If there are 200 factors that determine rankings, a small number of these are much more important than the rest, and focusing on these is the better, not to mention less stressful, way of optimising the content of your site. One of these important considerations is the H1 tag, sometimes referred to as the page title. But, even with this optimisation factor which most agree the search engines consider important, there is still some confusion – how many H1 tags should you have on your page?

What is an H1 Tag?

So what are H1 tags, anyway? The H in H1 stands for ‘heading’ and the H1 tag is the HTML code that typically denotes the main heading of the webpage. Of all the HTML header tags, H1 tags have taken on significant importance for SEO as, usually being the main heading, they provide the search engines with a key indication of what the entire webpage is about; and therefore in which search results, as well as how high up in those results, the page should rank on the search engines results page.

As well as this main H1 title, properly formatted webpages are also likely to have a hierarchy of subheadings for the rest of the content, and these additional heading tags are usually designated H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6, depending on their position and importance to this hierarchy. You can see an example of this typically structured hierarchy below.

With regards to your SEO efforts, these H tags can help to focus on areas of the content to be optimised, but it’s important to remember they are tags for the HTML code, and better optimisation could come from considering the content itself and how it’s structured, as we’ll look at.

How Many H1 Tags on a Page for SEO?

Ideally, your web page should have just one H1 title tag, and it should certainly have one clear, obvious title for the page that search engines can understand. Additional H1 tag headings could be changed to H2, H3, etc. or styled appropriately without using H tags.

With the SEO significance H1 tags have assumed, how many you can have on a page has become a common question, and while we’ve outlined our view above, opinions on the answer to this vary. Google themselves have said multiple H1 tags on a page are completely fine, while most SEO experts would argue that you should only ever have one H1 tag, and this should probably be the main page title (not to be confused with the title tag) as well.

While you could probably argue both views are correct, we think it’s important to think less about the H1 tag specifically, and more about what the H1 tag is meant to denote – i.e. the main title, and therefore topic, of your page’s content. To explain this better, a short history lesson might be useful.

H1 Tags & SEO

Going back a few years, Google’s algorithm probably wasn’t as sophisticated as it is today. The layout of most websites and webpages was probably more traditional (in terms of using a proper H tag heading hierarchy), too. So the H1 tag would provide Google with a useful piece of information about the main topic of a page and which search rankings it would be relevant for.

These days, with a much more sophisticated algorithm, Google can probably discern the main title of the page whether or not it has an H1 tag, and has said as much, and use this information to help make ranking decisions. This implies less reliance on the H1 tag itself as a factor in ranking, and more importance placed on the first/main heading of the page. In most cases they are likely to be the same, and tell Google ‘this is what my page is about’, but it is this main page or blog post title, and its optimisation, that provides that focus.

Can You Have Multiple H1 Tags on a Page

Circling back to the original question, when you consider the above, it makes sense that simply having multiple H1 tags wouldn’t be an issue, but you would only want to have one, clear title for the page, optimised for your target keyword, in order to provide the most benefit from an SEO perspective. The rest of your subheadings could all be H1 tags as well, but doing this just because of the perceived benefit of them having an H1 tag, isn’t likely to provide much additional benefit.

It could even be argued that utilising the typical, and more structured, H1, H2, H3, etc. hierarchy is going to provide better comprehension for the algorithm and your readers, and deliver better optimisation for rankings, and conversions for your website.

Are H1 Tags Still Important?

When used for the main heading of a page, undoubtedly, and where the H1 tag may be even more important is when it comes to optimisation might be in situations where your main page title isn’t the first H tag on the page, as in the example below.

This could help the search engines better identify what you consider to be the main heading of your page, even if it isn’t the first heading the algorithms come across.

Other Considerations

One important aspect of H1 tags that is also worth considering is their role in improving the accessibility of webpages, H1 tags can play a vital role in helping more people access and understand these pages – screen readers can utilise the H1 tag to provide the screen reader users with the information they need to understand the topic and content of the page.

Multiple H1 Tags or Not?

Are multiple H1 tags on a page a good idea for SEO then? Probably not, but that’s not to say they would always be detrimental. It’s more a question of having a specific and focused main page title, with a structured hierarchy of related and optimised subheadings.

Basically, don’t think of the H1 tag as important just because it’s the H1 tag, the H1 tag is important because it more often than not denotes the main title (and topic) of the page – a well-optimised main title is what’s important and what you should probably focus on.

If you’re convinced of the potential of having fully-optimised content on your website and need assistance to make this happen, just complete the callback request form below and we’ll get in touch to discuss how we can help.

The post How Many H1 Tags Per Page for SEO? appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

• Is it likely to hurt your Local SEO? Doubtful.
• Is it hard to do? Not really.
• Does it take up inordinate amounts of time? No (see rest of this article).
• Could it help your Local SEO? Possibly.

With that in mind, we don’t really have a good reason not to geotag the images we upload to the Google Business Profiles we optimise, and would suggest it’s something you might want to consider doing when you optimise your own GBP. So whether you believe geo-tagging images is essential for Local SEO, or view it more as another box ticked on the optimisation checklist, here’s how to quickly and easily geotag images and photos for your GBP.

Geotagging & Image Optimisation

Before we look at geo-tagging in more detail, it’s quickly worth pointing out that it is just one aspect of optimising your images and photos for your GBP. One thing we would argue is always beneficial, to local or traditional SEO, is optimising the filenames and any meta tags of your images. You would always want your images to be optimised for the search terms you are trying to rank for – that is a hill we would die on! So, for example, with local SEO, for the images and photos you upload to your GBP you might change the filename from /img-97833545.jpg to something like /grapefruit-london-seo-agency-logo.jpg. Similarly, you would want to add this keyword and location optimisation as the description/alt text for the image, too (we’ll show this when we add the geotags).

What is Geotagging & How Could It Help?

Basically, geotagging adds geographical details to the metadata of a photo or image in the form of longitude and latitude coordinates. This usually indicates where a photograph was taken but can also be added to images to provide some locational relevance which search engines could read and apply to the profile using the image. This additional relevance for a particular location could help Google determine which local business profiles may be more relevant for the map rankings for local search results in or near that location.

How to Geotag Images for Local SEO

If you’re taking photos for your Google Business Profile, your GPS Enabled camera or mobile phone should have the capacity to record and attach the location data of where the picture was taken to the photo. But as it will also likely save the photo with a decidedly unoptimised name you would want to edit anyway, and you may be using other images such as logos and graphics on your Google My Business profile, it can be easier to use a simple tool like GeoImgr to add the optimisation to your profile photos and images.

Using GeoImgr to Geotag Photos & Images for GBP

GeoImgr is a great geotagging tool and easy to use. If you only have a few images to optimise you should be able to do this with the free version, though if you want to upload a good number of images to your GBP you may need to upgrade to the PRO licence – but this is less than £10 for a month’s unlimited use. As outlined in the geotagging tool, the steps for optimising and geotagging are very straightforward:

1. Upload your images (the tools accepts jpg, png, and webp formats)
2. Place the marker on the desired location or enter the latitude and longitude manually (if you struggle to locate the marker as the Search option isn’t available on the free plan, you can actually get your lat/long coordinates from the URL of your profile on Google Maps)
3. Add additional keyword and location optimisation to the Keywords & Tags and Description/AlternativeText
4. Press the Write EXIF Tags button to save the optimisation and location information to the image
5. Download your newly geotagged and optimised image to upload to your GBP

And that’s it, you are now able to create geotagged and optimised images to use on your Google Business Profile, as well as the location-specific pages on your website. So while there may be some debate about whether geotagging has any influence on your GBP’s performance in the map rankings, when it’s almost as easy to do it as to not do it, it’s something we always do when we optimise for local search and just can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t – plus, the improved optimisation could help your images rank for any relevant image search. Will geotagging on its own improve your performance in the search results – very doubtful. However, as part of a more comprehensive Local SEO strategy, it could be beneficial. Of course, geotagging is just one element of optimising your GBP for better performance in the local search results, so if you need assistance to ensure you have a fully-optimised business profile, just complete the callback request form below and we’ll get in touch to discuss how we can help.

