In this post, you’ll learn how find actionable advice on video SEO best practices in order to give you a step-by-step guide to optimising your videos.

Here are some tips for optimizing your videos for YouTube’s Home Screen:

Upload new videos on a consistent basis to give your audience an expectation of when they can see more new content.

Keep viewers engaged for longer and encourage them to come back for more. Whether it’s with a long video or several short ones, the longer you keep people watching, the more your content is likely to get surfaced.

Keep doing what works. When you create something that’s working for your audience, do it again. YouTube surfaces more content that your viewers like. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but do so mindfully. Observe feedback from your audience and give them time to adjust.

George Jarboe, Search Engine Journal

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

This is the forth of 6 episodes in which I’ll be walking you through the foundation level of my Marketing Strategy. I’m going give you ideas, advice and guidelines in a simple, step by step process that will work for any startup or business new to marketing.

The episodes cover Planning, Stats and Analytics, Website Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media and Business tasks that you need to do to give you marketing strategy a great foundation.
If you want to jump ahead. everything I’m talking about is available online nowratherinventive.com/marketing-strategy

For now here’s part 4 and it’s about Search Engine Optimisation. Enjoy!

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

(more…)

Ben shares how to improve landing page SEO by optimising a specific page of your website to rank higher on Google.

Notes

Improve landing page SEO

Optimising a specific page of your website to rank higher on Google 

What is On page SEO?

Work on your site to improve SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position)
All in your control (website platform dependant) Watch session #6 for general SEO Strategy.

Selmach Case Study
Sell high value metal working machinery a Competitor was starting to win business and their Laser landing page was not ranking in Google results.

The Method

Competitor Analysis | Make Changes to Page | Measure Result 

Step 1: Competitor analysis

Compare the Competition’s SEO to our page Keyword Correlation Report and interpret the findings into action.

Process 

• Group call – Client, SEO, Web dev
• Review the report – Needed interpreting
• Decide on easy wins
• Basecamp to assign actions 

Observations 

• Category Landing Page (LP) not in 100 SERPs
• Title tag not using optimised keyword
• Poor/few internal links
• No external links to landing page 
• Increase word count to over 1400 per page
• Add keyword or variations into content more 
• Use variety of content: Lists, images, tables 
• Use schema markup
• Page not in index. Yoast issue 

Step 2: Make Changes  

•  Made observation changes to the landing page. 
•  Add links from other pages.
•  Create the ultimate guide 

What we did 

•  Add keyword to heading: CNC Fibre Laser 
•  Optimise meta description. Not too long and include keywords 
•  Added product info, testimonials, FAQs, images, comparisons 
•  Add keyword variations into content 
•  Added FAQ schema markup 
•  Add links from related news articles back to LP 
•  Another review to check progress 

Step 3: Measure & Tweak 

• Measure SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position) Content update took one month
• After two months jumped to #3
• Then to #1 one month later 

What is a Keyword correlation report?

Comparison of your page against competitor pages based on keywords you want to rank for.

On page SEO tips 

• Title, Meta Description and Heading must include keyword 
• Great the ultimate guide. 10x better than competitors 
• Use variety of content such as headings, lists, images, tables 
• Include keyword variations in the content 
• Make sure all related blog, product and supporting pages link to LP 
• Build external links from other websites to the LP 
• Use FAQ and other schema markup 
• Check in GSC that page is indexed!!! 
  

Helpful Links

• Why Use Schema, Duane Forrester shares some helpful insights on a previous podcast interview.
• Mark up your FAQs with structured data
• Comprehensive website SEO report to improve your search position and ranking against competitors.
• Book your Super-Correlation Keyword SEO Report for focused optimisation on your landing pages

Insight from an interview with Google’s John Mueller on Search Engine Journal.

‘Google doesn’t necessarily treat longer or shorter anchor text any different when it comes to rankings.

However, using more words in anchor text provides more context to Google about the page being linked to. And more context can indirectly impact rankings.

The more context Google has about a page, the more effectively it can rank said page for relevant queries.’

