Does SEO Really Work?Does SEO work, this is a question that gets asked by so many UK companies. Countless businesses around the UK spend anything from £500 to thousands on SEO, but does it really work?
The answer is….Yes; however you need to remember that every other business, blogger, freelancer is doing exactly the same.
SEO is an arms race, Google regularly changes the position of websites it indexes as one week the company above you drops down a notch, then next week you gazump them.
Optimisation does take time, effort, work and money – however if you want to be at the top of the pile, it is a race that you need to get involved in.
Many businesses have decided that it is just something that will take up too much time and effort, consistently updating their websites, writing articles, submitting links, keeping their blog going – all very time consuming.
Many have opted for other forms of marketing instead (pay per click advertising, networking, telemarketing) that may get results quicker.
However, if you want to be efficient, then you will do all of the above.
Doing optimisation as well as targeted PPC, targeted telemarketing, networking etc. will (should) get you the best results. Yes, it will take time, effort and money – however no one said being at the top was easy.
Everyone is gunning for your position and wanted to knock you off – so optimisation is a continual ongoing process that needs to be part of your ongoing marketing strategy. SEO is just one of the many lead generation strategies for startups, one that is important in our digital world.
Search companies are used to working on time consuming campaigns. Doing little and often tends to be the general advice from most experts (as opposed to doing SEO in bursts that could raise red flags to google).
Consider if you are looking for something on the web, what would you do…
Personally (in my humble opinion) I would look at the top few results on the main search screen.
I would normally skip the top company (unless the title was very relevant) and normally miss the adverts at the side (as they are trying to advertise to me).
So if you can get to position 2-5 then this would be (probably) the best place to sit.
The internet is constantly evolving, as new websites appear and as the search engines change their algorithm.
You may find that your own position when you type in one of your keywords does change from time to time. One day you are on page 1, the next day you are on page 5.
Very often search results get muddled, so that doing a search in the UK brings up results from the USA.
The internet is evolving and as technology moves on, search results will always fluctuate.
When you create a new web page, it starts off at position zero, and gradually works its way to the top of page 1. Generally older web pages should appear towards the top, but depending on a number of factors, doing SEO on that page should bring it up.
Companies often create web pages just to rank. For example ‘the top web designer in 2023’ or ‘the top web designer in 2024’.
SEO does take time, mainly due to how competitive your industry is.
For example, if you a dog walked in a small town, your website should appear pretty much right away in the search results. If you are a web design agency in Manchester, you are competing against hundreds of other web designers.
Typically SEO should take around 4 months to yield results, but this is a shot in the dark, since the search engines ranking is known only to them.
Google’s search engine algorithm is very complex, and is a secret known only to them plus it is constantly adapting. This makes it very difficult to pin down what you need to do to rank.
Just to have a well written website with fresh content regularly added is not enough, sadly.
Websites need content, new content being added regularly. This is why news websites and social media websites always seem to rank well.
Each web page needs to have a decent amount of content, typically 800 words or more. Any less than that and search engines consider the pages to fall short of their criteria.
Of course having good content is not enough, SEO is more than just having good website content.
Google analytics is a free tool from Google that allows you to see how your website is performing and how many people visit your website each day.
It shows you which pages get the most number of views and which websites are linking to you.
All SEO companies in the UK are different, each with different SEO experience. Some agencies have just started up, some have been trading for years.
It is wise to talk to a few different SEO companies in order to get a variety of peoples perspectives. Do they know your industry, do they know the kind of keywords you need to rank for?
Remember, the more competitive your market sector is, the longer it will take for SEO to take any notable effect. You may be on page 50 today, and after 6 months, you are on page 20. This is progress, but you do not see the results until you are on page 1, which could take another 6 or 12 months.
We have put together some SEO advice, which may be helpful.
SEO prices do vary from different SEO companies, compare quotes with Marketing Quotes.
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