The post How to Geotag Images & Photos for Local SEO appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

However, if your old site benefits from some strong SEO that helps your pages rank well and drive organic traffic, there are some additional things to bear in mind before, during and after you migrate your website. Correctly implementing Google Analytics tracking codes is crucial to ensure accurate data collection regarding traffic, conversions, and any potential issues that may arise post-launch. Additionally, Google Search Console plays a vital role in managing and monitoring website migrations, including submitting sitemaps and tracking indexation status.

Why Would You Need to Perform a Site Migration?

There are a number of reasons why you might want to migrate your website. Perhaps you have changed your hosting provider and want to move one or more of your sites to the new server. Or you may have opted for a new platform to run your site, maybe moving from WordPress to Shopify, for example. Or you may be rebranding with a new domain name and feel this is a good opportunity to migrate your old site to a new one.

It is important to thoroughly plan and manage risks to ensure a successful site migration project that maintains or enhances search visibility and traffic.

How Can Site Migrations Impact Search Engine Rankings & Traffic?

The process of moving your current site to its new location, platform, hosting, or domain etc may be technically straightforward, but there are some important behind-the-scenes issues to bear in mind, if you don’t want to lose any SEO advantages.

When migrating a site, it’s essential that you take a few steps to help search engines find your new site and ideally continue to rank any content that had been doing well on the old site. Monitoring search engine rankings during and after the migration is crucial to maintain or improve these rankings.

For example, if you have pages on your old site that rank well and get lots of traffic, by performing some basic migration checks, you can give the new site the best chance of continuing to rank well with the equivalent pages.

Without paying attention to these migration tasks, the SEO benefits of your old site may be lost in the move, which would prevent the new site from benefiting from a potential head start. This would undoubtedly lead to a reduction in organic traffic in the short term, which no website owner wants to experience. It could also prevent the new site from becoming established and well-indexed as quickly as it might have done, had you performed a few basic migration tasks. Updating internal links is also essential to maintain site functionality and optimize SEO performance.

Your Basic Website Migration Checklist

Now that you know how important it is to perform the necessary checks and tasks during the migration process, here’s a helpful checklist of the things to pay attention to in order to provide your new site with the best possible chances of ranking quickly and well.

1. Old Site Audit

Although it may seem laborious, completing an audit of your existing site will serve you well in the long run, especially if you run into any problems or you want to monitor the impact of the migration on your traffic stats.

There are a number of tools to help you audit your existing site, as well as the current SEO status. A comprehensive site crawl to gain a clear picture of the content, site structure, hierarchy and effectiveness of your old site will help you in a number of ways.

Firstly, you’ll be able to check that the site has been moved correctly, ie that the URL structure has been maintained or set up properly so nothing has got lost or broken across the entire site during the migration process.

Secondly, you’ll be able to review the impact of the migration. When you have a clear picture of the old site, it enables you to compare it with the new site, which may reveal any changes in rankings and traffic. This information is vital if you want to know the effects of the move on your SEO. (This assumes that the migration is the only change to your site.)

2. Repair Errors (Optional)

Auditing your existing site may seem like a good opportunity to tidy it up, i.e. remove unwanted content, fix broken links or orphan pages, address any site speed issues etc…

Depending on your priorities, it may be a good time to do this kind of housekeeping. If your intention is to set up the best possible version of your new site, then improving the old site before migration can make sense.

However, if you make lots of changes to the old site, you won’t be able to assess the impact of the migration on your traffic and rankings, because you won’t know which effects were from the clean-up and which were from the move. So, consider carefully what is most important to your business before you make too many changes.

3. Migration Time

Once you have completed all the auditing and checks, it’s time to perform the migration process. It’s advisable to perform a major migration during a quiet time for your website. This may be in the early hours, when your main markets are asleep. Or if your traffic is seasonal, it’s a good idea to perform the move during the quiet season for your business.

You can find out the busiest and quietest times for your website using your analytics. This will help you decide when might be the best time to switch the sites over. There’s likely to be some impact on rankings and traffic, at least in the short term, so if possible try to mitigate the impact of these losses by opting for one of the slow periods. Ensuring that search engine crawlers can efficiently index the site’s content during the migration is also crucial.

4. New Site Checks

One recommendation before you push the final button to move your old site is to check the new site before it’s live. Depending on your hosting provider or platform, you may be able to create a Staging Site or Development Site to check everything works as it should before you push it to go live.

When you’re as confident as you can be that the new site is working as it should, it’s time to make the final changes in the settings that will complete the migration.

5. Monitor Results

Once your new site is live, there’s still some work to be done, if you want to ensure you benefit from any SEO advantages of your old site. This is essentially monitoring the rankings and traffic of the new site, and comparing them to the data for the old one. (This is where that Old Site Audit will be invaluable.)

While there may be some unavoidable losses during the migration, with a clear picture of what has changed, you’re in a better position to assess any issues that could be addressed, such as redirects, broken links etc.

Migrating a website doesn’t need to be complicated, but there are some preparatory steps you can take to transfer as many SEO benefits from the old site to the new one. While these may take time, they may reap dividends in terms of preserving hard-earned rankings and organic traffic.

The post Site Migration SEO: Your Website Migration SEO Checklist appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

For most businesses, changing a supplier is not a decision to be taken lightly. But if you stay with the guys you’re currently working with, at best you risk spending more money and not seeing any real return; and at worst you might be setting your website and your business up for a fall, if the ineffective techniques they’ve been using also result in you getting some sort of penalty from the search engines.

If you’re committed to SEO as a way to grow your business, you need to be committed to finding someone who can provide the right kind of SEO – that’s Search Engine Optimisation that’s done right, and delivers the right kind of results.

So if you’re thinking it might be time to get someone else to work on your rankings and traffic, we want to provide you with a few pointers to help make sure the change is for the better. In the first part of this three part series on changing your SEO supplier, we look at how to choose the provider you want to switch to.

Make Sure the Grass Really is Greener

One thing that can put a lot of businesses of changing their Search Engine Optimisation company, is the worry that the new provider might be no better, or may even be worse – it’s a case of ‘better the devil you know’.

But there are good SEOs out there, plenty of them in fact, and if you take the time to research other companies, and ask the right questions to make sure that you choose an agency or individual who knows what they are doing, you can be confident that you’re making the right decision to move to a new provider, and that things are going to improve because you’ve done so.

What’s Their Reputation/Experience?

When you’re looking at new providers, despite the changing nature of SEO, previous performance is a good indication of what they’ll be able to do for you, so you can start by looking for online reviews. Any bad ones are an obvious warning, but beware – positive reviews are relatively easy to ‘fake’, so don’t let those be the only thing you consider in order to make your decision.

Ask any potential agencies or individuals for references from businesses they’ve recently worked with, and make sure you speak to them to get the real story of their experience (not just the 20 word, hand-picked testimonial that’s on the SEO provider’s website).

Tailored Approach

Get them to take a look at your website and ask them to give you an overview of what they think you need and how they’re going to do it. Each business and every website is different, so you don’t just want a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach that will work for some sites but not for others.

You want an approach that is specifically tailored to your website and what it needs to rank better and get more traffic. Beware of any provider that doesn’t want to discuss the specifics of your potential project, or is less than transparent about how they plan to build links to your site and carry out the rest of your SEO.

Are They Proactive?

A provider that asks plenty of questions about your site and the SEO you’ve already had done (more on this in the next part of this series) is a good sign they’ll be able to provide the SEO businesses need. A good SEO company will want to know what they’re taking on and make sure that they’re going to be able to help. They will want to know if there’s any remedial work they might need to do before they start the SEO proper, based on whatever your previous provider has done.

