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19/11/2021

Matt Tomkin

Law Firm SEO – The fundamentals to better search rankings

The legal sector is one of the longest standing and seen as one of the most professional sectors in the UK. A number of law firms are really lucky in that their client base is relatively secure and has been for some time.

They get recommendations from other professional service providers for the services they offer and have spent numerous years building those networks to create a solid foundation for the firm to keep going.

Recently, with Covid-19 being a large driver in this, we have seen a number of law firms now looking at what other channels are available to drive revenue and visibility for their brands.

We work with a number of law firms on their SEO presence and continue to see great results from organic search visitors.

Table Of Contents
But, how does a Law Firm do SEO? 
3 core parts to SEO
Technical SEO for legal sites
Page load speed - why is it important and how do you fix it?
Mobile usability: we all know why this is important, don’t we?
Check nothing is blocking Google or the search engine spiders
Core Web Vitals: what are they and why should you care?
What are the Core Web Vital measurements?
Search content for legal sites
Writing for search engines and users is an art
Creating search content for each stage of the buyer journey
Links for legal sites

But, how does a Law Firm do SEO? 

What do they need to implement internally within their business to gain from SEO as well as the component parts that have to be implemented correctly to gain the up-tick in visitors from Google, Bing, Duckduckgo or any of the other search engines?

3 core parts to SEO

There are 3 core parts to SEO, these are:

Technical SEO, Content and off-site signals.

Technical SEO for legal sites

Technical SEO is all about making sure your website is built in a way in which the search engine spiders can access the information and understand all the information in the most efficient way possible.

Top level technical considerations are things such as:

  • Page load speed
  • Mobile usability
  • Checks that nothing is blocking googlebot from accessing the websites pages, etc.

Then there is Core Web Vitals to consider, but this does incorporate a number of scores that we’ll discuss in further detail.

Page load speed - why is it important and how do you fix it?

In a nutshell, page speed is how fast a web page is loaded when a user visits it.

No-one likes a slow website! It’s as simple as that. Google, and the other search engines, therefore see this as a ranking factor (how they decide where your website/page sits in the search engine results) and a slower website is seen as bad for the user.

The ideal time for a website to load on mobile is between 1-2 seconds. Yes, this is fast, but studies show that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load. Here is the study for further information: Think with Google.

However, with the addition of Core Web Vitals, there is now more complexity in the recommendation to “just make it load faster”. Core Web Vitals have been introduced to help website owners understand how to improve overall website experience, rather than outright speed.


For example, the content layout shift measurement is now targeting those annoying moments when you go to click something, but the page shifts as you do it and you end up on a random page; i.e. one that you didn’t want to go to.

Mobile usability: we all know why this is important, don’t we?

Everyone now uses their mobile to browse the internet! If your website doesn’t show properly on a mobile device and users are unable to read, click or even use the site at all, then this is going to affect how you rank on Google and on other search engines.

In Q1 2021, internet users on mobile devices accounted for 54% of all traffic, and this is not slowing down. People are moving away from their laptops and just using mobile devices for all things internet. Make sure they can access your site properly.


Test your website now to see if it works on all the latest devices, use Blisk to check.


Google now, and has been doing so for a few years, ranks websites using a “mobile first” ranking method. This means that if your site doesn’t work very well on mobile, it is very unlikely that the site will perform well on desktop Google searches either.

Check nothing is blocking Google or the search engine spiders

Website owners and developers can use a very tiny piece of code on the back end of a website to ask Google, amongst others, to not index an entire website, or just certain pages. This is great when you want to make sure some pages don’t show up in search for whatever reason, but we have seen examples of developers forgetting to change this to allow indexing of an entire website.

Sometimes, this happens when a new site has been built and the site is set to ‘no-index’, making sure there isn’t a duplicate. The only problem is, it gets forgotten about when the site goes live.

Believe me, this happens. We’ve seen websites disappear from Google within days due to a tiny error like this. Normally, it’s easy to sort and relatively quick to get the rankings back, but it can have permanent damage if not found quickly.

This is just one of many things that can affect how search engines get blocked or have issues with finding and indexing your website pages.

Core Web Vitals: what are they and why should you care?

Core Web Vitals is the name given by Google to a number of measurements that affect user experience and they believe every website owner should be measuring.

They will be used to help determine where a website ranks across all of Google’s tools. As of yet, we’re not sure how much of an impact this has on search results, but you can be sure they will be having some; especially in competitive sectors such as law.

They are measurements from real world data, so it is extremely important to keep a close eye on these scores within your Google Search Console portal.

Page experience is so important and should form part of your overall plan for how to attract new visitors and keep them on the site. However, if you need a push to do this, then Core Web Vitals is for you.

What are the Core Web Vital measurements?

They are split into 3 aspects that affect user experience: loading, interactivity and visual stability.

Google terms these aspects as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
  • First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a FID of 100 milliseconds or less.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1. or less.

It has never been more important to measure how your website loads for your end users and to make sure that there is a budget in place to improve the way your site is built. This is why we moved into website development, to help our SEO clients’ sites load better and hit the scores where needed.

If you need any help understanding your website's speed metrics or technical issues, get in touch.

Search content for legal sites

So, you have likely heard the saying “Content is King” - this phrase does have some truth to it. The real saying however, should go “The Right Content is King” when it comes to SEO and gaining website visitors from search engines.

What we mean by this is that you can write as much content as you want but, if your goal is to get more visitors to your website via organic search, then you need to make sure it matches what Google knows the user is looking for. We call this the ‘intent of the searcher’.

Blog content that doesn’t target search is very important, but only once you have customers on your website. We’re talking about SEO in this article, so we will be concentrating on what we term ‘search content’ or ‘SEO content’.

Writing for search engines and users is an art

When you are looking for more traffic from Google or other search engines, you have to think about what they understand the intent of a search to be. We call this the search intent.

Search intent is basically what a user wants to find when they type something into the search box.

There are 3 different types of search intent as we define them.

  • Informational: A searcher is looking for content to help understand something or find the answer to a question.
  • Navigational: The user knows where they want to go and uses a brand name or place to find the relevant website.
  • Transactional: A user is wanting to buy a product or service. This can include researching a type of product or service, and it could be that they know what they want to buy and go ahead and purchase.

A great example of an informational search would be “How long does probate take?” which is searched for an average of 6,800 times per month in the UK (and this is actually an underestimation of the actual volume!).

The person searching this is higher up in the sales funnel and we want to answer this question for them along with other relevant information surrounding the topic in the best way possible. Once we have answered all the questions this searcher has, they will likely move through the buyer funnel to the point where they will then use a more transactional search, such as “probate solicitors” which is a 1100 per month search volume; again, an underestimation.

Creating search content for each stage of the buyer journey

It is so important to create content for each stage of the buying process.

Links for legal sites

Google was the first search engine to use links to help decide where to rank a website in its search results. They worked on the basis that some links are more trustworthy than others. As an example, the BBC would be very trustworthy as they have very high editorial standards and are one of the most trusted websites and organisations in the world.

However, a website that is not trustworthy and has lower editorial standards will be discounted as a link in the eyes of Google. They need to be good, relevant and trusted links.

It is therefore important that you build inbound links to your website that are from trustworthy sources. Let’s be honest, you’re not likely to get a link from the BBC every day of the week, so we use a tool that estimates the potential domain rating of a website.

This score is out of 100 and can help build a picture of how valuable a link might be if you were to gain one to your website.

The Law Society website https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/en, as an example, has a domain rating of 84/100, meaning that having a link from this site would be great for any law firm.

The content of the page linking to you is important too. Let’s say a major newspaper uses you as a source for an article about probate law; this would be seen in the eyes of Google and the other search engines as a trusted and reliable source and would be a great link.

On the flip side of this, an article about changing the tyre on a car that contains a link back to a law firm's website would not be a relevant or trusted source.

13 Nov 2025

Matt Tomkin

SEO vs. PPC: Which is better?

