On initial review of the existing Simple Storage website, we decided to take a two-pronged approach to improve their SEO.
Google Ranking
Firstly, we looked at the whole set up of the website, ensuring we had fixed any broken links, site map errors, missing page Titles or anything which might prevent Google from accurately indexing bar content.
We also wrote meaningful titles and Metadata for all of the websites post & pages; This had an almost immediate impact on the website's visibility.
Content is King
The next task was to look at the content. Content is essential, and it forms one of the cornerstones of any good SE0 project, but content should be valuable, unique, and of sufficient length.
However, as a 10-year-old domain with a business owner who knew content was important we found the Simple Storage website had many short, time sensitive and often duplicating posts which were not performing an SEO purpose.
We removed any content which was dated or lacked value, and instead focused on filtering out recycled content and keyword cannibalization. This is when more than one page appears to rank for the same keyword or phrase.
We combined and updated similar content and assigned each page a unique keyword. Content that was once 6-7 posts were incorporated into one relevant & more engaging post. This meant instead of 150 words; posts were averaging 700-1000 words with some other cornerstone posts.
We begin with a technical audit of your website. We can carry this out free of charge. Its a great place to start your SEO strategy. We look over 90 technial factors to determine your overall site health. Beginning with errors which are a must fix, and moving on to other warnings that may or may not need addressing depending on how likely they are to have an effect on your website. We find the most common errors are simple things like duplicate or missing meta data, which makes a big difference to how and where the search engine decides to index your website. We also look at page speed, design, UX, and overall Conversion Rate Optimisation, since its not just about a visitor finding your site. it’s about what they do when they get there.
In our experience its always best to address the errors first. adding or improving content to a site thats riddled with errors or really slow isn’t going to accomplish a great deal. Although you can jump right into keywords and search volume data, we prefer to start with the healthiest website possible in order to achieve maximum results. In some cases the strategy is to build an SEO friendly website and start from there. We will help you find the best solution.
After we have created our inital strategy we will adress technical errors in the website’s code, giving us a clean slate to work on content changes. In our experience we have seen some terrible seo practices with content. pages stuffed with keywords that don’t sound natural. Content needs to be produced in a way that a search engine can index it, but not in a way that the user thinks its nonsensical. Getting the user to your site may be a challenge, but its only a small part of it. driven traffic needs to result in a desired action, a sale or an enquiry.
We carry out extensive keyword research using a variety of tools. Most Manchester SEO clients come to us with an idea of what they think their main keywords are. Its also common in our experience for clients to proudly tell us what they rank #1 for. What most don’t know, and haven’t been reported on is the search volume. There is absolutely no point in being in first place on Google for “Dog Walking Services In Little Bottom On Sea” if no one ever searches for that term. So we start by discovering which words your website actually ranks for, and what similar sites rank for those keywords, how you compare to those other similar sites and how many people are actually searching for those keywords. We can find things that you may not have thought of.
The overused phrase content is King, whilst worth considering doesn’t apply to every site. Its about relevance too. An ecommerce site may rank much higher than another page for the same keyword, simply because the intent of the search query may indicate a user is looking to shop. So we tailor your SEO strategy to the individual business. As Google Shopping Specialists and Shopify Partners, we would always recommend an ecommerce SEO strategy went hand in hand with Google Shopping Ads.
Content should be written for humans and optimised for search engines and not the other way around. It needs to inform, engage and promote the desired action. Google identify the primary reasons for users engaging with your content. Want to know, want to go, want to do, want to buy. Google calls these moments ‘Micro Moments‘ and they should be at the core of your content.
In most cases our clients can provide us with a level of content, although we understand you can often be busy. We can either create a list of ideas for content or we can produce it for you. We work with a variety of industries, and work with our clients to produce high ranking content, or help our clients to produce content we can further optimise.
