Introduction
Search engine optimisation can broadly be split into two main areas: onsite SEO and offsite SEO.
This article will detail ways a business can improve their onsite SEO.
As we work primarily with businesses based here in Cardiff, South Wales, and these businesses require local SEO, we will also detail ways companies can improve their local SEO by improving the business’s onsite search engine optimisation.
What is onsite SEO?
When some businesses think of onsite search engine optimisation, they immediately think of adding blog posts to a website.
However, onsite search engine optimisation is much more than that; as you will see from this article, many different components go into improving a business’s onsite search engine optimisation.
This article doesn’t include every element a business could do to improve its onsite SEO.
Yet, this article does cover the main parts that go into improving a business’s onsite SEO, and we will describe how our white hat search engine optimisation company uses these methods to improve where a business ranks organically.
Page speed
Have you heard about Google AMP? Well, it’s fair to say that a lot of white hat SEO companies here in Cardiff believe that how fast your company website loads is going to get more and more critical.
As this makes sense, for example, let’s say you run a construction business, and your website offers good information. For example, people can see and read how you build your loft conversions and property extensions, yet even though your website is good, it might take ages to load.
Often, people are unwilling to wait that long for a website to load; they will go to another website. This usually means that if your company website takes ages to load, your website will incur a higher bounce rate.
Many digital marketing agencies think a high bounce rate can mean a business may have lower rankings.
Content marketing
One of the most essential parts of the SEO process is content marketing. So, this is often why online marketing agencies, such as ours, spend so long creating content marketing.
But here’s the thing: you can get content marketing that’s put together in less than 10 minutes, or you could get content marketing that a marketing agency has spent many days putting together.
Okay, so unless the SEO company can work miracles, the point we are getting at is this: if the content marketing hasn’t had much time spent on it, well, it’s likely to be rubbish.
So, what factors do we believe to mean that content marketing is good quality?
Useful
So let’s say, for example, you retail bathroom items, and you specialise in selling bathroom items that are Victorian-styled bathrooms.
Now, if you were to employ an SEO company and all they did was keep writing “Victorian style bathrooms” again and again into the business’s blog posts, this is likely to put off a reader reading anymore.
So, the website may incur a higher bounce rate if the content marketing isn’t written that well.
So let’s say instead that the bathroom retailer appointed an excellent digital marketing agency, and they created blog posts for readers like this: “How to create a Victorian-styled bathroom in 8 easy steps”.
Now, such a blog post may well be so good that it draws in many readers, plus many people talk about the blog post on social media, such as Twitter.
Then, people who have blogs about interior design also like the blog post, so they mention it in their article and offer a backlink.
So you can see how good quality content marketing can help improve a business’s SEO.
On the other hand, if the business appointed the wrong SEO agency and created a 400-word article that didn’t offer any good quality information, the bounce rate and the business rankings may go down.
It must be well-researched
Sometimes, some SEO agencies are creating content marketing for so many businesses that they haven’t the time to research each piece of content marketing they write.
So what happens?
The blog posts are just pointless; they don’t offer any valuable information and are therefore not contributing to the business, but could be increasing the business’s bounce rate.
For example, let’s say the business is a divorce solicitor, yet the SEO agency keeps discussing celebrity divorces.
However, there’s a direct competitor to the business, yet this divorce solicitor has employed a different company. Now, this SEO agency is much better at what they do, and it has created loads of helpful blog posts, such as “How to start the divorce process” and “How to cope emotionally during a divorce”.
These are the types of questions that couples facing a divorce may ask Google, so you are getting people going through a divorce onto your business’s website.
Whereas people are interested in a celebrity divorce, they may not be going through a divorce; they are just interested instead in celebrity gossip. So, you have to employ a marketing agency that writes good quality content marketing and brings people to the business’s website who are more likely to convert into paying customers.
Internal backlinks
Some businesses have just focused on gaining good quality backlinks; that’s to say, they have ignored how using internal links can help improve a business’s SEO.
So, how can internal backlinks be used to improve a business’s SEO?