As a search marketing agency, we get asked about SEO vs. PPC a lot. Of course, what we recommend completely depends on the client and their industry, and there are many things to consider before we look to recommend either channel.

In this guide, we’ve gone back to basics about what each of the processes involve (feel free to skip ahead if you’ve already got some understanding), how they can work together and the pros and cons of each.

Table Of Contents

What do SEO and PPC stand for?

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ and PPC stands for ‘Pay Per Click’.

Search Engine Optimisation isn’t just a case of optimising your pages once and never looking at them again. Due to constantly changing search algorithms, site infrastructure updates, your competitor’s activity and much more, you constantly need to be on the ball to make your site as search engine friendly as possible. This is done through a mixture of technical SEO, content marketing and digital PR.

PPC refers to the ads that you see at the top of Google search results. As a business you will pay per every click received on your ad. It’s not a case of paying the highest, although this is a factor - rather, it’s all about the quality of your landing page experience, ad copy quality along with a whole host of other factors. 

What is the difference between SEO and PPC?

There are a few differences between SEO and PPC to bear in mind:

The positioning on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

First and foremost, the most obvious difference between the two is their positioning on the SERP. The paid ads are the first results you see and are labelled as ads, as shown in the graphic above.

The organic results are shown from that point onwards and are what search engines believe to be the best match to a user’s query, starting from the best match and descending from there.

The goal for both search channels

With SEO, it’s likely that you want to boost the site's visibility in the search results, which is a great investment in the overall value of a business. There are a number of advantages to SEO, improving your keyword rankings, increasing your domain rating through gaining links, improving site traffic, bringing more site visitors that will lead to more sales and leads.

SEO is best viewed as a long term investment in your business, it can take some time and considerable investment to make major gains in organic search but the value keeps building over an extended period.

With PPC, you’re normally directing your site visitors to one page (often a particular service page you’d like to push, or a contact form we term a landing page) with the aim being to get users to take an action - ideally, buy a certain product or contact you for more information.

We wouldn't recommend starting a PPC campaign without having a very focused landing page, or set of landing pages, depending on the campaign and number of ad sets you are running.

The time frame

SEO is a long-term strategy and investment in your businesses long term lifespan.

Creating a new piece of content, whether a blog or new service page, goes live, you will need to wait till the search engines ‘index’ the page.

This can be sped up to an extent, but it completely depends on your website's authority and how important the search engines see your website. It can take 3-6 months before you start seeing traffic to the page - in fact, the average time a URL takes to hit page one is over 12 months, according to Ahrefs. On the other hand, paid ads are live immediately and can start generating results quickly when done correctly.

The sort of visitors you will bring to the site

Having managed PPC for a wide variety of clients, alongside undertaking SEO work, we have certainly noticed a difference in the sort of leads that each one will bring in.

With SEO, you’re likely to attract the sorts of visitors who may be at the top of the sales funnel. For example, if you’re a craft insurance business, many small craft businesses won’t know exactly what they need to cover them from claims - these sorts of visitors are at the top of the sales funnel.

Say for example they search a question such as: ‘What sort of insurance do I need for craft fairs?’. They may come across your piece of content, a guide to showcasing at a craft fair. After reading the guide and finding out the sort of insurance their business needs, they may request a quote from you as you have positioned yourself as an expert. (p.s. - you can also read our guide for more information on how to use Google searches to create content that answers user’s questions).

If you did want to target people who are more towards the bottom of the funnel, perhaps you want to create a highly targeted piece of content around getting a quote for insurance. SEO can target both top of funnel and bottom of funnel users, it all depends on the content produced and the competition for the terms.

With PPC you can attract visitors much further down the sales funnel who are either looking to make a purchase now or are looking for very quick results - e.g. someone who has left organising their car insurance until the last minute and is looking for a quote as soon as possible.

They may fill in forms from several of your competitors in order to see who responds first. This means that you may have to filter through more leads to see who is seriously considering buying your product or using your services.

In some instances, you may want to target further up the sales funnel, like promoting a piece of content or a guide, but typically we do see PPC being used for bottom of the funnel purposes.

How SEO and PPC work together

Although SEO and PPC do have their differences, you can seriously reap the benefits of using both together.

Getting greater target audience insights

PPC can give you invaluable data about your target audience. Once your ads have gone live, Google collects information about who is clicking on your ads, such as their age, gender, industry, job role, the area they live in, etc.

This data can help you to refine your next projects as part of ongoing SEO. For example, if you are a business coach and you see that owners of insurance businesses are clicking on your ads, you might want to create a piece of content or a service page around ‘Business Coaching for the Insurance Industry’. This can help you to continue bringing in leads through your PPC work and also attracting those leads organically too - it’s a win-win situation as you start to dominate the SERP!

Increased brand awareness

Using both together also boosts brand awareness. For example, someone might be carrying out some quick research about your industry, and once they visit your landing page from an ad they get a general idea of your offerings and who you are. They may get distracted and leave the site.

However, when that person searches again, or really does need your product this time, they will remember your name and click on your organic listing this time. Or, you could even use remarketing list search ads on Google and make sure you are there for both organic and paid ads.

Testing what works and using it in your SEO efforts

You can also test new keywords that can help with your SEO. Choose a word or phrase that you think you could potentially rank highly for and use it in your PPC ads. If you see great results, this is a sign that you should start to include this keyword in your content.

You can also review statistics such as time spent on the site and bounce rates to see what is working on your landing page and what isn’t - for example, are people getting tired of reading a huge piece of content, or is a call to action too far down? This can help you avoid the same mistake in other pieces of content across the whole site.

Does PPC affect SEO?

Not directly, but as we’ve touched on, you can use the insights to better your SEO. It can be part of your overall SEO strategy, but it’s not essential to your efforts, especially if you have a smaller budget starting out.

What are the pros and cons of SEO and PPC?

SEO: Pros

  • Increase traffic, leads and brand awareness
  • It often isn’t as costly as PPC can be
  • Visitors who view your site are likely to have a higher level of trust as search engines have suggested you as the best match to their query, rather than paying to get there
  • You can easily attract local traffic to your site by taking advantage of Google My Business and other local listings
  • You can become an authority figure in your industry as people search your site for information and guides
  • One great piece of content can consistently bring in leads - we’ve seen this with some of our client’s top performing pages

SEO: Cons

  • SEO takes longer to see results, so return on investment isn’t instant and needs a consistent budget
  • In some extremely competitive industries, SEO needs a vast amount of resources to compete. You may need to use PPC as well to generate results in the shorter term
  • There are no guarantees with SEO - algorithms change constantly
  • You can suddenly go down in rankings due to a variety of factors, such as competitor activity, the toxicity of the sites that have been linking to you, algorithms etc.
  • The organic results aren’t as high up on the SERP

PPC: Pros

  • Generates almost instant results
  • Return on investment is very clear
  • Can feed into your SEO strategy and give insights that are more difficult to find through SEO
  • Gets you to the top of the SERP immediately, compared to months or even years of effort with SEO
  • Targets people who are at the bottom of the sales funnel, and so are looking to buy NOW
  • You can set a maximum daily budget to make sure you aren’t spending too much

PPC: Cons

  • Once your competitors catch onto you efforts, you could face a bidding war where essentially the price per click consistently increases
  • Many people don’t trust ads as much as they know businesses have paid to get there - 97% of all clicks go to organic search results.
  • Money can be burned up quickly if it isn’t done correctly - we’ve spoken to many business owners and marketing managers that have tried their hand and spent so much with little ROI!
  • You can get caught up in ‘click fraud’, a process where people or certain pieces of software constantly click on your ads to use up your money
  • The data can be complex to understand for those who are new to PPC

So, which is better overall?

Sorry to go for the typical SEO answer here, but really… it depends (yes, we can hear you booing over there).

If you want quick results and know how to optimise a campaign as best you can, PPC might be the best option for you.

