hi all
I have posted before on the prayers forums for the situation my dh and I are in at the moment with our business. Basically things need to shake up pretty quick or we'll be closed by Christmas.
We have two websites which were built but NEVER properly maintained or even running smoothly.
We do not show up on the google search to any where near the top unless someone is looking up a product we sell and home town name.
Are any of you computer geeks :) in the trade of SEO?
I had one company who say they can get more traffic to us with seo, for €600 + vat a month. This is money we do not have. Is there anyone who is at home/retired who could do a few hours work a week and work with us on this. There are websites where you can get your competitors backlinks, keywords etc legally and with a fee but being completely bogged down with other restructuring projects to help our business, plus kids, plus a very sick mum (mine) and a dad with dementia all needing my attention plus more importantly I haven't a clue how to use this facility as I'm not that geeky :)I just don't have it in me to do this also.
Here below is one, now if I pay a company this money(the company that quoted €600+vat) Im pretty sure thats what they would be doing and I'd rather pay ahem less but also to someone who can do this kind of work especially when it supports a trad family.
I'm sure you dont have to be in my country (Ireland) to do this kind of work and for someone who is tech savvy , what would take me 10 hours a day to figure out they could do in 2.
I hope someone here can/is interested in this job!!
https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/tutorials/backlink-competitor-analysis/
Is this the right section to post?
Reddit, particularly r/entrepreneurs and r/startups has all the info you need. Tons of (free) SEO info on there to get you started. Go digging. I'll try posting some links later.
Just a few here, Diaduit, but LTC is correct - Reddit has much info on seo/backlinks.
Main linkbuilding site:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linkbuilding/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/linkbuilding/)
and
Best Way to Build Backlinks in 2017
https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/6y0i88/best_way_to_build_backlinks_in_2017/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/6y0i88/best_way_to_build_backlinks_in_2017/)
High-PR backlinks to your site that you can create yourself
https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/4uo07i/highpr_backlinks_to_your_site_that_you_can_create/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/4uo07i/highpr_backlinks_to_your_site_that_you_can_create/)
Ah thanks, I will look at these tomorrow, my eyes are dryer than the sahara from all the website stuff I'm doing.
Good news and bad news.
Unless you're a multi-national spending billions to compete for hot keywords against other multi-nationals doing the same, SEO as it's normally understood isn't too important for you. Most of the SEO work needed for small business is done during the initial setup of the website. It's not an ongoing task. A lot of those companies selling SEO packages are a waste of money and some even use harmful "black hat" tricks (Google penalizes these attempts once discovered).
Content is king. The higher the quality of the content and the more of it there is, the more traffic you'll get. Google will not reveal their algorithms to the public but their goals are public. They want to connect people to the content those people are searching for. So algorithms are constantly adjusted to improve their ability to achieve this.
Make the website easy to navigate. Write content your client base will find interesting. Include valuable information and resources that people need. Post content of such quality that people will link to it because it's the best they can find on the net.
Build the site for people, not for spiders.
There is one useful "trick" though. Rename all pictures with descriptive filenames that match the content. Most people don't. My photos tend to rank high because I spend the extra minute doing this. I'm not sure Google has learned how to identify the contents of pictures yet so providing a helpful names is good.
Avoid the mistake of thinking more traffic is better. It's not. More potential customers are better. Make sure you view your site with the mind of a buyer and not as an industry professional. For example, most furniture-maker websites I browse are marketing towards woodworkers. They think they're targeting furniture buyers but they aren't.
The bad news is creating quality content takes lots of time and it can take months or even years for a small site to gain traction on the internet. So don't count on it for a quick fix. But it can tip things in your favor down the road if you get everything else on track in the meantime.
For quicker marketing, consider subscribing to HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and pitching articles related towards your industry. Social media is also quicker than a website. I don't personally use social media because it's quick to go obsolete. My preference is for high quality content that remains relevant for years and keeps bringing in new people.
On a side note, a lack of customers is not always the problem (it can be). The problems are often due to terribly wasteful internal systems that consume too much manpower to accomplish too little. The only way to fix that is lots of overtime to establish new systems while simultaneously servicing current customers and keeping the bills paid.
If anyone in your business has technical acumen, I'd recommend a quick reading on "the seven wastes", "value stream" and "process mapping". It's not necessary to become an expert on it but developing the ability to spot wasteful practices and instantly apply a fix is valuable. I watch YouTube videos put out by Paul Akers of FastCap to refresh my mind on these topics.
Targeted ads on podcasts (not Google ads) and social media seem like a good direction. Contact podcasters and blogs that are in your business and see if they'll advertise for you.
Quote from: Akavit on May 08, 2018, 08:50:29 PM
There is one useful "trick" though. Rename all pictures with descriptive filenames that match the content. Most people don't. My photos tend to rank high because I spend the extra minute doing this. I'm not sure Google has learned how to identify the contents of pictures yet so providing a helpful names is good.
Thanks for this. I'm not in business, but I am running a blog, and most of my pictures have been just given the img tag or a number for ease of finding them in my files. I'll start doing what you suggest.