FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• What is SEO and how it works?

  Essentially, SEO is a term that refers to the process of ensuring your website secures the highest possible ranking position in SERPs relevant to your business. So, if your business sells weighted blankets, you're going to want to be visible in the results when someone types 'weighted blanket' into a search engine. But not only do you rank for this phrase, but you also want to rank for all other related phrases, such as: ‘grey weighted blanket’, ‘blue weighted blanket’, weighted therapeutic blanket’ etc.
  
  But how does it work? Well, search engines use powerful bots to crawl every single page that exists on the web. They do this to collect information from each page they visit to understand where to place them in an index. The index is a bit like an enormous library, and search queries are like librarians, who always know where to find the precise pieces of information you're looking for.
  Algorithms are then used to analyse every page that exists in the index. They consider hundreds of ranking signals which help them to determine where webpages should rank in the SERPs for every query.
  SEO can initially appear to be extraordinarily complex, and, truthfully, it is. So, if you're just getting started, it's natural to feel somewhat overwhelmed. One of the primary reasons business owners start to feel frustrated with SEO is that it's always changing.
  
  There are several reasons for this: As Google wants to ensure that it is consistently delivering the best possible user experience (UX), it frequently updates its search algorithms to serve the highest quality results for every query.
  Additionally, digital marketers tend to squeeze every ounce of value from a new strategy until it cannot deliver the same results anymore.
  It isn't possible to pay search engines to obtain higher organic rankings in SERPs. This makes it markedly different to paid search advertising. SEO professionals understand how to leverage powerful and sophisticated strategies that align with a search engine's best practices and will deliver the best possible outcomes.

• Do I Need SEO for my Website?

  The short answer is: YES.
  
  Here are just a few reasons why:
  
  1. The Power of Organic Search: SEO is the most cost-effective way for your business to connect with the right people at precisely the right moment. Organic search is critical to most sales funnels for companies across a range of industries and sectors. So, obtaining a high-ranking position in key SERPs is often critical to completing conversions and driving engagement.
  2. Building Brand Credibility and Nurturing Trust: A robust SEO strategy essentially forms the foundations that allow brands to develop and maintain an effective UX. SEO enhances search discoverability, immediately telling your potential customers that you are a trustworthy, knowledgeable and respected business within your industry. After all, if you occupy a prominent ranking position, you clearly care about connecting with your audience and delivering a product or service that comprehensively meets their needs.
  3. Understanding your Audience: SEO will help you to keep up with even the smallest shifts in your market. This information can then be used to tweak your messaging to ensure you deliver precisely what your potential customers want from businesses like yours. SEO provides crystal clear signals regarding user behaviour and search intent through the processes of SERP analysis, search query data, and analytics insights.
  4. Enhancing UX (User Experience): At a time when the online space is more competitive than ever, you need to deliver the best possible UX at every stage of your customer journey. As Google algorithms have become more sophisticated, the search giant understands how to interpret both excellent and poor UXs. This information has become a central component within the ranking process, and getting this right can completely transform your ranking fortunes. Remember, consumers know what they're looking for, and if they can't find it on your site, they will never become your customer.
  5. More Traffic, More Engagement, More Conversions: A comprehensive SEO strategy will also include local search, which has become critical to the success of small and medium-sized businesses. Local SEO strategies focus on a specific location, a neighbourhood, town, city, region or country, and will provide you with a channel for your brand messaging locally.
  6. Improving the Buying Cycle: Research and SEO go hand in hand. SEO strategies can be used to relay real-time messaging regarding the dependability of your offering, innovative new products or services, and time-sensitive deals have the potential to be game-changing for your online presence. When approached correctly, SEO can impact your buying cycle in ways that drive qualified leads within your funnel and increased conversions. For this to happen, your brand needs to be visible in the spaces your ideal audience are looking, and this is where SEO really comes into its own.

• How do I Get my Website to Rank Higher on Google?

  So, we've covered what SEO is, how it works and some of its benefits. But how exactly do you rank on Google in 2021?
  