However, if you want to put the effort into an SEO strategy over time and bring in consistent organic results, that could be a better choice.

In our honest opinion, a combination of both works really well due to the insights you can get. For the clients we do this for, we are constantly reviewing PPC campaigns to see what’s working and what isn’t, then implementing this into their content.

If you want great results that will take your business to the next level, get in touch with us today. All of our clients receive monthly video reports that prove real return on investment and growth over time.

Fleet Insurance SEO

751% increase in leads for less than £1k per month

Rapid growth for our fleet insurance broker client, all through a well researched and implemented SEO strategy.

It’s a common misunderstanding that working with a small budget for SEO means you can’t generate results.

How can you possibly make enough improvements to the site in so few hours per month?

Well, for us at Tao Digital Marketing, our work with Fleetcover goes to show that results can be achieved by focusing on the most important changes in the little time you have.

In this case study, we’ll break down how we increased leads by 751%, keywords by 259% and impressions by 535% on a budget of less than £1,000 / $1,347 per month, equating to one day’s work. That’s a small spend for SEO, but making the right changes at the right time, and focusing our efforts on the most important aspects, generated these positive results.

Objectives

Our objectives were similar to what every website ultimately wants to achieve: generate leads for the business and increase online visibility for relevant search terms.

To be a little more specific, we picked this client up in March 2019, but of course, results generally started to pick up from November 2019 as Google started to crawl the site more regularly.

Our targets/KPIs for the next 12 months were based on numbers from April-November 2019, as below:

  • Increase leads from 175 to 500
  • Install a new chat function on the site and gain 50 leads through it
  • Increase site clicks from 2,200 to 5,000
  • Increase keywords ranked for from 229 to 500

The target audience was businesses that need fleet insurance. This spans a wide range of industries, from those operating coaches and taxis through to motor trade.

Our strategy focused on technical SEO and content creation. There was one big issue, though: we didn’t build the site ourselves, nor did we have the level of access that would allow us to make any design or fundamental changes that could support SEO and lead generation. In turn, our strategy had to be heavily content-driven.

Our Strategy

1. Add a chat function

In November 2019, we added the ‘TawkTo’ chat function to the site which has helped generate leads. After analyzing when their audience was visiting the website, we found that most users were on the site late at night and on weekends.

With their team being out of the office and unable to answer any phone calls during these timeframes, we thought it would be of value to offer an online chat function to help capture inquiries so potential customers wouldn’t be put off or frustrated! This would put them at an advantage compared to their competitors who were not doing this.

We implemented the bot so it appears on the tab as a message notification, drawing people’s attention to the page even when it isn’t the active tab. So far, 330 inquiries have been made through this function.

2. Implement technical SEO’

Tweaks that support technical SEO are perhaps some of the most important changes you can make to see real results. We implemented this by:

  • Optimizing page titles
  • Creating meta descriptions that were between 100-155 characters, using keywords that naturally fit
  • Using the optimal image sizes that each website required
  • Using alt text for images
  • Implementing internal and external links where possible
  • Utilizing FAQ schema on the more frequently searched questions
  • Optimizing the sitemap by getting rid of URLs that wouldn’t support organic search
  • Using the robots.txt file to point search crawlers in the right direction
  • Creating 301 redirects. There were a number of outdated pages as well as 404 errors that needed to be addressed
  • Making usability tweaks to the design. We were very limited in what we could achieve on the site as the incumbent were not massively helpful in terms of the access they would give us. We were able to get round this in certain areas, an example being the ‘Get a Quote’ buttons. We had a feeling user metrics mattered in this competitive market, so we did our utmost to capitalise on this.

3. Optimize the “Get a Quote” form

We added heat mapping and anonymized visitor recording to the site. When we analyzed the data, it became very apparent that many people weren’t filling out the “Get a Quote” form due to it being too long — like standing at the bottom of a mountain, trying to work out the right route to the top! The original form had almost 10 questions, which overwhelmed the user and resulted in low conversion rates.

fleetcover multi step form
multi step form for quote

We’ve had great success using multi-step forms on other client’s sites, so we decided to create one for Fleetcover. We had all the questions needed to provide a full quotation, but split it all up into easier-to-digest tabs and user-designed icons, rather than just text. 

Our new form was built creatively and had four steps, making the process easier. With this change alone, leads from the form grew from 175 before November 2019 to 1,489 over the past 12 months (751% increase). 

4. Focus heavily on content creation

Service pages

Content creation is an area where we really got the chance to demonstrate creative flair alongside data analysis. We started by reviewing Fleetcover’s service pages, and fleshed out the content to make it more engaging.

fleetcover hgv service page
fleetcover service page

Keyword research and search intent

Over time, we continued to research keywords, focusing heavily on understanding the search intent behind them, and creating detailed content and FAQs to meet the audience’s needs and Google’s understanding of those intents.

One topic we’ve been focusing on is the rise of electric vehicles and how this will grow and affect the insurance industry. As the development and popularity of these vehicles progresses, we’re going to look at how we can use this in our content strategy.

Formatting and style

Including clear, natural CTAs at the end of each piece was really important, not only to round out the articles, but also to encourage readers to use Fleetcover’s broker service.

In addition, utilizing a simple but effective tone of voice helped to meet the needs of potential consumers and give them the information they need in a straightforward way. When focusing on keywords/phrases that contain industry jargon, we always include information about what the word or phrase means for those with informational intent about a particular topic, for example ‘fleet breakdown cover’.

Results

Sales

We achieved the goal of gaining more sales, as website conversion rates jumped from 3% to 14%, and leads increased from 175 to 1,489 (751%). This massive increase (pleasantly) surprised us as we are working with a site with a domain authority of 22 in a competitive industry, so to achieve these results so quickly was a great boost for both ourselves and Fleetcover.

Fleetcover was previously spending a considerable amount on purchasing leads from other companies, whereas now they have invested into SEO, which has significantly increased the number of leads they generate. With SEO, these leads are of a higher quality than PPC leads, and are therefore more likely to use their services. There is little need for Fleetcover to purchase leads now, as the business is becoming its own profitable arm of Walmsleys Insurance Brokers.

Rankings

We’ve helped Fleetcover gain online visibility for certain keywords such as “fleet insurance brokers” (#1) and “fleet insurance quote” (#2). Their positioning for “Fleet breakdown cover” has also moved from #15 to #4, and “fleet insurance quote” has moved from #10 to #2. The main benefit of these ranking improvements is the huge increase in traffic!

We also gained top spot for the main keyword of “fleet insurance”, but this has since been taken by one of the juggernauts (excuse the pun) of the industry. We’ll be back, but for now, domain authority reigned supreme.

In April 2019, Fleetcover was only ranking for 229 keywords, and they now rank for 824, a 259% increase.

Traffic

As mentioned, we saw results beginning in November as Google crawled the site more actively and found more relevant content. Therefore, April – November 2019 is our “before” comparison for what we’ve managed to achieve over the past 12 months:

April – November 2019

Impressions: 296,000

Clicks: 2,220

November 2019 – November 2020

Impressions: 1,880,000 (up 322%)

Clicks: 6,470 (up 194%)

Thanks to more than exceeding our set KPI goals, we were shortlisted for three SEO awards this year, and Fleetcover’s CEO had only good things to say:

“For years we’ve been looking for a company to do exactly what you have done and I can honestly say in 12 years of being involved in marketing, this is the first time that any marketing company has proactively gone ahead and done something for us in this way. I’ve whinged about it for so long that it made my day when it dropped in my inbox. Really chuffed.”

Well, that just speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

13 Nov 2025

Matt Tomkin

How do Digital PR and SEO intertwine?

When John Mueller tweeted about the importance of digital PR in January 2021, #DigitalPR Twitter went wild. Finally, we had gotten a very clear nod from the brains at Google about how important telling your brand’s story is.

John Mueller, from Google, praises Digital PR
This caused a bit of confusion in the community about what digital PR actually is. So, we’re here to explain!

