Maybe you've seen them, maybe you havent. Either way, you need to get on board with Google My Business posts asap. You have claimed your Google My Business listing, right? Faaaaaaack OK. Go grab that. These guys have got a guide to setting up Google My Business, I can't be bothered writing it all out fresh just to insinuate that I'm smarter/as smart as them. In fact, by being ruthlessly efficient and just linking to the copy they lovingly crafted I am being smarter. Ha! Anyway. You've done that and now you're on Google My Business. Now all you have…
One of the perks of running your own business is getting to choose who you work with. Luckily for me, most small business owners that approach me are super-nice. And there are few nicer than Chris Gomez of the cycling clobber company, Dry Patch. I kid you not. This rugged SOB is Chris Gomez. Not a model. I didn't nick this photo from Shutterstock. I mean, sure, I nicked it. But from Chris' site. Chris used to work in marketing, then decided to sack that shit off and do something he could be truly proud of. Those are my words,…
It can get a bit tedious blowing my own trumpet all the time, so it's great when another guy steps up to give it a quick toot. Today's trumpeteer is the wonderful Liam Crawley from The Crawleys. The Crawleys are without doubt the best wedding photographers in the UK. I met Liam when he photographed Laura and I getting married in August 2016 and quickly discovered that he's not just an awesome photographer, but a great guy too. So when he discovered what I did for a living and asked if I could work on the search engine optimisation for his wedding…
Since we started working with the ever-so-talented The Crawleys we've had a steady supply of wedding photographers getting in touch to talk about their SEO. The good news is that the vast majority of wedding photographers are able to get big SEO gains, quickly because they work in a content-driven industry. The bad news is that most wedding photographers are spending their time photographing and editing and don't really have the time to focus on their website SEO. One of the universal themes of wedding photography websites is WordPress. In fact, we're yet to have a single client approach us…
In a previous post I wrote about the need to ensure that your website is mobile responsive (or mobile first) in 2017. At the time I was only looking at how your site looked and how easily it was navigable. Today I want to talk about speed and how it plays a part in search engine optimisation. With the increasing use of mobiles comes a demand for faster load times. "where's the nearest petrol station?", "what time does Asda close?" Quick questions need quick answers. But even if your site is not dedicated to delivering a local result to someone…
In 2015 Pearson College London approached us to help improve search rankings for their site pearsoncollegelondon.ac.uk Pearson College London provides an alternative higher education path for school leavers. In addition to offering "regular" degrees in business management, law and accounting, Pearson College London is leading the way in the provision of degree apprenticeships. Partnering with organisations like the BBC, Unilever, Tesco, Direct Line Group and Ogilvy, Pearson College London's degree apprenticeships give students the opportunity to earn a degree in business management while working within a large organisation - and being paid to do it! Pearson College London is also…
It wasn't long ago that Google announced it would use the mobile-friendliness of your website as a ranking factor and that mobile-friendly websites would be highlighted in the rankings. Now, that highlighting of mobile friendliness is being removed. Why? Because the expectation is that your website works on mobile. If it doesn't... well, you'll have seen your site plummet in the rankings a long time ago. So, what's next and what does it mean for your search engine optimisation? Google has already announced that in January it will begin to use the presence of interstitials on mobile websites (pop ups…
It's been a great month for one of our clients. They picked up a big award recognising their work (which is awesome) AND they've had some nice gains on the back of our SEO efforts. Clients have different expectations about what SEO can do. Of course, everyone wants to be #1 for every search term. But you don't need O level maths to realise that we can't all be #1. This client had seen some of their target keywords drop down to the second half of page 1 in Google. Their preferred keyword was bringing them up in 6th or…
When I recently logged in to my hosting company I was given a notice about getting a dedicated IP address in order to improve SEO. They also said it was "a must" if you want a secure website. Yet my website - hosted on a shared IP - is secure (check for the padlock). And as for the SEO? Well. Let's just leave it to Google themselves to deal with that....