They might also want to look at whether you’re targeting the right keywords, the social media channels you’re using, and your content creation process – which is a good thing and shows that they’re already thinking about how your SEO can be more effective. If you want to improve your local rankings, they should also suggest improvements to your citations and Google listings to make sure that they are providing the benefit they should.

Communication

Finally, ask how will they measure success and what information will they provide you with on a regular basis. A good provider will be realistic about the timescales for seeing an improvement, but they should also understand that your goal is more traffic and more business, not just improved rankings.

Ask how they will measure the success of the project, what information they will provide you in the regular reports (at least monthly), and how they will react if you don’t see an improvement – how do they adjust what they’re doing to make sure they are effective.

When you’re looking to choose an SEO agency to work on your website, it generally pays to do your homework – this is especially the case when you’re looking to change your SEO company because of poor results or a bad experience, as you really need to make sure you don’t make the same mistake again. In the next part of this 3 part series on changing your SEO company, we look at leaving your current provider – the best way to do it and the information you need to get from them before you part ways.

If you’re thinking of changing your current SEO provider and want to talk to us about what we can offer, you can find more information on our services here, as well as the best way of getting in touch with us if you want to discuss your requirements in more detail.

The post Things to Think About When Changing SEO Companies appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

Adding schema markup enhances search engine understanding of website content, which subsequently boosts rankings for relevant phrases. This is why incorporating Schema Markup into your SEO strategy can give you a competitive edge online. While it may seem complicated initially, understanding this aspect of website optimisation can deliver a fantastic return on your efforts in terms of increased organic traffic to your business.

What is Schema Markup and Structured Data?

Schema Markup is structured data, essentially snippets of coding, that are used behind the scenes of a website. These are the bits of code responsible for Rich Results, also known as Rich Snippets.

JSON-LD, a format for schema markup, uses JavaScript Object Notation.

And what are Rich Results? These are relatively new additions to the listings on search engine results pages, that provide data above and beyond the usual text title and description. In modern search results, there are usually some listings that stand out more than others because they feature Rich Results or Rich Snippets. These are additional features to the listing that provide additional information, usually in a more visual or noticeable format.

Popular examples of Rich Snippets include Reviews and Ratings (eg star icons below a listing), Product Pricing, or Local Information such as address or telephone number.

These additional icons, images, or pieces of information are the result of Schema Markup.

How can Schema Markup help SEO with Rich Snippets?

Understanding and implementing effective Schema Markup can help your SEO in a couple of ways – one that has the potential to improve your rankings, and one that increases your connection with human users and can translate to a higher Click Through Rate.

Key Signals to Search Engines

Schema Markup is extremely valuable in helping search engines understand what your site and content are about. This additional layer of info creates more context about your site. Instead of merely reading the text of your website, search engine bots and crawlers are able to learn about the nature and structure of your content.

How does this help SEO? When search engines are clear about your content, they are more likely to rank it for the right keywords, i.e. the ones that will be relevant to your audience and support your online business success. It also elevates your site beyond the majority of sites that are not using Schema Markup.

Any kind of additional information that helps search engines learn more about your content is worthwhile, and Schema Markup is a powerful way to convey key details about your online content, as well as giving your site a competitive advantage. Using Google Search Console to validate schema markup and monitor rich results can further enhance your SEO strategy.

Standing Out in the SERPs

When you use Schema Markup and start to benefit from Rich Snippets and additional features in your listings, your content will naturally stand out on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This can be a huge advantage because users are more likely to click on listings that stand out or look as though they have more of the relevant features.

Making your listing more appealing on the results pages can make a big difference to your Click Through Rate (CTR), and the more people who click through to your site, the better your chances of turning rankings into customers and sales.

This is why spending time implementing Schema Markup on your site can help to increase organic traffic to your website. Not only that, when people do click through to your site instead of the other listings, they may have already decided that your company is more established, impressive or relevant, courtesy of the Rich Snippets data.

How to Implement Schema Markup for SEO

To start using Schema Markup for your website, one of the simplest ways to start is to visit Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. This is a free tool that allows you to generate those clever pieces of code that can generate Rich Results for your listings in the SERPs. You then copy and paste that code into your site. It’s important to add schema markup by placing the generated JSON-LD code correctly within the <head> of the HTML document. It’s also advisable to check that the code is working as expected using a code snippet with tools like Google’s Rich Results Test and Schema.org validator. Your web developer will be able to help with the technical aspects, if coding the back end of your site is not your strong suit.

There are hundreds of different types of Schema Markup, and you can find the comprehensive (and growing) collection at the source site, schema.org. WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math can automatically generate schema markup for your website, streamlining the process.

Perhaps the best way to begin is to consider which type will be most beneficial to your business, which is usually the same question as which Rich Results features will be most helpful or appealing to your target audience. Google Tag Manager can also be used to implement JSON-LD structured data without modifying backend code.

To help you assess which Schema Markup strategy will boost your SEO most effectively, here are some of the popular types to choose from:

• Local Business Schema Markup

One of the most popular and effective types of Schema Markup is the Local Business setting. This can provide a wealth of helpful information for users, such as maps, opening hours, phone numbers, address etc. While the information itself is beneficial to users, what makes this type of Schema Markup so effective is that it helps your listing to stand out from the other basic listings in an eye-catching way that also boosts credibility and trust.

• Product Schema Markup

Using Product Schema Markup is a powerful way to boost SEO results for any e-commerce business. When users can see your product listings, complete with price and other info, right on the search results page, it can short-cut the customer journey and increase clicks through to your site.

• Recipe Schema Markup

You may have seen the Rich Results generated by Recipe Schema Markup if you’ve ever searched for something food-related and been presented with a method or list of ingredients right on the listings page. This type of Schema Markup would undoubtedly give a food blogger an SEO advantage, but it can also be used by any business that offers helpful recipes to their audience.

Implementing schema markup to your website is not essential for SEO – the majority of sites don’t currently take advantage of this practice – yet it’s a simple way to boost your search engine rankings, as well as present your content in an eye-catching way that can lead to more click-throughs and customers for your business. It’s important to test the schema markup code once implemented to ensure it functions correctly.

Schema markup generator tools can simplify the process of creating structured data for various schema types.

Using the appropriate schema types for different content is crucial for enhancing visibility in search results.

Applying structured data markup to web pages can significantly improve how search engines interpret and index your content, thereby influencing rich snippets and overall visibility in search engine results.

The post What is Schema Markup in SEO & How to Use It for Rankings & Traffic appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

What is Search Intent?

Search Intent relates to the intention, or mindset, of the person typing a keyword or phrase into a search engine. Essentially, it’s an attempt to ascertain which type of search result they are looking for – because not all searches are driven by the same intention, even when using the same keyword. Understanding user search intent is crucial for creating content that aligns with what searchers are truly seeking.

For example, imagine three different people searching for ‘clock’. Without the development of Search Intent, the results may be purely based on keywords. However, these three different people may all be looking for completely different results relating to ‘clock’.

One may want to know the time, so they need a free online clock or international clock, or the most accurate time. Another may be looking to buy a clock, ie their intent is commercial, and as such, they’ll want to be presented with clock products they can purchase. The last person may want to research the history of clocks, so their intent would be regarded as informational, and the right search results for them would be listings of informative sites relating to clocks.

Additional keywords may help to signal the precise intent, but even without these, there are ways to ascertain what type of search is being carried out, such as search history, cookies, online profile etc…

This is the level of sophistication that search engines have developed, and the evolution of Search Intent enables them to show more of the right listings, ie the best matches for what the user is really looking for.

Why is it Important for SEO?

