SEO Services Edinburgh
It’s a well known that SEO requires a lot of hard work and there are many services that it incorporates, in order to be a useful SEO consultant or company in 2024, you need to understand and provide a wide range of SEO and digital marketing services. Unlike tens of thousands of long form SEO content you see posted online due to most SEO consultants doing what it takes to rank well and above their competition, I will keep this blog ironically succinct and not provide my sometimes typical elongated internet friendly reasons why SEO services are important.
Essential SEO Services
There are steps to doing this effectively, certain things to prioritise when you just take over a listing as signals you want to send to Google about your website and business.
Rich content that is consistent with the information on your website is important. Adding important links, using the posts features regularly and building up your customer reviews are all essential.
Especially important if you are new to a website niche, you need to know early on what your bigger keywords goals are going to be so you can structure your site and content towards this.
Looking for opportunities for long tail keywords, featured snippets and auto fill keywords on Google search, especially prevalent on mobile search all contribute well.
Officially your pages should have a meta title of under 60 characters and a meta description of under 160 characters.
This is important more in terms of meeting recommended guidelines, more unofficially, you need to STAND OUT. If you can find a title that stands out on the SERP and has your main keywords you’re winning.
It may sound obvious but always look at the top 3 websites when doing any competitor analysis. The goal should always be to either match or out-do, or if you’re too many years and millions of pounds in budget behind, find another angle to compete.
You should be looking at their header titles (especially h2 headers), the word count, keyword density, number of links and their link sources.
Effective use of headers, word count, keyword density and variation, sales conversion layout and Ill organised sky scraper content are all essential.
There are other deeper things to look at as well that can be found using audit tools and things like surfer SEO.
Link building, types of links and link relevance alongside volume, social media signals, traffic signals and more to make Google notice your site, page or new blog.
Essential to ensure your pages index and that you can track your sites performance.
Image file name, alt title using keywords with plenty variation are all essential.
Make sure to get your image size compressed and optimised to improve your sites speed.
You should have an internal linking structure, where you use a variation of different anchor texts and highlight to Google what the mosts important pages of your site are. (this should also be the ones you want to rank.)
It’s not always best practise to have a page or a new blog perfect the first time around.
If you can make a page solid but leave some gaps or content that will need updated at some point, this is always best so you can let the page index on Google, settle a bit and then improve the content to improve its ranking.
Enhancing content is a quick fire method for new rankings instead of creating new pages and even sites.
Use some form of site scanner or audit tool that will flag things like typo’s, broken links, broken images, ensuring the site and all content are secure with https:// with cloudflare are all vital.
Especially important for large sites with a high number of pages.
Reducing your sites file size, compressing and re-sizing images plays a big part in your website speed.
Given I’m hacked and hardly aloud to operate with any privacy, I thought to go with the more standard list above, I may as well list some practical SEO techniques and best practise in 2024. Aiming to provide something more useful than the typical “write page titles and “optimise your images” at least my situation makes for original content!
On that note, very important! DON’T UNDESMIMATE IMAGES, especially unique file names and alt titles, its all JUST content to Google, so many SEO consultants egos get lost in the bumf we write!
Proper image optimisation and re-sizing is essential for effective SEO, improving UX and reducing site and page overall load time is critical!
After you “complete” a sites content or at least move on to next project after that SEO campaign is finished (for the time being), you should hire an image optimisation and website speed specialist who does a great job speeding and tidying things up.
Happy to recommend to a fellow SEO consultant or smaller SEO company working on a more limited budget.
The following video from Local Falcon is right up my street, no frills but has essential to the point and effective local SEO tips for near me and Google Map Pack rankings in 2024.
Google Map Ranking Factors 2024
In 2024 ranking strong on Google maps is still as powerful as ever for local companies. Google page one in general has become more competitive than ever, with more ads being served due to the local service ads which also perform better with an established, credible and properly managed Google Business Listing.
There is a huge list of ranking factors that all play a part to appearing on the top 3 of the Google map pack. Engagement on your listing and properly optimising your site in the traditional sense of SEO with content, links, solid technical aspects, especially site speed and prioritising optimisation for mobile devices all play a large part.
Again, the list of ranking factors is a large one and there are many other signals and things within the control of an SEO consultant or company who know what works.
Due to all of these variables, search results for the Google Map Pack in 2024 change more often than ever. In order to rank strong for the long term you need to ensure your local SEO is managed by a professional who originally builds your website in a way that withstands your competition and properly optimises your Google Map listing, whilst sending the right signals consistently for long term success.