Well, that’s simple. Let’s say your business has written one hundred blog posts about gardening, and that’s because you own a company that sells gardening products, like greenhouses, for example.
Okay, but your blog posts say how to create an allotment within your garden. Well, that was written some time ago, so now there are 20-odd articles that are newer and therefore, it’s hard to find the article about how to start an allotment because it’s on page 7 of your blog posts.
So what do you do?
You can use internal backlinks to help link to similar content marketing. So, for example, you may well be writing a blog post about how to control weeds in your garden by only using products that have natural ingredients. Yet, you also mention how to control weeds on your allotment, so why not use an internal backlink to link the two blog posts?
And what’s the point of this?
· You can keep visitors on your website for longer, thus reducing the business bounce rate
· You can use anchor text so that Google’s algorithm will know a bit more about what each page is about
· You will be helping Google find content marketing on your website
Menu
Some website designers want a business’s website to look as minimalistic as possible.
So, for example, the business may retail high-performance cars, and when you visit the website, the homepage has a massive image of a high-performance vehicle, which has the wow effect.
However, the menu seems hidden; it may just be a dot in the right-hand corner of the screen, and you may need to press it for the pages on the website to appear.
Yet, these sorts of menus can sometimes cause problems for SEO.
That’s to say, an SEO consultant may state, well, indeed, it’s better to have a more extensive menu. A menu where there are more drop-down boxes, a menu which makes it easier to get to each page.
That’s to say, the minimalistic design may well mean it’s challenging to select a brand of car that a person wants to buy with just one click.
So what we mean is, sometimes, the more you ask a person to do, the more chance you have of losing customers.
You want to make your visitor’s experience on your website as easy as possible, so why not have a list of car brands that you retail? That way, the customer can see instantly from a drop-down menu that you sell that car brand, and they can easily see which cars you are selling.
If you don’t make it easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for, then a website’s bounce rate will increase.
It would help if you worked with your search engine optimisation company to reduce your business bounce rate.
Meta titles and meta descriptions
Some businesses believe that meta titles and descriptions are unimportant, but they are.
The reason is that even if a business is on the first page of Google, the company still has to compete with all other industries.
The reason for this is that the business sells bikes online, and the company is on the first page of Google for “mountain bikes.”- well, the company will still have to try to get the visitor to click on their business.
Usually, ten other businesses will still be listed in the organic listings. Also, if you want to purchase a bike locally, there may be Google My Business listings.
So, how can you help your business to stand out from all the other companies?
The most obvious way would be to get your business right at the top of Google.
Yet, failing that, you could still do loads of other things, such as adding Schema to your business reviews so that your company’s review rating shows up.
For example, let’s say you run a dental practice and have excellent business reviews. Using Schema, you could help highlight that fact, and your business’s star rating would become more visible.
However, another way would be to write meta titles and meta descriptions, which are more likely to increase your business’s CTR.
What does CTR stand for?
CTR stands for click-through rate, which means that if you improve your business’s CTR, more people are clicking on your business.
So, for example, let’s say all the other bicycle shops have rather bland meta titles and meta descriptions, which say the same thing on every page of the website, such as
“We sell affordable bikes and a wide selection of mountain bikes.”
This is rather boring, so if your business spends the time to write an exciting meta title and meta description for each page on your website, it might help to improve your business CTR.
For example, if you mention the leading brands of bikes you sell and something that allows your business to stand out, such as offering an extended guarantee, this can help improve your business’s CTR.
Alt tags
Alt tags are simply tags that allow you to add a written description to an image. So, let’s say, for example, your business sells furniture online.
Now, you usually wouldn’t just have a picture of that piece of furniture on its own; you may, for example, put a dining room table pictured within a room with other furniture.
But how will Google know what the picture is about? How will it know which piece of furniture you are selling?
Well, that’s simple; you could add an alt tag, that’s a tag which explains what the picture is about, so, for example, you could say “large-dining-room-table-made-from-mahogany”.
Main service pages
Sometimes, some SEO companies here in Cardiff may start adding blog posts to a website so that the business adds content marketing to the website.