Search Intent is important for SEO because it can make an important difference to the listings that are presented in the SERPs. If the search engines are aware of what people are really looking for when they type keywords into their browser, they are going to use certain determining factors to provide the best possible results. 

These determining factors can make the difference between your page or site ranking for the relevant keywords, or not. This is why it’s important to know the different types of Search Intent, which one applies to your business, and how to make sure that your content matches both the user’s enquiry and intention. 

What are the Different Types of Search Intent?

Within the realm of SEO, understanding ‘search intents’ is crucial, and these intents are usually split into four main categories. There are;

Informational Search Intent

This is when users are looking for information or instruction, such as How-to articles or Step-by-step Guides.

Navigational Intent

This is when users are using the search engine to help them get to somewhere else, such as looking up contact details or the link for a specific website. 

Commercial Search Intent

This is when users are in the purchasing mindset and they want to know how they can buy (or research) what they need. 

Transactional Intent

This is when a user wants to perform a specific transaction online. This may be a purchase, but it may also be another type of transaction, such as performing an online return or getting a quote. 

How Can Understanding Search Intent Improve Your Rankings & Traffic? 

When you understand Search Intent and construct your online content in line with the relevant category, you make it easier for the search engines to view your site as a good match for your potential customers. This can lead to improved rankings, increased organic traffic, and the business success that can result. This is why incorporating Search Intent principles and focusing on keyword intent into your SEO can be beneficial for your company.

For example, if you have an e-commerce business, you’d likely want to target keywords and phrases that have Commercial Intent. Ideally, you want your website to rank well for the searches people make when they are in the Ready To Buy mindset. Understanding the Commercial Search Intent keywords for your products will help you to optimise your site and pages accordingly. This level of nuanced SEO can translate into more organic traffic and more online sales.

Understanding the underlying reason for an online search is crucial. Aligning your content with the specific needs and motivations of searchers can significantly improve search result relevance.

Alternatively, you may want to nurture your audience before offering your products. In this instance, you may want to develop content that matches Informational Intent, so that you can help your potential customers with their questions and problems. This is a core piece of modern online marketing and How-to content is a great way to connect with the right people and raise awareness for your brand. This is when understanding the type of keywords that match Information Intent searches can benefit your business. Creating informative and helpful articles on your site – ones that match the questions and search queries of your target audience – is a powerful way to rank well in search engines and boost organic traffic.

Understanding Search Intent can help you to organise your content, design your customer journey, connect with the right people, provide value, increase awareness, boost traffic, and ultimately enjoy more sales and success from your online presence. This is why the right keyword research is such an important piece of any successful SEO strategy, and integrating Search Intent into your research and goals can take your results to the next level.

Another benefit of understanding Search Intent is that it helps you to get into the mind of your audience and potential customers, which is always an excellent idea when performing any kind of marketing. When you have a clear sense of what your audience is looking for and the right timing to make an offer, you are likely to see better results from your online marketing efforts.

Integrating Search Intent into your SEO efforts is like aligning with the mindset of your audience at a deeper level. And when you understand their wants, needs, and user intent, you’re in a strong position to optimise your content to provide the products and services they’re seeking. This will help you to tick the right boxes for search engines so that they’ll see how your content is the perfect match for your customers.

The post What Are the Different Types of Search Intent & Why They’re Important for SEO & Rankings appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

Whatever product or service you offer, any time someone searches for it on Google using a mobile device or with a location modifier, e.g. ‘solicitor manchester’, there’s a good chance the Map Pack of the best Google Business Profiles (GBPs) will show up at the top of the results. If your GBP doesn’t rank in this prime search real estate you could be missing out on potential customers.

What is GMB/GBP?

A Google Business Profile is a free service offered by Google that lets businesses create a profile with their information, which is then used on Google Maps and in Google’s search results.

Most businesses will have a GBP, whether you created this yourself, or Google added one based on other information about your company on the web. However it was created, once claimed and verified by your business, effectively optimising this free piece of Internet real estate is vital if you want to capitalise on the potential business it could send your way. 

If you don’t know if you have a GBP, or have a profile but haven’t claimed or verified it yet, you can find more details on this here.

Why is an Optimised GBP/GMB Important

With practically all business sectors becoming increasingly more competitive on the Internet, simply having a GBP is no longer enough. For those traffic-generating map pack rankings, a thoroughly-optimised (and managed, but we’ll come to that later) Google Business Profile is essential, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the traffic potential – we’ve had clients who get up to 50% of the organic traffic to their site from their GBP ranking in the map pack, and the clickthrough rates for these map pack rankings can be up to twice those of even page 1 organic rankings.

Secondly, relatively speaking, ranking in the map pack at the top of local search results is often quicker and easier than ranking web pages in the organic search results below. There are obviously a number of factors that influence this but for most clients, everything else being equal, they should find it’s possible to rank their GBP without the months and months, or even years, of work required to rank web pages.

So, if your GBP isn’t optimised to rank for searches where Google is showing the map pack, this might mean your business is missing out on a lot more organic traffic and potential customers. To try and capture some more of this potential traffic, we’ve provided the step-by-step instructions we use to optimise client profiles, so you can optimise your business profile yourself.

How to Optimise Your GMB for Better Map Rankings

Before we start, it’s worth briefly mentioning the 3 key factors Google considers for local search rankings:

• Relevance (how relevant is what you offer to what’s being searched for)
• Distance (how ‘local’ are you to the searcher)
• Prominence (how well-known is your business)

It’s worth bearing these in mind as you optimise your GBP (and your location-specific webpages) in order to try and gain the best rankings possible and, just like you might optimise the pages on your website, it’s worth investing the time and effort in thoroughly optimising your Google Business Profile to get the best results.

Click here if you want to jump straight to the quick overview of the steps for optimising your GBP. 

Optimising your GBP – step-by-step

Assuming you have already claimed your Google Business Profile, once you’ve logged into the Google account that owns it you can go to the Google Business Profile Manager to start updating it; or simply search for your business in Google and you should see the update options in the screenshot below, then click on Edit Profile to get started.

Business Name

The business name you use for your profile is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s a key optimisation opportunity, and secondly, it forms part of your NAP, which stands for Name, Address, Phone number. 

Consistency between your GBP, the page it links to on your website, and the citations you will be getting/building (see later) is key to success. Google likes to provide quality, reliable results, so making sure you use the same information for your NAP wherever it appears is a key element of optimising your GBP.

Try to use a business name for your profile and NAP that is optimised for your product/service and location, where possible. So if you’re an accountancy firm, instead of just ‘Jones & Partners’ you could opt for ‘Jones & Partners London Accountants’. This can make it easier for Google to understand the searches your profile is relevant for, but don’t overdo it and stuff your title full of keywords, as this rarely works for long.

Business Category

Choosing the right category for your profile is also key, and it may be best to select 2-3 of the most relevant categories for your market. Some categories may be more relevant to searches than others, and it’s a good idea to select the same or similar categories to profiles that already rank well for the searches you’re targeting.

You can do this by analysing the map pack in the search results, or use a handy tool like Pleper’s Category Helper. As you can see from the screenshot below, you just enter your business information so it can find your GBP, and then the search terms you want to be found for, and it will analyse the competition to determine which primary and secondary categories you might want to consider. You probably won’t need them all, just the top 2 to 3 that most profiles are using.

Description

Your business description provides another opportunity to optimise your profile for the search terms and locations you want to be found for. Again, avoid keyword stuffing, but adding your main search terms and locations, along with related keywords and nearby areas, in a description that ‘sells’ your business or service and offers a compelling reason why users should choose you, maximises the potential of this part of your profile.

Opening Date

This is just the date the business opened and is useful to show how long you’ve been around and help provide a more complete GBP.

Phone Number

Another key part of the NAP for your local business, so ensure that you use the same phone number in your profile as the one on the web page it links to, and the citations and other listings for the business on the Internet. It’s also a good idea to try using the same format in all places, too – e.g. avoid mixing up +44 1234 56789, 01234 56789, and +44 (0)1234 56789 all the time.

