Thursday 11 February 2016

2016 SEO Methods Explained

How Much and How Long Will It Take Me To Get To Google Page 1

These are the 2 most common questions that I get asked several times a week so I decided to write this blog post to give you the same answer I tell everyone.

Read the original 2016 SEO blog post here.

Do You Really Want To Learn SEO

If you have the time to dedicate learning SEO then I am happy to quote for an SEO training course. As much as I want to I can't summarise my methods to you over the telephone if you want to employ my services.

Explain To Me Your Business

I can't explain to you what SEO involves in 10 minutes, just like you can't explain to me your job, and your daily tasks. I hope this guide helps you understand some points.  

Whatever industry you are in, as a business owner you are busy trying to put food on the table - learning SEO is an ongoing process that's constantly changing as Google evolves, so some of the methods I used in 2009 are no longer effective in 2016.

SEO Methods Explained 

Lesson 1 in SEO - Google Page 1

Nobody can predict how long it will take for your website to get to Google page 1, so your first SEO lesson is to understand I cannot answer this question. I can't even say X weeks or X months or even promise results in X years. Even if you gave me £10,000 the answer will still be the same - I can't answer.

Lesson 2 in SEO - Cost

You can't trick Google so I can't give you a price to guarantee you Google page 1. Refer back to lesson 1. However I can work with you on a regular basis and provide solid SEO services until you do reach Google page 1 - then you stop paying me. Once you get to Google page 1 you will stay there if your website is maintained and updated with fresh content. Your website SEO cost will not be the same as anyone else's as every website is unique.

Lesson 3 in SEO - Quick Results Are Impossible

I decline to quote when a project is passed to me requiring results quickly.

Lesson 4 in SEO - Buying Backlinks from Overseas is BAD

You will 100% require remedial work if you have paid in Dollar$ to an overseas SEO agency. I have yet to meet one company that overseas SEO has helped. 100% of cases that come to me with previous SEO work from a company outside of the UK require extra cost to fix the poor work and damaging methods, usually from foreign directories, blog comments, adding a link to your site from an irrelevant website in Asia, bad neighbourhood ISP's and adult content.

Lesson 5 in SEO - What Do You Do Nina

I'm pleased you've reached this far. I'm happy to tell you what I do and I don't expect you to understand my methods so to help you I have provided links to further reading at the bottom of this article. The more time you have to read these in-depth articles the easier you can learn SEO and the correct ways to promote your website in Google.  

Google Products - Google provides several products and they all should be linked together under one umbrella login. Duplicate Google+ pages should be merged.  

Google Webmaster Tools should be installed into your website and verified using more than one method to increase security, so not only using Google Analytics but also by the Meta Tag method. When using Google Webmaster Tools ensure the correct URL is verified, some websites do not use the 'www' in the URL whilst others use 'https'.  

Google Analytics is an essential addition to every website. Google Analytics provides an in-depth reporting arena for you to learn how people use your website. If you sell online then Google Analytics will show you the path people took to purchase a product. If your website is to convert people into picking up the phone to make a business enquiry, then Google Analytics will tell you how the visitor found your site, what keyphrase was Googled before a contact form message enquiry was sent for example. To see keywords in Google Analytics you need to connect and link to the relevant Google Webmaster Tools property. Add Goals to easily visualise your success. Set up monthly email reports by PDF straight to your inbox.  

Google Analytics - Fake Hits - Referral Traffic Spam Blocking - Sadly every website has spam visits from automatic scripts under Traffic > Referrals. You think you are getting 150 hits a day to your site but in reality 100 of them is due to fake spam bot traffic. I will block all spam referral traffic leaving only accurate visitor data in Analytics.  

Google+ Business Pages and verified in Google Maps, linking your website and 100% profile completion with a link back to your website in the description section of the listing.  

Google Blogger using your Google login which is connected to your Google+ personal profile page. Link the two together. When you blog this is a great way to generate backlinks to your site.  

YouTube is connected to your personal Google+ profile page and this is another source of backlinks in the 'Discussion' tab and the 'About Tab'. You are able to connect Twitter to your YouTube account easily and also add your social URLs to your YouTube profile.  

Social Media profile URLs should be entered into Google Analytics to demonstrate sources of traffic. You will be able to determine how your traffic converts from different channels, such as Direct Traffic, Social Media, Organic and Referrals (other websites backlinking to you).

Call To Action Marketing Headline with H1 and H2 Headers

Don't know what a H1 H2 Heading is? Read my explanation here  

Rewriting your Home Page for Google will take at least an hour as there's the essential decision of what key words and phrases you want to be found for when people search. Writing for local websites for a local geographical area is much easier than targeting the whole of the UK.  

Rewriting your Landing Page content will take around an hour per page, so when I'm quoting you for a project your website SEO cost will not be the same as anyone else's as every website is unique. I hope you can appreciate the challenges I face when people ask me to pass on my years of SEO knowledge into a 10 minute telephone call and summarise my methods.

Additional Reading

If you have just discovered what SEO is and want a freelancer like myself to carry out the work send me a message via my Contact Form.