Yet, the SEO agency may ignore that the main pages have little SEO value, so what do we mean by this?
Well, that’s simple; let’s say the business in question is an architect’s practice, and the architects work for both domestic and commercial clients, but the website has one page that states “commercial” and one which says “domestic”.
Well, that’s good, but on those pages, there may be two lines of text, such as:
“We can help design any type of commercial building, which can range from a new supermarket to a new shopping centre”.
Now, if any good search engine optimisation agency were to read that, they would say that the main page should have more written information.
Therefore, the SEO company may work with the architect’s practice to improve that page on the website by adding more text.
Product descriptions
Quite often, when a web design business creates a new e-commerce website, they may not have the time to write detailed product descriptions.
This is especially the case if the business sells thousands of products; therefore, there will need to be thousands of different product descriptions, meta titles, meta descriptions and alt tags.
So, sometimes, some website design companies may duplicate the product descriptions and obtain the product descriptions from the manufacturer’s website.
However, if you were to ask any good SEO company, they would tell you that duplicated work will create SEO problems.
That’s to say that duplicated work could mean the business is penalised. For example, the company could incur a Google Panda penalty, which could mean the business rankings drop.
So our best advice is this: don’t use duplicated work, as this can sometimes severely damage your business’s search engine optimisation.
Therefore, a new SEO company should check a website for duplicated work, and if there is any, then the SEO agency should advise that the copied work be replaced.
Instead, your business needs high-quality content marketing which is not duplicated.
Googlebot
If you do not know what Googlebot is, it is simply what Google uses to crawl and index your website.
So, all this means is that Google knows that a business website will not stay the same for long.
This means that as an SEO company improves the website, they will make changes, such as adding content marketing.
So it’s Googlebot that spots these changes and then informs the algorithm. It’s the algorithm’s job to determine how good your business’s search engine optimisation is when compared with the competitor.
That’s to say, should your business be in second place? First? Or last, that’s when weighing up how good your business’s SEO is.
Google’s algorithm
Google’s algorithm is something that we search engine optimisation agencies, of course, try to work out how it works the best we can.
Now, we say the best we can with good reason, and that’s because Google doesn’t tell everybody how the algorithm works, and that’s with good reason.
If all businesses knew how the algorithm worked, they may try to fool the algorithm into thinking their business’s SEO is better than what it is.
One thing is for sure: Google rewards quality SEO work. If your business builds high-quality and relevant backlinks, assuming you have enough good-quality links, your website’s SEO will improve.
However, backlinks are just one part of the SEO process; there are over 200 ways that an SEO company could improve your business’s search engine optimisation.
Blog
Does your company have a blog?
No? Well, it should, as with a blog, you can add content marketing; this means that each time that Googlebot crawls and indexes your website, it will see that you have added new work.
Most digital marketing agencies, ours included, believe that if the work is of good quality and is added regularly, this can help to improve the business search engine optimisation.
However, if a website doesn’t have new content marketing added regularly, this could mean that the website will drop down the ranks.
However, with that said, the work must be high-quality; if it is not, this could damage the business’s search engine optimisation.
Don’t write for SEO benefit.
Here: is an important point when: adding blog posts to your website or content marketing: you shouldn’t just focus on adding such work just for SEO benefit.
This means that the SEO companies that use rubbish SEO methods may focus on trying to get a business to rank higher by writing the exact words repeatedly.
Let’s say, for example, you run a hairdressers here in Cardiff. If the seo company offered rubbish SEO, they might write “hairdressers Cardiff” over and over again within the text.
However, this method of search engine optimisation is outdated. Instead, you must offer content marketing that’s useful and of high quality.
So, for example, a senior stylist and the hairdressers may visit the SEO agency, and they may create an article once a month, and this blog post talks about the latest trends when it comes to hairdressing in terms of what is popular.
Then, many people who follow the hairdressers on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, may read the work and then share it on their social media.
Then, someone who owns a fashion blog may like the article and mention it in a blog post so that the hairdressers may also get a backlink.
