There are so many misconceptions and myths surrounding SEO so let’s help clarify some of the confusion.

Often, we are approached by firms who have, aspirations, including ‘being number one’, ‘beating my competitors’ and ‘making my website appear whenever people are looking for what we do’ and most importantly, wanting to achieve all of this this within a few weeks. Whilst these are common goals across most businesses, they are not specific or measurable and the timescales are in many cases unrealistic.

We prefer to work on clearly defined metrics, so getting to number one is a great aspiration, but for which keywords?

Bearing in mind that the singular and plurals of a word could be two different targets, it often becomes apparent that a firm needs to target a wider range of keywords than they first thought.

It is possible to get to ‘number one’ for a keyword within a few weeks, but if it is a particularly competitive keyword then the only way to do this is to cheat the Search engines.

Some firms find this an acceptable solution but as the Search Engines always catch up with this and penalise the site, it is short sighted and ineffective strategy and not one we pursue.

Google has, and continues to, change the way in which searches are presented which means that SEO is not a ‘tick box’ exercise; it is a moveable feast and aspirations to be ‘front page’ on an undefined and unquantified number of terms in a very short timescale is unrealistic and generally leads to disappointment.

Furthermore, as every keyword has different competitors then it is perfectly possible to be successful with some and not others. The exception does not prove the rule; the lack of top search results on certain terms does not prove ‘it isn’t working’ merely that it requires either a different, longer term or more innovative approach.

Finally, organic search positions are important but not the only measure of success. They should be considered as part of a holistic approach and one of, a number, of measures by which the business can measure success.

After all, wouldn’t customers converted be a better metric?

SEO driven traffic is free, but it takes time to get to the top. It also helps to generate respect and trust for your brand. 75% of users click on one of the first three naturally occurring search result. That means they may well scroll right past a paid advert and choose one of the SEO-optimised websites at the top of the results. In fact, over 90% don’t even bother to venture past page one of Google results.

Organic traffic is targeted but built on a foundation of relevant content you publish on your website. For example, many people search for answers to specific problems – and usually expect an immediate answer. Google responded to this by developing a ‘Q&A’ facility as part of its search results. You’ll have seen it in action.

Let’s assume, for example, you run a plumbing business, and someone asks: “How do I change a dripping tap?” If you have a relevant blog post, or web page, that answers the question, then a section of text would appear in Google’s results.

This represents a great opportunity to create appropriate content for your website. Your answer to the dripping tap question might contain information on how someone might fix it themselves, but ultimately conclude that the complexities of modern taps mean that it’s best to get professional help, with a call for action to contact you.

As the amount of tailored, targeted content on your website grows, the number of questions you answer increases, and the chances of different search terms returning are enhanced too.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is like so much digital stuff. Many don’t like to admit they don’t really understand how it works, or what it does.

Unfortunately, this provides an opportunity for others to convince you, with jargon and buzzwords, that their magic solution is what you need. The truth is, there are no magic solutions. If SEO is done well, it can be a powerful way of generating new business leads, but it requires expertise, commitment, and a proper strategy. Getting on to the hallowed page one of Google for your search term is entirely possible, and the place to be to increase your customer base.

The very best SEO agencies are those that understand how an organisation works; its goals, critical success factors and aspirations and most importantly what strategic and tactical approaches will work best within their particular marketplace.

At Aqueous we are grounded in business and marketing strategy and as such our work focuses on delivering the long terms goals of the business, not just building a few links to your website.
Search Engine Optimisation is a proven medium to long-term strategy which delivers measurable results for organisations of all sizes.

We were formed through a combination of a deep understanding of business strategy and years of experience at coding, designing, building and optimising websites and that we believe makes us unique.
Although we started as a specialist SEO firm, we repair mistakes made by developers and understand what it takes to get the on-page and on-site experience right before we look at the off site elements.

We believe in a long-term partnership approach as this is mutually beneficial and we like to keep in touch on a regular basis. Each week we try to keep in touch with all our contract customers, usually just a quick email of what we have been doing and any good news and what we are planning to do, and each month we send out a ‘Monthly Report’ which measures progress against our agreed objectives.

On top, of all this, we are ‘white hat’ in our approach to SEO so we never do anything that could compromise your site and if you want to talk to us at any time we’re available on phone and email, even outside of office hours if required. We understand that we’re only successful when you are successful, so we are prepared to ‘go the extra mile’ to make sure that this happens.

