SEO needs to be considered as an integral part of a web design project, not as an afterthought

SEO can play a crucial part in achieving the perfect digital marketing mix for your business and any brand that takes its digital strategy seriously will no doubt already have a robust plan in place to maximise online performance. But, organic search can be fragile, even fickle, and the smallest misjudgements can leave you exposed. Timing is of the essence, with SEO, and can often be a major contributor in getting the best, most cost-effective results in the long run. In an ideal world, brands should begin focussing their attention on their organic search strategy as early as when they are planning the design and development of their website. However, all too often, they fail to do so and leave SEO as an afterthought or retrospective consideration, unknowingly jeopardising future success. [si_guide_block id="22067" title="Website design…

Five top tips and best practices to follow to ensure your e-commerce site gets the best results

The world of e-commerce is an incredibly competitive space. Although the e-commerce and online retail sector is booming, new entrants and established players continue to raise the stakes by providing consumers with more choice, improved usability and new options to buy online. Brands selling online today need to have a compelling value proposition to stand out. [si_guide_block id="80674" title="Download our Business Resource – E-commerce statistics benchmark" description="This guide is for anyone who works in e-commerce marketing who needs to review the latest customer adoption research and statistics or conversion rates to compare their performance or set targets for plans."/] At the same time, search engine optimization (SEO) continues to evolve. Since 2010 Google has introduced scores of algorithm changes as it tweaks and changes the way it ranks…

Nearly 43% of all e-commerce traffic is organic, while just 26% of traffic comes from ads

"We don't need SEO. We use Adwords. It works better for us." I’ve heard this phrase countless times over in the e-commerce space, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Nearly 43% of all e-commerce traffic is organic, while just 26% of traffic comes from ads. If you are focusing on PPC over SEO, you are missing out on a massive chunk of traffic. Plus, as sites at the top of Google get 36.4% of search traffic, your e-commerce SEO strategy needs to be top notch. [si_guide_block id="5750" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Successful SEO guide" description="Our comprehensive guide to Search Engine Optimisation best practices isn't just for SEOs, the clear explanations mean that it can be used by marketers to ask the right questions to…

What do you need to include in your Wordpress SEO checklist?

Why do so many people still use Wordpress? Wordpress is the most popular CMS platform in the world with a 50-60% share in the market. It provides ease of use and saves time and money, especially when compared to developing a custom website. Wordpress has also the biggest number of integrations, plugins and security options. It is a perfect place to start blogging and test some of your ideas online. [si_guide_block id="5750" title="Download our Premium Resource – Successful SEO guide" description="Our comprehensive guide to Search Engine Optimisation best practices isn't just for SEOs, the clear explanations mean that it can be used by marketers to ask the right questions to boost their SEO."/]

Why you should care about SEO?

A lot of publications nowadays refer to SEO, as an "old-school way" of doing things. Many brands prefer to invest in Facebook,…

Have you ever been questioned on how you can drive more organic traffic to your website? Or been asked to provide KPIs for what you can achieve with SEO efforts in the next 6-12months?

Haven’t we all. But before we begin to answer questions of that sort, it is important to understand, as well as explain to management, what SEO actually means and how it works. Rest-assured what you are about to read is not something I’ve based on reading online only. It is based on actual experiences throughout my SEO career (in-house and agency side), through tested methods. Let’s begin with what a small website is.

[si_guide_block id="5750" title="Download our Premium Resource – Successful SEO Guide" description="This guide is one of our most popular and rightly so. If you get it right, SEO can be a fantastic, relatively low-cost way to drive quality visitors who want to do business with you to…

How to optimize your content for Google’s ever-changing search results

Google’s search results are constantly being updated. With new features being tested and added on a regular basis, it can be hard to keep up with the rate of change. In order to gain as much visibility as possible on Google for your business or brand, you need to keep on top of these changes and work out how best to optimize your website for the ever-expanding opportunities (and challenges) that Google Search presents. As Dave Chaffey pointed out in his Chart of the Day from July on the incredible shrinking organic SERPs, these updates and additions of features to the search results can often mean that the standard organic listings that as marketers and SEO professionals we have always focused on are pushed further and further down the page. [si_guide_block id="108203" title="Download our Premium Resource – Search Marketing Trends 2018" description="Search…

Reaching the first page isn’t enough anymore, you need to place your business in the #1 position

Ranking higher among a congested competition in Google is a mandatory goal for many businesses today. If you are an e-commerce business, are you aware of the SEO tactics and requirements to take you to the top? After all, if you aren’t generating enough clicks, you’re not generating sales. The following data should show you why a powerful SEO strategy for your e-commerce website is necessary. Around 44% of online shoppers initiate their search through a search engine. According to the data provided by the US Department of Commerce, in 2015, the e-commerce sales per year reached $341.7 billion, which is a 14.6% increase from that of 2014s $298.3 billion. Furthermore, the data also stated that online shopping accounted for 7.3% of the total retail sales in 2015, as compared to 6.4% in 2014. Updated data for …

Search engines are now using data-driven factors to determine how relevant your website is to a particular search query

The practice of search engine optimization (SEO) has experienced monumental changes over the course of the last 15 years. When SEO first broke onto the scene, it was quickly discovered that webmasters could manipulate search results and make their websites rank well merely by packing their target keywords into the website as many times as possible – a practice known as “keyword stuffing”. This majorly skewed and distorted Google’s and Bing’s search rankings, since low-quality, “spammy” websites were quickly able to outrank reputable and relevant websites. In response to this unfavourable outcome, these search engines rolled out several rounds of algorithm updates, permanently changing the way in which websites are ranked. Presently, Google and Bing each use hundreds of different factors – with varying levels of importance – to rank websites, helping to ensure…

Learn how to optimize your search marketing tactics to outrank your competition and win traffic and leads in 2019 by the SEM experts

How has 2018's Google search algorithm updates affected your business this year? Did you know there's been nine confirmed Google updates (so far) this year? Three of these were 'core' updates and two specifically affected how mobile sites are indexed and presented to users through usability and design. However, there has also been some interesting developments with Google paid search platforms, announced earlier this year at Google Live.

2018 Google algorithm updates (so far) include:

"Brackets" core update - March 2018 - According to Danny Sullivan's Twitter page, @searchliaison, some sites may have seen drops or gains, stating: "There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded...." Zero-result SERP test - March 2018 - This was…

Whether you are focused on B2B or B2C efforts, generating more traffic to your website is still one of the top challenges that marketers face on a consistent basis

In today’s fast-paced, continuously distracting digital age, it can seem nearly impossible to grab the attention of consumers and draw them to your website. Source: Hubspot - State of Inbound 2018 According to ClickZ’s study, the average company receives 30% of its online traffic from organic searches. If your team’s SEO strategy isn’t strong enough to rank high during customer queries, it significantly hurts your chances that they will ever find your link. Since customer’s have a virtually unlimited amount of options when it comes to finding the products, services, and information they are seeking online, you must be especially strategic if you are going to attract them towards your website. While there are…