Website

This is your opportunity to add a link to your website from your GBP. If you are a local business with only one location, this will most likely be a link to your website homepage. However, if you have a number of locations, you would ideally want a separate page for each of these on your site, and then link to these from the relevant business profiles. 

Often, businesses with multiple locations, and therefore multiple GBPs, will just link them all to the website homepage. If you have different location pages on your site, link your Leeds GBP to the Leeds location page, the Birmingham GBP to the Birmingham location page etc.

It’s also a good idea to add some tracking to these links, so you can see the traffic you are getting from them in Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Remember the image of the different traffic volumes at the start of the article? You can get the same info by simply adding ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=gmb&utm_id=website to the end of your link URL.

Booking

It’s also possible to add additional links to your profile, which can be useful if you want to take visitors straight to a booking or request a callback page. By clicking Booking in the edit options, you can add other links to your profile to help convert users better. Again, you can add tracking to see how well these are working, and for a link that takes users to a booking form you could change the tracking ID and use ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=gmb&utm_id=booking, and something else relevant for any other links you add.

Social Profiles

A recently new addition to business profiles is the ability to add links to your Social Media. As well as helping to create a more complete profile, it improves your online presence and makes it easier to engage and connect with potential customers across their preferred social platforms.

Shortname

Your profile’s shortname makes it easier to share and access your profile, rather than copying and pasting the huge URL in your web browser. Choose something short but recognisable as this will be helpful when you’re sharing your profile with customers, e.g. ours is simply g.page/GrapefruitSEO – try it.

Business Location

The final piece of the important NAP! If you have a business location you want to use for your profile so clients can find and visit you, rather than simply being what’s know as a Service Area Business where you don’t have a fixed location but visit clients where they are (e.g. a plumber), decide on the address and format to use across your GBP, website, and citations. Again, consistency of your business’s name, address, and phone number is key for the best possible GBP rankings.

Service Areas

As mentioned above, your business might not have a location clients can visit or that you want to use in your profile, in which case you can use this section to add the areas nearby that you service, so Google and customers know whether you cover their location. 

Even if your business does have a location clients visit, you should still add in the service areas you cover for the same reason, so you have more chance of showing up for searches in these locations. After all, the catchment area for a local takeaway is likely to be much smaller than the catchment area for a plastic surgeon, so it makes sense to define the areas your business covers, rather than leave it up to Google.

When adding service areas for any type of business, try to include as many of the locations as are relevant for your business. For a small local business this might just be the surrounding areas, but for businesses with a longer reach, look to try and cover as many as possible, expanding out from your location, e.g. City of London, South London, London, Greater London.

Opening Hours

These are what you’d expect and even if your business is a typical Mon-Fri, 9-5 operation, adding in your opening hours will show you as closed, open, or opening soon when your profile appears in the results. For businesses with less common hours, e.g. bars, restaurants, and gyms, it can be more important to make sure this information is current and kept up to date.

There is also an option to add Special Hours, which should be used when different dates like Easter, bank holidays, and Christmas are in the bear future, or if your business is closed for training, stock taking etc. on a particular day.

More

This section covers a variety of attributes and amenities that are not going to be relevant for all businesses, but by going through and checking any that apply, your profile will be more complete, plus you will be providing the necessary information to potential customers who might make their decision based on factors such as whether a business identifies as women-owned, has wheelchair accessible restrooms, or is LGBTQ+ friendly.

Services

This is the section where you get to showcase the services you offer within your profile. As well as helping with the optimisation of your overall profile, by adding your core services, with descriptions and prices where possible, you give Google more information to use to rank your profile and show the relevant services to users who are looking for them.

Products

Similar the the above, eligible retail businesses can usually add information about the products they sell, all of which can help optimisation, rankings, and the conversion of potential customers. Likewise, food and drink businesses can also add detailed menu information with images, to help attract users.

Photos

The map pack is a very visual piece of search real estate, and for your profile to stand out you want to make sure you are adding a good selection of appealing images. Logo and header images are the bare minimum, and you should ideally add as many images as are relevant for your profile and business. 

Businesses should consider adding a good quantity of attractive images of their offices, employees, customer projects, products, results achieved, reviews received, accolades won etc. The photo section provides a great opportunity to catch the eye of searchers and showcase all the reasons they should choose your business.

It’s worth mentioning that while great-looking images are important for your profile, just as with your website, optimising these images well can also be beneficial. So using appropriately optimised file names for your images, e.g. ‘jones-and-partners-architects-london-logo’ is advisable, and for the more advanced, we’ve also found geotagging these images for your location to be helpful (we’ll look at geo-tagging in more detail in another post).

Website Updates

Finally, once you’ve optimised all the above elements of your Google Business Profile, the last piece of optimisation to help with your map pack rankings needs to be done on your website. 

If your website is already well-optimised, a lot of the information you’ve added to your GBP will probably be what’s on your site, but as we’ve seen the best results by making sure profiles and the web page they link to share the same info, it’s worth making sure.

Look at using the title of your GBP in the meta title of the page it links to. Optimise the meta description and key headings on the page for the search terms and locations you’re targeting. And try to make sure the name address and contact details of the business displayed in the footer or elsewhere on the page match up to the NAP info you added to your profile. You could even look to embed a link or Google Map of your profile on the page.

We’ve seen the best results with clients when the business information on GBPs and the web pages they link to matches as closely as possible.

Quick Overview/Recap

Here’s a short overview/recap of the steps to properly optimise your Google Business Profile:

1. NAP: use the same name, address, and phone number across GBP, website, and citations
2. Business Name: optimise for product/service and location
3. Business Category: choose the most relevant and popular category(s)
4. Description: add a compelling sales pitch optimised for product/service and location
5. Opening Date: add the date the business started to show credibility
6. Phone Number: add the same phone number as the one on the linked-to webpage 
7. Website: link to location-specific URL on your business website with UTM tracking
8. Booking: add additional links to booking pages with UTM tracking
9. Social Profiles: add social profiles to increase engagement
10. Shortname: create a recognisable short name to help with marketing 
11. Business Location: add the business address that customers can visit 
12. Service Areas: select areas covered for businesses with or without an address
13. Opening Hours: add day-to-day and any special opening times
14. More: add all relevant attributes and amenities
15. Services: add individual details for core services offered
16. Products: add detailed information on products for retailers and menus for food and drink businesses
17. Photos: add logo, header, and other relevant images with optimised filenames
18. Website Updates: ensure the webpage linked to matches the GBP optimisation

Ongoing Optimisation

Just like optimising your website, the optimisation of your Google Business Profile is more of a process than a one-off event. Following the optimisation steps above can significantly improve your GBP’s ranking in the map results, but to maintain and continue this improvement, there are steps you can take on an ongoing basis.

Reviews

Data points to the fact that one of the most important factors in determining which profiles rank in the map pack in the search results are those with the best reviews. This doesn’t just mean those with 5 stars, but profiles with a track record of attracting a good number of good reviews.

Depending on how competitive your market you might need 20, 50, 100, or more good reviews to rank well in the map pack, and profiles with a good volume of historical reviews tend to rank best – so you should look at developing your review count as a priority to ensure the long term success of your profile’s rankings.

Implement processes to ask customers for reviews and make it easy for them to leave them by using the link from the ‘Ask for Reviews’ section of the GBP edit screen; and interact with reviews left on your profile, even any bad ones, as this shows others that you’re committed to providing the best possible service/products. 

Updates

Active business profiles not only seem to do better in the search results, but they also have the potential to get more engagement from users. Look at adding regular update posts to keep users up to date with what’s going on and prompt them to find out more.

Q&A

Monitor your profile for questions from users and provide them with timely answers that could turn them and other readers into new customers. 