What About The Emails Saying My SEO Its All Wrong?
Outreach selling SEO services can range from spammy to very clever. Some SEO companies have fine tuned email marketing and other outreach messages that create doubt and most importantly prompt a response .(even a not interested is a win for them)
Over the years I have seen it all, ranging from EVERYTHING IS WRONG sent to websites that deliver a large volume of leads everyday and rank well, to lists of rhetoric SEO services available for hundreds of pounds per month. Many of these services take literally seconds to complete properly, yet sound technical such as page or meta titles, meta descriptions and image optimisation, often offered in overly complex technical language.
Most of these providers don’t provide any guaranteed results and will only complete small, basic tasks with no real impact in order to keep you spending and chasing the exclusive positions awarded to the best sites and SEO campaigns in your industry.
An experienced SEO company should have a content plan, link building strategy and list of essential errors to fix urgently that will positively impact your sites health and Google rankings, whilst carrying out all the fancy sounding fluff without any mention.
SEO Services & Digital Marketing Edinburgh
Rank 1st
The most important part, get your website appearing first in your local area.
Technical SEO
Strong website speed, having a valid secure SSL certificate and Cloudflare installed are all vital.
Analytics
Track your progress on the SERP's and your monthly traffic looking for gaps, continually enhancing your websites Google rankings.
General SEO Tips for 2024
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Planning - analyse your site and company strengths, play to them!
An effective SEO must be able to recognise all of your company services, knowing which ones to prioritise, the ones that will perform Ill on Google search and how to effectively optimise and advertise them is essential and should be how you think AT ALL TIMES as an SEO! Always look for the angles, gaps and benefits. On Google, you need to box smart, if there are Ill established companies and a high volume of strong competitor websites ranking for certain keywords, think outside the box! Work your way in and dominate the gaps! BRING IT with activity and specialisation, that's what I done, although you may not want that recipe! Haha
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Branding - following up from playing to your strengths
Although an SEO consultant you should be able to be diverse with the way you market companies. In the modern world, there is a market for everything, so it's wise to market companies and create brands similar to your own ethos. For example, if you're a hardworking local business who provides a good service at an affordable rate, then you can find local companies who also do this and reflect that in the local SEO work you carry out for them. Other examples can be if you have more of a corporate mentality, you're probably best to focus on elite brands and marketing for corporate companies. Maybe you're more care free and relaxed, you could look at travel, health and hospitality companies you will likely be better at marketing.
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Focus on one or a few specialist service(s)
In 2024, where there is not only someone who is looking for every service, but more than likely someone or a small group of companies who specialise in this area, specialising is a good way to stand out and play to your companies strengths. If you are a well established or large company, you can use SEO to hone in on all of your specialist services you offer to appeal to a wider audience. The key is to be authentic, never claim to be a specialist in an area you can't offer and are not Ill versed in. If you can focus on one or a handful of specialist areas, the work will find you, especially online and there are always gaps a competent SEO consultant or SEO company will find and plug effectively. This is what makes SEO ongoing, and not the cliche "I rank for SEO in my city" based on one blog, I wrote this one time at band camp!
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Decide what you want your domain to be (consider launching another)
Again on the topic of specialisation, unless you are a large brand with higher domain authority (brand recognition) and a large budget to conquer all areas of a sector, decide one one or maximum two separate website niche(s) or topic you want your domain to rank on Google for and focus on sending content and link signals for those two areas. As an SME, SEO or Lead Generator, The more services you offer, the more you water down your message and confuse not only the search engines but more importantly the audience about what you offer and can be relied upon for! If you have other products or services that are all to different to these main focus areas, consider launching another brand, website or business, as you always see so many large brands doing.
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Topical authority
Topical authority has been the new buzzword for SEO in 2023 and 2024, and given the assistance of chat GPT, it's not going anywhere. On one hand its great that an SEO can now produce more content, quicker and (potentially) to a higher standard than before, it has also created a market wide influx of content, meaning the output, standard and already high workload for SEO has only increased. You need to work smarter with content, personally I have never posted for ego, fluff or the sake of it. There should always be an either a sales or SERP (search engine results page) benefit to any blog posts (like this one for "SEO services Edinburgh" bonus old school keyword mention!). Focus on should always be on higher or more Google rankings, traffic or higher conversion rates, end of. In the age of information overload, publish with purpose, interlink, backlink and forward link to new ideas to keep your sites content fresh, relevant and ranking higher in the search results.
