer should relate in some way to the other pages on your site and relevant keywords should be included on every page. This makes it easier for Google to understand what your website is about and rank it for the correct search terms. Content you create for your website should be related to your businesses industry and provide value to people who are trying to do research on that subject.

Linking Internally

Think of your website like a spider web, all the pages should be linking together making it easy to jump from one topic to the next for a viewer. Linking pages internally also helps Google figure out what content they show for specific search queries. When using internal links be sure to use relevant target keywords for the page you are linking together.

User Experience

Google looks at a whole lot more than just the content on your website. It takes into consideration the experience users have when they visit your website as well. How long people spend on a page, how fast the page loads, if they click into another page and many other factors can effect your search ranking. It is important to give your visitors an excellent experience with great web design and fast loading pages.

Social Media Sharing

Being able to share content directly to social media is becoming an important part of SEO. It is important to make it easy for your visitors to share information from your website on their social media pages. One of the easiest ways to do this is by including sharing buttons on pages that offer a one click solution.

The topics we have highlighted are considered to be the very basics of a good local search engine optimisation strategy. There is more to consider when starting a SEO campaign. Other things that are not part of your website such as high quality back links is another topic entirely. If you are not planning on putting in the time and effort to your local search engine optimisation strategy another good option to look at would be pay per click ads.

Keep in mind that if you do the wrong thing when it comes to SEO it is very easy to harm the rank of your website and cause damage that needs to be fixed in order to rank again. There is no quick way to rank with SEO and you should avoid anyone trying to sell you a quick solution.

Fluctuations in your Google Rankings — Rollercoaster Ride

Keyword rankings are becoming more variable each day, and they can change from one hour to the next. Four primary factors influence your ranking at any point in time, and having an idea of what they are could give you an advantage.

Algorithm Changes

Google, Bing, and other search engines out there constantly tweak, refine and update the algorithms that drive their search results. Nowadays, many of these tweaks are driven by AI, so there’s no telling what turns they may take at any given moment.

Localisation

Every search query is affected by the location of the searcher. For example, if you’re looking for a custom web development agency in your city, Google will consider both your location and that of the businesses it presents. Typically, this means that you’ll see a business closer to you first.

Personalisation

It’s no secret that search engines know a lot about us, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Google and other services use what they know about you to show you more relevant results.

If you have been on a particular website many times, for example, it will probably show up in your results more prominently. 

Obviously, if you’re signed into Google through YouTube, Gmail, Chrome, etc., you’re more likely to get personalised results. However, your results can still be personalised regardless through session cookies, IP, and other means.

User Engagement

The final and arguably most important factor that affects your rankings is user engagement. Are people clicking on your web page when it shows up in their results? And when they do, how long do they stick around?

The answers to these questions can be the difference between having a successful SEO strategy and slowly slipping down the rankings. No matter how visible your site is in the short term, it will suffer over the long term if it can’t provide value to your audience.

How to Determine Your Website’s Ranking with Google Search Console

The Google Search Console can show you how your site ranks for various search terms. The values that it offers are averages, not exact figures, due to the various factors we described above, mainly personalization and localization. This means the results can be a bit misleading for local businesses.

That said, this official tool from Google should always be your first port of call. The rank tracker provided by the console will show four key metrics. They are:

The first thing you’ll need to do is register your site with the Search Console. Next, click on Search Traffic > Search Analytics.

This will show you a list of keywords that your site ranks for and how many clicks it generates. There are a few things you can do to improve the quality of the data you see here.

  1. Select Impressions, CTR, and Position
  2. If you operate locally, add a filter to only show results from your country

Doing this will help you get the most accurate data regarding your actual rank. That said, the data will still not be perfect, and the results could be misleading depending on your target audience.

Determining your Website’s Ranking Using a Private Browser Session

All the major browsers provide the option of accessing the internet in a private session. In essence, this means that you can access any website without sharing information about your browsing habits and other factors that might influence the search results.

The advantage of this feature in this context is that it allows you to perform a manual check of your Google rankings. That said, your location is still factored in, so it can artificially inflate your results.