Offers & Events

Want to offer a discount for a limited time, or make searchers aware of a sale you have starting soon? Use Offers and Events to include these on your profile and encourage users to visit your website or venue.

Citations

Lastly, one of the best ways to improve your profile’s appearance in the search results is to make sure you build a healthy number of quality citations or listings for your business on directory sites and the like. Remember we said prominence was one of the key ranking factors for local SEO, well there can be no better way to raise the profile of your business than it being found on all major and niche-relevant business directory sites – just remember to get the NAP consistent across all your listings.

Effective GBP Optimisation Can be a Big Opportunity

With the prominence of the map pack in many of Google’s search results, the potential this offers for significantly increasing your organic traffic, and the relative speed and ease with which it can be possible to achieve map pack rankings, proper optimisation of your Google Business Profile could be a huge opportunity for your business.

Following the optimisation steps we’ve outlined above could even be enough on their own to move your profile into the map pack, and a consistent effort to improve the optimisation of your GBP, proactively update it, interact with searchers, and encourage reviews from your clients, could help maintain this increasingly important source of traffic and potential customers for most businesses.

If you’re convinced of the potential of having a fully-optimised business profile and want some assistance to make the most of this opportunity, just complete the callback request form below and we’ll get in touch to discuss how we can help.

The post GMB SEO Guide: Step-by-Step Google Business Profile Optimisation for Better Map Rankings appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

Adding rich media to a site is not completely unconnected to SEO, as most of us know that, with the growing number of Internet users happier digesting information in the form of video and other rich media, it’s no surprise that pages with videos, images, infographics etc. can do better in the search results, everything else being equal.

With video being such a positive for site users and the search engines, it’s really a no-brainer to include it where you can on your web pages – but taking the time to plan, script, find images for, and create your video can be a time-consuming task.

There are plenty of platforms and tools that can help with the process, but a good online video editor is one that offers everything you need to quickly and easily create videos for your site/brand.

With a few images and some basic copy, we were able to create a professional-looking promotional video for our client, The Grand Dukedom of Pomerania and Livonia.

They were looking for a more eye-catching way of showcasing the unique benefits of their Royal Titles, and using the video creation platform we were able to present the previously pretty ‘flat’ product images in a much more engaging way, and using the various assets available on the platform meant that it was totally in keeping with the client’s brand.

The gift market is a significant opportunity for this client, and to present the features and benefits of purchasing a Royal Title as a gift in a more attractive way that would pique people’s interest, a video was just the marketing tool the client needed.

With the resources available, we were able to complete these videos in a matter of hours, but achieve a look that looks like it would have taken a lot longer and creates a more sophisticated appearance across the client’s whole site.

We’ll be looking to create more videos to help our other clients enhance their content and with the benefits that come from using video more, for the minimal effort required to create them using the leading platforms, there’s really no excuse for not adding more videos to your own site or any of your other marketing channels.

The post Case Study: Video Creation Project appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

If you haven’t done any real optimisation for your web pages, or maybe you did some when the site was launched a while back but nothing since, this is a great strategy with the potential to make some very quick gains. To prove it, here’s a screenshot of one of our main pages that hadn’t been optimised for a while, and the improvement we saw just from re-vamping it with more focused optimisation for a major search term we wanted to concentrate on. Jumping from page 2 to page 1 for your main search term should certainly mean more traffic and potential customers – especially if you do this for all your ranking pages!

When it comes to on-page optimisation, what you’re aiming for is relatively simple. Your pages rank well when Google understands exactly what your page is about and what search terms it should be ranking for, and the content on your page is focused around those search terms. Effective on-page SEO involves optimizing various elements such as content quality, HTML elements, and website architecture to enhance search performance and user experience.

As we’ve mentioned before, all Google is looking to do is provide its users with the most relevant pages for the search terms they used, and by maximising the potential of the main on-page optimisation elements, you can demonstrate that your pages fit the bill. But before we look at the specific optimisation tips, we need to talk about focus.

Focus Your On Page SEO Content Optimisation

If Google is looking to show the most relevant web pages for a search query, it should be obvious that the more focused the content on your page is for that query, the more chance your page has of being seen as the most relevant for that particular term and ranking well. Where a lot of businesses come unstuck is when they add too much varied content to their web pages so that they’re not really focused on any one topic in particular.

Using an example to explain this, imagine a Home Services company that offers a variety of services – plumbing, electrical, roofing etc. If they simply have one ‘Services’ page where they list all of these, there’s not enough focus for that page to rank well for terms like ‘fulham plumber’ or ‘chelsea roofer’ – or at least, it will be a lot harder for it to rank well for these terms because other web pages that are more focused, with relevant optimisation for these terms will outrank them.

Consider the alternative, where they have a page for roofing, one for plumbing, one for electrical etc., these pages will be much more focused on these particular services and the related search terms so, relatively speaking, it will be easier to rank these pages well.

Test it out in your market and see. Search using terms for your main service and you’ll typically see that the first page of results will be web pages, and even whole sites, that are focused on that particular service and the search terms customers will use to find it. Usually, the only exceptions will be big authority sites that rank well due simply to how ‘powerful’ they are, such as yell.com.

So before we even start to look at improving your on-page optimisation to try and increase your search engine rankings, you need to take a look at your web page and make sure it is well-focused on the topic and search terms you want it to rank well for. If it’s not, you might want to consider ‘re-focusing’ the content, or even splitting the page into different, more-focused pages and optimise those.

The Key On-Page Optimisation Factors

When it comes to on-page optimisation, there are 4 key on-page SEO elements you want to pay particular attention to, ensuring that your primary, secondary and related target keywords are well-represented in each of them. In order of importance, the main on-page elements are as follows

URL

In many cases, it’s going to be hard to optimise a URL, as this would most likely mean changing the URL of an already established page. However, because having the keyword you’re trying to rank for, or a related keyword very close to it, in your URL is such a strong signal to Google as to what the web page is about (and therefore what searches it’s relevant for), it may be something you want to consider. This aspect of URL optimization falls under technical SEO, which is crucial alongside on-page and off-page SEO.

This could especially be the case if your site’s current web pages use ‘ugly’ URLs that have very little benefit for optimisation, e.g. https://abccompany.co.uk/services-list/service76589.html. Let’s say this company is trying to rank this webpage for ‘wembley roofer’, this URL is not doing their optimisation any favours at all. On the other hand, if they were to change the URL to https://abccompany.co.uk/roofing-services/wembley, then they are almost certainly going to see an improvement in the rankings for their main search term.

A couple of things to note. Whilst adding keywords to your URL can help improve rankings, as with most optimisation if you overdo it then it will actually do more harm than good, so don’t be tempted to cram too many keywords in there. If you do decide to change your existing URLs to improve the optimisation, you must make sure you set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This way you won’t lose any traffic that is going to the old URL, and all the links that page had built up will benefit the new page. Be aware that when you change a URL in this way, there can be a drop in the rankings for a short time until the new URL receives the full benefit of the redirect, but when this does happen, and the fact that you now have your keyword in the URL, you should rise back up the rankings higher than you were with the old URL.

It may not be possible to change your existing URLs to improve their optimisation, but if you’re at least able to make sure that any new pages you add to your site have better-optimised URLs, then you can start to improve the focus and potential for ranking of these new pages.

Meta tags (Meta titles & Meta descriptions)

We’ve already spoken about your page’s meta title and meta descriptions – after the URL these are probably the most important tools for optimising your on-page, the meta title probably more so than the description.

It’s key to make sure you are optimising both of these meta tags, and ensuring that your meta title has some good keyword coverage, as we looked at in the last strategy, and that your meta description is appealing to your potential customers, as well as including some related keyword terms as well.