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Unique Content
Avoid duplicate content from other sites at all costs! Tools such as www.siteliner.com and www.copyscape.com will always keep you right. These days in 2024 with chat GPT, internal duplicate content although unavoidable to some degree, should be kept to an absolute minimum, this will ensure you avoid indexing issues if mass producing or that smaller websites rank well with each page competing in SERPS against competition.
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Link Building
Big brands will always win the link power and the PR game. Link building for small to medium businesses is about knowing not only which links to build and finding effective ones on a smaller budget, but knowing which pages of content, anchor text and sometimes critically timing to send these link signals. If you have just updated your content and posted new pages, now is a great time to send link and traffic signals to your site, Google will recognise the activity on all fronts all as a machine (even though a highly sophisticated one) it only knows one response, which is generally a thumbs up and higher rankings. If you are in a more relaxed position, with more time on your hands you can even send the links in advance to adding the new content so that they likely index around the same time, this doesn't have a make much of a difference to the end ranking results, but will speed up your progression in the rankings and send a sudden surge or signals to your site. (best to be careful with volume!) Try your best to never randomly do ANYTHING, every action you take no matter how small should result in a subsequent re-action or other signal that you send about your website to Google. Remember, volume is not always what counts with links and if you don't have the budget for high domain authority links and press releases, focus on the domain, link and content relevance to build your presence, especially locally.
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Positive Reviews
In some regard positive reviews speak for themselves. As a small local business there is no excuse for not gathering a small handful to showcase. As an SEO or Lead Generator you will need to get creative with your client and situation, striking a balance between your site being selected on search and offering the service showcase in the content. Reviews provide unique content, real user opinions and strong signals to Google that a site can be relied on to provide a service related to the keyword search.
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Video Content
Short and sweet, video content that is properly optimised and unique is good for UX and your sites SEO, it should be an absolute given you have this, as in every case there will be competitors who beat you in this area otherwise. Also, very valuable to have a link and active signals from YouTube which is a Google product.
SEO Company Edinburgh
So, anyone can do SEO right? Just need to write a bunch of keyword and Google friendly text and you can call yourself an SEO consultant right? Well, personally speaking I understand the angles and deep details of ranking high on Google and will always react with strength and EFFECT to a competitor ranking above one of my sites or one my clients sites!
Well there’s that, and there’s the facts, experienced SEO consultants who have seen the Google rankings dance, the trends change and the “how to’s” become not so “how to” anymore understand what works and ranks your business high on Google for the long term.
The higher truth of the matter amongst all of the typical smog, black art and other nonsensical BS that people exaggerate about online search (just take a look at what people IMAGINE AI can do) it always normally ends up floating alongside Marty McFly’s hoverboard in reality!
That’s not pessimism, again I am simply using my unfortunate real life experience of being hacked to understand that recent technology (I don’t claim to understand) is amazing and has come leaps and bounds, however, just like the past, it will never meet our imaginations expectations.
In my unique tortured AI and tech experience, from what I can tell, it has just been used more typically for control, fear and an increased focus on individualism, destruction of family, the increased belief and sense of separation many of us are feeling and involuntarily acting upon 2024.
I would say to young people what I never got a fair chance to say to my seed, if your from the gutter, no1 cares, remember that, the pity pat even if offered, is for 24 hours!
You need to look inside, drink more water, do more press ups and face your fears every single day, that includes old locations, people you wronged or ones who wronged you while you punked out letting yourself be the worst of you!
When you see them again, don’t be angry, it’s on you! Even though your life is intense and feels like its just you, just show you can handle the experience that we are all going through, its all we can do!
Never mind Google and search engines, these days we are being watched, analysed and optimised (for some time now) with the rich onlookers seeking to implement their high standards and values. Without considering real life lower class issues that feel like hell, complex relativity and things human beings never understand until locked in a cell, on death row with nobody to tell!
(a poetic exaggeration and thought to consider for us all, No? Probably just something to bam me up about, awk well!)
Until we face ourselves, we are always looking at someone else, it may seem basic, but look at the culture, too many not even began to face that deep well! Distractions, with no proper looks at themselves. (again a living example, case and point, brought upon myself!)
It may seem as the owner of an SEO company in Edinburgh, that all of this seems difficult to manage for one person, as to manage SEO campaigns to a high level of detail without these other challenges, can be difficult on it’s own!
If you don’t mind slightly crazy, but the good kind and still sane, let me turn my hyper focus to your SEO campaign!
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