What is Digital PR?

Digital PR means to build your online presence and brand awareness. Essentially, create something worth linking to – whether that’s a study you’ve done about your industry, an interactive map, data sorted by region, fun content, a case study, etc.

These links, in turn, increase your domain authority (moz.com) or domain rating (ahrefs.com) – AKA how authoritative your site is. This is typically rated on a scale from 0-100 by different tools that us marketers use. The theory is, the more authoritative your site is, the better you rank on search engines as they want to show the most trusted voices first in the results. (Yes, it’s a theory – Google would never reveal all its secrets!)

Digital PR and SEO: how are they linked?

Digital PR and SEO are intrinsically linked. As mentioned above, links built to your site will boost your domain authority, meaning your rankings will improve. You could have the most informative pieces of content in the world, but if your domain rating is low, you won’t see the traffic you deserve.

The domain rating of the sites that link to you is also important. Those with high domains tend to only link to other reputable sources, again showing search engines that you’re a thought leader. Think about this in real life situations – if you get a product recommendation from someone you know and trust, you’re more likely to believe it is good quality as it has their seal of approval.

Digital PR can also improve your keyword visibility. For example, if you’re a recruitment agency and you create a campaign about the most popular month for job searches, the sites that use your content will help you to boost your rankings for terms relating to this. Obviously, this is relevant to your industry and will therefore help boost your overall rankings too.

Campaigns have to be relevant to what you do already – journalists will be confused if a pet shop creates a campaign about the rise and fall of mortgage prices! Plus, search engines can potentially penalise you for creating far-fetched and irrelevant content.

What are the benefits of Digital PR?

The biggest benefit you will see from digital PR is an increase in domain rating/authority, but don’t underestimate the additional benefits of brand awareness, traffic to your site and even more business coming your way. For example, an SEO case study we did for Moz about our work with Fleetcover lead to the following:

Referring domains for Fleetcover almost doubled from 74 to 163 within a week, boosting the DR from 13 to 20…

According to Buzzsumo, the piece became the 6th highest trending content WORLDWIDE in the SEO community the day it went live…

And we got various shoutouts from Moz on their social media – our Twitter went a bit crazy after being showcased in front of their half a million followers!

We also had an international enquiry about working with us, so not only did this work wonders for our site and brand recognition, we could potentially be getting work out of it too. Watch this space!

Moz has a domain authority of 91, making them one of the highest-rated sites online. Many marketers would burn money trying to get featured on there, and all we had to do was tell our story – the magic of digital PR.

Digital PR and outreach

Outreach is essentially how you get your digital PR campaigns out there. Once the story/study/graphics are live on your site and ready to go, you then create an outreach list full of journalists you want to email the story to. This can be done using a simple Excel spreadsheet to track details and progress or by using helpful tools such as Buzzstream.

Different experts will tell you different ways of outreaching pieces to achieve optimal open rates and replies, but the truth is, we don’t believe there is a perfect time (unless it’s a Friday afternoon – don’t bother!). Different journalists work to different times, and if your subject line is interesting enough, they’re likely to click through. Plus, if you have already established a relationship with a journalist, you definitely get more leeway in terms of when you can send it as they already know who you are.

What is ‘newsjacking’?

Newsjacking, or ‘reactive PR’, is the most fast-paced form of digital PR and involves providing an expert comment to news or trending topics. For example, we have outreached various comments from business brokers Hilton Smythe in reaction to various Government changes to business rates, the extension of the furlough scheme, news about Boohoo acquiring Debenhams, etc. Essentially, it’s all about providing that expert voice. The exchange works both ways – you provide journalists with an expert voice, and in turn, they *hopefully* link to your site.

The question of how quickly you should do this is something that varies depending on who you ask. Some would say anything over 30 minutes of the news breaking is too late, but we have had success with sending a comment a couple of hours later.

How does data tie into digital PR?

Data heavily ties into digital PR. If you are not releasing a special, limited-edition PR-stunt product or creating an interactive quiz, you’ll likely be using some form of data. In order for the data to be newsworthy, it has to relate to a mass audience, or else news outlets just won’t cover it as it’s too specific.

How can you make your industry-relevant to a mass audience? If you’re an insurance broker, can you look to popular TV shows and films and quote how much it would cost to insure certain items? Or, can you incorporate one of the following emotions into your data?:

  • Funny – will the data make people laugh – is it a bit out there?

  • Shocking – can you reveal something people don’t know about where they live across the country, e.g. crime rates?

  • Gross – this is perfect for cleaning brands (did you know your work desk, where you are sitting right now, contains 400x more bacteria than a toilet seat!?)

  • Scary – can you reveal something rather worrying?

  • Love – can you make people go ‘aww’, or feel a sense of pride or joy?

When sending out a PR campaign, it’s really important to contain notes about your methodology, AKA how you went about getting the data, how you organised it, how you split it up to calculate certain aspects, etc. If you miss this out, journalists will be a little suspicious of your data and can ask questions, or even ignore your outreach if you aren’t transparent from the get-go.

How to improve the success of your digital PR campaigns

There are several factors that can make or break your PR campaigns. After outreach, it’s important to reflect on each of these aspects and see what you can improve:

  • Timing: Yes, we know, we mentioned that timing isn’t as important as some say, but if you’re sending them out all at once on a Friday afternoon, maybe reconsider your methods. Some programmes, such as Buzzstream, allow you to schedule outreach for a certain time, or break it up across a period of time so that you can see when your emails are getting the most opens.

  • The angle: The angle can change everything. If you notice your campaign isn’t really getting picked up, change the angle a bit and see what happens.

  • Make sure your landing page is worth linking to: if a journalist can describe your data without you needing to see it to understand, they will! Make sure it’s something interactive – e.g. type in your postcode to find data for your area, play with the graphics on the site, etc.

  • Don’t waste time: if you’re doing a reactive PR campaign about how much certain things in a trending TV show would cost, make sure you get it out there while the show is still trending. We know, it can sometimes be hard to cut through approvals tape, but the sooner you can get it out there, the better. A few days late and you’re better off waiting until the next season.

  • Think, would I actually share this?: if you wouldn’t click on it and read it, why would anyone else? It has to be interesting. If you’re finding ideation hard, sit on it for a while. Our team finds that PR ideas come up at the most random times.

How is the success of digital PR measured?

There are various ways of measuring the success of your efforts depending on what your goals are. Common ways of measuring success include:

  • The number of links you get: you could have a goal of a certain amount, but it’s important to remember that coverage is NOT guaranteed each time.

  • Online readership: what is the total combined online readership of the sites you got coverage from?

  • Social media shares: how many people have shared your content on social media sites?

  • Average domain authority: what is the average DA/DR of the sites you got coverage on? The higher, the better.

  • Increase in domain authority: this goes hand in hand with the above point – hopefully, you want to see your rating improve over time as a result of coverage.

  • Web traffic: how much traffic came to your site from the coverage? (Referral traffic)

  • Conversions/goal completions: if you’ve made a new PR-stunt product that people can buy, how many people bought it and how much revenue did this bring? Or did people simply sign up for your newsletter?

This will vary from client to client and depends on other factors such as budget, timescale, existing relationships with journalists, etc. The more experience you have with digital PR campaigns, the more realistic your goals will be as you understand what can be achieved on a certain budget or time scale.

Digital PR for startups

Digital PR can be both a costly and time-consuming process. If the industry data doesn’t exist publicly and you need to submit a Freedom of Information request to those who have the data, you can be held up by weeks. Or, if you’re doing a survey, prepare to let go of a couple of thousand pounds in the process.

Analysing data also takes a lot of time, as well as creating infographics or an interactive page on your site. This can put a lot of businesses off investing in digital PR until they have more money. But it’s a bit of a double-edged sword – to get more money through your site, you need to rank better and invest in those authoritative links, AKA digital PR!