So what we are saying is this: if you write to try and get SEO benefits for your business, well, you are likely to bore the reader.
Instead, suppose the work is of excellent quality, and your readers find your hairdressing articles interesting. In that case, the SEO work will come more quickly as more people read the article and link to the blog post the hairdressers have published.
Google Panda
Do you believe that by adding blog posts to your company’s website, you will be helping to improve the business’s search engine optimisation, regardless of whether the work i? Ifbbish?
The answer is no. If the work is rubbish, and we mean that it is not applicable, and experts do not write it, it could be deemed low quality.
Low-quality content marketing can mean a business will incur a penalty for a Google Panda. For example, let’s say the business is a skip hire business, and they kept writing “skip-hire + name of the city” into the content marketing; this is likely to be deemed low-quality content marketing, which could mean that the business incurs a penalty.
Url’s
Sometimes, you will have two separate companies, both sell aluminium ladders, but website number one has its primary domain name followed by /9608686608
This means nothing at all, but then you will have the second business, and that business URL is /aluminium-ladders-free-delivery
When Googlebot is indexing that page, having the URL as /aluminium ladders-free-delivery helps to tell the algorithm what that page is about.
And if someone is looking for “aluminium ladders and a company that offers free delivery”, well, that website has a better chance of ranking higher.
H1-H6
Let’s say you want to fix your car. It has an alternator problem, and the garage has quoted you an absolute fortune, so you are considering improving the problem yourself.
Yet, one website has a block of text and 3000 words, and it’s just hard to skip to the bit you want to read about.
Yet website number two explains how to fix that alternator, yet it has many headings, so you can skip to the bit that diagnoses the problem and then explain how to set it.
Well, there are three things here that are something as simple as adding titles can help to improve your businesses SEO, and here’s how:
Reduces the website bounce rate
If the reader can skip to the part they want and find an answer, they will unlikely bounce off the website.
So, the bounce rate could be ed for that website, and she pauses the tit is helping the reader to skip to the part they want to read about.
Googlebot
When Googlebot is crawling and indexing that page, Googlebot can quickly understand what that page is about because the titles will allow the algorithm to quickly work out that page about how to fix a car’s alternator.
For example, the titles may well be
1) How do you work out which alternator type you have
2) Make sure that the alternator connectors are not damaged
3) How to remove the car alternator
Therefore, just through the titles, Googlebot will know that the page is about how to fix a car’s alternator.
Google’s Knowledge Graph
Google’s Knowledge Graph is something that not too many SEO companies talk about. However it’s a vital subject that all search engine optimisation agencies should understand.
That is, Google understands “entities”; now, an entity could be a place, an item or an event in time, yet here’s the crucial thing: Google knows how entities connect.
So, for example, Google will understand that Christmas is a date that many people from the U.K. celebrate. Google will know that this takes place on the 25th of December each year.
Google will know that Christmas trees, advent calendars, presents and dates have religious significance.
So, what do we mean by this? We suggest that Google doesn’t just understand that an advent calendar is a cardboard box with chocolates behind each door for counting down to Christmas day.
Instead, Google will know that advent calendars are part of the celebration of Christmas and, therefore, understand the broader context of advent calendars and why they are purchased or made here in Britain.
This is important because most SEO companies, including ours, believe that Google has a Knowledge Graph.
And this Knowledge Graph helps Google to understand how everything connects. Or, for example, how things are connected, for example, a celebrity and who they are married to, and what films they have appeared in. You might be asking what this has to do with onsite SEO.
Well, the answer is a lot, because you’re a builder, and one of your blog posts is talking about how to build an extension on your home.
Within that blog post, you mention bricks, blocks, fibreglass, and UPVC windows; well, Google will know that these items are used in construction, so you are your website more relevant to being a construction business.
This can help to improve your business’s search engine optimisation.
On the other hand, a direct competitor, well, they don’t add blog posts, they say we are a construction business.
So, the business that talks more about construction-related entities may see its SEO improve as the website is deemed more relevant to construction and the building industry.
Why cheap SEO is often a waste of time
Okay, so often, when a business is looking for a digital marketing agency in Cardiff, they might opt for the cheapest quote they can get.