If you’re sitting in your office, searching for your type of business somewhere in the vicinity, the chances of your website showing up near the top of the results page grow significantly. You can disable location tracking in your searches or use a VPN to make Google think you’re accessing the site from elsewhere, but this is also not exactly representative of a real-world scenario.

On the other hand, say you run an ecommerce store or another type of business in which location does not influence your results; the rankings you get this way will be quite representative. 

All caveats aside, as we explained above, location is a significant factor when it comes to search result rankings in most scenarios. So, if you want to be extra diligent, try searching your keywords using the incognito mode from various locations.

The easiest approach is asking your staff, friends, and family to search from their home and work addresses and cross-reference the results.

Conclusion

In this day and age, search engines work with so many variables and inputs that even something as simple as wanting to know how your website ranks against the competition can be a hugely complicated endeavour.

There are a few ways to check your progress, but no matter how diligent you are, the results will be somewhat inconclusive. That said, search engine optimisation is a long-term investment, and a gradual increase in traffic and conversions is the only real way to see how well you’re really doing.

Today, getting people on your website is about so much more than simply building a fancy website with a business logo and a catchy tagline.

But what exactly is SEO? How do you do SEO? And what exactly does SEO give you? 

Below, we examine the basics of SEO to help give your website a boost in the search engine rankings and you a boost in the world of online business. 

What Is SEO? 

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. 

Essentially, it is the process of optimizing websites and web pages so that they're more likely to be served up in the search engine results, which are often referred to as the SERPs. 

The better your site is optimized, the more free, organic traffic you'll start getting directly from search engines like Google and Bing.

Search engines use a wide range of factors to determine what a web page is about and whether that web page is a good fit for a search engine user's search query. 

In other words, when you type in something like "SEO for new entrepreneurs" into Google, the search engine will parse through billions of websites and pages to find the ones that are most relevant to your search query. 

Understanding what SEO is is simple enough, but understanding how to perform SEO is a whole different creature. 

So with that in mind, let's take a look at the most essential thing you can do to help optimize your website. 

Building Your Link Profile 

One of the most critical factors used by search engines to determine a website's quality is its link profile. 

You'll need to understand three types of links: internal links, external links, and backlinks. 

Internal Links

Internal links refer to links within a website that point to other pages on the same website. 

The anchor text of these links helps the search engine understand what the page that it's pointing to is about. 

So, for example, if you have a link on your homepage with the anchor that says "SEO for beginners," and it's pointing to a blog post about that topic, it gives the search engine a basic understanding that the destination page is, in fact, about SEO for beginners. 

External Links

External links are links that point from your website to other websites on the internet. 

While these aren't anywhere as important as backlinks, search engines still like to see websites that point to other relevant, high-quality and trusted sources. 

In other words, if you have a website about SEO, search engines will give more weight to your site if it has a large number of external links pointing to reputable sources, such as Wikipedia, Hubspot, or other digital marketing websites, which are most likely to provide valuable, in-depth information about the topic of SEO. 

Backlinks

Of the three types of links mentioned here, backlinks are the most critical type of link you'll want to add to your link profile. 

Why?

Essentially, backlinks act as votes of confidence from other websites, telling the search engines that your website contains valuable information about a given topic. 

As a website owner, you can obtain backlinks in several ways, with the most prominent method being by guest posting on other relevant websites. 

To do this, you'll first need to look for guest posting opportunities. 

Once you've found relevant guest posting opportunities on other sites, you'll then create blog posts or content, which you will publish on those sites that will contain one or more links pointing back to your website. 

The more backlinks you have from other websites, the more likely search engines will find, rank, and serve your site to online searchers.

Think about it this way; if no backlinks point to your site, why would a search engine think your website is worth serving up in its SERPs? 

The Basics Of SEO

Internal links, external links, and backlinks are crucial factors for optimizing your website for search engines. 

However, there are dozens of factors that search engines look at and that will affect your site's rankings. 

Start by understanding the importance of building a solid link profile, and then, I recommend that you dive a little deeper to learn about the other steps you can take to help improve your site's SEO rankings. 

Soon enough, you'll have your site ranking well, and you'll start seeing tons of traffic flooding to your site!