Our specialism in search and reputation management is an essential part of our success. We partner with a wide-range of customers across many sectors and countries, but remain true to our ethical values. We won’t take on more than one customer in the same industry, if there is an obvious clash of interest – this is a promise we make at the outset of every customer collaboration.

Whilst it may sound like we are stating the obvious, SEO is all about optimising websites for search engines, and as such our approach and process in the same irrespective of the sector.

Working in direct consultation with our customers at every point, our approach to Search Engine Optimisation can be broken into three clearly defined strategy areas:  Content, Technical and Link-building.

Typically, once we have identified aims and objectives with a customer, we carry out research, analysis and deliver an agreed strategy and work plan across a 12-month contract period..

1.  Content (on-page SEO)

The very best content strategies are those that focus on getting you noticed in the searches that bring the best customers to your website. In short, it’s not about being popular or following the latest trend, it’s about relevance, accessibility and being there when customers need you.

Nothing, but nothing beats great content so, if you’re not answering all the questions your customers are asking and regularly updating your website, it’s likely to be holding you back.
Our content strategies always consider user interface (UI), user experience (UX), on-page optimisation and conversion rate optimisation (CRO).

We will produce in-depth content strategies for all our customers and advise on how this content should be structured and written.  We have a team of specialist copywriters who are able to produce high-quality content for SEO purposes.

Watch this  video of our MD, Jonathan explaining our approach to content strategies in SEO:

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2.  Technical (on-site SEO)

Technical SEO, or on-site SEO, is all about fine-tuning the technical aspects of a website in order to increase the ranking of its pages on search engines. Whether, its analysing meta data, schema mark-up, website migrations or technical website or page load speed, we’ll get under the bonnet and recommend all the performance tweaks needed to give you a head-start on your journey to the top.
Our team would complete  full technical audits for our customers websites to define the tech stack early, identify issues and mitigate risks. Our technical audit will as a minimum include:

• Canonical tags
• Sitemaps
• Site architecture
• Mobile friendliness
• Page load speed
• Backlink health
• Duplicate content
• Schema structured data
• Crawl errors
• Image issues
• Site security
• URL structure
• 404 pages
• 301 redirects

3. Link-building (off-site SEO)

Off-site SEO, is all about generating exposure for your website through other channels.

Known as outreach, this will consist of link building from other websites, blogs, social media posts and marketing activities away from your website.
To support the optimisation of our customers websites, we often submit link-building requests to our network of external sources to win suitable backlinks that will enhance pages, articles or posts. This two-pronged approach will improve Google ranking for higher-level pages, as crawlers will identify that the page is deemed as an authoritative and trustworthy source.

Our overall tried and tested approach to SEO is purposely designed to be flexible and adaptable and to match the requirements of any website. Our award-winning approach has been developed over the past decade and is constantly reviewed and updated to ensure we are at the forefront of development in SEO and Google (and other search engine) updates.

E-A-T are guidelines used by Google to determine how high a webpage ranks in a search.

Google scores website pages based on whether the content is of value to readers and this is linked to the follow three important factors:

• Expertise of the creator of the content

• Authoritativeness of the creator of the content, the content itself, and the website

• Trustworthiness of the creator, the content itself, and the website

In the video below, our MD, Jonathan talks about Google EAT and its importance in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

We start with an initial benchmark report on the positions you currently hold for the keywords you are targeting and as time progresses, we measure changes against these keywords.

Over time we will start to see uplifts in the positions for which you rank, and this will be obvious each month in the reports that we produce.

Our month end reports are designed to give you a clear understanding of where you are now, what we have done for you in the past month and where we will be doing work for you in the coming month. They are typically produced in the first week of the next month and sent to you via email.

We can benchmark any metrics that are important to you but will include number of visitors, unique visitors, search engine traffic and PPC traffic (if applicable) along with metrics on enquiries, applications and conversions and all other calls-to-action that are agreed.

Our reports are not rigid and we can adapt them to include any management metric you need. The aim is to make the month end report something which adds value to you marketing, and not just another unread report.

We also email customers regularly, usually only a couple of lines, which let them know what we have done for them and what we plan to do moving forward. It helps us to focus on the key deliverables, but it also helps you to see that we are working towards our agreed goals.

Our regular strategy meetings are designed to measure progress against the agreed goals, report on activity and plan ahead for the coming months. We find this helps us keep on track but more importantly, deliver the results you are looking for.

Reports can be tailored to provide the information required and in line with KPIs objectives and marketing strategy.