And this makes sense, right, as the business will want to save money.
Well, no is the answer to that, and the reason for that is sometimes the business will obtain low-quality SEO.
Sure, it doesn’t matter if you want to pay; your business could always obtain low-quality SEO, that’s for sure.
However, if a business pays a low price, you have to question how much SEO work can be offered for a low price.
Therefore, if the price seems low, you must ensure your business will get white hat search engine optimisation.
If your business doesn’t, and the SEO company implements low-quality seo, your business could be penalised.
A Google Panda or a Google Penguin penalty can sometimes be applied via Google’s algorithm, or in some cases, it could be what we SEOs call a manual penalty.
In either case, it could mean that the business’s rankings would drop. Some businesses will then change SEO companies, yet the new SEO agency may charge a lot of money to help rectify the problem that the other marketing agency has caused.
For example, the new search engine optimisation agency may need to disavow backlinks.
White hat
So, this is why your business must only invest in white hat SEO. This means that every part of the SEO process must be white hat; for example, from building backlinks to adding content marketing to the website- all of the work must be white hat.
Google Analytics
Your digital marketing agency should then help your business set up Google Analytics. Google Analytics is an essential SEO tool, as it can help to monitor the following:
· Bounce rate
· Number of organic visitors
· Where are your website visitors coming from? Are they coming from organic SEO, social media or direct?
Bounce rate
Imagine for a second you just opened a new restaurant in Cardiff Bay, South Wales, and you sell wood-fired pizza, let’s say.
But during the first week of opening, most customers pop their heads through the door, take one look at the restaurant and then leave.
Of course, as a business owner, you would want to know why; you would like to find a fast solution to save your business from going bankrupt.
Well, the same should be said about an online business; that’s because if your website’s bounce rate is high, well, that’s kind of like a customer popping their read into a restaurant and then leaving.
So, the same could be said about an online business with a high bounce rate; it’s like someone landing on the company’s website and leaving more or less straight away.
So, how do you find a solution?
Well, the company should most certainly work with a white hat SEO company, like us, and then a website designer should be involved as well; this is to make improvements to the website to see if that bounce rate can be reduced.
For example, the search engine optimisation agency should ask questions like, does the website lack information? Is this why visitors are bouncing off the website?
For example, let’s say you sell bean-to-cup coffee machines; is there enough information on each coffee machine?
Or, are visitors to your website not gaining the information they need to purchase?
Local SEO?
Here’s another critical consideration that your SEO agency must consider: is the website aiming to get customers locally and nationally, or are you trying to get customers globally?
The reason is that local SEO is very different from national SEO. This is because a marketing agency is tasked with getting an employment law practice to the top of Google within the city of Cardiff. The SEO that will be implemented will be very different than if the business wanted to be on the first page of Google across the U.K.
So, your search engine optimisation company must meet with your business and understand whether you want local SEO.
If your business wants local SEO, the marketing agency will have to work out whether it is just one city or multiple cities.
For example, businesses will often have business premises in Newport and Cardiff, so local SEO will be needed for both cities.
NAP
NAP stands for the name of the business, the business address, and the phone number.
NAP information should be written on your website, and it should be written in such a way that Googlebot can read it so that Google’s algorithm will know the business NAP details.
Also, some businesses here in Cardiff mark up the NAP information using Schema.
Using Schema can make it even easier for Googlebot to find your business’s NAP information and know that it is your company’s NAP details.
Does your business’s NAP information match your business citations?
Let’s say your business was once based in Cardiff Gate, yet you moved business premises, and now your business is based in St Mellons.
So, the website design company updated your business’s website, so now the website states the business is located at its new address, St Mellons.
However, the SEO company was not told about the change of business address, so the business citations still say that the business is still located in Cardiff Gate.
This can cause issues in terms of the business’s local SEO.
Many SEO agencies would say the business has “conflicting business citations”,- meaning that the business citations and website do not match.
Your search engine optimisation company should fix this problem; it could damage your business’s SEO if they don’t.