The key to having a news-worthy campaign, then, is using your own data. When you’re so involved in a business day to day, you can forget certain aspects or interesting statistics you can get hold of. Again, if you’re an insurer, do you have any funny claims stories you can tell? Or are you starting to see new trends in your industry? This unique content can be a great starting point for a campaign.

If you need help with creating ideas or want to chat more about digital PR, get in touch with us via hello@taodigital.org or call us on 01204 920 096.

How to use Answer the Public to boost your SEO

 

There are absolutely loads of helpful SEO tools out there, but when it comes to helping with content marketing, we do have our favourites.

One such favourite is Answer the Public, which is the holy grail for our content writers. Not only does it make coming up with content ideas so much easier, it shows you what people are searching for in real time. Responding to these searches and providing useful content is a sure way to move yourself up the pages on search engines such as Google.

In this blog, we’re going to explain what Answer the Public is, why it’s useful and how it can help you to boost your online presence.

What is Answer the Public?

Answer the Public is a long-tail keyword tool that shows you questions and autocomplete searches around a certain topic. This can help you to understand what people are searching for so that you can provide content featuring relevant, in-depth answers that people are actually searching for and looking to find answers to.

Is Answer the Public free?

Answer the Public is free, but only for a few searches per day! Otherwise, you’re going to run into this guy…

The downside of this is that it works off your IP address, so if a colleague is also using the tool they can hit the day’s limit for your whole team. Not good news for those needing to churn out content consistently.

If you’re stuck for content ideas and want to improve your SEO, it’s definitely worth investing in the tool, which costs $99 per month, or $79 per month if you pay annually. This lets you have unlimited searches and users, as well as allowing you to compare data over time.

Looking for help with generating more sales leads?

Speak to one of our team today about our SEO services

How does Answer the Public work?

As mentioned above, the site shows you what people are searching for. We’re going to use the example of one of our clients, Complete Koi & Aquatics, here. Through another SEO tool, Ahrefs, we saw that ‘Ghost Koi’ was being searched for around 1,900 times per month with a keyword difficulty of 0 – what a goldmine!

If you don’t have another SEO tool to help with this, simply note down some topics that you think potential customers would be interested in reading about.

We then headed over to Answer the Public, typed this phrase in and had a look at the results. There are two ways which Answer the Public will display results, the first is through a visualisation wheel. Although the tool will never tell you the exact amount of searches for each question, the darker the dots on the wheel, the more they are searched.

Be warned, though – it can also mean that the particular question or phrase is trending at the moment and actually has relatively low search terms in comparison to others. You’ll never get 100% accurate numbers as search engines like to keep this information top secret.

The screenshot above is just the ‘questions’ section. As you scroll down, there are more wheels for prepositions (i.e. ‘ghost koi for sale near me’) comparisons (ghost koi vs goldfish), and finally alphabeticals, which list every searched term from A to Z.

The other way the information is presented is as ‘data’, as below:

This is a bit easier to read than the visualisation wheel, but the downside is that you don’t get hints as to what is searched the most.

This information is really useful, because when you know so much about your niche, you forget the kinds of information newcomers might be looking for. You might be surprised with what people are asking about!

Using Answer the Public for SEO

Using these questions in a piece of content can really help to boost your rankings. It shows search engines that you’re an expert in your field. Generally, the more questions you answer and the more in-depth you go, the better. This is of course dependent on the number of searches and content, as sometimes people are just looking for a small amount of information.

Based on our research, we then created a piece titled ‘Everything you need to know about Ghost Koi’, which answered many of the questions from Answer the Public. This piece was published in July 2020 and naturally it will take a while for search engines to pick up on this content, but at the time of writing (December 2020), Complete Koi are now position #1 on Google for ‘Ghost Koi Carp’ and ‘Butterfly Ghost Koi’, even though their domain rating is 3.7. We expect this to continue increasing!

Similar results can be expected if you follow this process. Ensuring that the questions are formatted as H2s, H3s and H4s will mean the keyword is in the questions too, and that search engines will understand that they are your headings and subheadings.

For an extra boost, add FAQ schema to your content. This means that your questions and answers will appear when people type in related search terms, as below.

This is much more eye catching to users, and they can get their answers without even having to click on a site. Even if you’re not ranking for the term they typed in, you can appear in excerpts on the page as above, which is especially useful if you’re just getting started.

Another way that Answer the Public can help with SEO is the feature that helps you to compare data over time. For example, if we head towards Winter and suddenly spot that people are searching for questions such as ‘Do Ghost Koi hibernate?’, we can add this into the content and keep it up to date.

Also, if a new cool gadget for ponds has been released but there aren’t many searches around this yet, we can get the product page ranking as searches increase and keep an eye out for more questions trickling in as the product gains popularity. This can help us to answer those questions before anyone else does.

Finally, if one of your old pieces of content previously had a lot of traffic but is slipping down in the ranks, it could be that your competitors are answering questions you aren’t. Keep an eye on old content and update it as and when new questions arise.

In conclusion…

Answer the Public is a fantastic tool for any content writers looking for more ideas and to boost their SEO.

If you’re stretched for resources and would like to outsource content research and writing, we’re your people! Get in touch today via hello@taodigital.org or call 01204 282 213 and we’ll see how we can help.

Looking for help with generating more sales leads?

Speak to one of our team today about our SEO services

How much does SEO cost?

Marketing managers in charge of a company’s online presence may wonder how much SEO will cost them.

Well, the answer to that question is not an easy one because it depends on a few factors.

Let’s explore this topic in more detail below and see what we can find out about SEO pricing for small businesses.

Further questions can be anything but the most common are below:

Where should I start with SEO?

What budget should I be looking to spend?

How do I know if I find the right SEO provider?

How do I know what a good deal is?

There is a good chance you will have heard the term SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing or just Digital Marketing.

Either way, most businesses today will have some element of digital strategy in place to gain leads or sales online.

If they don’t, then they certainly need to get one and quick!

What should SEO services cost?

This is a really tough question, and we’ll revert to a favourite SEO saying “it depends”!

The cost of organic search depends on a number of factors, competition level in your industry, level of searches completed in your industry, your sites existing situation etc.

If your site is in a relatively non competitive niche, already has a good base of links pointing to the site and the search volumes are good you could see great returns from a relatively entry level SEO retainer.

If on the other hand you are working in a very competitive environment, say Financial Services.

There’s a number of things you will need to overcome and have specialists to help.

Here the level of competition is very high, then factor in the fact it’s a regulated service and you need real specialists to work on a winning campaign.

It can also take a lot of investment and a good length of time to gain the results you will want to see.

SEO is very much an investment in the future prosperity of your businessDoes Tao have experience in using another SEO agency?

Back in the day, when our MD Matt Tomkin had his first business, online marketing wasn’t such a must as it is today.

However, his sportswear company was his first foray into using an SEO agency to gain better visibility and rankings within the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

The first thing he questioned was the level of investment required to gain the results of page one of Google.

It actually turned out to be a great investment as the business gained top spot for keyword after keyword from about month 12 onwards.

Great terms such as “custom football kits” were amongst the most lucrative.

This was also a number of years ago when the SERP’s were slightly easier to rank in.

How much does SEO cost per month?

Our work is predominantly in the UK, although we do have clients in Australia now, and so the average will vary depending on the part of the world you are in.

Bearing in mind that the UK is a very competitive landscape for a lot of industries due to the open nature of the market.

Our SEO services begin at £1,500 per month but we have clients paying £10,000 per month.

A lot will depend on the initial research, how fast the company wants results and the competition already on page one.

We do know of SEO agencies with retainers in place of £30k per month upwards.

We’re not there yet as a business but we’ll keep reaching!

How much does Google charge for SEO?

When we talk about SEO and the SERP, Google is usually the search engine that is being referred to.

Of course, there are other search engines available, but with Google having over 3.5 billion searches per day (statistics here), it is obvious why we use Google as our main tool when considering SEO.