Do you want to see your website appear first on Google whenever you search for the key words relevant to your business? Do you often wonder why your competitors appear higher than you on Google when you think you are doing everything you should be?

In this workshop I will show you how to improve the ranking of your website on Google along with SEO tips, tools and techniques.

This workshop has finished.

(more…)

If you are writing content for the web and you want it to rank highly, you need to think about your competition. Not only does it help focus your SEO efforts but it can often give you ideas on what you need to include on your page.

‘A SERP competitor could have only one page that competes with you, but if that page is ranking above you on an important SERP, they are your competition and you need to understand why they are beating you.’

https://searchengineland.com/search-competition-who-are-you-really-competing-with-338403

If you’re a Marketing Club member then you can find my competitor research process in the SEO Strategy webinar but I’d also check out this article from Andrew Dennis at Search Engine Land that goes through a simple process you can use.

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

Back in July last year I spoke with Tess Coughlan-Allen about planning the content for your website, along with tips for getting started and a helpful tool to map out your content.

I firmly believe that websites should be built around the content first and is actually a key part of the design process.

If you are starting a new web project or revising your current site you’ll find real value in this conversation.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Episode Notes

(more…)

How to improve your website content and structure with an aim of getting to page one in Google.

Notes

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Making changes to your website that you know (or believe) will gain a higher position in search engine results for a given keyword search
There are many search engines We’ll focus on Google:

Why people search

• Do something e.g. ’camping france’
• Know something e.g. ’how to fix washing machine’
• Go somewhere e.g. ’facebook’

First five results get 68% of clicks
Desktop & mobile ranking position CTR 2014 data from Moz.com
 

Terms you should know

• SERP – Search Engine Ranking Position
• Snippet – Information on a Google search result
• Impression – How often your snippet shown
• CTR – Click Through Rate. Number of clicks compared to impressions
• Keyword – A phrase used to find something online
• Long tail – A long and specific keyword phrase
•  Keywords and how to find them
• What keywords do people use to find services like yours online?
•  Keyword examples: “accountant” “cirencester accountants” “accountants in cirencester” “how to prepare end of year accounts”

Google Trends for simple comparison

• Broad, simple keywords
• Keyword Research
• Google Keyword planner for advanced searches
• Related searches on Google

Create content that search engines will love and people will share

• Find the best keywords to rank for
• Find out who else is ranking for them
• Create content that’s better than those pages
• Meta Descriptions: Writing a snippet is a great way to start writing content
• Blog Content
• Help Content
• Content Checklist
• Must have keyword on the page
• Keyword order and spelling often matter
• Content of page must be relevant to keyword
• Avoid ‘thin’ content. Write enough to answer the question
• Write for people not search engines
• Page structure development
• Link to main pages Adding keywords to images Simple URLs
• Link to page on your site <a href=“/bookkeeping/”>Bookkeeping</a>
• Link to a page not on your site <a href=“http://website.com/”
• rel=“nofollow”> A link to another site
• Add no follow if you don’t want to pass any Google SEO credit

 “If you create a page on a keyword that is 10x better than the pages being shown in search results (for that keyword), Google will reward you for it, and better yet, you’ll naturally get people linking to it!”
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo

 Images

• Describe the content of the image in text <img src=“tabby-cat-in-wicker-basket.jpg” alt=“A tabby cat in a wicker basket”/>
• Add keywords in if you can. Can then show up on image search
• Short and human readable i.e. /blog/how-to-fix-washing-machine’
• Use hyphens ‘-‘ not spaces
• Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin

Getting linked

• Links from other websites (often called backlinks) can be most beneficial
• Self created
• Links by you to other sites e.g. directories
• Natural: Referenced by another website because your content is awesome
• Manual outreach: Asked for the link or guest blog post

   
 Do Measure Repeat

Use Google Search Console to track performance Tweak site slowly to look for improvements

•  GSC performance
•  SERP listings
•  Page errors and indexing issues

Other Important factors

• Site speed. Less than one second
• Mobile friendly
• Engagement / Long click
• Reviews and ratings (structured data)

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

Continuing on our theme of SEO I thought this interview with Duane Forrester (recorded back in early 2019) would be helpful to show how structured data and schema is a key trust signal for search engines.