These days, most websites are set up in such a way that you will be able to craft your own meta tags, and if you are using a platform like WordPress this is even easier with plugins like Yoast and All-in-One SEO. However your website is set up, make sure you are taking the opportunity to create bespoke meta titles and descriptions for each page, and use the advice in the previous strategies to make sure these have as positive an impact on your on-page optimisation and rankings as possible.

H tags

Unless you’ve done some of your own web development you might not be familiar with H tags, but these are basically the headings on your page. However, not all headings are created equal – Google understands that the main heading on a page is probably the best indicator of the main topic of that page, and the subsequent headings provide additional coverage of this topic. With this in mind, these headings can be assigned H tags to show their relevant importance in terms of indicating what the page content is all about. The H1 tag is usually assigned to the main, most important heading, the H2 tag to the next main sub-heading, H3 the following sub-heading and so on.

Understanding how H tags work, and optimising them appropriately, is key for your overall on-page SEO for a couple of reasons. First of all, while Google is probably smart enough to understand that the biggest heading at the top of your page is probably a good indication of the topic the page content covers, making sure this heading is an H1 tag and also includes your main or a related keyword, leaves the search engines in no doubt. Secondly, having an organised H tag hierarchy, with the more closely-related terms to your main keyword in the H2 tags, less closely-related terms in the H3-H6 tags, helps to make it easier for Google to not only understand the main topic of your page, but also the more in-depth detail of what it covers.

To give you a better example of how this should look, if you were to inspect the headings for this article, you would see the following H tags and hierarchical structure, which should provide you with a better understanding of how you should be using the H tags throughout your content:

H1: On-page Optimisation for Better Rankings
H2: Optimise Your Content for SEO
H3: Focus Your Content Optimisation
H3: The Key On-Page Optimisation Factors
H4: URL
H4: Meta tags
H4: H tags
H4: Content
H4: Media
H3: The Right Approach to OnPage Optimisation

It may not always be possible to replicate this or a similar H tag hierarchy, so if you are somewhat restricted with the way your web pages are built, focusing on getting relevant keywords in an H1 tag at the top of the page whenever possible.

Content and Target Keywords

The final key piece of the on-page optimisation puzzle is the actual content on your page. In the ‘old days’ of search engine optimization (SEO), it used to be good enough to simply include your target keyword dozens of times in your content in order to rank well – but times have changed. Apart from this approach being unlikely to provide the reader with good quality content, Google is more likely to rank you lower due to what is an outdated, spammy approach to optimising your content. This tactic used to work when the Google algorithm’s ability to understand your page content wasn’t as sophisticated as it is today.

These days, we’ve moved away from optimising pages for a single keyword, and instead focus more on the overall topic of the page, and optimising that in such a way that makes it relevant for the primary, secondary, and related keywords that we want to rank for – and if anything we actually under-optimise the actual content on the page compared to years gone by! Why this new approach works is due to the developments Google has made in terms of being able to understand the content on webpages, the topics these pages are about, and how all these topics are related on the wider web, which has a lot to do with innovations like Rankbrain and Neural Matching.

You can find out more about Rankbrain and Neural Matching (and how they differ) from this great article, but essentially Rankbrain allows Google to relate webpages to concepts, even when the exact words used in the search query are not used on the webpage. Neural Matching allows Google to relate words to search queries better. Basically, Google has become much better at understanding what’s on your webpage and what searches that content should be showing up for – which is why it’s more important to make sure you’re providing good content that’s relevant for the searches you want to be ranking for rather than cramming in a keyword dozens of times so your keyword density is 10%. Which brings us to Focus and Intent

We’ve already talked about how important it is to make sure the content on your webpage is as focused as possible in order to be seen as relevant for the searches you want to rank for, so what do we mean by Intent?

What we mean here is the searcher’s intent, so what it is that they are most likely looking for based on the search terms they used. Search intent has become more and more important to Google over the last year or so, which as we’ve already mentioned, is understandable as all Google wants to do is show the most relevant results for a search query, so working to understand searchers’ intent is a key part of that.

Having web pages that contain content that’s a close match for the likely intent of the keywords used by the searcher, makes Google’s life easier and is likely to result in better rankings. If you become too focused on simply optimising your content for a particular search term, if the content on the page the viewer sees when they click through from your listing in the search results doesn’t closely match the search intent, your rankings are likely to suffer.

A good example of where this happens frequently is when site owners try to rank for searches that typically have an informational search intent, that is the person is using search terms to try and find information on a subject. However, when they get to the page they find a little bit of information and then a lot of content trying to sell them something – either directly from the website or via too many ads on the page.

Google can discern between searches and web pages that are informational and commercial and it wants to match these up correctly. To explain this a little better using the example we’ve used previously, if someone just searched for ‘interior design’ there’s a good chance they are looking for information about this topic, perhaps the history of the industry or courses to study.

However, when someone searches for ‘interior design companies’, it’s far more likely that they looking for a commercial business’s website with a view to hiring them. Most businesses won’t need to worry too much about intent because their sites and web pages will mostly be focused on attracting customers from commercially-focused searches, but it’s certainly something to be aware of. The best advice we can give when looking to optimise your on-page content is to concentrate on making it as focused and relevant for the likely searches people will use to find the product or service you’re offering, which should naturally mean you’re including relevant keywords and other terms without over-optimising.

Media

We know we said 4 key factors, and while this one may not be as crucial as the others, added to the mix it can still help your optimisation and is therefore worth looking at.

Adding media to your pages in the shape of well-optimised images and hosted or embedded video is usually only a good thing, as this provides more information about what the page covers and therefore what it should be ranking for – just make sure it is relevant. However, it’s important to consider site speed when adding media, as slow-loading content can lead to user frustration and increased bounce rates. So with videos, make sure they add value to the content on the page, either complementing it or adding further explanation/information. With images, as Google’s algorithm can’t ‘see’ images, make sure you use descriptive file names and alt tags, ideally containing terms and phrases relevant to your page content and target search terms.

For example, the image at the top of this article has the filename ‘On-page Optimisation Impact.png’ and the alt tag ‘Impact of On-page Optimisation’, so while Google can’t see the actual image to know what it’s about, it can read those and understand how the image fits in with and supports the rest of the content on the page.

Approaching On-Page Optimisation the Right Way

The key thing to understand when it comes to optimising your on-page content is that it’s not about changing one thing and it having a huge impact, although improving just one of the key factors we’ve identified could certainly help, it’s about the combined benefit of upping your on-page optimisation across the board. So think about everything from the intent of the searches you want to rank for, the focus of the content on your page and how that matches, and then look at improving all the different aspects of your on-page to support and capitalise on that.

This has certainly been the most in-depth of our strategies so far, and hopefully it’s been useful, but if you still have questions or require additional help to improve the performance of the content on your webpages, get in touch and we’ll be happy to assist.

The post How to Improve On Page Optimisation for Better Rankings appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.

Customers will expect a business website to have a number of articles that showcase their expertise, their specialism, and even their philosophy and ethics. So if you’re going to invest time and resources into your online content what are the key considerations? How can you ensure your blogging will be worth it for your business? And is there a formula for writing blog posts that your customers will want to read, share and act upon?

The good news is your blog posts can become a 24/7 Sales Team – driving traffic to your website and building brand awareness and loyalty for your business. Content for specific audiences and formats is key to relevance and engagement. And high-quality content is key to attracting and engaging your target audience.

Content Creation Strategy

• Step 1 – Don’t write about what you think your audience wants, research to find a topic that will engage your readers and promote your message.
• Step 2 – Spend time making your content the best it can be; that might not just mean great writing, but images, infographics and video
• Step 3 – Even the best content needs to be actively promoted to work so find the best channels and resources to get the word out
• Step 4 – Rinse and repeat, with tweaks; analyse your content’s performance to see what works and where to improve

After 8 years of creating content marketing strategies for our clients, we’ve developed a 4 step approach to writing blog content. A content marketing strategy involves planning, organisation and creativity which are key to building a solid foundation and managing content.