As it stands, Google does not charge for SEO. To rank within Google, agencies are set up to help website owners and businesses to gain better results in search engines.

This is where your money will be spent, rather than going to Google itself.

It is getting increasingly harder to rank highly within Google and on other SE’s, but the need for high rankings is now more crucial than ever due to industry competitiveness increasing.

Agency SEO services are now vital for business and website owners who want to succeed.

Google does have some free services of its own that are key in helping to improve your websites rankings.

Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Ads Keyword Planner and Google Trends are all brilliant tools that can help you to track your business’s online presence and site performance and see what you could be ranking for.

This is all of course, better off being used by a professional in SEO who can utilise this data to perform best for you and your business.

Looking for help with generating more sales leads?

Speak to one of our team today about our SEO services

The cost of SEO can be affected by the Adwords cost

When looking at the cost of SEO it would be daft not to think about the cost you would pay per click when using Google Ads or Microsoft Ads.

If you are trying to rank your website for a national search term it will take a much larger amount of work, therefore cost to achieve than if you were looking at ranking for a local search term.

Having said that there is now a lot more competition in the local search results as Google gets smarter with the intent behind every search.

A good analysis of the existing situation is key

It can be very difficult to determine what work needs to be done to help improve a website’s rankings without first looking at the current situation.

Questions that should be asked are:

Where does the site currently rank for the desired keyword/phrase?

What are the objectives of the business? What position is the dream?

How fast are the results wanted?

Quality has to be the first thought with any SEO agency

Some companies will suggest they can do a website’s SEO for as little as £35 per month.

How much time could actually be spent working on a website for £35 per month? What type of marketing could be done for that little?

This type of service is either not actually doing anything for that money every month or they are using some form of marketing which has to be against the Google Guidelines.

What’s the worst that could happen? Well, Google could give you a manual penalty. Trust me, you don’t want one of these on your site.

The main thing to do is use your common sense when looking at SEO services. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!

So how much does SEO cost then?

You should be looking at between £50 and £200 per hour for SEO services within the UK.

As SEO is an ongoing process of continual improvement you should be looking at a monthly retainer that includes all elements of SEO.

Onsite Optimisation, SEO content and Link Acquisition.

Moz carried out a survey back in 2015 based on US agencies and the results for the main ‘What do you charge for SEO?’ are below-

Survey Question: For those clients you service with ongoing/multi-month contracts, what is the average client’s monthly billing?

  • 10% — less than $500
  • 27% — $500-1,000
  • 29% — $1,000-2,500
  • 20% — $2,500-5,000
  • 15% — $5,000-10,000

To see the study for yourself, here it is.

How much does SEO cost in the UK?

Sadly the information above does not cover the UK, which is of course where we mainly work, but knowing the industry and understanding the environment the below is my insights into the UK costs.

£50 – £150 per month: Low value SEO (Or very low competition)

£150 – £500 per month: Small-sized business SEO

£500 – £1000 per month: National Small business with higher level of competition

£1000 – £2000 per month: High Quality SEO for competitive industries

£2000 – £10000 per month: This all depends on the value level of the business. A High end value led client with multiple locations or multi-national SEO requirements. This becomes a high quality content marketing led approach.

Upwards of £10k per month is not uncommon these days with the level of competition increasing for the top spots.

What are your goals from an SEO campaign?

The first thing to ask yourself when thinking about an SEO campaign would be to think about what the end goals are.

Many a time we speak to prospective clients who are not happy with their existing agency and want to look at moving.

The main thing I find here is that it might not be that the agency isn’t producing the results they are aiming for, but more that the agency and the client goals are not directly aligned to each other.

Before you start any marketing campaign, you need to make sure you have the goals in mind and keep these at the forefront of anything you do, including SEO.

What is your target market/industry sector and how competitive is the SERP?

The competitiveness of your industry or market sector is one of the main areas to focus on when doing initial research into an SEO campaign.

This will have a major bearing on the costs to gain the results you’re looking for.

As an example, the Photocopier leasing industry is highly competitive. To rank in position 1 for this term would take a large budget for both organic SERP position and the Pay per click rankings.

Largely due to the fact the customer lifetime value is so high for a photocopier lease.

Not only do you get the client to buy a photocopier but the supplier would normally be able to sign the client into a managed print service which would bring further revenues.

Contrast that to a local cafe that is looking to get customers to visit from the surrounding areas.

The competitiveness in the local area may be a bit easier. This is not that it is easy to rank but that normally the owners of local cafes might not be in a position to pay an SEO agency and also not have the time to research the techniques they need to implement.

Are SEO services worth it?

Will I get a good ROI on an investment in SEO?

If done right there should be no reason why you won’t see a highly positive return.

The main thing is to find the right partner for your search engine optimisation requirements.

Research suggests that 81% of shopper conduct research online first.

Obviously, this means that if you are not one of the sites found in the search results, you’re missing out on forming part of that buyer’s journey and becoming one of the trusted sources of information before purchase.

To help gain more buyers a good SEO campaign would not only look at the ‘Intent credit card in hand’ phase of the sales funnel but need to be there when the buyer is in the ‘awareness phase’ or top of the sales funnel and then produce the relevant content right through the traditional sales funnel.

This way the buyer will build an affinity with your product and brand as you have helped them find the solution to the problem they have.

Cheap or guaranteed SEO is never a good idea!

With SEO so vital to companies now and the search engines being such a huge driver behind a large number of businesses, it surely makes no sense at all to use these cheap £35 per month SEO services.

I mean, it begs the question, how much work can they actually do for that each month?

Guaranteed SEO services are not real either, how can anyone guarantee something on a platform that is continually changing the goal posts?

Done right, SEO can be a huge driver towards your business goals and your future business success. Done wrong and it could end up costing your business dearly.

In Summary

SEO can help you generate more leads for your business. But it must be done right and you must make sure you’re getting the value for the money you are spending.

When building your company’s marketing plan, SEO must be a part of it.

The estimates are that 61% of all organic clicks are on the Top 3 search engine result positions there is a vast amount of business to be had by getting your Search marketing right.

The key is finding the right company who you trust and know has the relevant skills to realise your organic search goals.

Looking for help with generating more sales leads?

Speak to one of our team today about our SEO services

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do reviews help SEO image

Do Company Reviews Help With SEO?

I recently produced a video on the this topic and thought it would be a good idea to put together a blog post to follow on the subject.

In short, having reviews for your company and products will help your search engine rankings improve. It helps build trust with the users of the search engines and this will therefore mean Google and the other search engines will appreciate you’re a trusted supplier.

If your customers trust you enough to leave you a review then why would a search engine not take this into consideration when building better search results.

The more detailed view…

In order to gain a boost in the search engine rankings from using a reviews platform, there are a few things you need to make sure you have in place.

Google Verified Reviews provider:

Believe it or not, reviews on your Google My Business page don’t count as verified reviews in the search giant’s eyes.

Getting reviews on your Local Google listing is very important as these will be seen by your customers and prospects from time to time, but these alone won’t help you rank in the normal search results any higher.

You do in fact need a verified provider of reviews to gain the real benefits.

There a few of them out there and I’m sure you’ve heard of them all. The platform we suggest to use is reviews.co.uk.

Tao Digital Marketing Company reviews page

We’re an official partner agency so give us a shout if you’d like more information. 

Rich Snippets on important pages:

Rich snippets are bits of schema.org markup which sit in the pages code and help search engine crawlers better understand elements of your website pages.

Things like pricing, address whether something is in-stock or not are usual use cases for schema but reviews is also a massive one. You should look into how to do this if you haven’t already.

If you have ever searched for something and seen a website listed with Gold stars under the listing, these have been pulled through from the rich snippet review schema.

How does it help with SEO?

There are a few areas we think that help to contribute to your Organic Search Rankings. Below are the ones we see as the most important but as ever with Google there’s so many other factors that could come into play.