We discuss why we should be using structured data on our website, how this impacts conventional SEO and why it matters for voice and augmented reality.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Episode Notes

(more…)

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

In this episode, I share some of my conversation with Chris Richards about our landing page review process. It was taken from Club Webinar #16: Improve landing page SEO.

We talk about what ‘On-page’ SEO is, what we look for during a review and of course some tips to improve your SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position).

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

(more…)

A very insightful chat with SEO Manager for Argos, Claudia Higgins over on the evolving SEO podcast.

Really interesting to go behind the scenes on how SEO is justified within a large company, what key factors work for them and the importance of clear reporting and regular communication with other teams.

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

This episode is taken from an interview with my colleague Chris Richards on how he ranked his own website utilitysavingexpert.com to compete against the big comparison sites in the pursuit of Google search traffic Chris shares some of the strategies and tools he uses for local SEO, on-page optimisation, keyword research and his in-depth SEO site audit.

I really enjoy talking with Chris about SEO and I know you’ll take away a lot from this conversation.

PS Longtime listeners will hear an appearance from Al Osmond my co-host in the original run of the Something Inventive Podcast.

Episode Notes

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

In this episode, I feature an extract from my club webinar last year where I share some background on what SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is, why it’s important and some tips on getting started.

If you are new to SEO, this episode will be a good place to start. But if you are a little more experienced then I’ll be sharing more ideas and advanced techniques in future episodes.

So settle in and join me while I explain some SEO basics.

Episode Notes

(more…)

A great guide to keyword research and page strategy from Whitespark.

‘Now that you have created your ultimate keyword list, use this data to make an informed decision on what pages should target which terms. One of the most common errors we see when it comes to title tag optimization or rather lack there of, is businesses not removing the default – home – page title. This is both a missed opportunity and a sad sight to witness in search results.’

They recommend optimising the site in this order: Title tags, Homepage content, Product and service landing page content and finally Site speed.

• Advice on finding your ‘strategic alliances’ and collaborators
• Tips on running a compliant Facebook competition and advice on using Hashtags
• Steps to review your Google My Business Profile including tips on how to get more reviews.
• Inspiration to bring people back to you with confidence

(more…)

Advice and guidance on how to maintain, develop and drive more traffic to your WordPress website.

• Backup your WordPress website
• Protect your WordPress website from hacks
• Speed up your WordPress website
• Search optimise your WordPress website
• Get stats from your WordPress website

Save tears and backup your site before making any changes. If you don’t feel confident about making any of the recommended changes yourself, consult with your web developer, techie friends or get in touch, we’d be happy help.

(more…)

We have all been there, trying to get our site to be number one on the google search engine and have felt that no matter what we do, Google seems to move the goal post. However, there are many things you can do to make your site appeal to the search engine algorithms and to get your site up to speed with the ever-adapting requirements.

Google loves video content

I will let you into a little secret; ever since Google has owned YouTube there has been a significant increase in how video affects their search engine ranking. In fact, I would be bold enough to say that Google prefers a video to a 2000 word blog. Why? Because watching a video is easier than reading an essay. Don’t get me wrong, written words very much have their place and are an important part of getting your website to rank but it has been speculated that by having a video on your landing page you are 53% more likely to  be on the first page of Google, blogs that include a video are 57% more likely to be read and this is projected to grow, as technology and the digital era continues to develop to be 75% by 2020.

Search engines will always favor sites with quality and relevant content as it increases the amount of time that is spent on the site, reduces the bounce rate and increases the number of pages visited per session. This is often referred to as the ‘stickiness’ factor, the longer you can keep your customers engaging with your site the better Google will rank it.