4 Steps to Writing Powerful Blog Content

1.     Choosing the Best Topic

The topics the content covers can have a big impact on how well it performs. In our experience we’ve found some topics are newsworthy and relevant to the business – but don’t necessarily engage the reader i.e. the potential customer.

A better approach is to write about the topics that will engage people and are relevant to your business and message. That way you’ll create content that gets more visibility and benefits your business i.e. a call to action or brand awareness. You know your business best so you’ll be the expert in choosing the right content for your business. When you combine those stories and insights with what your audience is asking or interested in you’ll find the unique ‘sweet spot’ of blog topics for your business.

If you need help in getting started or getting clear on the kind of posts that will make great content for your audience, there are a variety of resources where you can see which topics are getting good levels of engagement.

For topical, ‘of the moment’ content ideas:

• Google Trends
  This provides a host of information about the current trending topics that people are searching for. If you explore the various categories in more detail, it can also help you find related keywords and queries to base your content on.
• Google Alerts
  Setting up Google alerts based on key terms, or for new content posted on target websites (competitors, industry influencers, or simply popular news/lifestyle sites) is a great way to alert you to the sort of content that’s being published. While this can provide some interesting ideas for new blog topics, there’s no measure of how engaging the content from the alerts will be, and whether it’s worth basing your new blog post on. However, if you start to see a lot of content on a topic, this might be an indication that it’s something worth looking at.
• Follow the leaders Every market or industry has its influencers; the people who are seen as the experts and whose content is always popular. By finding and understanding who these people are in the niches/areas you’re thinking of covering, you can get ideas for what content their audiences might want to see more of, especially if you do it better.

For more ‘evergreen’ content ideas

• Survey customers
  This may not be possible, but surveying your customers, or people subscribed to your e-mails, can be a good way of understanding what those already interested in your brand/service would be interested in reading more about.
• General surveys
  To find out what a broader audience is interested in, online surveys can be a good way of getting ideas for new topics to cover.
• Analyse previous content
  By looking at the performance (in terms of traffic and social engagement) of your previous posts and the pages on your main site, you may uncover some evergreen topic areas that might be worth developing into new content.

Paid options:

• Buzzsumo
  This is a subscription service that is primarily aimed at providing content ideas based on what’s already engaging people across the Internet. With a variety of filters, you can fine-tune a search based on topic or websites, to see what was shared the most. These results may give you ideas for creating similar content.

2.    Writing the Content

When it comes to actually writing the content, you need to ensure two things;

• Your content is based on a topic your audience is likely to be interested in reading about.
• You approach it with your key objectives in mind

These two strategies will give your content the best chance of ‘mass appeal’, and help it to stand out from the rest of the ‘noise’ on the Internet. Here are 8 steps to follow when planning your content, to make sure you get the most out of your content marketing efforts.

1. Keyword/search focused
   Once the topic has been decided, the content should be written with a target keyword or search phrase in mind, so it can specifically answer that query and appeal to those who are asking for that information. Some keyword research to determine the best terms to go after is a good idea, and longer tail keywords, and those in a question format, are typically best. They may not have huge search volumes, but they will be less competitive and there’s more chance that the content will rank well and attract traffic.
2. Long-form content is better
   These days, longer content tends to perform better for a number of reasons. Posts with 1200-4000 words provide plenty of information for the reader – and the search engines. If written well, they’re likely to provide some really good value, and they can demonstrate more authority and gain more trust, because of the investment in time and effort. Find out more.
3. The best content performs best
   It sounds obvious but content that is the highest quality writing, authoritative, and packed full of information and value for the reader, is typically the kind of content that will engage and be shared the most.
4. Authority is key
   Google uses an acronym for what it considers the best content, EEAT, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. To achieve this, and have you and your content seen as an authority, always use evidence, research, facts, and statistics to back up whatever point is being made.
5. Formatting
   Good formatting is essential to make the content more easily readable, so using shorter paragraphs, headings, and lists is a good idea.
6. Media
   Another way to enhance the appeal of the content, as well as to break up all the text, is to use a variety of media where possible. Correctly tagged images, embedded videos, and infographics all contribute to great content.
7. Reference links
   As well as linking to the other pages on your site, content that references and links out to other authority sources not only does a better job of providing value to the reader but it’s also been shown to help rankings via ‘authority by association’.
8. Search engine optimization is essential
   Good quality content, that’s relevant to a particular topic, will often do a good job of being optimized for searches around that topic. However, specifically optimizing content once it’s written, to target a particular phrase or query, is essential to make sure it performs as well as possible. This includes paying attention to the on-page content and the creation of bespoke and compelling meta tags. Effective search engine optimization enhances the visibility and ranking of your content, driving more traffic and potential customer conversions.

3.     Promoting the Content

Despite what some sources might have you believe, simply writing great quality content is not always enough if you want it to reach as wide an audience as possible. As well as optimising it for search engines, the promotion of new posts is a key part of any content marketing strategy.

• Actively market content
  Rather than just highlighting content on social media channels, you’re more likely to reach a wider audience if you actively market it, just as you might your website or your brand. So rather than simply mentioning a new post on Facebook and Twitter, creating a mini promotional campaign for your social media posts will help you maximize your content’s reach.
• Be targeted
  When marketing your content on social media platforms, being more targeted can help. For example, we’ve found that the older demographics prefer to engage with longer form content on Facebook, and younger demographics are more likely to click on links from Twitter. There are also different approaches you can take with the accompanying visuals for the different groups and platforms. Different content for different times of the year, holidays or events can also be key, so having a planned content calendar can help maximise your content’s effectiveness. Understanding your target audience is crucial in this process, as it allows you to create relevant and engaging content that meets their needs and solves their problems.
• Get others to promote you
  If you’ve created a truly great piece of content, particularly if it’s something that’s based on what key influencers in a niche or market have written about, reaching out to these sites and individuals and asking them to highlight your content can be a great way of getting them to promote it for you.
• Use for SEO
  Following on from the last point, great value content can be excellent as the foundation of a wider outreach campaign as part of the SEO project, attracting links as well as promotion.
• Syndication
  Another way of getting others to promote your content for you is to use syndication services like Outbrain, which will get your content in front of the audiences that are most likely wanting to see it. Similar services include Zemanta, SimpleReach, ARC and Taboola. Find out more.

With the promotion of your content, it’s important to consider it from two perspectives. Firstly, you’re trying to achieve the maximum level of engagement for the new piece of content you’ve created. But secondly, and something that’s often neglected or overlooked, you’re building the audience for your future content, and in theory making the whole process easier and more successful going forward.

4.     Analysing the Performance

As with any process, it’s important to analyse the results, to fine-tune the steps, and improve future performance. This can be done using a variety of different metrics and tools.

• Google Analytics to track and analyse traffic to your content.
• Rankings monitor such as SEMrush, to track improvements in rankings for the target term/query.
• Content tools like SEMrush’s new Content Tool are a great way to track how individual URLs are performing.
• Share Tally is a quick and easy way to get a snapshot of a URL’s performance across social media.

Creating Your Own Content Marketing Strategy

In summary then, when done well, the content you publish can play a powerful supportive role in your business’s online presence, providing you are strategic with your content creation and clear on the role you want it to perform.

So, to help your blog become an asset to your business, keep in mind these 4 steps to powerful content creation:

1. Choosing the topic
2. Writing the content
3. Promoting the content
4. Analysing the performance

If you’d like more information on getting the most from your website and online efforts, or if you’d prefer to hand over the specialist aspects to an expert, Grapefruit Digital can help. Visit our Services page to find out more about what we can offer, and if you’re looking for SEO to significantly enhance your online presence in 2024, fill out the discovery form and we’ll be back in touch.

The post How to Create a Small Business Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Grapefruit SEO London.