Improved click through rate:

With Google and other search engines looking more towards user metrics than ever before, the percentage of people who click through to your website from the search result over the next one should naturally help provide assurances that yours is the better result.

Company Gold stars in action, rich snippets for reviews

With Google, things are very rarely confirmed as ranking factors; but thinking about some of the studies that have been carried out you can see a clear trend in where a site ranks to how high the Click Through Rate is.

Building trust:

The E.A.T algorithm (as it’s been named) update by Google in August 2018, which continues to be rolled out, means that trustworthiness is now very important and has meant a new surge in demand for trust signals.

Standing for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness; the E.A.T update has changed the game for many sites out there. If you don’t have the relevant certifications, reviews and proof that you know your stuff within your market then you could see a drop in search engine traffic.

Having reviews for your company and sharing them with Google helps them see that you are in fact a good website to put in front of a searcher.

Company reviews can help with more than just SEO

Of course, gaining better search results should help you and your business gain more clients, but another reason why it’s good to gain reviews is just based on plain old straight forward marketing principles.

The more a prospect can see about how you go about your service offering, the more trust they naturally build up with your brand.

Reviews are now seen as a way of justifying a purchase. “91% of consumers think reviews are important enough to sway their purchasing decision when considering a new business”, a State of Online Reviews study found.

Should you be using company reviews then?

Yes, you absolutely should. And not just for the benefits from an organic search point of view, but from a general reputation management standpoint.

The more HONEST reviews your business gets the better chance you have of showing higher in the search results but also converting more prospects into sales.

​​​​​Your Domain name doesn’t matter for SEO

The domain name that you use doesn’t matter when it comes to search engine optimisation or acquiring organic search traffic.

When thinking about a domain name, you don’t need to worry about what that domain name ends in. Whether its a .com, an .xyz or org.uk, it really doesn’t matter.

It really doesn’t matter anymore. Google’s job is to provide the most relevant search results, and to do that, all the information and content on your page has to be relevant to that search.

You also need your off-site metrics to be absolutely bang-on, too, so your ‘domain rating‘, or the ‘domain authority’, is very important. This is calculated by where your backlinks are coming from and how relevant and trusted they are.

All that needs to be taken into account when you’re thinking about what domain name you want to buy is whether you like it!

Does Domain Name Matter for SEO

Is A .com Better Than A .co.uk Or .guru?

When it comes to what your domain name ends in, or as we call it, the top level domain, it really doesn’t matter.

All you need to think about is what it looks like to the user. Up until very recently, a lot of people wouldn’t really have seen many websites ending with a .io TLD. Now, every technology company that’s worth they’re weight have a website that ends in .io – they’re everywhere.

Nowadays it’s more and more common that you’ll find in the search results a website that ends with a .london, or another type of top level domain.

When it comes to search engine optimisation, there are three crucial areas that you need to address, rather than what the domain name is.

The three pillars of search engine optimisation

There’s three areas of website optimisation you’ll want to focus on.

Technical

So, this is the technical side of SEO. Can Google access your website properly? Can it understand the page content?

Do you have a single Heading 1, then Heading 2s and 3s throughout the page? Is the page fast enough when it loads? Is it mobile responsive? Is the text big enough on mobile? Are all the clickable elements big enough to click on mobile, and don’t conflict with anything else?

There’s a vast number of things that you need to think about. The best way to do this is to get a full technical SEO audit done for your website. Click here for more information.

Content Marketing

The next thing to consider is the content on your website. Google is getting better and better at understanding the intent behind a search and whether your website is relevant to that search. Your content has to be better than your competitors if you want to rank for a search term.

When we talk about better content, we don’t necessarily mean just the amount of words. Whilst there is proof out there that the amount of words in an article does correlate to where a page ranks within the search results, if your content is written in a way that it’s just stuffing information in there, it’s not best for the user. Google’s artificial intelligence will be able to pick up on that, meaning your rankings will start to drop.

Digital PR

The third thing then is your off-site optimisation. Is your website an authority? If so, you are going to have backlinks from some of the bigger websites in your industry.

If you provide telephone systems, for example, you will want to be getting not only links from telecoms industry publications, but you’ll also be getting links back from small business magazines and other large outlets.

The more visibility your website has online, the better your rankings are going to be, as long as the other two pillars are in place.

Which domain registrar would we recommend?

At Tao Digital Marketing, we use three domain registrars:

Namecheap are our preference. We just like the interface that they use and we like the pricing, along with the ability to just jump on and register a domain name. Within minutes you can start making changes, and it’s really easy to use. We also use GoDaddy for .co.uk domain names.

TSO Host are another domain name registrar that we have used in the past. They are a UK-based company, so we like the fact that we can just pick up the phone to the support team if we do have any issues.

But in our minds, Namecheap is the one that we would suggest using over any other.

DITTSI – Does It Target The Searchers Intent? 

In an industry full of acronyms we thought we’d add another one into the mix to help you create better content and gain unreal results from your content marketing efforts.

We use the method “DITTSI” to find opportunities for our clients to rank high in the Google Search Results.

We’re talking about searcher intent or more importantly what Google sees as the search intent behind a keyword or phrase typed into the search box.

What do We Mean by DITTSI?
Google Search box

When we talk about the DITTSI method of finding search ranking opportunities we’re looking at a number of things that we see as forming the search results Google brings back.

Keyword intent, search intent and user intent are combined by the Google machine to produce results that will fulfil the searchers desire.

For example, when searching a key phrase like “asbestos survey” Google will bring back a list of results. Those results will normally return a host of survey providers. But, if you look closely enough, there will also be sites that have created an article about why you might need one and even content surrounding “does the user need an asbestos survey”.

Using the DITTSI method we have managed to create content that ranks for some really competitive terms. Understanding the searchers intent and, more importantly, what Google sees as the search intent behind the keyword. This is what DITTSI is all about.

Wordstream do a really good job of putting together the 3 types of Search Query intent.

  1. Informational, a searcher is looking for content to help understand something or find the answer to a question
  2. Navigational, the user knows where they want to go and uses a brand name or place to find the relevant website.
  3. Transactional, a user is wanting to buy a product or service. This can include researching a type of product or service and it could be that they know what they want to buy and go ahead and purchase

How do we understand the searchers intent?

This isn’t an article that will detail all the ways we would use in order to define the intent behind a search. But, there is one way which is unbelievably easy to help you understand it.

Just Google it! Seriously, Google do all the hard work for you!

The whole company has been set-up to complete one job; to provide the most relevant results to a query typed into its search box. 

By spending some time looking at the type of content that Google has on its first page, you should be able to understand the type of intent that they see behind the search.

Then go ahead and create the same type of content, just bigger, better and more informative!

​And, if you don’t have the time, give us a call and we’ll do it for you!

What is keyword intent?

The keywords somebody types into a search engine will have the most impact as to what results will be returned.

​Google will use the keywords alongside both search intent and user intent to establish what’s being searched, why it’s being searched and the overall context of the search.

These keywords are generally split into two categories; high intent and low intent keywords.

​Targeting high-intent commercial keywords can be used to great effect for both organic and paid searches. These keywords and phrases will feature clear buying signals and produce relevant, transaction focused, results.

Searches including words like “buy”, “discount”, “deal” and many more can all be classed as high-intent searches. Product keyword searches including branded, specific products and product category searches, also fall into high-intent commercial keyword searches.

​Low-intent keywords on the other hand are more likely to yield navigational and informational search results, with less focus on selling immediately and more focus on providing education on the subject in question.

What is Search Intent?

Search intent boils down to the reason behind somebody typing a query into Google. What’s that person trying to achieve?

​Do they want to learn new information? Perhaps they want to find a specific website? Or maybe they’re looking to make an online purchase?

​If you’re able to understand someone’s search intent, you’ll be in a great position to better utilise the keyword intent we spoke about earlier.

For example, someone looking for information might search “which athletes do Nike sponsor”. They might want to learn about what trainers their favourite runner wears, perhaps.