A video can speak a million words

As the saying goes if a photograph can speak a thousand words, what can a 60-second video speak? 1.5 million words to be precise. In a matter of seconds you can convey a vast amount of information in such a short space of time. In this time you are able to build a rapport, integrity for your product and an honest connection. In a world where many of us find it hard to put down mobile phones, a video should be at the top of your marketing toolkit.

After Google, the second largest search engine on the internet is, in fact, Youtube with 1000’s of hours of content being uploaded daily, and 30 million viewers engaging a day. Why not tap into this network? Quality content will only draw traffic back to your website and help boost your SEO, which will help push you up the search engine rankings.

If it’s possible, you should also try to transcribe your videos, highlighting keywords which are relevant to your site. The Google algorithms can index this content which helps them to determine that video is relevant to your site which will also help boost your SEO ranking.

Finally, make sure you also share your videos on your social accounts, it’s easy to do and the more social signals you gather i.e. likes and shares will only help build your site’s reputation on Google.

 

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Matt Cutts from Google explains why having a long established site on an old domain may not be enough to keep above new upstarts in Google search results.

His key points were:

• Take a fresh look at your site.
• Don’t coast on your number one position
• Update your site regularly

A guide to choosing the right search terms for your business

First things first. What are keywords? They are the words or phrases that someone looking for a business or service like yours will type into a search engine to find you. And if those words and phrases don’t feature in the content, their website won’t come up when someone types them into a search engine.

As a general rule, your keyword list shouldn’t be very long. (If you’ve got 150 words or phrases in your list, you’re either running a multinational business with hundreds of products or you’ve got too many words on the list). Around 10 to 12 words or phrases is plenty for the average site.

So how do you choose them?

 

Part one: brainstorming and choosing

Brainstorm all the words that come to mind when thinking of your business. Don’t worry at this stage how many you’ve got. Now look at each of them in turn and ask “if I was looking for a business like mine, would I type this into Google?”. There are three possible answers:

• yes
• no
• only if I combine it with one (or more) other words or phrases in the list.

Remove all the “nos” from the list and combine all the “only ifs”.

 

Part two: checking and exploring

The next step is to check your list.

Enter them into Google (or your search engine of choice) and see what comes up. If your competitors or websites similar to yours are coming up, you’ve probably got the right keywords. If they aren’t, you can remove them from the list.

Ask your customers what they would type into a search engine if they wanted to find a business like yours. If they match yours, that’s great. If they don’t, add them to the list.

Use Google’s keyword research tool. This will provide you with suggestions you may not have thought of. It will also give you an idea of how competitive your chosen keywords are so you can assess your chances of appearing high up in the rankings. And this is extremely important.

 

Part three: assessing the competition

The last and perhaps most important step in this process is to assess your chances of appearing high up in the results when people search for them.

Let’s take an example. If you sell cars, you might think your top keyword is “cars” and that you need to be on the first page of results when people search on “cars”. But realistically

• you won’t be
• you don’t want to be (honestly!).

You won’t be because you’ll be competing with every single website in the world that’s about cars. The chance of being in the first one hundred pages, let alone the first page or the number one spot are remote, to say the least. Optimise your site on the word “cars”, you’ll never be found by your potential customers. The result? A website that isn’t doing its job.

But why don’t you want to be? Because anyone searching for the word “cars” is unlikely to be looking for you. They’ll be looking for photographs, to find out how they work, to find out how many there are, etc etc. The one thing they aren’t doing is looking for you. So if you did manage to get onto the first page, you’d get lots of visitors, certainly. But how many would turn into customers?

Optimise your site on the type of car you sell (luxury cars, vintage cars, red cars) and where you are (Herefordshire, Norfolk ) instead and you’ll only be competing against other people who sell the type of cars you do where you do. So your chances of being at the top of the rankings are better. What’s more, if people type “vintage cars for sale Herefordshire” into a search engine, they’re definitely looking for you. The result? A website that’s doing its job.

Think of it like this. If you work in a shop, you don’t need every person in town visiting your shop, you just need every person who is looking to buy what you sell. Get your keywords right and you’ll attract those people.