  As you might expect, the most beneficial outcomes are driven by a multi-pronged approach that includes:
  
  1. On-Page SEO: Optimising your pages is one of the most efficient ways to boost your rankings.
  Why? Because it's fast. Here are some quick tips:
  Your primary keyword should sit towards the start of your title tag. This strategy is called 'frontloading', and it's important because Google pays more attention to terms positioned at the front of your content compared to those that first show up at a later stage.
  Google values content that is fresh, comprehensive and authoritative. This means that, often, longer content secures higher ranking positions. But it's important to say that if you can convey the same amount of high-quality information in fewer words, do it. There's no point in waffling or padding out your content for the sake of it.
  Pivoting back to keywords for a moment: keyword stuffing is a thing of the past. So, rather than trying to fit your target keywords in at every opportunity, aim to include them between two and three times throughout the content on a page.
  2. LSI Keywords: LSI keywords are words and phrases that have some connection to the topic of your web page. This is important because Google values content that is comprehensive and touches on all facets of a subject.
  3. Technical SEO: Technical issues can significantly impact your SEO campaign. Your first step here should be to ensure that your site has been fully optimised for mobile devices. It's also important to understand how quickly your website loads. This is key because page speed and loading time are factors that will impact your search performance.
  4. Search Intent: To perform well in the SERPs, your content must align with search intent. Google's RankBrain algorithm can determine whether your content is relevant to searches for specific keywords and phrases. This essentially means that Google is interested in how users interact with your site. Your rankings are likely to rise if it can determine that your users are getting what they want from your content.
  

• How Long Will it Take Google to Rank my Page?

  SEO should always be viewed as a long-term strategy designed to help you to build a strong online presence that will deliver ongoing results. Link building sits at the very heart of good SEO, and this is one of the elements that requires the largest investment of time.
  
  So, how long are we talking?
  
  The short answer is: it depends.
  
  It's frustrating being unable to give a definitive answer, but it really does depend on thousands of different factors. Although it isn't possible to say, 'your site will definitely rank in 65 days,' it is possible to offer some insight to provide a more nuanced response to this vital question.
  
  Comprehensive research undertaken by experienced SEO professionals revealed that optimisation strategies provided an average highest ranking position of 1.81. It took an average of 100 days to reach that position, and each site had accrued an average of 25 links.
  
  Although you should take this with a pinch of salt because every site will be different:
  
  This research suggests that it is possible to obtain a page one ranking position within four months.
  Now, let's run through a few actionable takeaways and things to keep in mind.
  1. SERPs are competitive and larger sites will always find it easier (and faster) to rank than smaller sites.
  2. Google values fresh content and will actively prioritise its ranking.
  3. Link building is a long-term strategy that should be a continual process.
  4. Create a list of target keywords before investing in content creation. This will prevent you from devoting too much attention to keywords that aren't going to deliver the maximum ROI.

• How Much Does SEO Cost Per Month?

  After 'how long will it take to rank?' this is one of the most commonly asked questions we're asked. Interestingly, most SEO professionals tend not to want to be upfront about their costs, which can cause additional confusion and frustration for business owners.
  
  We offer services on a rolling 30-day contract, which start from as little as £400 per month plus VAT. The 30-day terms ensure that you consistently know that we are utilising the full scope of our knowledge and skills to deliver search engine optimisation strategies that will help you to achieve your core business objectives. You also have the opportunity to press the pause button on your campaign with as little as 30 days' notice, which gives you far more flexibility than with most other solutions that offer fixed-term contracts.
  
  We will create a bespoke SEO campaign that centres on your business goals in return for your investment. So, whether you want to increase your online visibility or drive additional sales, your campaign will be shaped to help you achieve and even surpass your targets.
  
  Our proposal to you will clearly and comprehensively outline what you will receive for your investment. We want to be transparent about what you can expect from your bespoke campaign and precisely how much you will need to invest to generate the kind of results you want to see. To do this, we will undertake a comprehensive research and analysis phase that sets out your current site performance statistics which will also consider the competitiveness of your sect