​A simple example of a navigational search would be if somebody types “Nike UK” into Google. They’d probably do this if they wanted details of Nike’s UK arm but thought Nike.com would take them to the corporate US site.

If somebody wanted to buy something they’d complete a transactional search. They might type a long-tail keyword search such as “Where sells Nike trainers near me” or they might want to purchase online and search something like “Buy Nike trainers with free delivery”

​These are some basic examples, however we’ll go into more detail about informational, navigational and transactional searches, along with how to use them properly, a little later.

What is User Intent?

User intent is when a search engine interprets context with the keywords somebody uses. This means more accurate search results are obtained depending on what the user is searching for.

​For a very basic example, let’s look at what happens if a user types “Apple” or “Apples” into Google.

If you type “Apple” in, the search is interpreted that you’re looking for details about electronic Apple products. The search results centre around the various Apple websites and the first images that are shown will be pictures of the Apple logo and Apple devices.

​If on the other hand you type “Apples” into Google, you’ll still get some results for Apple electronic products, however you’ll also get a lot of information presented about the fruit, apple-based recipes and pictures of the fruit too.

Just the simple addition of the letter ‘S’ in this case alters the search engine’s interpretation of what the user intent will be defined as. By doing this, the search engine is delivering what it perceives to be the most relevant results.

Informational Search Queries

These searches are performed by people craving information. They’re in the learning phase about something. The chances of these searches delivering cold, hard, cash, are minimal. That’s not to say you should neglect this type of searching and deem it unimportant, though.

Over time and done properly, informational searches can be used effectively as part of your online sales funnel. If you build trust and become an authoritative voice on a subject, it’s highly likely the person searching will remember you when the time comes to put their hand in their pocket. Your useful, detailed, information might even get shared among several people who, in the future, could turn from prospect to customer.

This one’s a slow burner, but keep at it and you’ll reap the rewards. Your organic search ranking will continue to blossom too.

Navigational Search Queries

This is the search people perform when they already know the site they want to end up on. Maybe typing the full site URL into the address bar at the top of the browser is too much like hard work. Maybe they have Google open in front of them and it just seems easier to put it through the search.

It could also be to do with the UX/UI on the site they’re visiting. Maybe it’s more straightforward to put the website name and page they’re after into a search engine rather than try and navigate to that page on the actual site.

Transactional Search Queries

Take time to get your intent keywords right and you could be on to a winner. People performing transactional searches are highly likely to have their credit card in hand. They’ve probably already done an informational or product search months ago, perhaps something along the lines of “best gaming laptops”, for example.

Now they have the readies available. They’re on Google and searching for things like “gaming laptop deals”, “discount gaming laptops”, “buy gaming laptops” and “gaming laptops with free shipping”. These keywords show a clear indication that a purchase could well be made imminently.

The trick is to be the website highest up the search rankings so that you’re in pole position to be the first site they choose to look at when they hit enter on the search.

How Will SEO Help My Business?

One of the questions that is asked every time we meet a potential new client is ‘how will SEO help my business?’. There are many ways that a business can benefit from SEO including brand awareness, site visitors and lead generation/sales. Before we delve into the specifics, it’s important to define what SEO actually is.

What does SEO stand for?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of improving the visibility of a website in the search engine results. It should help position the site as the most relevant answer to the searchers query, making sure the site is indexable by the search engines.

How Does SEO work?

Every search engine uses different algorithms in order to present millions of search results based on what a person types in the search bar. SEO is the process of keeping up to date with a search engine’s complex algorithm by using various methods. There are three main pillars to SEO: technical onsite, link building and content marketing. If executed correctly, SEO can help move your business up the search rankings and towards the holy grail; Page one and position one.

With this in mind, it becomes fairly obvious that SEO would help a business in a number of ways.

Brand Awareness

SEO is the perfect accompaniment to a branding campaign. The sheer volume of searches made on the internet each day, 40,000 searches per second according to Internet Live Stats, means that no matter what product or service you offer, someone will be searching for it.

Therefore, being at the top of the search results for the product or service you offer will help your be best placed to take advantage of the intent of the searcher and potentially create a new lead or sale.

Qualified visitors to your site

When we talk about ‘qualified visitors’ to your site we mean they have explicitly searched for something that you have an expertise in and can help them in some way to find the answer to their query.

A good SEO campaign will help position you and your site to become an authority on your subject and have your site visible when a searcher types in anything to do with your business.

A great example of how this would work:

Say you are the owner of a small business and thinking about purchasing a new phone system.

The first place you are likely to look is a search engine, 94% of B2B purchasers do some form of research online. The results will show a number of sites designed and written to help understand what phone system is right, potential functions that will be available and what the latest technology is currently on the market.

Most people will buy once they have a good level of understanding of the product or service. And a buyer will more than likely by from a company they know, like and trust. By creating the type of content that helps a searcher learn, rather than just selling will help build trust.

Quotonga.com do a really good job of trying to help the searcher for hosted phone systems with this ‘guide to the benefits of hosted phone systems’. Have a read and see what we mean.

A qualified visitor therefore is someone who is somewhere within the ‘content marketing funnel’ as described by Moz.com. The above example is great for the top of funnel part, but you could easily create content for the middle and bottom of the marketing funnel.

Find out about our SEO Audits

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More sales leads or sales through your site

It’s fairly simple to understand why, with more search engine traffic you would see more leads or sales coming through your website.

If you have a site at the moment that is converting at lets say 3%, with 1,000 visitors per month you would be getting roughly 30 leads or sales. We then add another 1,000 visitors per month through the use of clever SEO, even if the conversion rate of the site dropped to 2.5% you would be gaining 50 leads rather than the 30 you were previously.

This doesn’t factor in any competitors who might engage in an ongoing SEO campaign either. Done right they will end up taking your traffic if you’re just standing still.

How has SEO helped small businesses?

‘We’ve enjoyed great success working with Tao Digital Marketing over the past year or so, our organic traffic has more than doubled. We’ve even been able to slow down our paid marketing and still continue to gain a great number of leads for our business.’ Dave Thornton, Founder & Director of Thornton & Lowe.

We also have had SEO success with a Wheel Refurbishment company in Bolton. We were tasked to get them to rank on page 1 on google for keywords specific to their industry. In no more than 4 months, we were able to get them to the first page of google for “alloy wheel refurbishment bolton” and “alloy wheel repair bolton”. You can read more about our case studies on our case study page.

Why is SEO important?

SEO should be considered a critical component of any digital marketing strategy. If your business has a website then it needs to get seen, visited and taken action on. Great SEO can be the difference between being ahead of your competitors or them overtaking you. If two websites happen to be selling the exact same product, the website with the higher search ranking can expect to generate more sales.

SEO isn’t just about appearing higher on google. It’s about creating a great user experience for your customers. If your website has terrible usability and user experience then it can have a negative impact on how people perceive your business/brand.

SEO agency or in-house

This question is posed by many business owners looking to gain from the masses of search engine traffic. We’re an SEO agency and so we’re probably a little biased in the way of an SEO agency rather than in-house.

We do find however that working alongside an in-house marketing team adds real depth to the overall marketing piece. Things can work together and gain more traction.

Most business owners are very busy, keeping track of all the updates, changes and requirements of SEO is a very time consuming job. It’s sometimes better to buy into someone’s knowledge and someone who is keeping up with everything to do with SEO because they need to for other clients.

Agency vs In-house

One of the main areas that businesses can fall down when hiring an SEO company is when they have not done enough research. Make sure that the SEO agency you are looking to engage has the knowledge and understanding required. Speak to some of their existing clients to find out how they are getting on with them.

Bad SEO can do more damage than good for your website, be careful not to fall into this trap.

Summary

In summary, SEO is great for any type of business, no matter what industry, size or location. Done right it can drive significant increases in visitors to your website. 

The key is to make sure that it is done correctly.

Check out our article on the cost of SEO.